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A new kind of memory!

Researchers are always testing new methods to enhance computers. These days, as presented in the Physical Review Letters (Dec 29, 2008), people have been working on phonons. These are heat particules.

A new concept: Throwaway Software.

More and more, people are learning new software as they go. A few will stick to one software for a long time simply because it is easier, but changing is easy too, especially if the new system is easy to use.

But how do you produce throwaway software? And is it worth the trouble?

As we see things evolving, more and more, people want to use software anywhere they go. This means software that runs on the Internet in some ways. For instance, you can use Google Map anywhere you go, as long as you have a computer to access the Internet.

Hacking, Good or Bad?

I already mentioned the American Government as being a target of many hackers.

You may also remember that in 1998, the Department of Defense was hacked by someone named Ehud Tenenbau. He was arrested at the time. He was still a teenager then.

Once back on the streets, he decided to wear a white hat and helped companies, many in Israel, to enhance their defenses. But that was only his day time job!

I guess that once you had a taste for a bad behavior, you just go on with it.

Internet Explorer “Save As …”

Today, I found a good one. Internet Explorer has a “Save As …” feature that let you save a page that you are visiting.

The page I have includes a table with a cell that has the align and valign attributes set to center and middle respectively. Once saved with Internet Explorer, these change to vAlign and align and center and middle respectively. Yes. Meaning that the values are swapped. Now the valign says center instead of middle, which will work with most browsers, but the worst is the align that is set to middle. That should never happen.

LinuxWorld Conference & Expo 2008

This year, 2008, I decided to register and go to LinuxWorld. It is in August and my kids are not at school so it was easy to manage. Also, I had to go to the French consulate to get a birth certificate for my daughter. In other words, I had the chance to do two things at once!

I found it quite interesting to hear that many people were not too excited about the event. Many of the people walking around are like me: they themselves sell their own Linux solution. In other words, they are not going to be customers. I had the chance to talk with Roger Levi, the Vice President of the Open Platform ...

July 2008, a new limit reached!

I heard of Voyager 2 and the fact that it was still functional: 30 years after it left Earth! Just that is amazing to me.

The craft went through the termination shock several times now (5 if I’m correct). This is far. Further away from the Sun than Pluto. And Pluto is on average around 39.5 AU from the Sun. It is even further than Eris and Eris lies at about 67 AU on average.

Is the Open Source costing us money?

More and more, enterprises make use of Open Source software. Why is this a good idea for your company as well?

Many people are scared to do the move. The result is very costly. When you use proprietary software, each time you need an upgrade, you need to pay for it. And in most cases, it is not just once, but a number of times equal to the number of computers you own or the number of staff that use the software. A $200 software may sound really cheap. But if you have 1000 staff, it makes it $200,000.

This is of course very good business for the vendors. However, many small companies just ...

Metrics. Why are they needed?

When managing your life, when managing your work, when managing your business, you need to accomplish a certain amount of work to get where you want to go.

In general, it is difficult to judge how much work will be necessary to do one thing or another until you actually do it. So you setup goals and draw up plans to reach them and then you try to do all the work you assigned yourself to reach these goals.

One reason an Internet Business has an advantage is because the computer can do a lot of the work for you. It can give you information on how many people come to your website every week, ...

Really… What is a goal?

I’m writing this blog after meeting with a few people with great experience at the NCAE networking group in Roseville.

I have been in business for quite some time now and I have read many things about goals. But what is a goal? How do you set a goal? How do you make sure that you reach your goals?

So, let’s start by setting a goal.

“I want a home worth $1.2 million dollars”

Ah! Is that really a goal?

The truth is that this is so blurry that it cannot be a realistic goal, at least not for most people. This does not mean you won’t be able to get the home of ...

Microsoft: Vista Worries Cause Businesses to Consider Macs and Linux

 

Eweek reports:

“A recent survey shows that 44 percent of businesses are considering Mac OS and Linux rather than switching to Vista.”

We are seeing the barbarians at the gate now, and the MS empire begins to show its first signs of crumbling. And it’s been a long time coming, I’m afraid. It goes to show you how ineffective the US anti-trust laws are, and how the free market is self-regulating.

It seems that Microsoft is very out of touch of what their customers really want, and is full steam ahead using its outdated business model of forced upgrading. Looks ...