Oh no! I guess it was a matter of time before it happened. I just got an email from LinkedIn where someone is asking for investment opportunities around the globe.
I guess this will lead to LinkedIn offering a service to verify users. For a fee of course.
Looks like Google has thrown Skype (Yahoo) a curve ball by introducing video chat.. right inside your browser. All you have to do is download and install a plugin and enable it in your gtalk from within gmail.
Now that is what I call bringing VoIP to the masses.
Chat anyone?
Is Google breaking OpenID by not adhering to the already established standards?
I am glad they are embracing OpenID, the problem I have is how they are going about it. To make OpenID work, everyone needs to be on the same sheet of music. Google’s new way is to have you enter your email address instead of your OpenID provider URL.
With that said, I do like the concept of your email provider being your OpenID provider as well, one less thing to remember (not that its hard to remember a URL), and after all OpenID was created to help consolidate the multitude of authentications that you already have to remember.
I am not a big fan of “embrace and extend” when it breaks the system down. If they wish to extend the way OpenID works, there should be a consensus within the OpenID community.
I just got back from day 1 at BarCamp San Diego. This was my first BarCamp experience and I have to say, that it will not be my last. Barcamp’s put the full meaning behind the word “unconference“.
Bar Camp San Diego
The most interesting talk that I attended today was on the subject of Hot Trends & Search given by Michael Dorausch a prolific blogger and Los Angeles Chiropractor. He and some interesting ideas on driving traffic to your website and am going to get started implementing some of them right away.
Looking forward to next year.
I am not sure if any of you keep up with Microsoft and Linux stuff at the level of say… Groklaw. Anyway if you do, you may remember that at about the same time Novell and Microsoft fell in love with each other, Steve Ballmer started spewing that Linux had a lot of Microsoft intellectual property in it.
Well as usual the Open Source community didn’t sit on their laurels to long. They have responded with a site called Show Us The Code, which says:
If Linux developers are made aware of the code and patented ideas, then the code can be omitted and Linux can re-write necessary aspects of the kernel or operating system. This is a fairly simple request and common courtesy. Why wave around lawsuit threats, threats that will cost Microsoft in a court room as well as the defendants? It lacks logic, especially when you consider that there are developers around the world who would be more than happy to work with Microsoft to resolve this issue. Don’t you owe it to your shareholders to work with others to ensure their intellectual property isn’t being violated?
Sounds fair enough to me… how about you?
I *really* like most of Google’s services… It may take a while for me to like/get used to them but I eventually come around. One of the latest is Google Docs & Spreadsheets (formally known as Writely). I use it all the time now to keep notes.
If you use Firefox and docs.google.com you may have noticed that if you highlight something to cut/copy and paste you get the following error:
"Your browser does not allow access to your computer's clipboard.
Instead, use CTRL+C, ......"
If you have looked in the Firefox security settings there is nothing that controls such a beast. The solution is to either edit or create (if there is not one there) a user.js file at:
C:\Documents and Settings\Windows login name\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\weird folder name\
Append the following to your user.js file:
user_pref("capability.policy.policynames", "allowclipboard");
user_pref("capability.policy.allowclipboard.sites", "http://docs.google.com");
user_pref("capability.policy.allowclipboard.Clipboard.cutcopy", "allAccess");
user_pref("capability.policy.allowclipboard.Clipboard.paste", "allAccess");
Now close completely out of Firefox, including Quick Launch in the task bar if you have it running, and start it up again.
The next time you visit docs.google.com and try to right click to cut/copy/paste, you will notice that it works like a charm.
Oh my word! Like I have been saying for a while now… these guys have it going on.
Now I see what Jonathan Schwartz has been hinting around at for the last couple of weeks.
If anyone is looking to implement a NAS type of storage solution, you may want to take a look at Openfiler. Openfiler is kind of a cross between a NAS and a SAN.
It looks like Ruby on Rails is getting large enough to have its own conference.
RailsConf 2006
Rails seems to be raising some eyebrows in the Java communty as well. Ruby the Rival over at OnJava.com is an inteview with four Java “luminaries” about the possible impact of Ruby on Rails in the enterprise. Some of them are even taking the time to sip on a glass of Kool-Aid.
Note: Make sure that you have mkisofs and ncftpget installed before starting.
First we need to make a directory structure that will hold the files that we will be downloading from the OpenBSD mirror closest to you.
cd /usr/local
mkdir -p OpenBSD/3.8/i386
cd OpenBSD/3.8/i386
You could have have made the directory structure anywhere you wanted, I just preferred to put it in:
/usr/local
Next we will need to retrieve all of the files that we will need to install OpenBSD from our ISO.
ncftpget ftp://ftp2.usa.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/3.8/i386/*
Once all of our files have been downloaded, you will end up at the command prompt again. Now we need to go up in our directory structure a bit so that we can build our ISO.
cd ../..
Now for the command to make the ISO:
mkisofs -vrTJV "OpenBSD38" -b 3.8/i386/cdrom38.fs -c boot.catalog -o OpenBSD38.iso /usr/local/OpenBSD/
That command should all be on a single line.
Thats all there is to it. You should now have your shiny new ISO image in /usr/local/OpenBSD with the name OpenBSD3.8.iso.