Archive for Work

Official Version of the ZDNet Chrome Extension is Available

March 19, 2010 @ 12:41 pm · Filed under Web Development, Work

The official version of the ZDNet Chrome extension that I adapted from the Google sample, is available here: https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/plmjgigefjbepajlfhohlhhnlmhjnlde

UPDATE: Here are the SmartPlanet and TechRepublic extensions.

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What are the Limits of Fair Use on the Web?

August 2, 2009 @ 11:40 am · Filed under Economics, Web 2.0, Work

What are the limits of fair use on the web? If a journalist or blogger puts a lot of effort into a story, which is then summarized by a much more popular blog, are they being ripped off. Ian Shapiro, of the Washington Post, is debating this question right now in regards to Gawker’s summary of a story he wrote. Here’s the best analysis of the debate I could find: Gawker and the Washington Post: a Case Study in Fair Use.

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Why You Should Read ZDNet

May 1, 2007 @ 12:16 am · Filed under Work

Check out this video on ZDNet.

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Mac Sales Soar – Thank Vista!

April 26, 2007 @ 2:20 am · Filed under Life, Who Knows, Work

As Philip Elmer-Dewitt points out, Mac sales soared in Q1. This was mostly due to laptop sales. I’m part of this soaring, because I bought a MacBook recently. Why did I finally choose a Mac over Windows? One reason was that my kids use Macs at school. Another was that I don’t do Windows development anymore. The main reason, though, was that I took a look at Vista and decided it was too much trouble to go through the upgrade. Moreover, I couldn’t save money by buying a Windows laptop, because Vista’s requirements meant that I had to buy a higher-end laptop to run it. So, the Mac won out.

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MySQL Conference 2007

April 26, 2007 @ 2:12 am · Filed under Work

I just spent two very enjoyable days at the MySQL Conference in Santa Clara. My take on the conference has been published on ZDNet by Dan Farber in this post: MySQL’s success leads to customer frustration. The headline is Dan’s, not mine, though I concur with the sentiment.

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Scoble and Full-Text RSS Feeds Vs. Partial-Text Feeds

April 20, 2007 @ 3:41 pm · Filed under Work

Scoble has another post on the subject of full-text RSS vs. partial-text RSS in which he argues that major sites like ZDNet would gain more than they lose by offering full-text feeds. I think he just doesn’t understand the economics of running a major content site. Scoble could link to ZDNet every day and it still wouldn’t affect the traffic. He is just too small a fish in the internet pond. Meanwhile, splogging of ZDNet content is already a problem that is causing us pain, and probably hurting us in Google. Full-text RSS would just make that Google problem worse, and would probably cost more traffic than ZDNet would gain from Scoble’s increased willingness to link.

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Twitter Addiction

April 8, 2007 @ 9:38 pm · Filed under Life, Work

So, I have been playing with Twitter the last couple of days, and I have become completely addicted. If you want to see how boring my life is, you can check it out here. As a more useful use of Twitter, I played around with the API, and you can now track the postings from ZDNet blogs on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ZDNetBlogs.

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Shift-Insert on the Mac

March 27, 2007 @ 4:04 pm · Filed under Work

So, one of the things that I find annoying about my Mac is the lack of an insert key. Luckily, I ran across this tip somewhere (I can’t find the link any more). Function+M is the insert key on the Mac. Also, Function+Period is the delete key.

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Matt Mullenwegg Profile

March 27, 2007 @ 3:09 pm · Filed under Life, Work

The profile of Matt Mullenwegg for which I was interviewed is now available online. You can see it at either the Sydney Morning Herald or The Age (Brisbane). Dan Skeen, the author gives me a shout-out at his blog

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Interview For Sydney Morning Herald

March 6, 2007 @ 5:30 pm · Filed under Life, Work

I was interviewed yesterday by a reporter from the Sydney Morning Herald for a profile of Matt Mullenwegg he is writing.. Don’t worry Matt, I said nice things only :) . He also asked a few questions about our use of open-source, Google, and some other related topics. Now, I just have to wait to see how it comes out in print.

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