Calming Anil Dash's concerns of shiny technology. Anil Dash from Six Apart is worried that Blinksale is getting attention for all the wrong reasons. That just because it’s using Ruby on Rails, features snappy Ajax, and is built by a small team it should be inherently deserving of attention. Christian from xml-blog tries his hand [...]

Instant outlining revisited. It's been quite a while since I wrote about instant outlining, a feature of Radio UserLand that's now also available in the OPML Editor based on the open source Frontier kernel. On that project's support site Dave Winer writes: It's like Instant Messaging, but instead of just a little phrase or sentence, [...]

No magic bullet for security. Some say that open source software is inherently secure because the “open source process” makes it so. Wrong. Open source software, and the collaborative culture that surrounds it, have surely enhanced Firefox's security. But also necessary is a disciplined approach to reducing the attack surface area. And one of the [...]

DEVONthink Pro Public Beta 2. DEVONtechnologies has released the second DEVONthink Pro Public Beta. I've kept abreast of this one for a while now, and am pleasantly surprised by its capabilities with each new version. If you're running a Mac, and need a heavy-duty but user-friendly application for managing your writing, research, freeform information, and [...]

Not that you were worrying about Hollywood. But if you were worried about gigantic movie studio profits, don't. Their numbers look fine, as that Slate article reveals. They might have a looming problem with DVD releases being more attractive to consumers than paying more money to sit in a movie theater and endure blaring advertising. [...]

Designing ROI. Madhouse Munchies generates $500,000 a year selling chips. Madhouse Munchies hires R.BIRD to redesign their packaging. “In six months, with no new advertising, Madhouse was selling about 50 more bags of chips a month in every store. By year’s end its chips were in 1,000 new retail locations, and today, with the same [...]

Defining a Baseline Audit Policy. It's vital that you create a baseline audit policy to audit for security events on critical systems. Mitch Tulloch, author of Windows Server Hacks, helps you define the best audit policies for Windows Server 2003 server roles. [Meerkat: An Open Wire Service]

You're Genuine, Ready or Not. Today, Microsoft made mandatory its Windows Genuine Advantage program. Mandatory means that many Windows users will have to validate their software to get updates or other software from Microsoft. No validation, no software. Windows Update will still fetch security updates … [Microsoft Monitor]

Blinksale: Do your Rails invoices in a Rails app. Now that you’ve made it out of the ghetto and joined the hundreds of professional Rails programmers making a living enjoying your work life, you’ll need an invoice system to match. Blinksale might just be what you need. It’s a snazzy Ruby on Rails application by [...]

Wil Shipley. The Drunken Blog interviews Wil Shipley, formerly of Omni, now of Delicious Monster. Lots of good stuff in there, about how Omni is on its way down the tubes and how he wrote the nifty video-camera-barcode-scanning stuff in Delicious Library. [Ceejbot]