Software, Digital Content, Geopolitics, Economics & More from of a Libertarian Serial Expat and Entrepreneur
Three months ago I asked for advice about bug reporting systems. I got feedback from Eric Snowdeal who mentioned RT: Request Tracker (which looked too generic to my taste), while Doug Kaye had "used Bugzilla on a few projects with good results" but wasn’t the one who had to install it. Belatedly, thanks to both [...]
John Ludwig: Cameraphone Sales John quotes a Reuters article claiming Camera phones are set to be fastest-ever selling consumer product, and doesn’t see the underlying usage. I couldn’t agree more. Just because the feature is bundled doesn’t mean it’s what’s either driving sales or what’s people are going to use in the end anyway (which [...]
In: music
11 Nov 2003The idea of playing Planet Rock on the piano is less weird once you actually listen to it. The ominous, cold, urban bass line is right at home there. Jason Moran: Modernistic.
In: user experience
10 Nov 2003Signal vs. Noise: Shopping by Color "J.Crew now lets you shop by color. For example, here are brown or grey or green sweaters." Here’s the shop-by-color landing page. Excellent idea, it would make even more sense if they supported that feature across the whole selection and not just for sweaters.
Fast Company: How MapQuest Gets You From Here to There "MapQuest uses state-of-the-art satellite images and computer algorithms, but it also relies on actual observations in the field. So it is that an army of modern-day explorers is continually remapping the nation."
CFO Magazine: Drowning in Data "Experts estimate that anywhere from 10 percent to 30 percent of the data flowing through corporate systems is bad
In: software
6 Nov 2003Corp Law Blog: Painful Lessons: Fannie Mae’s Press Release From Hell "[A]s it was preparing its third quarter Form 10-Q, Fannie’s accounting staff discovered that their FAS 149 calculations understated the value of Fannie’s mortgage loan commitments by $1.3 billion, resulting in a $1.1 billion understatement of Fannie’s net worth. Fannie attributed this to "human [...]
Matt Haughey: Receipt, please "And yet, in 2003, I have to save a piece of paper for five years if I ever want my washer fixed under the purchased warranty. It’s as if all parties have agreed that despite our level of data sophistication, we’ll instead act as if it’s 75 years ago and everything [...]
InternetNews: Microsoft Ga-Ga Over Google? Microsoft (or Yahoo) should have bought Google two years ago. Now I’m not sure the price is going to be right. What’s more interesting in this article is this datapoint: "The company reportedly hired Paul Ryan, Overture’s former CTO, to lead its new search effort."
Infoworld: Yahoo dissolves enterprise products group "Yahoo will phase out its business portal offerings My Yahoo Enterprise Edition and Yahoo Portal Solutions as well as the Yahoo Broadcast Solutions webcast services. Existing customers will continue to be supported, but Yahoo will stop selling the products and won’t renew contracts that expire."
I'm CEO of an online trade publishing firm in the marketing and defense verticals. We try to make news and data digestible and useful in an environment that is more noisy each day. This personal blog mixes my thoughts and interests on politics, business, software, and more, based on my business and personal experiences. Over the years I have posted items that turned out spectacularly wrong, and a few posts that stood the test of times better. Personal views only.