There are a few web sites I like to keep track of that don’t yet have RSS feeds. Check out FeedFire.com, a web site and service that will generate an RSS feed from a web page for free. There are options to sponser the RSS feed and add in some editorial control, at pretty reasonable prices.
Jon Udell cites 2004 as the Year of the Enterprise Wiki.
Alan Zeichick thinks “The enterprise software acronym of the year must be SOA (service-oriented architecture).”
Mary Jo Foley points out that Friday Is D-Day for NT 4.0 Server. Now really. NT 4.0 is no longer going to be supported by Microsoft. How will we be able to tell? Most businesses are served by consultants who will continue to support it as long as the client pays Since it’s closed software, bugs won’t get fixed, and the platform needs to be abandoned. But which platform do you migrate to? The one from the vendor that just stranded you? MJF points to a Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols that suggests (what else?) Linux is a good alternative.
Whatever comes next, it’s always proven to be a fun business. Hope you’re enjoying it as much as I am.
May each of you have a happy, healthy and prosperous new year.
tintinnabulation: Dictionary.com Word of the Day. tintinnabulation [Dictionary.com Word of the Day]
Ken “Caesar” Fisher of Ars Technica posts The earthquake in southeast Asia and you. The earthquake and resultant tsunamis in southeast Asia and beyond are devastating, but you can help. By caesar@arstechnica.com.
2004: A year of high-tech changes. “The year 2004 defied predictions: IBM sold its PC arm to a Chinese competitor, Oracle managed to swallow PeopleSoft, and — perhaps the most dramatic of all — Microsoft and Sun Microsystems aligned to make their products interoperate.” Source: InfoWorld: Top News. So begins the end of the year summaries, flashbacks and punditries. Brace yourself for two weeks of reviews.
Why NOT to Upgrade Your Linux System. Nathan Willis writes, over on NewsForge, “I’m not upgrading my Fedora Core 2 machine to Core 3, even though the new version has been out for a couple of months. There’s not anything wrong with FC3 itself, it’s just that system upgrades are both a blessing and a curse.” Link via OSNews
True of every operating system out there, machines tend to build up cruft over a period of time, and a clean wipe-and-reinstall are called for. However, the incremental difference between FC2 and FC3 can be addressed by careful upgrades of only those applications you need, rather than a haphazard upgrade from one distribution to another, I think
A Journalism Giant Retires. 
Dan Gillmor’s eJournal Notes “Bill Moyers has completed his last episode of NOW with Bill Moyers, a PBS program that looked in depth at critical issues… Moyers is a hero in journalism. He’s not always right, but he’s been asking the tough questions… He’s been especially tough on the press, which in many ways has abdicated its public trust in recent years. We need more voices like his, not fewer.”
Quick Review of OpenOffice 2.0 Preview Release. “The Sun-sponsored OpenOffice.org project based on open sourced StarOffice code has released a preview of the upcoming OpenOffice 2.0 product. This version touts better MS-Office loading and parsing, strict XML compliant output, a new database program that mimics Microsoft’s Access, and much more. The Inquirer took it for a spin.” Link via OSNews
The new version looks pretty sleek. Improved load times are welcomed. And I’ll be interested in their OOBase, a database front end.
This is one of those stories that could go on for a long time, so I’ve posted the first draft to my essays section.