2008/07/31

Progress on Drupal

Progress, albeit via baby steps and slow ones at that, is being made in our efforts to learn Drupal and to develop and/or identify the Drupal community in northeast Wisconsin.

Andy M and I did another Drupal session today in his office. We figured out a couple minor points about modules and changes to our test site but didn't make nearly the progress we'd hoped for. As a result, part of our session focused on what we need to do to develop and/or identify the Drupal community in northeast Wisconsin.

In the past couple weeks we found out about four other Drupalers in our region. One emailed me in response to one or more of my blog posts about Drupal. Another two, as mentioned in a previous post, were identified as the result of a brief conversation in the Appleton Library. The fourth person came to light as the result of a conversation at BarCampMadison last weekend. I now need to schedule several meetings in the next few weeks so Andy and I can connect in-person with these four people.

Additionally, Andy and I identified other action items to find more nearby Drupalers. The Appleton Library system often has their Drupal materials checked out and one or more holds placed on the materials. This indicates there are others in the region interested in Drupal. With a bit of effort, we should be able to connect with at least three or four more Drupal users with whom we can periodically connect with online and, we hope, in-person. Other possible community-building tools include meetup.com or its event siblings, blog searches, general web searches and contacting computer science college professors in the area.

We have begun identifying local merchants to contact for beta site coupon sponsors. There will be no cost for those merchants to place a coupon on the site, so it should be fairly easy to sign up a few coupon providers to make that part of the website functional. However, we still need the rest of the site to be usable and attractive before we approach merchants other than those business owners we know on a personal basis.

The tech book publisher Packt, at www.packtpub.com, is willing to provide a gratis review copy of their books to people who will publish an online review of the book. I contacted them about getting one copy each of Building Powerful and Robust Websites with Drupal 6 and Building Websites with Joomla! 1.5. The books are now riding across the USA countryside and expected to arrive on my doorstep on 04 August, with their most-recently reported location being Hodgkins, Illinois, on 02 August. (I love web tracking of packages. Copy the tracking number from the email you receive, paste it into a Google search box and, voila, you know when and where it's been, as well as when you should receive it.) My plan is to read the Drupal book and use it to help us build our site. After reading it and using what I learn for a couple weeks, I'll post a review on this blog. After we have our first site in decent, usable shape, I'll then read the Joomla book and build a website with that to compare the two CMSs and to evaluate the book. This approach means it will likely be six to eight weeks before I post a review of the Joomla book.

If you're interested in Drupal and live in northeast Wisconsin, roughly from Fond du Lac and Sheboygan north to Marinette and Antigo, and from Sturgeon Bay and Two Rivers west to Waupaca or Wautoma -- please contact us via bwaldron {att} gmail [dott] com. We'd very much enjoy meeting with you, learning about Drupal and other topics from you, and sharing what we know.

We look forward to hearing from you!

*****

2008/07/30

Update on Samsung i760

This is an update on my new Verizon Samsung i760 cell phone/PDA, summarizing my experience after using it for ten days.

I haven't made a final decision about whether to keep this phone or return it and get a less expensive non-PDA phone, but odds are I will keep it. There are phone features which are either annoying or lacking, but I want a converged device, and I've decided to stay with Verizon for now. For those two conditions the i760 appears to be the best choice.

General comments about the phone:
  1. I'd Much Much rather have a web-browsing experience similar to the iPhone.
  2. Calling someone using the contact list was easier on my old cell phone.
  3. Battery life seems to be pretty good so far, but that's only ten days of use...
  4. I've become spoiled by having two batteries come standard with the phone, although they should have both been the long-life battery.
  5. Using the PDA functions of the phone has pretty much convinced me that the painful web experience is a necessary evil until something better comes along.
  6. The usable, though not fun, capabilities Gmail, Gcalendar, and Skype give me on wifi are enough to make me sure I'll use the wifi web feature of the i760.
  7. The overall painfulness of the web on the i760 has confirmed my decision to not use cell access to the web (Verizon BroadbandAccess) for now.
  8. I'd like to have a case that minimizes damage when I drop the phone but doesn't make using the phone annoying.
  9. Using handwriting recognition on the phone seems acceptable, but more difficult than on my iPAQ.
Mobile web has not yet been optimized. Making the web fun and useful for the general public will require a critical mass of web-enabled mobile devices with reasonable size screens or an inspired person's brilliant breakthrough concept which changes the way the world uses the mobile visual web. For now, the iPhone easily wins the 'fun mobile web' title. If consumers and geeks are lucky, other cell phone providers will emulate and improve on the iPhone. To improvements for my situation would be a larger Samsung i760 screen and Microsoft Windows Mobile with a multi-touch interface that equals or exceeds the usability of the iPhone.

Mozilla, Opera, Safari and Internet Explorer all need to vastly improve their mobile web browsers. Some more vastly than others. I haven't yet figured out whether I can install Opera mobile on the i760 and need to pursue that. Thus far the IE experience in Windows Mobile on this phone is not a pleasant experience.

Adding features understandably makes a cell phone more complicated to use. But there should be some basic features that are just as easy to use on a smartphone as they are on a basic cell phone. An example of this is calling someone using my contact list in the phone. On my previous phone, I clicked the right soft key to select contacts, then I clicked the dial pad button with the first letter of the contact's first name. Clicking the 5 button would take me to the Js, clicking it once more took me to the Ks and once more brought up Ls. Pressing the 'Down' part of the navigation pad scrolled through the contacts in a particular letter category, or all the way through the contact list if I wanted to go one by one. With my previous phone, calling my sister took four clicks -- the soft right key, the '5' button twice, then the 'Call' button. With the i760 in the standard phone position (slider closed) it's not possible to call my sister using only button clicks unless I program her into speed dial. Speed dial works for a limited number of contacts, but I have yet to figure out a way to call people on my contact list that's as convenient on the i760 as it was on my old Nokia or Motorola basic cell phones.

Having two batteries is definitely the way to go for me for mobile electronics. When one battery dies, you can just swap in the other one and keep on going. For the i760, I would have preferred to get two long-life batteries. The thickness, weight and cost difference between the 'slim' battery and the long-life is minuscule compared to the value of the longer battery life with the extended battery. Penny wise but pound foolish. This is the first mobile device for which I've had two batteries. Based on this experience, I think every future mobile device purchase I make will include a second battery. If you're going to use a mobile electronic device, it ought to be truly 'mobile' -- meaning you don't have to scramble to find an outlet quickly when your battery runs out of power. With the spare battery, you simply power down, pop in the spare battery, then continue doing what you had been doing. (Try that with a standard iPhone...)

Cell phones and other truly mobile devices are dropped. No practical way to avoid that. This gives you several choices regarding drop damage to mobile electronic devices.
  1. Replace the devices somewhat frequently (generally expensive!).
  2. Buy devices that come standard with effective drop damage prevention features.
  3. Buy a case for the device that minimizes drop damage while not being too annoying when you use the device.
I've already dropped the i760 several times. It will be dropped again in the future. Frequent purchases of new phones is not an option. The i760 doesn't have much in the way of designed-in damage prevention. I purchased the $5/monthly insurance which covers some damage, but that's not a total solution. This leaves me with the alternative of using a case to minimize drop damage.

The primary challenge to finding a suitable i760 case is the slider format. It's extremely difficult to design a reasonable cost case that provides drop damage protection and is 'usable' with a slider phone. Especially a side-slider as opposed to a bottom slider. And doubly difficult if you frequently use the device in the slider-open position. I guess an i760 case is one example of why we have the word 'dilemma.'

In order to decide whether to keep the i760 and to significantly increase its usefulness to me, I need to focus on the following points over the next two weeks:
  1. Upgrade to WinMobile 6.1
  2. Get Google Maps working, if possible
  3. Get proficient with the camera, both still and video
  4. Buy and get proficient with a Bluetooth headset (possibly the Scala 700 found by Andy M)
  5. Import my Outlook contacts and sync my Gcal with Outlook
  6. Set up ten more contacts on speed dial
  7. Use IE on more websites and evaluate other browsers on the i760

*****

2008/07/29

NEW NET Issues List for 29 Jul 2008; Rutan/Branson/Jetpack

Below is the final list of issues for the TUESDAY, 29 Jul 2008, NEW NET (Northeast Wisconsin Network for Economy and Technology) 7:00 - 9:00 pm weekly gathering upstairs at Tom's Drive In, 501 N Westhill Blvd, Appleton, Wisconsin, USA.

This week's meeting will include a report from BarCampMadison2 and some discussion of the technology at EAA AirVenture 2008 (...as well as some thoughts about technology at AirVenture 2009...).

Two particularly exciting events happened today at the Experimental Aircraft Association AirVenture 2008. The most fun and interesting was the chance to listen from a front row seat to Burt Rutan, Sir Richard Branson and Will Whitehorn talk about the unveiling of White Knight Two and general civilian aerospace topics. Key points made by Burt went something along the lines of 'don't be afraid to do wacky things', 'most revolutionary innovations will come from outside the formal education system' and 'for the really wacky things you want to do, ask forgiveness rather than permission.' Especially from parents... The other unique experience was being in the second row of a large crowd watching the public unveiling of the Martin Jetpack. Second row was ok with me for this event, since the crowd was warned about washback from the Jetpack...

The ‘net

  1. Lifehacker editors' favorite software/hdwe http://lifehacker.com/399296/the-lifehacker-editors-favorite-software-and-hardware
  2. Zimbra Desktop gives Yahoo Mail offline access http://www.download.com/8301-2007_4-9998418-12.html http://tinyurl.com/6na6uv (Ars technica)
  3. Microsoft tries to one-up Google PageRank http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-9999038-93.html
  4. XDrive, AOL Pictures, MyMobile And Bluestring To Shut Down http://tinyurl.com/6aa4rh (TechCrunch)
  5. Hasbro spells L-A-W-S-U-I-T for Facebook knockoff Scrabulous http://tinyurl.com/5dj53t (Ars technica) http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/38632/118/
  6. Medipedia launches http://healthcare.zdnet.com/?p=1178 http://tinyurl.com/6fl7k5 (Wall Street Journal)
  7. 50 Steps to Establishing a Consistent Social Media Practice http://tinyurl.com/6fwvvn (Chris Brogan)

Security, Privacy & Digital Controls

  1. Vulnerable to a DNS cache poisoning at home? http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-9998625-83.html
  2. EFF: Yahoo Music should compensate customers http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-9999244-93.html
  3. Oops - SF prosecutors put city passwords on public record http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10000342-83.html

Mobile Computing & Communicating

  1. It's Not Easy Being a Restaurant Guide, Jukebox, Game Console and Lightsaber http://tinyurl.com/5ocyze (WashingtonPost)
  2. Free Multiservice IM App Arrives on iPhone http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/07/free-multi-serv.html
  3. Developer nails copy/paste with upcoming iPhone app http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13549_7-10001171-30.html
  4. Mobile web standards announced today http://www.jkontherun.com/2008/07/mobile-web-stan.html

Open Source

  1. SourceForge 2008 Awards http://sourceforge.net/community/cca08/ (note Microsoft is a big sponsor… ;-)
  2. When worlds collide: Microsoft funds Apache http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-9999824-75.html
  3. Open Web Foundation formed http://news.yahoo.com/s/infoworld/20080725/tc_infoworld/107490
  4. Intel Releases Moblin Into the Wild http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20080723/tc_pcworld/148839

SkyNet

  1. Knol and void: The day I became a published Google 'expert' http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-9999282-93.html
  2. Cuil Isn't A Google Killer http://searchengineland.com/080728-024035.php http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/38601/118/
  3. Google Maps Redesign Rolled Out http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-07-29.html#n36
  4. More Google competition: True Knowledge takes a sniper’s approach to search http://tinyurl.com/6axu57 (VentureBeat)

General Technology

  1. New Phone Service is a Coward's Best Friend http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/ptech/07/22/cellphone.voicemail.ap/index.html
  2. Say So Long to an Old Companion: Cassette Tapes http://tinyurl.com/56tn38 (NY Times)
  3. Dell’s Studio Hybrid reignites the passion for the desktop PC http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/38623/135/
  4. India developing $10 laptop http://www.engadget.com/2008/07/29/india-developing-10-laptop-gartner-says-100-laptop-at-least/

Leisure & Entertainment

  1. Microsoft Promotes Live with Free Cross-Platform Play http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/07/microsoft-promo.html
  2. It's about time developers focus on the Wii http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-10001441-17.html
  3. Digital Comics Coming to the Wii in Japan http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20080724/tc_pcworld/148852

Economy and Technology

  1. Apple’s newly launched App Store is going to transform the company, again http://tinyurl.com/5a6bse (VentureBeat)
  2. Gateway ends direct PC sales http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-9999968-1.html
  3. Brandstreaming: What Is It & Who's Doing It? http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/brandstreaming.php

Civilian Aerospace

  1. Branson unveils space tourism jet http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7529978.stm
  2. Martin Jetpack unveiled in Oshkosh http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/07/29/1230228.aspx http://www.popsci.com/military-aviation-%2526-space/article/2008-07/flight-jetpack
  3. Space exploration comes to the classroom http://tinyurl.com/5c9fkt (Rocky Mountain News)
  4. Rocket Racing League Set for First Flight Demonstration http://www.space.com/news/080729-rocket-racing-debut.html

Supercomputing & GPUs

  1. MIT: neuroscience & artificial intelligence begin to intersect. http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17111 http://www.flickr.com/photos/27920304@N06/
  2. NVIDIA Keeps It Interesting http://www.hpcwire.com/blogs/25880919.html
  3. IBM Eureka Has NVIDIA GPUs At Its Core http://tinyurl.com/5kex4f (Design News)
  4. University Supercomputers to Aid Indiana Business Development http://tinyurl.com/6ntjuf (HPCwire)
  5. NVIDIA accelerates search for cure http://www.hpcwire.com/offthewire/NVIDIA_Accelerates_the_Search_for_a_Cure.html
  6. Ford Taps Quantum3D for Virtual Engineering http://tinyurl.com/6569ww
  7. Supercomputing moves beyond MPI http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/07/28/analysis-supercomputing-moves
  8. Five Multicore Chip Startups to Watch http://gigaom.com/2008/07/16/five-multicore-startups-to-watch/
  9. New multicore e-book http://insidehpc.com/2008/07/23/new-multicore-e-book/

*****

2008/07/28

EAA AirVenture, MIT Alumni and Regional Tech Center

Today's technology focus was aviation as I was privileged to enjoy the gracious hospitality of the MIT Club of Wisconsin and EAA at the AirVenture 2008 airshow.

The MIT Club of Wisconsin is the alumni group for people living in Wisconsin who have graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. MIT alumni enjoy and participate in technology more than any other group I have ever seen, experienced or read about. It is tremendously enjoyable to talk with them and be allowed to participate in some of their events.

The MIT Club of Wisconsin began sponsoring EAA Women Soar and having a group outing at the AirVenture several years ago. Plans are afoot for having a world-wide MIT alumni travel expedition planned for Wisconsin in the summer of 2009, with one day of the multi-day expedition being spent at AirVenture 2009. The tech community in Wisconsin will have to come up with some cool technology ideas and activities to entertain and engage the MIT alumni who are able to come during summer 2009. Lots of planning and organizing are needed for that. If you love technology and want to assist the MIT Club of Wisconsin in planning ways to entertain this group of travelers let me know, and I'll put you in touch with Allyn Z.

I took a couple hundred pictures at AirVenture today with the idea that some of them might be useful for the MIT Alumni Travel coordinator in putting together marketing materials for the Wisconsin Summer 2009 event. A couple examples of those pictures are included in today's post.




In addition to just enjoying the day, there were two other reasons I attended the MIT EAA outing today. The first was to meet Bill Steele. He was introduced to me by Larry C, but Bill and I had not yet had a chance to meet. Bill was gracious enough to come to the pavilion where the MIT alumni were meeting to present a talk on his VirtualHUD avionics innovation, as explained on his website at www.virtualhud.com. Other than saying hi and asking a couple quick questions, Bill and I still didn't really have time to talk. With a bit of luck, maybe I'll be able to track him down tomorrow at AirVenture.


Carl Dietrich, an MIT alumni, was the other post-lunch speaker. Carl is developing a 'road-able' plane, and his company is Terrafugia. He has given updates on Terrafugia's progress at the MIT alumni AirVenture outings each of the last two years. It's exciting to hear about new developments and employee who have joined this venture. More info about his plane, the Transition, can be found on his website at http://terrafugia.com/vehicle.html. Carl's hard work is resulting in some people's 'visions of sugarplums' at Christmas-time include a plane they can drive from their garage to the airport, fly to their destination, then drive to the hotel, golf club or restaurant that was their final destination.

The second reason I wanted to join the MIT alumni today was to plant an idea with them for a potential MIT Club of Wisconsin project. This group would be an ideal organization to develop, promote and help lead a public Regional Tech Development Center, probably in Milwaukee or Madison. It might also make sense to consider locating this center in Appleton since there is already an established MIT Fab Lab at Fox Valley Technical College. This regional tech development center, as I envision it, will include an MIT Fab Lab, a TechShop, and many components of the Rockford, Illinois, EIGERlab. The center's focus is a harmonious blend of applied technology, innovation, entrepreneurism and collaboration. The advanced manufacturing which is one of Wisconsin's industry sector strengths makes this region a perfect place to launch such an initiative.

I enjoyed talking with Steve R, Lynnanne H, Jacob K, Allyn Z and others about this proposal. With a bit of watering and judicious applications of Miracle-Grow, the seeds planted today may result in the sprouting of one or several regional tech development centers!




*****

2008/07/27

BarCampMadison2, 26 - 27 July 2008

(Update 0 -- photo added on 29 Jul 2008)

BarCampMadison2 took place on 26 - 27 July 2008 in downtown Madison, Wisconsin, USA at Extra Bold Studio.

Because the venue was smaller than last year's location at a hotel, the number of participants was limited to 90. As of late Saturday night, the participant list showed 87 people, although that includes people who signed up for Saturday, for Sunday or for both.

Despite having less participants that previous barcamps I've been at, there were still many more interesting tech people at the event than I had time to meet and talk with. So in that respect, the number of people at BarCampMadison2 didn't offer less than other barcamps. Where the lower number of participants did have an impact was in the number of people leading sessions after supper on Day 1. The afternoon sessions filled four tracks completely with worthwhile one-hour sessions, and the time flew by. However, the evening sessions didn't fill, and had there been another 50 or 75 participants, there would likely have been a full evening schedule of sessions.

Made good Drupal progress during Day 1 of BarCampMadison2. We had a late night session of 'Hello WebWorld' with Drupal, which was actually just Blake H giving me some private consulting on the website concept Andy and have started working on. Unfortunately I didn't have the necessary ftp info, so we couldn't add useful modules to our test website. But Blake got me closer to conceptually understanding how Drupal works and how it can best be utilized.

When I checked Gmail this afternoon, an email from another northeast Wisconsin Drupaler was waiting for me. Mike P sent me an email, apparently prompted by my recent blog posts about Drupal, expressing interest in connecting with other area Drupalers. The merry band is growing. After seeing Mike's email, I excitedly reported northeast Wisconsin's latest connection amongst Drupalers to Blake. My comment prompted him to mention another potential Drupal connection in the Green Bay area. The nodes continue to connect, or perhaps existing connections continue to become more visible to me.

Day 2 of BarCampMadison2 began with 3 hours of sleep, followed by an hour of transitioning to full consciousness, then a protracted scavenger hunt for bagels and coffee. After a judicious amount of prodding and poking at the people with barcamp money in their pockets, three of us ventured out in search of fast-breaking comestibles. Trekking down to Gotham Bagels resulted in three bags full of bagel booty, but no beverages. Lamenting the lack of hot caffeine, we dragged our bagel bags back to Extra Bold Studio. With more pushing and prodding, another intrepid trio set out to obtain coffee to wash down the bagels and Steak & Fries cold breakfast pizza. The coffee order placement preceded a 40 minute siesta in the coffee house, necessitated by micro-batch brewing of the gourmet coffee. Longest wait I ever had to get a cup o' java.

Two excellent sessions were held on Day 2. The first was a group talk led by 4braham W and Blake H about Madison user groups and the larger topic of engaging and building the general tech community in the Madison metro area. There's an exciting core of people passionate about this topic and a bright future for near-term progress. Watch for a new Web608 website to launch in the upcoming few days!

The second Day 2 session I got a lot out of was "FOSS for Windows/Macs." The concept was that most focus of the USA open source world seems to be on Linux implementations. There can even be open hostility toward people who use or promote open source apps and concept on and for Windows and Mac computers. Because there are so many benefits to the Free and Open Source Software world, those benefits should be extended to and leveraged on Windows and Macs. In addition to other wide-ranging topics we discussed ideal opportunities for pilot programs or starting points for involving Apple (Mo C), Google (new Madison office), Microsoft (their lead open source guy and their new Madison research lab or Jellyfish office) and Sun/OpenOffice.org/mysql (Jess B).

As barcamp burnout approaches and PowerPoint Karaoke blathering fills the air around me, I sign off for today with a hearty "Hi O Silver, away!"...

*****

2008/07/26

Learning Drupal & Meeting Drupalers

Spent a couple hours yesterday (25 July 2008) working with Andy M on the verrry early steps of learning Drupal and starting to build a website using Drupal. Also took another step towards meeting more Drupalers and identifying people to help build a Drupal community for northeast Wisconsin.

Andy has our development site up for learning the basics of website building with Drupal. We know some of the basic functional components we want in the website; we just don't know how to build those with Drupal. Andy got Drupal 6.x installed on his host server, so we're working with modules that are available for 6.x. Although there's a larger base of stable 5.x Drupal modules than 6.x, Blake H recommended 6.x as the best path for us to use in developing our site.

Blake also recommended that we use the CCK, Panels and Views modules for our early site development work. CCK and Views seemed to install ok, but so far we can't seem to convince Panels to install.

Whilst working with Andy on the site today, I checked the Appleton Library website to see if they had any Drupal resources I could pick up to use this weekend. There was one item that seemed to be available, so I put a hold on it. After I left Andy's, I stopped at the library before heading home. The 'book checkout' guy immediately inside the main library doors wasn't busy when I walked in, so I asked him if the item I put on hold was already pulled or if I should just get it from the shelf. It turned out that item had been purchased but not yet received, so I couldn't get it for this weekend.

However...in talking to the checkout guy, Brian K, it turns out that he knows Drupal and has done a couple Drupal websites. He sounded interested in getting together with some other people who use Drupal or who want to be involved in building a Drupal community. Brian also mentioned that a new version of the Appleton Library website is being built with Drupal. It was a bit weird but truly appreciated to have a 'small world' serendipitous meeting with another person who's interested in Drupal.

So, yesterday I learned a couple things about Drupal, the most apparent of which was how much I don't know about how to build a website with Drupal. The second thing I learned was there are other Drupal users (and other people with a distinct interest in Drupal, as evidenced by the Drupal items all being checked out) in the Appleton / northeast Wisconsin area.

There are two challenges ahead for me with Drupal, CMS and website building. The first is to learn enough so I can start to ask useful questions about the topics and find effective answers. The second is to figure out the best ways to connect with northeast Wisconsin Drupal users and help build the Drupal community in this area.

*****

2008/07/24

Building a Website: Focus on CMS

Andy M recently suggested we build a new website. This begs the question, "What tool(s) should be used to build an easily managed, scalable website which allows easy contribution (posts or entries) by non-tech people?" (There are other criteria, but those three are the main ones.)

My reasons for working with Andy on building this website include learning how to build a good quality website. Based on my extremely limited knowledge of how to build good quality websites of this type, using an open source content management system (CMS) seemed like a good direction to go. The open source CMS website tools about which I've read the most and discussed the most with others are Joomla and Drupal. For various reasons, including knowing a few people in the Drupal community, my suggestion to Andy was that we try figuring out how to build his suggested site with Drupal.

Andy spent quite a few hours experimenting with both Joomla and Drupal and is currently at the point where he has a test site set up using Drupal. He's waaaay ahead of me in terms of Drupal knowledge and skill, as is pretty much true in any tech area he tackles. I plan to contribute to the building of the site through gaining and using lightweight Drupal skills, through finding Drupal info and making connections with Drupalers who can assist us with building and improving the site or answering Drupal questions, and through writing content for the site.

One CMS resource I plan to use is books on the topic. There are a few books available about building websites with Drupal and Joomla. One publisher of those books offers to send complimentary evaluation books for online review. I'm going to send them an email to ask that they send me their intro books for both Drupal and Joomla for online book reviews.

If anyone is interested in joining us on this adventure, especially skilled Drupalers, please send me an email at bwaldron [att] gmail {dott} com, and we'll figure out how best to work with you on this!

*****

2008/07/23

Skype and Google on i760; MadDUG Meeting

Two good things in the past two days:
  1. Skype and several Google services are usable on my new Samsung i760 phone.
  2. Attended the Madison, Wisconsin, USA, Drupal Users Group (MadDUG) meeting.
Learning new things about my i760. In spite of repeated attempts to get Skype installed and working on my new phone, I couldn't make that happen. Read lots online related to Skype and the i760, with a few items indicating it's possible to use Skype on this phone. The vast majority of comments indicated that people couldn't make it work.

I was lucky enough to have a phone/computer wizard work his magic on my i760. At the NEW NET meeting on 22 July, Andy M. fiddled with the phone for a bit, then asked me to type in my Skype username and password. After I did that, lo and behold, the normal Skype interface popped up and I was online and in business. Made me very happy, since being able to use Skype for calls from wifi hotspots was one of my major hopes for the i760. Thanks, Andy!

Although using the web through Internet Explorer via wifi on the i760 has been painful, meaning "not fun", some of the Google web tools are worth the effort. Google search works fine, although the quality of the experience leaves much to be desired once you go to the various sites suggested by Google. Gmail isn't fun, but it's workable, and it felt good to have free Gmail access whenever I have my phone and an open wifi connection. Gcalendar was even better than Gmail, at least in terms of seeing what my schedule looks like. It's likely to be less fun entering in new items on my schedule, but it was very easy to check where I have openings if I want to schedule a new meeting or activity.

Andy and I both tried repeatedly to make Google Maps for mobile work, but have not yet succeeded. He suggested I download it to my laptop, then put it on the i760 through ActiveSync. That is on my list for today or tomorrow.

Tried to install Opera for Mobile to see if that browser was better than Internet Explorer. Couldn't get Opera installed -- got an error message related to Java, so I'll have to do some research regarding Opera Mobile on an i760.

I might be enjoying the web on my new phone more if I hadn't had the pleasurable experience of using the web on an iPhone. The iPhone web experience absolutely blows away other phone web browsing. The i760 on the web is functional -- the iPhone on the web is Fun!

One other annoyance I've discovered for mobile web use is entering secure passwords. Unless you use the very-long-passphrase approach, secure password strategy generally includes using some upper case and some non-alphanumerics. On a laptop or desktop keyboard, that's not a huge deal. However, if you manually enter a mix of lower case, upper case and non-alphanumerics on a mobile phone, because the entered password characters are usually indicated on screen by a dot or an asterisk, it's difficult to be sure you entered the correct character. I need to get my KeePass or other password wallet set up so I can cut and paste passwords, assuming Windows Mobile and the site password functions will let me cut and paste.

On a non-phone note, I went to the Madison, Wisconsin Drupal Users Group meeting on 23 July. Thanks to the graciousness of NetConcepts, a search engine optimization (SEO) company with offices in both Madison and New Zealand, the meeting was held in a spacious and well equipped conference room. Due likely to the nice summer weather, the 14 people who participated in the meeting were on the low end of the 15 to 20 that usually show up. A nice size group, though, with a chance for everyone to share ideas, knowledge and opinions and the opportunity for people to ask questions. After general introductions of the meeting participants and a few announcements by Blake, Chris(sp?) D. gave an overview of Drupal Daze in the Minneapolis area last weekend. She thought there were about 50 people at the event, and she got all the Drupal she could handle. Met some interesting Drupalers and learned new stuff about Drupal.

Blake did a demo on 'beginning module development', with a quick and 'easy' approach to doing event registration. A good way to learn programming for Drupal stuff.

One result of the discussion about Drupal Daze and the module development demo was that people got a chance to contribute and suggest ways to do things. We also learned a bit about what Drupal areas various meeting participants had experience, interest or knowledge in. The discussions will likely lead to one or more of the July meeting participants leading a presentation at a future MadDUG meeting, possibly on Eclipse, Subversion or other Drupal-related topics.

Blake mentioned the Chicago Drupal group plans to do a Drupal camp in mid-October 2008, so be on the lookout for that if you have an interest in Drupal.

All in all it was a friendly, knowledgeable group of people, and I was glad they let me attend in spite of my almost total lack of knowledge about Drupal. Hope to increase that knowledge level tremendously over the next few months.

After the meeting, Blake, Andrew and I went to Buffalo Wild Wings for a light supper and some continued discussions about the tech world and life in general.

Oh yeah, Blake sorta talked me into coming down to Madison this weekend for BarCampMadison. I knew it was on the calendar, but with other things going on, and not having anyone else from the Appleton area to ride down with me, I didn't have firm plans to attend. With Blake's nudging and with Luke's availability now to drive down with me, it looks like I'll be making it down to BarCampMadison. If you haven't been to a barcamp and have some time Saturday or Sunday, 26 and 27 July, head to Madison. Lots of tech fun, and it's all free. You'll meet some great people, guaranteed...

Sign up for it here...

*****

2008/07/22

NEW NET Issues List for 22 Jul 2008

NEW NET will meet on Tuesday, 22 July 2008, at the Cambria Suites Hotel on the north side of Appleton. Cambria has food, beverages and free wireless. Below is the final list of issues for this week's NEW NET (Northeast Wisconsin Network for Economy and Technology) 7:00 - 9:00 pm weekly gathering at Cambria Suites Hotel, 3940 N. Gateway Drive, Appleton Wisconsin, USA.

Trying something different for the NEW NET issues list. The lists have been getting toooo long lately, and it's unlikely most of the items on the list are ever looked at. The new policy, for a while at least, will be to have the long form of the NEW NET list (typically having 50+ new tech articles or posts from the past week) attached to the weekly email. This weekly NEW NET blog post, however, will only have ~ 35 items in an effort to encourage people to read more of the items.

If you'd like to be on the weekly email distribution list for the long version of the NEW NET list, send me a note at bwaldron [att] gmail {dott} com.

The ‘net

  1. Will Mainstream Users Ever Learn About The Browser's Address Bar? http://tinyurl.com/5flw72 (ReadWriteWeb)
  2. Nation's Largest ISPs Crafting Fake National Broadband Policy http://tinyurl.com/6e44nv (BroadbandReports)
  3. 20-yr-old at heart of web's most anarchic and influential site http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jul/20/internet.google
  4. Wikipedia Tries Approval System to Reduce Vandalism on Pages http://tinyurl.com/6d6ljh (NYTimes)
  5. More Amazon S3 Downtime http://tinyurl.com/5srrsn http://tinyurl.com/6qeea4 (ReadWriteWeb & GigaOm)

Security, Privacy & Digital Controls

  1. Protecting against Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, RFID data attacks http://news.yahoo.com/s/cnet/20080719/tc_cnet/830110093999502283
  2. Why San Francisco's network admin went rogue http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/07/18/30FE-sf-network-lockout_1.html
  3. Ubisoft Uses Internet Crack To Get Around Its Own DRM http://techdirt.com/articles/20080718/1117121722.shtml
  4. Nabbed for speeding? GPS data could get you off the hook http://tinyurl.com/68lgs3 (Ars technica)

Mobile Computing & Communicating

  1. Steve Jobs Decision Behind iPhone Apps' Achilles' Heel http://tinyurl.com/64srqn (InformationWeek)
  2. Mobile live-video service Qik opens public beta http://blogs.zdnet.com/feeds/?p=153
  3. Where Are the Smartphone Standards? http://news.yahoo.com/s/zd/20080717/tc_zd/229888

Open Source

  1. Proprietary software? Counsel objects http://www.linux.com/feature/140930
  2. Sweet Home 3D: simple interior design http://www.linux.com/feature/141073
  3. Event aims to bring Lindependence to one California town http://www.linux.com/feature/140575

SkyNet

  1. Rate Businesses from Your Phone http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2008/07/rate-and-review-businesses-from-your.html
  2. Updates to Gmail contact manager http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/updates-to-gmail-contact-manager.html
  3. Templates bring Docs to life http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/templates-bring-docs-to-life.html
  4. Gmail, Gcalendar to add offline support http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2008/07/gmail-and-google-calendar-to-add.html

General Technology

  1. Apple Demands That Psystar Recalls All Hackintoshes http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/07/apple-demands-t.html
  2. Lenovo ThinkPad X200: 9 hr battery life? http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/38454/145/
  3. CherryPal Mini-desktop Consumes 2 Watts of Power http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/38489/135/
  4. Al Gore's call for renewable energy sets us up for a useful failure http://tinyurl.com/5njaju (Ars technica)

Leisure & Entertainment

  1. Neal Stephenson lecture on whether genres matter anymore http://www.boingboing.net/2008/07/11/neal-stephenson-lect.html
  2. Peerflix: Good or Bad? http://www.peerflix.com/help/tutorials/howitworks.jsf
  3. Online Digital Photo Print Services Buyer's Guide http://news.yahoo.com/s/cmp/20080720/tc_cmp/208802988
  4. Wii MotionPlus: Good for Gamers, Bad for Business? http://gameplasma.com/index.php?do=viewarticle&id=919

Economy and Technology

  1. AMD's Ruiz steps off the roller coaster (- $6.3B from 2002 to 2008) http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-9993814-92.html
  2. Google shares sink after profits miss expectations http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/38460/118/
  3. Yahoo! Announces Settlement with Carl Icahn http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/080721/20080721005563.html

Civilian Aerospace

  1. Microsoft and space elevators http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/371392_spacevator19.html
  2. National Coalition for Cheap and Reliable Access to Space (CATS) Formed http://tinyurl.com/5tm9sd (PRNewswire)
  3. British Students Win U.S.-UK Rocket Contest at Farnborough http://tinyurl.com/56kxhq (Fox Business)

Supercomputing & GPUs

  1. Is GPU stacking the answer to all your performance concerns? http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/38410/135/
  2. Hello AMD Socket G34 http://www.dailytech.com/Hello+AMD+Socket+G34/article12400c.htm
  3. Computing and mobiles: The piranhas of processing await http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jul/17/news.computing

*****

2008/07/21

Verizon Samsung i760 Converged Device

Today is the start of a new experience for me -- using a converged device, sometimes referred to as a smartphone. The model chosen for this initial foray into the land of mobile internet devices is a Verizon Samsung SCH-i760.

My previous Verizon cell phone was a Motorola that was probably three or four years old. It was given to me for free by a friend because my Nokia had died and his wife wasn't using the Motorola. She had replaced it with one she liked better and had no need for her old phone.

My first decision was to stay with Verizon because I didn't want to hassle with switching my phone number to a new service provider and because it didn't appear to save me any money to switch. The two things I really don't like about Verizon are that I don't have free incoming calls (except for other Verizon users) and my free evening minutes start at 9 PM instead of 7 PM. US Cellular has free incoming calls and their evening free minutes start at 7 PM, so if I would have switched, it would probably have been to US Cellular.

I would have preferred to get a new basic cell phone for free from Verizon without renewing my contract, but I found out that wasn't possible. After having been with them for four years, the least I could spend to get a new phone without a contract was $80. When I found out there was no 'free lunch', I started thinking about getting a phone that would give me voice calling (the reason I 'need' a cell phone), internet browser access with 802.11 b/g wifi (so I don't have to spend several hundred dollars annually on surfing through the cell connection), and PDA functions (word processing, schedule, etc).

As far I as could determine, Verizon only has two phones with wifi. The i760 was $200 and the HTC XV6800 was $250. After reading many reviews online and checking with a few people, plus looking at the i760 in person at the Fox River Mall Verizon kiosk in Appleton, I decided the i760 was the better of the two choices for my needs.

Adam and Charlene at the Verizon kiosk were extremely helpful, friendly, professional and knowledgeable. Either of them are highly recommended if you are with Verizon or are considering switching. I also visited the Verizon store on Casaloma in Appleton and didn't have the same level of enjoyable service as at the kiosk.

I bought the i760 on 20 July, charged up the two batteries Sunday evening and started using the phone on Monday.

Seems to work -- no glitches so far. There is the annoying need to learn new ways to do things that seem more complicated than with my previous cell phone, such as pulling up a contact to call from the contact list. But over the next few weeks I'll become much more comfortable with the basics of the phone. Or else I'll take it back before the 30 day trial period is up and get a different phone...

Over the next couple weeks I'll be posting the results of this test with a converged device. Stay tuned for all the details if you're interested in a smartphone with wifi, and you can't afford the iPhone and don't want to wait for the Gphone (Android).

*****

2008/07/15

NEW NET Issues List for 15 Jul 2008

Below is the final list of issues for the TUESDAY, 15 Jul 2008, NEW NET (Northeast Wisconsin Network for Economy and Technology) 7:00 - 9:00 pm weekly gathering upstairs at Tom's Drive In, 501 N Westhill Blvd, Appleton, Wisconsin, USA.

This week's meeting will include discussion of building a community website with Drupal or another open source CMS such as Joomla. We'll also talk a little about the free voice-to-text web service, Jott and other free or very low cost services that NEW NET participants use or would like to use.

The ‘net

  1. Missing Code Challenge: Web Identity http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/missing-code-challenge
  2. Bit.ly: Please Use This TinyURL of the Future http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/bitly_alternative_to_tinyurl.php
  3. Buy.com / EBay deal angers sellers http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/14/technology/14ebay.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
  4. TokBox Releases Downloadable App for Video Chat http://webworkerdaily.com/2008/07/14/tokbox-releases-downloadable-app-for-video-chat/
  5. Make a Workstation out of a Treadmill http://webworkerdaily.com/2007/07/31/web-workout-make-a-workstation-out-of-a-treadmill/

Security, Privacy & Digital Controls

  1. Limiting Twitter and other Web 2.0 tool use in Congress? http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/13/washington/13cong.html
  2. One-third of US residents rip DVDs http://tinyurl.com/6pro5b (Ars technica)
  3. Microsoft update kills ZoneAlarm http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/07/09/microsoft-update-kills
  4. Viacom, YouTube agree to mask user data http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-9985394-93.html
  5. San Francisco Admin Charged With Hijacking City's Network http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/07/sf-city-charged.html

Mobile Computing & Communicating

  1. New iPhone Will Jumpstart Demand for Wireless Broadband http://tinyurl.com/644cuq (GigaOm)
  2. iPhone: The New Personal Computer http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/iphone_personal_computer.php
  3. Inside the iPhone launch failure http://venturebeat.com/2008/07/11/the-great-iphone-3g-ifail-a-retrospective-with-videos/
  4. iPhone 3G: Pandora vs. AOL Radio http://www.tuaw.com/2008/07/14/tuaw-faceoff-pandora-vs-aol-radio/
  5. 11 cool new apps for the iPhone http://tinyurl.com/6hyenl (ComputerWorld)
  6. 20 Cool IPhone Apps http://www.pcworld.com/article/148296/20_cool_iphone_apps.html
  7. Send SMS for Free via AIM on iPhone http://db.tidbits.com/article/9690
  8. A sad day…Steve Wozniak out of line at iPhone store? http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-9989823-93.html?hhTest=1

Open Source

  1. Fedora, Slackware, Debian and Philosophy http://community.zdnet.co.uk/blog/0,1000000567,10008682o-2000498448b,00.htm
  2. Avoid latency while editing remote files using bcvi http://www.linux.com/feature/140736
  3. UMPCs and Linux: made for each other, and coming soon http://www.linux.com/feature/141380
  4. For those "oops" moments: ext3undel http://www.linux.com/feature/141074
  5. Monitoring network performance with GNetWatch http://www.linux.com/feature/140735

SkyNet

  1. Google's Lively social 3D world is 20 percent done http://tinyurl.com/568ovo (Ars technica)
  2. Google Keyword Tool updated http://adwords.blogspot.com/2008/07/keyword-tool-updated-with-search-volume.html
  3. Google’s iPhone app is really good http://blogs.zdnet.com/Google/?p=1090
  4. Political videos meet Google speech-to-text technology http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/in-their-own-words-political-videos.html

General Technology

  1. NVIDIA slashes price of GTX 260 and 280 GPUs http://www.tgdaily.com/html_tmp/content-view-38373-113.html
  2. NVIDIA newest patent beatdown target for Rambus http://tinyurl.com/5l4z5t (Ars technica)
  3. Sun, Fujitsu unveil quad-core SPARC64 chip, servers http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-9989951-64.html?hhTest=1
  4. MIT researchers turn windows into solar panels http://cleantechnica.com/2008/07/14/dying-to-boost-solar-efficiency-by-50/
  5. Flash SSDs vs. mechanical hard drives http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-hard-drive,1968.html

Leisure & Entertainment

  1. DreamWorks executive on why it switched from AMD to Intel http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-9985989-64.html
  2. Getty Images Begins Licensing Flickr Photos http://tinyurl.com/6npof5 (Seeking Alpha)
  3. Game characters get smarter _ and less predictable http://tinyurl.com/5qt6xg (Salon)
  4. EA, id Join Forces for Rage http://www.gamespot.com/news/6193876.html
  5. Nintendo Gives A Peek At Upcoming Wii MotionPlus http://tinyurl.com/5awgb8 (InformationWeek)
  6. Joss Whedon Waxes Dr. Horrible http://blog.wired.com/underwire/2008/07/joss-whedon-tal.html
  7. Netflix To Stream Movies Over Xbox Live http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-games15-2008jul15,0,1005884.story
  8. Wii Speak brings voice chat to the Wii, at long last http://dvice.com/archives/2008/07/wii_speak_bring.php

Economy and Technology

  1. Gaia Gets More Cash as Money Pours Into Virtual Worlds http://tinyurl.com/6cw9rs (GigaOm)
  2. Lenovo announces new small-biz laptops, updates ThinkPads http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-9991161-1.html

Civilian Aerospace

  1. Univ. of Wisconsin Zero-gravity team finds spray cooling works in space http://www.news.wisc.edu/15374
  2. Fun with Paper http://thelaunchpad.xprize.org/2008/07/fun-with-paper.html
  3. Students launch real rockets to spark passion in math, science http://tinyurl.com/6znoya (9News.com)

Supercomputing & GPUs

  1. Acceleware Offers GPU-Flavored HPC http://www.hpcwire.com/topic/systems/Acceleware_Offers_GPU-Flavored_HPC.html
  2. IBM's eight-core Power7 chip to clock in at 4.0GHz http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/11/ibm_power7_ncsa/
  3. CUDA.NET http://www.gpgpu.org/cgi-bin/blosxom.cgi/2008/07/10
  4. Part 2: Double Precision GPUs http://www.gpgpu.org/cgi-bin/blosxom.cgi/2008/07/14

*****

2008/07/08

NEW NET Issues List for 08 Jul 2008

Below is the final list of issues for the TUESDAY, 08 Jul 2008, NEW NET (Northeast Wisconsin Network for Economy and Technology) 7:00 - 9:00 pm weekly gathering upstairs at Tom's Drive In, 501 N Westhill Blvd, Appleton, Wisconsin, USA.

There were more interesting tech articles and posts online than normal in the past week, resulting in what may be a record for NEW NET overload -- 88 links for you this week.

Web browsers are the focus of this week's NEW NET meeting. Firefox 3 has been out for a couple weeks with no apparent widespread disastrous side effects. Those cautious surfers who were letting others do the "new version taste-testing" should now consider moving from their old browser to Firefox 3. Luke will lead the discussion tonight with the issues below up for your questions and input:
  • Memory usage: better in Firefox 3 than Firefox 2?
  • Is Firefox 3 'faster' than other browsers?
  • Other pros and cons of Firefox 3
  • Browser comparisons using virtual machines
  • Alternatives to Firefox 3: IE7, Safari, Opera 9.5, others
  • Tweaks, Tips and Add-Ons for Firefox 3
(If we're lucky, Mac/iPhone users will show up to discuss browsers on Apple products!)

Will also likely be discussion related to Andy's new website idea. Maybe even some discussion of items on this week's NEW NET issues list!!!
  1. The ‘net

  2. Firefoxing away to Version 3 http://www.techtree.com/India/Reviews/Firefoxing_away_to_Version_3/551-90812-597.html
  3. Equipt: Office subscription service ready to go http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-9982212-56.html
  4. Meraki: free wifi in San Francisco http://venturebeat.com/2008/07/03/meraki-brings-free-wifi-to-100000-san-franciscans/
  5. Thank you, Adobe Reader 9! http://blog.micropledge.com/2008/07/adobe-reader-9/
  6. BoingBoing: our blog and our rules http://www.mathewingram.com/work/2008/07/03/boingboing-its-our-blog-and-our-rules/
  7. BoingBoing: Violet Blue controversy's implications http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/webscout/2008/07/boingboing-blog.html
  8. Tips for Working Online with the New Standard, PDF http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20080702/tc_pcworld/147890
  9. Gnip: Grand Central Station for the Social Web http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/gnip_grand_central_station.php
  10. Announcing Tech.NewsJunk.Com http://www.scripting.com/stories/2008/07/04/announcingTechnewsjunkcom.html
  11. Tune out co-workers, other sounds with SimplyNoise http://www.webware.com/8301-1_109-9984006-2.html
  12. Seesmic Starts Adding Features http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2008/07/seesmic-starts-adding-features.html
  13. Y Combinator’s Anyvite Takes On Evite, Keeps Things Simple http://tinyurl.com/6efw2t (TechCrunch)
  14. Downforeveryoneorjustme.com http://www.lockergnome.com/blade/2008/07/06/is-that-web-site-down-or-is-it-just-me/
  15. Vivaty Scenes Make AIM and Facebook Chat Virtual Worlds http://mashable.com/2008/07/08/vivaty-scenes/
  16. The Importance Of Blog Linking Seems to Be Declining http://www.louisgray.com/live/2008/07/importance-of-blog-linking-seems-to-be.html
  17. MyYahoo 2.0 Goes Live for All http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/myyahoo_20_goes_live.php
  18. Linden Labs and IBM Break the Metaverse Barrier, Teleport Across Virtual Worlds http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/virtual_world_interoperability.php
  19. Has The Cafe Moved Online? http://avc.blogs.com/a_vc/2008/07/has-the-debate.html

Security, Privacy & Digital Controls

  1. 637 million browser users at risk http://news.cnet.com/8301-10789_3-9981954-57.html
  2. Diary of a deliberately spammed housewife http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/070108-mcafee-spam-experiment.html
  3. Chinese Bloggers Scale The 'Great Firewall' In Riot's Aftermath http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121493163092919829.html
  4. Amazon: Hey Spammers, Get Off My Cloud! http://tinyurl.com/4mczhp (Washington Post)
  5. Groups sue U.S. over cell phone tracking http://www.nytimes.com/idg/IDG_852573C4006938808525747A0049B6CA.html
  6. Iran Parliament to Debate Death Penalty for Bloggers http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/iranian_deth_penalty_for_bloggers.php
  7. Thieves steal millions from Citibank customers http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9982500-7.html
  8. Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail’s CAPTCHA broken by spammers http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=1418
  9. Passport Record System Open To Abuse http://www.courant.com/news/nationworld/hc-passports0704.artjul04,0,5384602.story
  10. Google, privacy and Street View http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2008/07/google_privacy_and_street_view.html
  11. Google trying to take privacy seriously http://blogs.zdnet.com/Google/?p=1085
  12. Web companies organize massive effort to patch fundamental Internet flaw http://venturebeat.com/2008/07/08/web-companies-organize-massive-effort-to-patch-fundamental-internet-flaw/
  13. Apple just gave out my Apple ID password because someone asked http://blog.karppinen.fi/2008/07/apple-just-gave-out-my-apple-i.html

Mobile Computing & Communicating

  1. What if 23 Million People Used Bluetooth? http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2324535,00.asp
  2. Digital Pens to Write on Any Paper http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/03/technology/personaltech/03pogue.html
  3. Openmoko Neo FreeRunner on Sale July 4 http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/07/post-1.html
  4. Nokia 6220 Smartphone Released http://news.yahoo.com/s/cmp/20080704/tc_cmp/208802507
  5. Toshiba Portege G810 http://www.mobiletechreview.com/phones/Toshiba-Portege-G810.htm
  6. Where the iPhone failed (and the gPhone might win) http://tinyurl.com/6dxn7h (Business Week)
  7. Electronic Papyrus: The Digital Book, Unfurled http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/technology/06novelties.html
  8. Ultra Mobile PC Buyer's Guide http://tinyurl.com/6mn4bw (InformationWeek)
  9. Laptops and Airports: A Bad Mix? http://webworkerdaily.com/2008/07/07/laptops-and-airports-a-bad-mix/
  10. TinyApps: Small Is Beautiful http://webworkerdaily.com/2008/07/07/tinyapps-small-is-beautiful/
  11. $100 rebate on Eee PC 900, lowers price to $449 http://www.liliputing.com/2008/07/asus-offers-100-rebate-on-eee-pc-900.html

Open Source

  1. What's Holding OpenOffice Back? http://www.linuxinsider.com/rsstory/63684.html
  2. Mass-market WiFi router invites Linux hackers http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS9390135932.html
  3. Linspire CEO defends Xandros buy-out http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-9982606-56.html
  4. Low-power mini-ITX board runs Linux http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS5320707472.html
  5. Which Linux Distributions Are Dying? http://codingexperiments.com/archives/149
  6. One live DVD, one ton of Linux games http://www.linux.com/feature/139589
  7. The critics are wrong: KDE 4 doesn't need a fork http://tinyurl.com/5xf3ml (Ars technica)
  8. Vista is “OK”, says Ubuntu-converted teenager http://education.zdnet.com/?p=1761

SkyNet

  1. Google, the press, and tearing down your heroes http://glinden.blogspot.com/2008/07/google-press-and-tearing-down-your.html
  2. Google Announces Plan To Destroy All Information It Can't Index http://www.theonion.com/content/node/40076
  3. Google Closing Dallas, Denver Office http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-07-03-n34.html
  4. Google Talk comes to the iPhone, Touch http://tinyurl.com/55qr8r (VentureBeat)
  5. Google forced to reveal YouTube viewing habits http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article4263925.ece
  6. Google Under Pressure as App Engine Requests Rise http://tinyurl.com/6ygyoz (PCWorld)
  7. Google Maps for mobile with voice search on BlackBerry Pearl http://tinyurl.com/4jsq9c (GoogleMobile)
  8. Remote sign out/info to help protect Gmail http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/remote-sign-out-and-info-to-help-you.html
  9. Gmail now blocking fake eBay, PayPal e-mails http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/080708/20080708005763.html
  10. Google Docs Goes Down - How Long is Too Long for You? http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_docs_is_down.php

General Technology

  1. Think Before You Voicemail http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/05/think-before-you-voicemail/
  2. Intel: an expensive many-core future is ahead of us http://tinyurl.com/4tdzek (Ars technica)
  3. Five ways to keep your PC cool on a hot summer day http://tinyurl.com/63owp8 (Ars technica)
  4. 'Containers' Out Perform Virtualization For KV Pharmaceuticals http://news.yahoo.com/s/cmp/20080704/tc_cmp/208802705
  5. Atheros connects a wireless world, makes it run faster http://news.yahoo.com/s/ibd/20080703/bs_ibd_ibd/20080703newamer
  6. Why I'm leaving Forrester http://blogs.forrester.com/charleneli/2008/07/why-im-leaving.html
  7. Kid-Proof Your PC with SteadyState http://lifehacker.com/397786/kid+proof-your-pc-with-steadystate
  8. NBC to use Olympics as research lab for new media viewership http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080707-nbc-to-use-olympics-as-research-lab-for-new-media-viewership.html

Leisure & Entertainment

  1. Microsoft isn't doing all it should to help PC gaming http://tinyurl.com/42zdaj (Ars technica)
  2. Sony PS3 Update Locks Consoles, Web Site Attacked http://news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20080703/tc_nf/60596
  3. Writers set slate for Strike.tv http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080703/wr_nm/strike_dc

Economy and Technology

  1. Blockbuster abandons Circuit City bid http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9982618-7.html
  2. Tech Giants Join Together To Head Off Patent Suits http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Infrastructure/Tech-Titans-Form-Patent-Trust/
  3. Nvidia's stock bloodbath - company admits faulty chips, shares plunge 22% http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/38237/135/
  4. Just how far are you going with FRCP compliance? http://education.zdnet.com/?p=1440
  5. Microsoft Crosses A Line http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/08/microsoft-crosses-a-line/

Civilian Aerospace

  1. Eight teams taking up ESA’s Lunar Robotics Challenge http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMGAASHKHF_index_0.html
  2. Winners of “Move An Asteroid 2008” International Competition http://www.spacegeneration.org/node/2024
  3. Student-Led Satellite Initiative for NASA http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2008/jul/HQ_08151_student_satellite.html
  4. Star man predicts a space trip in five years http://tinyurl.com/69ycfn (Salford Advertiser)
  5. Online game makes anyone a 'black hole hunter' http://www.newscientist.com/blog/space/2008/06/online-game-makes-anyone-black-hole_30.html
  6. UND unveils new space flight simulator http://tinyurl.com/6mbss3 (Grand Forks Herald)

Supercomputing & GPUs

  1. NVIDIA appoints first CUDA center of excellence http://www.gpgpu.org/cgi-bin/blosxom.cgi/2008/07/04#firstCUDACoE
  2. Desktop supercomputing http://www.theengineer.co.uk/Articles/306874/Desktop+supercomputing.htm
  3. A massively parallel future http://www.bangkokpost.com/020708_Database/02Jul2008_data001.php
  4. Beyond Graphics – The Present and Future of GP-GPU http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2324318,00.asp
  5. Core Convictions http://www.hpcwire.com/blogs/22846564.html
  6. Implementing Multi-Core: The Devil Is in the Detail http://www.chipdesignmag.com/display.php?articleId=2396

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