Author: Vince Kimball

Real code is important. Dave Winer says that the Semantic Web is overhyped. I'd say it's worse than that. The whole metadata movement is overhyped. Folks are always trying to get me to type in some metadata. Look at Microsoft Office from a few years ago. It tried to get me to enter in more… Continue reading Real code is important

Oh the Things We Could Do with WorldCat!. Wow – Peter Janes caught a heck of a post by Tim Bray about OCLC's WorldCat database! About as Big as the Web “In recent months, I've been having serious fun on the job working with OCLC WorldCat data. WorldCat is big – about as big as… Continue reading Oh the Things We Could Do with WorldCat!

Adaptive Path: Fifteen Tips for Remote Collaboration. It will always be easier to rally a group of people who work in the same building, but you can accomplish just as much (or more) with a motivated remote team. Getting team members motivated in the first place and holding their interest are your goals. Here are… Continue reading Fifteen Tips for Remote Collaboration

My brother is now working for a law firm and already he's telling me to “lean on the Office team” and get them to fix their software so that he can dump Word Perfect. He told me, here, read what Ernie the Attorney said about Word.  [The Scobleizer Weblog]

The Impossible Task for America's Spies. The Bush administration's doctrine of pre-emption presumes that American intelligence can ferret out the most secret of foreign science with near infallibility. By William J. Broad. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]

I bought a new PowerBook G4 yesterday at the Apple Store at the Northshore Mall in Peabody.

Instant Messaging thru Wi-Fi.  Smart Mobs reports that Trepia provides a new networking tool that lets you access a location-based list of other nearby WiFi users.  So if you are sitting at the cafe and you see a desirable member of the opposite sex (and he/she is using a computer with Wi-Fi) you can send a message and “make… Continue reading Instant Messaging thru Wi-Fi

  The Textbook Oligarchs  Everyone claims to want ardently that US students get a better education.  But the dynamics of a struggle between an oligopsony and an oligopsony has got in the way, The oligopoly is the textbook publishing industry. Four companies together own 70% of the textbook market. They are Harcourt (a division of Reed Elsevier), Houghton-Mifflin,… Continue reading   The Textbook Oligarchs

 Everyone claims to want ardently that US students get a better education.  But the dynamics of a struggle between an oligopsony and an oligopsony

ThreadsML.org.  ThreadsML. Yay, David Weinberger has put up the ThreadsML web site. Discussions around ThreadsML, and hard work on getting QT Pro… [Blur Circle] If you're into the future of conversations – then come on over and check out the posts, Wiki and on-going development of a new data structure for interchangeable threads and APIs… Continue reading ThreadsML.org

Libraries, playlists and shows. Wi-Fi Home Media Networks. This editorial from Patrick Houston at ZDNet provides good analysis on the challenges in creating a standard for PC – CE media convergence.  He talks about several emerging products based on Intel's Digital Media Adapter (DMA) reference design, which provides a standard approach for moving media between… Continue reading Libraries, playlists and shows