After the Google IPO last month, there’s been much comment in many media websites on Google’s future now. Lots of critical comment in particular. I’ve been following much of the commentary but not to the extent that I found anything interesting enough to comment about in my blog. Until now. And what I will comment […]
Category: Web/Tech
Their perception is your reality
If the single most important thing to any business is its reputation, then Oracle Corporation is in deep trouble. From a report published this week by market research firm Techtel: In 2Q04, opinion of Oracle by US IT professionals reached the lowest level in twelve years. This declining opinion, even against a background of declining […]
Run Firefox from USB drive
A very useful tip on running Firefox from a USB flash drive (or any removeable media, for that matter). I’ve recently had to use some PCs that aren’t my own which had Opera or some other browser, which I don’t like. Following this tip, I can have Firefox on my USB drive and use it […]
The rising influence and rapid growth of weblogs
In researching background over the weekend for a presentation I’m making at a conference in Amsterdam on 16 September, I discovered two separate but connected sets of information. Both clearly indicate that blogs as a major force of influence are beginning to be felt more strongly, and the growth in numbers of bloggers worldwide has […]
Firefox preview release available
Mozilla has announced the prelease version of the Firefox browser: Greenlane or version 0.10. Firefox | Rediscover the web Perhaps this version may sort out all my little niggles about Firefox (see here and here). Final release version 1.0 is due out in early October.
DW qo’: wa’maH ben chen ‘ach wej Doy’
German broadcaster Deutsche Welle has launched a Klingon-language website. “With its new 31st language, Klingon, DW has expanded its multi-medial offerings beyond our solar system,” the broadcaster says (with a perfectly straight face). The Klingon-language website includes an introduction to Germany – “Germany is a country located in sector 001 of the planet Earth…” – […]
IBC 2004 exhibition photos
Earlier this week, I visited the IBC 2004 Exhibition at the RAI Exhibition Center in Amsterdam. Quite an event (see my earlier post for description). In my wanderings around the 11 exhibition halls, I snapped photos here and there of exhibition stands that caught my eye. IBC 2004 Exhibition Photo Album
Firefox passes 1m downloads
From Spread Firefox: In just under 100 hours, we have smashed through our one million download campaign – with 6 days still to go! This is the fastest adoption rate we have ever experienced, higher than every previous Firefox release. This refers to one million copies of Firefox 1.0 Preview Release downloaded between its release […]
Amazon’s cool A9 search engine
This looks very, very nice – the new A9 search engine from Amazon. Wow! Features galore to customize how it looks and feels and how it searches. It’s closely connected with Amazon, so if you already have an account with Amazon, you can log in and personalize your A9. Description from A9: A9.com is a […]
Net security threats growing fast
More than 30,000 PCs per day are being recruited into secret networks that spread spam and viruses, a study shows. According to a BBC News report today, it’s too early to say whether the Service Pack 2 update for Windows XP will make a positive difference to the numbers of PCs being compromised. The report […]
Windows XP SP2 CD is everywhere
On a visit to my neighbourhood news store this morning, I noticed that the rack with all the computer magazines is chock full of mags sporting a cover-mounted Windows XP SP2 upgrade CD. What’s interesting about this is that these magazines aren’t just from The Netherlands – in addition, there are mags from Germany, France, […]
Being open on Skype has its risks
I’m a believer in Skype, the internet phone service that has on average about half a million people online at any one moment. I started using Skype in July. Calling other Skype users is totally free, which means I can chat with Skyped friends and family in places as far apart as the US, Costa […]
Plazes: Next generation social software
Following my post yesterday about metroblogging, I was discussing the concept with a friend last night and how we could get an Amsterdam city blog going. During our chat he told me about Plazes. Plazes is a web service offering information on people and places based on your location. It is the first service of […]
Outlook and Hotmail to get a separation
A report on Bink.nu says that Microsoft is un-enabling access to Hotmail from within Outlook and Outlook Express: Citing concerns about spammers abusing the service, Microsoft on Monday will announce that it is dropping a feature from its Hotmail service that currently allows non-paying customers to access their email from Outlook and Outlook Express. The […]
New validation process for Windows?
In the previous post today, I wrote about the Microsoft Time Zone utility. Here’s a very interesting thing that happens when you go to download it. When you get to the web page and click on the download link, you see the following: Before obtaining the requested download, please take a moment to validate your […]
CEO podcasting
Now here’s an extremely interesting idea from Rex Hammock, speaking about a concept called ‘podcasting’ which involves an audio recording that’s posted to a website (not necessarily a blog) that you then listen to online or download and listen to it on your iPod or other such device: I can see a much quicker adoption […]
Microsoft’s real-time collaboration plans
The Register published an interview yesterday with Anoop Gupta, Corporate Vice President of the Real-Time Collaboration Business Unit at Microsoft. Geek-focused stuff. But some interesting things that PR, marketing and other communication professionals should pay attention to. Excerpts: Real-time collaboration is basically anything that involves instant-messenger style presence. And the fact that Bill Gates’ former […]
The dotcom era saved for posterity
All those failed start-ups from the dotcom boom will live on, because the University of Maryland and the US Library of Congress see value in saving their records for posterity in a massive digital archive, InternetWeek.com reports: “We want to let today’s entrepreneurs learn from the mistakes,” said the archive project’s lead researcher, David Kirsch, […]
Firefox security update patch
Neowin reported today that Mozilla has released a security update for the Firefox browser. A notice on the Mozilla website urges users to upgrade to this latest version of the Firefox Preview Release. A patch is available for current Preview Release users. Mozilla | Important Security Update for Firefox Available
Familiarize yourself with podcasting
Last week, I posted a brief comment about podcasting as an interesting potential channel for internal communication uses such as the CEO of a company recording a message for employees. This is a good example of how it could be used in an organizational communication context. But that’s just a scratch on the surface of […]