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Jedi build their own lightsabers. By Marc Hedlund I was down at Stanford recently with Adam, and sat in on one of the classes he's taking there. Later on, I looked around at some of the resources Stanford makes available on the web. They provide a lot of fantastic material for free. One thing I… Continue reading Jedi build their own lightsabers

redMine: Open Source Project Management and Issue Tracking Rails App. redMine is an open source project management and issue tracking Web app, created by Jean Philippe Lang and released under the GPL. There's a live demo of the system available. Features include multiple user support, SVN and diff browsers, LDAP support, support for several different… Continue reading redMine: Open Source Project Management and Issue Tracking Rails App

Microsoft Fails to Spring Forward. As we prepare for the early arrival of Daylight Savings Time (DST) this weekend, there are many opinions as to whether it will cause Y2K-level trouble for computer systems or not. But a number of readers say it's already been a major pain for their companies, primarily because Microsoft was… Continue reading Microsoft Fails to Spring Forward

Freebase and the wars over metadata Like Dave , I find the hype over Freebase confusing. What it can become is a good repository of structured data that is poured into it by anyone with access to something useful. The key to that is how easy it is to both add and extract value from… Continue reading Freebase and the wars over metadata

Petraeus interview MSNBC . His next area of emphasis: Some of the facility protection security forces, particularly, those within the ministry of health and other key ministries, certainly have shown significant sectarian biases and they have to be dealt with as well. So, there's going to be effort required in this area. This is going… Continue reading Petraeus interview

Apple stores get the last laugh. Apple: America’s best retailer is a great article about Apple and its stores. The critics were way off… “Sorry Steve, Here’s Why Apple Stores Won’t Work,” BusinessWeek wrote with great certainty in 2001. “It’s desperation time in Cupertino, Calif.,” opined TheStreet.com. “I give [Apple] two years before they’re turning… Continue reading Apple stores get the last laugh

Jon's best practices for servers. This is a consolidation of general best practices for servers I've learned and developed over the years. Feel free to share some of your own as well! Never use telnet or ftp – use ssh or sftp instead. Never use HTTP with anything that could compromise the integrity of your… Continue reading Jon's best practices for servers

Rails File Uploading 101. Mike Clark has put together a stunningly simple tutorial covering how to create a complete file uploading and image resizing system in mere minutes using Rick Olson's attachment_fu plugin. What impresses me the most is that he shows how attachment_fu can automatically store uploaded files on Amazon's S3 service with only… Continue reading Rails File Uploading 101

George W. Bush, Branding Guru? Think brand guru, and what names come to mind? Theodore Levitt. David Ogilvy. Phil Kotler. Regis McKenna. But one brand guru is widely unrecognized — George W. Bush. Bush as brand guru? Bush occupies the White House. His historic role will be long be debated for initiating the war in… Continue reading George W. Bush, Branding Guru?

How to Defeat Brand Insurgents The video of the Comcast technician asleep while on hold to his company’s technical support. The numerous online forums about Dell’s shoddy customer service. The broken screens on Apple’s Nano and poor battery life on early generations of iPod. The tax return errors of H&R Block. Wal-Mart’s labor policies. What… Continue reading How to Defeat Brand Insurgents