A very interesting article on a four day work week.

How to Configure an $80 File Server in 45 Minutes. I use a modded Xbox and Xbox Media Center for playing media files across the network on my television and sound system. I also download large files, such as Linux ISOs, via BitTorrent. However, leaving my primary computer on all the time seemed like a [...]

Know your rules of engagement. by Bob Walsh One of my favorite sites, thinkvitamin.com, just put up a post I’d recommend every micro-ISV read: Tara Hunt on The Rules of Engagement. Tara sets out to answer: What is that magic ingredient that turns people from ‘consumers’ of your software into active and enthusiastic evangelists? The [...]

Why Widgets mean money for micro-ISVs. by Bob Walsh Two recent posts have turned my mind back toward the subject of widgets and micro-ISVs. A widget is basically a mini application that runs in any number of ways — on your desktop, and Google sidebar, and Windows live, in any number of third-party applications and [...]

Alex Hudson: Hula Status. So, Peter has confirmed the news some of us assumed, but didn't want to talk about – that Novell is no longer commercially going to develop Hula. This is sad for so many reasons; for me, primarily because they don't seem to see the demand for this that I do. So [...]

Sal Taylor Kydd, the head of product for Yahoo TV thanks you for your feedback on the new site. In the meantime I switched to TV Guide, which compares favorably to the old Yahoo TV site. There's a lesson here, one that I learned in 1984, when I shipped a new product with less functionality [...]

I hope everyone in the U.S. had a Happy Thanksgiving last week. I had a great time visiting family in Ohio.

Fresh ideas for micro-iSVs. By Bob Walsh One of the things you hear over and over in this business is how hard it is to find an idea to build a micro-ISV on. True! The great thing about ideas is that lots of people have them, and some do a really good job of explaining [...]

Attacking Bank-Card PINs. Research paper by Omer Berkman and Odelia Moshe Ostrovsky: “The Unbearable Lightness of PIN Cracking“: Abstract. We describe new attacks on the financial PIN processing API. The attacks apply to switches as well as to verification facilities. The attacks are extremely severe allowing an attacker to expose customer PINs by executing only [...]

How to make money on cars with less. With Ford and GM losing billions and millions respectively, one might think competition is turning the car game into one of slim pickings for profits. Not so, says Porsche, and posts profits of 2.7 billion dollars. What’s their secret? One overarching design that’s been stable for 40 [...]