Month: September 2001

Medical Records Made Easy. So many hospitals, so many forms. An IBM computer team works to develop a universal medical record that combines personal data while protecting patients' privacy. Mark K. Anderson reports from the Future of Health Technology Summit in Cambridge, Massachusetts. [Wired News]

John Robb: “In 1932, JFC Fuller, a lone British military strategist wrote an innovative book on a new strategy of warfare that fueled the development of Blitzkrieg (without BlitzKrieg Germany's war machine would have stalled in France ala WWI).  Heinz Guderian read Fuller's book and got the funding to implement its lessons into an advanced armored unit he commanded (much of… Continue reading John Robb: “In 1932, JFC Fuller, a lone British military strategist wrote an innovative book on a new strategy of warfare that fueled the development of Blitzkrieg (without BlitzKrieg Germany's war machine would have stalled in France ala WWI).  Heinz Guderian read Fuller's book and got the funding to implement its lessons into an advanced armored unit he commanded (much of his training was done with cardboard tanks).  During the invasion of France, despite pressure by his military superiors (who were not schooled in the new way of warfare) to halt his advance, Guderian drove his tank unit across the low countries to the sea.  This rapid action trapped the British expeditionary force in Dunkirk (which almost resulted in their utter anhilation) and set the stage for the rapid occupation of France. 

“Luckily for us, no military strategist has written the book that provides the basis for the new type of asymetrical warfare we now find ourselves in. Although I have to admit, I almost did write that book a decade ago but felt that it would be immoral to do so since it was certainly to provide more help to an attacker than a defender (us).  Bin Laden is certainly implementing some of the concepts I planned to write about, but he clearly lacks the theoretical basis for effective follow up.  This gives me hope that we can develop effective counter-measures in time to prevent real destruction.  I am still glad I didn't write the book.” [John Robb's Radio Weblog

Wired.  Unmanned Aircraft to be used in Afghanistan.  These are great recon weapons.  Unfortunately, the US is way behind what can be done with UAVs in a combat role.  A low cost, UAV for ground troops could be a way to significantly enhance the capabilities of our ground forces.  UAVs equiped with night vision, a… Continue reading Wired

developerWorks: How to create flexible sites quickly using standards like CSS and XHTML: “What do you do when you need to have a Web site done “yesterday”? This article answers that question, showing you how to create sites quickly and flexibly using Web standards like cascading style sheets (CSS), structural HTML, and server-side includes. It… Continue reading How to create flexible sites quickly using standards like CSS and XHTML

Innovation in Classification. In this post, two threads are at work. The first addresses an issue often raised in user-centered design, which is that its discipline and process don't encourage innovation… [xBlog: Visual thinking linking | XPLANE]

Interactive Week: Expert: Net Is Vulnerable. Part of the problem is that the Internet was basically built by people who liked each other, he said. “Now there are people out there who are adverse to us, who don't like us. And they have access to the Internet's technology, too. So there is a vulnerability, and… Continue reading Expert: Net Is Vulnerable

NY Times: Travelers Warm Up to Videoconferencing. But even as fears of flying began to recede and airline schedules returned to near normal, there were signs that the moment of crisis might be prompting a nation of road warriors to consider supplementing travel with teletechnology as a general practice. [Tomalak's Realm]

Gartner: Time to Drop IIS. Gartner recommends that businesses hit by both Code Red and Nimda immediately investigate alternatives to IIS, including moving Web applications to Web server software from other vendors such as iPlanet and Apache. Although those Web servers have required some security patches, they have much better security records than IIS and… Continue reading Gartner: Time to Drop IIS

PHP Interface for HierMenus 4. Among its other features, you can use PHP to retrieve, format, and pass dynamic data to Web pages as JavaScript structures. Guest author J. “JC” Chakrabarty introduces this capability by discussing his PHP/MySQL interface to HierMenus 4. 0924 [WebReference News]

National Review by Dave Kopel – Don't Press the Panic Button. The antiterrorism legislation before Congress is dangerous. Congress is being asked to rush to pass emergency antiterrorist legislation written by the Department of Justice. House Committee hearings are scheduled for Friday, Senate hearings for Tuesday, and the DOJ is demanding the bill be enacted… Continue reading Don't Press the Panic Button