Author: Vince Kimball

Welcome to the mini-bubble. I don't have extensive evidence for this claim, but it sure feels like we're in a mini-bubble. (I'd call it a recovery, but I'm not sure it is one.) At least here, in Silicon Valley, it sure seems like things are starting to turn around–in some industries. There are several tech… Continue reading Welcome to the mini-bubble

Slashdot | Self-Destructing DVD's Coming Soon. BrianH writes “Looks like a close cousin of everybody's favorite self-destructing video format is making a comeback. Four years after Circuit City and its Hollywood backers pulled the plug on the self-expiring DVD concept, FlexPlay Technologies has introduced the EZ-D…a 48-hour self-expiring DVD disk. The difference? This time around… Continue reading Self-Destructing DVD's Coming Soon

Yahoo!'s Jeremy Zawodny Claims MySQL 4.X Rocks. Yahoo! Inc.'s MySQL expert Jeremy Zawodny applauds MySQL Version 4.X in a March 10 entry on his personal weblog called “MySQL Full-Text Search Rocks My World.” In it, Jeremy describes how the full-text search feature in MySQL 4.0.10 came to his rescue and made his life “way easier.”… Continue reading Yahoo!'s Jeremy Zawodny Claims MySQL 4.X Rocks

Blue World ships FileMakerPro to MySQL Kit. Blue World Communications, Inc. – pioneers of the Web Data Engine™ – today shipped the FMP2MySQL Kit. The free kit includes tools and tutorials for converting FileMaker Pro solutions to MySQL. The kit is designed to make it extremely easy for novice users to migrate Web-bound FileMaker Pro… Continue reading Blue World ships FileMakerPro to MySQL Kit

Notes and Tips: DiskWarrior Boots Mac OS X. DiskWarrior, an essential data-recovery utility, is shipping in a new version that can boot Mac OS X from CD, according to a reader. [MacInTouch]

Paper Prototyping.  I've basically given up on software prototypes. If the prototype can do everything the product can do, it might as well be the product, and if it can't, it's not much use. Luckily, there's a much better idea: paper prototypes, which neatly solve this problem and the iceberg problem in one fell swoop.… Continue reading Paper Prototyping

RSS, catalogs, Koha, and more. We've put together an RSS porthole into the DB sitting behind Koha.  At this point, we've only got a proof of concept, but I'd love to hear peoples ideas about how to use this more effectively. To see some additional information (with screen shots, and links to RSS), please point… Continue reading RSS, catalogs, Koha, and more

Help Larry Lessig re-populate the public domain. Each time Congress passes a law extending the term of copyrights it means that works that might otherwise pass into the public domain (where they can be used for free by our information-hungry citzenry) don't.  Only a very small percentage of the works that get these perpetual extensions are… Continue reading Help Larry Lessig re-populate the public domain

An expert film critic's review of the Matrix Reloaded. I'm a bush league amateur when it comes to film critique.  Adam Gopnik's explantion of flaws in the Matrix Reloaded nails it: “Matrix Reloaded” is, unlike the first film, a conventional comic-book movie, in places a campy conventional comic-book movie, and in places a ludicrously campy… Continue reading An expert film critic's review of the Matrix Reloaded

'Our Final Hour': Global Warning. After considering bioterror, nuclear war, asteroids and nanoparticles, Martin Rees gives humanity only a 50-50 chance of surviving the 21st century. By Dennis Overbye. [New York Times: Books]