March, 2008

Overheard: Water, electricity, gas and Twitter?

If last year’s SXSW was Twitter’s coming out party, this year it achieved utility status. A utility is something that is always on, and essential. To lose it would be to thrust yourself into the dark ages. Water, electricity, gas … and Twitter. Sound like an exaggeration? Not for anyone who has spent the last few days watching the incessant live twittering at SXSW. Rohit Bhargava, 6 Reasons Twitter Rocks and Sucks Simultaneously At SXSW

A look at Twitter just one year ago…

Overheard: Why the mainframe didn’t die

“The mainframe survived its near-death experience and continues to thrive because customers didn’t care about the underlying technology. Customers just wanted the mainframe to do its job at a lower cost, and IBM made the investments to make that happen.” Irving Wladawsky-Berger as quoted in Why Old Technologies Are Still Kicking

John Belmont shows us IBM’s newest mainframe, the Z10. It has a starting price of about a million dollars.

Overheard: WildCharge is the real deal

I set my WildCharge pad up on my nightstand. After a phone chat, I tossed my RAZR cellphone over to the charging pad; four magnetic contact points on the phone’s adapter helped it stick to the pad. A chime indicated my phone made electrical contact and started charging…I really grew fond of not hunting for the correct cord to charge my phone. Instead, I’d finish conversations, reach over and simply drop my phone down as if I was laying it on the table.  Katherine Boehret, A Pad to Easily Power Up Your Phone

I really want one of these.

Overheard: Forget hiding your SSID — pay attention to what you name it

Many people (including myself) have tried to “hide” SSID as a security measure. Unfortunately, efforts to hide SSID ultimately fail and degrade overall WLAN performance. Lisa Phifer, Configuring service set identifiers

SSIDs are analogous to Windows workgroup names. PCs use those names to browse a network neighborhood and discover others in the same workgroup. When a PC actually tries to access a fileshare, permission is determined by computer name, user name and password. Similarly, stations use SSID to discover APs in the same ESS, but access depends upon other parameters like the station’s address, WEP keys and 802.1X credentials. Access requests must carry the right name, but the workgroup or ESS name is not a password – it identifies the resource to be accessed.

Overheard: Egress filtering

The biggie in regards to Extrusion Detection is what ports are allowed egress at the perimeter. If you are serious about stopping information from leaking out, then you must enforce policy regarding what ports you allow egress, then you must have a way to apply policy to what is traveling egress on those ports. Your culture in regards to “acceptable use” will drive the solution. Corey Elinburg, Some Thoughts On Data Leakage / Extrusion Prevention

Video: Microsoft data centers

Video: Jack St. Clair Kilby, inventor of the integrated circuit

Video: Blogger Robert Scoble talks about how he manages his email

Overheard: Email bankruptcy

I am so far behind on e-mail that I am declaring bankruptcy. If you’ve sent me an e-mail (and you aren’t my wife, partner, or colleague), you might want to send it again. I am starting over. Fred Wilson, Declaring Bankruptcy

Overheard: HDTV is going to be replaced by OLED

Now that Sony has emerged victorious in the HD disc format war, it appears as if they will be turning their attention to the next great HDTV technology, OLED. Charlie Robb, Sony to Spend $200 Million on new OLED Technology