After some sweet weather in the 60s in the past week, a little reminder that we’re still in New England. Cold and windy in the 30s today, with a fresh dusting of snow last night.
March: In Like a Lamb and Out Like a Lion
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Monthly Archives: March 2003
The Fortune 500 is Out!
And I still didn’t make the list, bummer. The list is available for free browsing here, but the in-depth articles and back-stories are for paying customers.
Some interesting changes. Wal-mart’s number one. It used to be the Fortune 500 list was held by companies that made things.
Many familiar names on the list, a few former clients and employers, too.
Permanet, Nearlynet, and Wireless Data
In a piece entitled “Permanet, Nearlynet, and Wireless Data,” Clay Shirky argues that 3G cellular phone data services are solving a problem that doesn’t exist, using a marketing model that makes no sense. Interesting reading, from Clay Shirky’s Writings About the Internet.
No Blog Entries Yesterday
Amazing! First day I missed this month, first day since Januray, too. There just didn’t seem to be anything that interesting to relay. My own time was spent putting the finishing touches on speaker’s notes and slides for the upcoming Essential Fox conference, and puttering about the house doing Saturday-in-Spring things.
Get to Know the Other Linux Distributions
A good summary of the top nine players, and references to others in the field: “Get to Know the “Other” Linux Distributions” from OSNews
Followup to ‘XML Is Too Hard’
Tim Bray wrote recently that XML was too hard for programmers, and many people (most didn’t read the article, I suspect) turned that into “XML Sucks.” Tim, one of the co-inventors of XML, needed to clarify that it isn’t XML that’s the problem, in this article.
NPR postings on Blogs
Dave Winer had mentioned an interview on NPR for blogging. I couldn’t find that one on-line yet, but I did find these two on the NPR web site:
- Omar Wasow interviewed by Alison Keys on the Tavis Smiley Show, 13-Feb-2003, and
- Linguist Geoff Nunberg explains the phemomenon of blogs: personal websites that function as public diaries on Terri Gross’s awesome Fresh Air, 10-Dec-2001
And, of course, NPR points to the requisite Iraq blogs.
It looks like Chris Lydon had a blogging show on WBUR’s The Connection on May 5, 2000.
FoxPro-generated RSS feeds improved
Big salute to Andrew Coates of Civil Solutions, Australia, for taking my hacked-together code to generate XML-formated date-time strings from FoxPro for RSS feeds, and he turned the code into a nice, clean, timezone-aware snippet. Both of the feeds I am generating, FoxCentral.net and FoxForum wiki (available for syndication at http://www.tedroche.com/RSSFeeds.html) now use his technique for cleaner datetime information. Still in beta, still needs more work in the parsing and error-handling sections, but coming along well. (from FoxForum Wiki
Jon Udell: Publishing a project weblog
Configuring Movable Type
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A couple of years ago I predicted that Weblogs would emerge within the enterprise as a great way to manage project communication. I’m even more bullish on the concept today. If you’re managing an IT project, you are by definition a communication hub. Running a project Weblog is a great way to collect, organize, and publish the documents and discussions that are the lifeblood of the project and to shape these raw materials into a coherent narrative. [Full story at InfoWorld.com]
… [Jon's Radio]
Microsoft’s Linux Strategy, according to Gartner
Gartner’s opinion of Microsoft’s strategies against the open source movement are in this ZDNet article. Bear in mind that Gartner does not have a 100% batting record. Of course, neither do I 
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Enterprises will see major changes in Microsoftâs competitive strategy as Linux and other open-source software continue to erode Microsoft’s traditional sources of income. Don’t expect Microsoft’s bundling strategies to continue as before, and don’t expect it to support Linux before 2006 at least — if ever.