Over at the Open Source Application Foundation, Andy Hertzfeld (the brilliant designer behind the original Macintosh and the “Nautilus” GUI for Linux) has just pulled back the curtain on “Vista”, the first prototype of OSAF’s new personal information manager. Hertzfeld goes to great lengths to point out that “Vista” is not in any way a […]

Josh Marshall’s Talking Points Memo has an interesting perspective on the mounting evidence that the D.C. snipers weren’t just killing people in D.C., but had instead made a cross-country pilgramage, leaving a trail of bodies along the way. “[I]t was only when they shot five people in a matter of hours on (I believe it […]

If anyone out there has any experience with the open-source Mambo Site Server, I’d love to hear from you — I’m working on a project with it now and I’m running into some significant challenges. If you know how to Mambo, drop me a line and let’s talk!

So over the weekend I got talked into attending the big rally in downtown DC against war in Iraq. It was certainly a huge enough event; the organizers estimated 200,000 attendees, which I think is a little optimistic, but even so the sheer scale of the thing was impressive. I’ve written in this space before […]

I can’t believe I’m writing this: Today, Senator Paul Wellstone (D-MN), maybe the last fire-breathing liberal in the Senate, died in a plane crash, along with his wife and children. If you spend any time paying attention to politics, you know that the cardinal rule of the professional politician is a simple one: avoid controversy […]

As an Ohio native, I’ve spent a lot of time explaining to people here in DC that Ohio is more than “flyover country”. Ohioans are smart, sophisticated, and savvy when it comes to technology. Except, apparently, for their governor: “Tech savvy” US governor shuns email Ugh. Thanks, Gov. Taft, really — you sure know how […]

Sebastien Paquet has launched an effort to work on a problem I find particularly interesting: how to turn Weblogs into a platform to allow discussions and communities to form organically, by joining together blogs based on topics of common interest. His Wiki on RidiculouslyEasyGroupForming is the center of the discussion on the subject. Check it […]

The AP is reporting that the prime suspects in the sniper shootings that have been keeping all of us who live in Washington on our toes have been taken into custody! “President Bush was told that federal authorities were reasonably sure the case had been solved, a senior administration official told The Associated Press on […]

I can’t even begin to fully explain how exciting this is! Back in the Olden Days of personal computing (i.e., the late 1980s), Mitch Kapor — the designer of the seminal spreadsheet program for the IBM PC, Lotus 1-2-3 — teamed up with Jerry Kaplan to produce one of the most innovative, forward-thinking, startling products […]

If there’s anything that indicates how widespread blogging has become, this is it — check out The Homeless Guy, a blog by Kevin Michael Barbieux, insightful writer and — yes — homeless person. He blogs from PCs in the local library, hoping to foster “a greater awareness about the whole-ness of homeless people.” It’s definitely […]

Looks like Apple’s Switch ads are hitting home… Microsoft has a new page up detailing the experiences of a “freelance writer” (whose picture comes from a stock photography library), who made the switch from a Mac to Windows XP and now is soooooooooooooooooooo happy she could just DIE. I don’t buy it. Check out this […]

Creative Labs has just rolled out what looks like the first real competition for Apple’s iPod — the NOMAD Jukebox Zen. Same tiny form factor, same FireWire connectivity, same brushed-aluminum look, but $349 scores you 20GB of storage with the Nomad. (The same size iPod for Windows runs a hefty $499.) I’ve been a fan […]

According to the latest mozilla.org status update, support for synchronizing the Mozilla address book with PalmPilots and other PalmOS devices has just been checked into the code base for the upcoming Mozilla 1.2 release. Let me just take one moment to say… WOO-HOO!!! 🙂 This is great news. This has been one of the big […]

If you’ve ever wondered what the Big Deal about blogging is, check out this excellent overview of the subject by Sebastien Paquet. It’s a good read that makes some interesting points (such as citing Tim Berners-Lee’s, and then NCSA’s, What’s New on the Web pages as the first blogs — a connection I’d never made, […]

Microsoft has just announced their new Office file format, XDocs . That noise you hear is the sound of millions of people scratching their head at once, trying to figure out what the heck XDocs is. The MS Web site describes XDocs like this: “XDocs,” a code name for the newest member of the Microsoft […]

So I’ve recently been asked to evaluate various content management systems (CMSes, for short), and after exhaustive analysis, I can sum up the marketplace in two words: They suck. No, seriously. All of them. They ALL SUCK. What is the matter here? Why can’t the collective intelligence of thousands of bright engineers come up with […]

So I’m sitting out right now on Mount Vernon Avenue in Alexandria, volunteering for Art on the Avenue, a neighborhood festival. Our company is sponsoring a few events, including a photo gallery of local people’s dogs, and art by local kids. It’s pretty funny — you should see these dogs mug for the camera! (I’ll […]

Look’s like RageBoy’s got quite the fan club!

Did you ever have one of those days when you felt like you could just take the world by the scruff of the neck and SWING, and you just KNEW you’d throw it farther and faster than anyone ever had before, but you weren’t allowed to do it? Man. I HATE that feeling. I feel […]