Clik here to view.
College sports needs more and smaller conferences
Sports: From the New Bern (NC) Sun-Journal, a sensible reaction to the ACC expansion debacle. I remember the Pac-8: Why not put a relatively low cap on the number of schools allowed in a conference?...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Post 1023
Tech: Los Angeles Times: Broadband Market Is About to Heat Up: “The regional phone companies seem to be off to a strong start. In the first quarter, they added slightly more than 1 million broadband...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Post 1033
Tech: CNN.com — Microsoft thinks small — Jun 17, 2004: “Microsoft is rejiggering plans to cater to the more specialized needs of small businesses, part of a wider effort to find new revenue streams to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Microsoft lowers Windows prices as Paris officials consider Linux
Tech: Yahoo! News — Microsoft Cuts Prices As Paris Eyes Linux: “The software giant agreed to cut prices to suppliers who work with the city ‘to the order of’ 60 percent, said a Paris official, who...
View ArticleClik here to view.
They Might Be Giants and DRM
One of my favorite bands, They Might Be Giants (TMBG) answers questions about DRM, from MSNBC: “Q: Is this the way you see things going in the future — artists securing digital rights? A: It was a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Post 1456
Tech: Sharon Weinbar discusses the proliferation of spyware. There’s a brief discussion of Claria, a major Yahoo advertiser. The company earns about US$90M in revenue annually, and uses spyware to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Wheelock’s Latin holds the line on high textbook prices
USA: The new edition of Wheelock’s Latin is out. I had four years of Latin in high school, and thought it really helped my vocabulary and grammar. So here’s my plug: take Latin. Wheelock died years...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Post 1530
USA: Cell phone customers are getting nickled-and-dimed by telecoms, as T-Mobile, AT&T Wireless and others charge customers directly for Federal fees. Congress intended the telecoms to pay the fees...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Free anti-virus protection for Windows PCs
Snopes reports that a new mass-mailing worm tells users that they have visited “illegal websites”. This reminded me that it’s time for my regular end-of-term anti-virus spiel.The winter holidays are...
View ArticleClik here to view.
AOL to slash 5000 jobs
This article first appeared on my old blog at http://www.bloglines.com/blog/wsodeman?id=37 URL: AOL to slash 5,000 jobs The death spiral for AOL’s dialup business hit a new low this week, as the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Dell recalls 4M laptop computer batteries
This article first appeared on my old blog at http://www.bloglines.com/blog/wsodeman?id=46 http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060814/ap_on_hi_te/dell_battery_recall “The [Consumer Product Safety Commission]....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Skype will charge for calls within Canada and the US
This article first appeared in my old blog at http://www.bloglines.com/blog/wsodeman?id=269 http://www.informationweek.com/industries/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=196603857...
View ArticleClik here to view.
IT services are ripe for acquisition
Business Week’s Steve Rosenbush filed a story today about the IT services industry. This includes a wide range of services, from colocation to outsourced services. The enterprise sector of this...
View ArticleClik here to view.
When users block the ads, should web sites block the users?
The New York Times ran an interesting story today about ad blocking software for web browsers. I’ve used variations of ad blocking over the last few years, in an effort to speed up my Internet...
View ArticleClik here to view.
New York Times frees its content – Wall Street Journal may be next
In the past, I’ve posted links to articles in the New York Times in this blog. I read the Times’ web site several times a week. I got into the Times Web habit in 1995, actually. It beats waiting for...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Skype loses its hype
Yesterday, Forbes reported on eBay’s continuing problems with Skype. Om Malik also discussed this development yesterday. eBay purchased the VoIP company in 2005. eBay CEO Deb Whitman wanted eBays...
View ArticleClik here to view.
eBay’s new CEO
Meg Whitman, eBay’s CEO, is stepping down after a brutal year for the company. The New York Times reports that John Donahoe will be promoted from president of the Marketplace division, and will assume...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Microsoft makes offer for Yahoo
As I told my IS 7010 class last night, Microsoft wants to buy Yahoo. Microsoft made the announcement this morning (AP, New York Times, ValleyWag, BoingBoing). The offer is almost US$45 billion in cash,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Coworking
When consultants, contractors and startups need office space, where should they go? The New York Times profiles several coworking groups who share an office. People rent a desk. In one cowork group,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Blogging as a business model
The New York Times published an article that analyzes why bloggers get into the business. More bloggers are using their sites to earn revenue from advertising links, promote their products and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Dell plans $3 billion in cuts
April Fool’s Day is a bad day to announce a major strategy shift. Case in point: Dell announced today that the company will slash US$3 billion in costs over the next 3 years, according to PC World via...
View ArticleThe all-seeing advertising cookie
According to the New York Times, UK company Phorm has developed the long-feared ultimate ad-serving cookie. The term “cookie” is a nickname for persistent client-side web browser data. Cookies solve...
View ArticleIDG shifts from print to digital
IDG, the publisher of InfoWorld, ComputerWorld, MacWorld and other technology magazines has been shifting away from paper to online editions. This New York Times article mentions that the transition...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Software and services — free or paid?
There are plenty of great free software applications and services available on the Web. In some cases, payment removes advertising and enables more features. Some require a subscription or a one-time...
View ArticleClik here to view.
GPS and mobile phones
As the rumors swirl about a new iPhone model, there’s speculation that the phone will include a GPS chipset. The original iPhone simulated GPS though some Google technology, as described in this...
View ArticleClik here to view.
LinkedIn’s valuation reaches US$1 billion
LinkedIn, which has become the leading social network for professionals, tripled its size last month. Europe, North America and India are the main sources for new members, and the site is adding 5...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Scrabble vs Scrabulous
Electronic Arts is publishing an authorized version of Scrabble for US and Canadian users of Facebook. It will compete head-to-head against the popular Indian knockoff Scrabulous, which has become a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A torrent of textbooks
As we approach the start of the academic year, the rising cost of almost everything has created a surge of interest in electronic books, in legal and unlicensed versions. As we’ve discussed in earlier...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer may go web-only
Interesting news, but Seattle would still have a newspaper left if the P-I stopped publishing a dead tree edition. If Hearst shutters the Houston or San Francisco Chronicle, that’s a different story....
View ArticleClik here to view.
LinkExtend for Firefox
I’m surprised at how many of my students are using Firefox this semester. For the first time, there are more Firefox users than Internet Explorer users in my classes. I’m not sure how many of these...
View Article