The Silent Penguin
Making a dent - somewhere
- Last build:
- Language:
- Feed URL:
- http://www.silentpenguin.com/index.rdf
RSS FEED IDEMS: The Silent Penguin
- Jury work
The JAX innovation award 2007 has been announced. I'm on the jury this year and really looking forward to evaluating the submissions.
Check out the website to see what sort of things you can submit - here from the English blurb.
With the JAX Innovation Award, Software & Support Verlag intends to boost innovative projects, products and ideas to increase their chances to succeed. Thereby we pay special attention to the European market to underline that – apart from the USA – the “old world” represents an important center for technological innovations. Via this initiative, trendsetting European contributions are to be put in the spotlight and rewarded with 20,000 euros. Despite the globalization, they often do not receive the attention and initial aid they deserve.
I was going to write about what sort of European-centric innovations I would like to see submitted - but I reckon I now have to keep my mouth shut. But I'm sure you can guess.
- Useless 2.0
Useless Account brings back fond memories of TagTagger.
- Rolling with Amazon
We've been doing some digging in the area of media-centric web applications lately and looking at how services like Amazons S3 or EC2 can be used to offset things like data-storage and scalability. So it's interesting to read this post by Doug Kaye on how he is using S3, EC2 and SQS to build GigaVox Audio Lite.
- Apple vs. Apple
The BBC is reporting that Apple Inc has reached a deal with the Beatles' record company Apple Corps. Details of the deal are still scarce but this could be the first step to seeing the Beatles appear on iTunes, iPods and iPhones.
Rumors have been pegging Valentine's Day for a possible release.
- Selling off my domains - get them while they're hot
Over the years I seem to have "collected" so many domains that it's become hard convincing my wife the increasing domain costs are worth it. Therefore I've decided to put some of them up for sale. I think there are some good ones in the collection.
geekconsultants.com (ideal for a high-tech consulting company)
need-a-cake.com (bakery anyone?)
flatbooks.com (well, yeah)
opensourcecast.com (for open source podcasting)
opensourceinvestors.com (I mean, who hasn't?)
osmosix.com (our offerings just gently diffuse through your firewall, BigCo)
eanything.de (the only German domain, bought at the height of the e-* rage)Click on the domain to get to the domain marketplace I'm using.
- ASP.NET AJAX talks to PHP
Microsoft recently released ASP.NET AJAX, a framework for rich clients. You may be more familiar with the old name - ATLAS.
One part of that is the Microsoft Ajax Library which is independent of using ASP.NET on the server side. In this video, Steve Marx gives a good explanation for non-Microsoft developers. He shows how to interface to PHP on the server side using the PHP bindings he released on CodePlex. He actually demos the whole thing using Firefox.
ASP.NET AJAX is licensed under the Microsoft Permissive License (MS-PL).
- Web Monday in Paderborn
Planning for a Web Monday in Paderborn has started.
- 5 years - 1 day
Yesterday marked my fifth anniversary of blogging. I started out using Radio Userland but then moved to my own Movable Type setup in 2003.
Sometimes I think that's long enough.
- Priceless
My youngest son has to wear a heart monitor for a day (just a check) and this just happened. My eldest son looked at the small screen of the monitor and asked:
14:38 - is that good?
Made my day.
- Open Source perspectives
Sometimes I'm still amazed at how Open Source is perceived.
Perspective #1
The other week, the German version of CIO magazine published an article titled "Open Source - a real alternative for the IT market?" by Mathieu Paujol.
His general take on Open Source is that is only relevant if you have simple or specialized needs and also have a team of developers.
A quote from the article: "Open Source-Software is only interesting for simple scenarios of little strategic importance."
From my current and past experience I know that there are plenty of major companies using or looking to use Open Source in mission-critical situations, so I was somewhat surprised at the angle discussed in the article.
Perspective #2
A couple of weeks ago I received a phone-call from a German journalist I've known for a few years. He was researching an article for iX on how companies are running businesses in the Open Source eco-system.
(Actually he was supposed to be writing about companies that receive payment to go into failing Open Source projects and rescue them. However he hadn't been able to find any companies that actually do this - no surprise there).
So the journalist then changed the subject to be more about how companies less well-known than say IBM or Red Hat (i.e. companies like ours) are building a business around Open Source. A much more interesting perspective (but then I'm biased).
So, what's your perspective on Open Source in 2007?
Update: altered the post to make the quote clearer.
- Important Open Source
Nat Torkington is compiling a survey of important Open Source projects. Here is the comment I made.
Nat is actually asking for the 3 most important Open Source projects - not the ones that are being used the most. How do you define importance?
Here's mine:
1. Apache HTTPD (important for the expansion of the Web and the many services that run on top)
2. MySQL (important for showing that Open Source can redefine "important" software for enterprises and in so doing bridge the divide between "hackers" and "suits". Linux comes in a close second here).
3. Wikipedia (important for redifining "open source" itself in that it can apply to a lot more than just software).
Open Source isn't a method of writing software - it's a way of thinking.I'm still not sure what Nat means with "important". Maybe we'll see when he posts his findings.
- Think
Think California. Think Napa Valley in March. Think Wine Drinking, Think Silverado Resort. Think exclusive, invitation only, industry event. Think Tank. Open Source Think Tank. Apply to attend.
Nah, I'm just jealous I wasn't invited.
On the other hand I'm really not against events like this - I mean you can choose to go (or not to) and I'm sure enough people will go to make it worthwhile.
That being said, maybe this type of event that probably appeals to CTOs from large corporations, is something the European Open Source business community should also be thinking about putting on. Like in Tuscany - hint.
- Jobs @ Indiginox
We've just revised our German jobs page.
- Enterprise 2.0 article up for download
Some weeks ago I wrote an overview article on Enterprise 2.0 (in German) for "entwickler magazin". The article was published in December and I have now made it available for download (PDF) from the Indiginox site.
- Romantic thoughts
Scott Adams on romance:
Romance, I’m told, is the delta between your selfish asshole baseline and the occasional deviations from that baseline.
Priceless.
