Clark Talks the talk, but will he walk the walk?. CNN's “War in Iraq” section has an interesting article about ex-NATO commander Wesley Clark and his possible run for POTUS. Like other political candidates for the top spot, Clark has laid down some harsh criticism on Bush's Iraq policies: “We've… [Third Party WatchBlog]

SSL for VPN. SSL-based virtual private networks explained with illustrations: I've been hearing quite a bit about using SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) or TLS (Transport Layer Security, the newer name for the same thing) for remote VPN access, but didn't fully understand how it worked until reading this article. The traditional VPN requires a special… Continue reading SSL for VPN

Why Use Exchange?. After a number of comments to my previous post, some a bit acid-etched, questioning why I was using Exchange at all instead of a Lotus/IBM product for calendaring, I checked and realized I had never posted an explanation about my product choice, though it's been a staple of my informal talks and… Continue reading Why Use Exchange?

False dichotomy. Dave Winer writes today about how there are mail-reader-type aggregators and weblog-type aggregators, and that weblog-type aggregators are better. It’s a false dichotomy. . . . a GUI app gives you a richer, targeted interface. A browser is generic: it knows it’s displaying HTML, but it doesn’t know it’s displaying syndicated news items.… Continue reading False dichotomy

Check our WWWW.  Paolo on Dan Gillmor. Dan Gillmor on RSS. Dan Gillmor: One problem with the current crop of newsreaders is a sign of their youth. They assign equal weight to everything they display. So the headlines and text from Joe's Weblog get roughly the same display treatment as material from, say, the New… Continue reading Check our WWWW

NY Times: Start-Up Plans to Introduce Alternate Wi-Fi Technology. The company said it hopes to create markets by seeking out consumer wireless equipment companies serving local area networks, hoping that in a hotly contested marketplace, a higher-speed, greater-range option will soon prove advantageous, even if it is not compatible with existing software. [Tomalak's Realm]

Useit.Com: Mobile Devices: One Generation From Useful. The Sidekick is also known as the “Danger Device” or the “Hiptop.” When I saw an early Danger demo two years ago, I was excited about its potential. Now, after actually using it, I've concluded that one or two more generations of device designs are needed to achieve… Continue reading Mobile Devices: One Generation From Useful

Total Cost of Ownership and Technology Upgrades Law firm technology managers regularly face the question of when to upgrade software or hardware. The answer is neither easy nor obvious. Beware the Underlying Costs of Using Dated Technology from the New York Law Journal on law.com provides a good analysis of some of the hidden costs… Continue reading Total Cost of Ownership and Technology Upgrades

Why Mach II?. I've been asked this question a few times so I've written up my answer on a new Mach II page. I've also added some information about the Mach II request lifecycle to the concepts page…. [An Architect's View]

Hot Spots in Death Spiral. InfoWorld's Ephraim Schwartz argues that paid hot spots will be overwhelmed by cell data except in airports: I disagree with many of the premises on which Ephraim makes his argument, but I also don't think that I can prove myself correct until a few years have passed. Perhaps we need… Continue reading Hot Spots in Death Spiral