Matt Croydon::Postneo

Month: January 2003

  • CodeCon 2003

    Advogato:

    The CodeCon 2003 program is now announced, and registration is open.

    CodeCon 2003 will be February 22-24, noon-6pm at Club NV in San Francisco, California.

    Here is a list of presentations:

    • Advogato – Good metadata, even when under attack, based on a trust metric
    • Alluvium – p2p media streaming for low-bandwidth broadcasters
    • Bayonne – Telephony application services for freely licensed operating systems
    • Cryptopy – pure [unadulterated] Python crypto
    • DeepGreen – Agent Oriented investment analysis designed to be self-funding
    • GNU radio – Hacking the RF Spectrum with Free Software and Hardware
    • HOTorNOT – People submit their picture for others to rate from 1 to 10
    • Hydan – Steganographically conceal a message into an executable application
    • Khashmir – A distributed hash table library upon which applications can be built
    • Mixminion – A next-generation anonymous remailer
    • Neurogrid – Decentralized Fuzzy Meta-Data Search
    • OpenRatings – An open source professor ratings engine
    • Paketto Keiretsu – Interesting and Useful Techniques for TCP/IP Networking
    • YouServ – A communal web-hosting system for the masses

    This sounds like one of the best (open source) hacker cons that will be held this year.  I really hope that I’m able to stumble to a con like this someday.  I have a feeling that this will be one of the biggest open source events that you (and I) didn’t go to this year.

  • AOL-XXX

    My friend Mike recieved an AOL cd in the mail today.  I bet you’ll never guess the password:

    UPREAR-GUESTS

    Someone needs to update their algorithms…

  • LinuxWorld Coverage

    Via Slashdot, BusinessWeek covers Linuxworld.

    I’ll be posting my blogger on the street coverage on Thursday.  I’ll be in New York City from earty to mid morning until I decide to drive home.  If anyone will be up there and would like to meet up, you know how to contact me.

  • TurboPower Open Source

    Rogers Cadenhead:

    A long-time Windows component library developer is leaving that business and releasing many of its products as open source. TurboPower will publish the products on SourceForge and provide initial guidance.

    Very cool pointer, and I like the site redesign.  The redesign probably happened a long time ago, but I’m an RSS junkie, so I didn’t notice.

  • Java/Linux

    Matt Raible:

    I dig the Linux/Java combo – it just works!

  • Russ on Moblogging

    Russ has some moblogging thoughts:

    I think unless you’re a student who’s always out and about or a mover and shaker like Joi there’s not a whole hell of a lot to moblogging. It’s more of an instant online scrapbook than a real communications medium. With blogging there’s that level of interactivity which makes it very interesting. I read blogs, I copy permalinks, I write my posts and post to them, and I check my referrers for people who posted to me. With moblogging, I take a picture, send off an email and then I’m done. There’s nothing else to do – no interaction. Photos don’t link. And browsing the web from a 2″ x 3″ screen is difficult at best.

  • The Modern Homepage

    Zenmaster Mark commenting on Sam Ruby’s blog:

    In 1995, my dog had a home page and an email address. In 2003, it seems obvious to me that she needs an RSS feed and a FOAF profile.

  • No Fluff, Just Stuff

    Erik Hatcher will be speaking at a No Fluff, Just Stuff symposium in Northern Virginia in late March.  I’ll try to rustle up the cash to attend.

  • Case Mod Backlash

    NewsForge, broadcasting a press release:

    Qli Technologies writes “Qli Linux Computers is proud to announce our newest product, dubbed “Pre-Modded” Linux Computers.

    This begs the question: what are bleeding edge geeks to do now that case modding has gone mainstream?  You can buy pre-windowed cases at CompUSA or via mail order through major companies.  You can buy your computer with a cold cathode glow preinstalled.

    I predict a back to basics push in the case modding community.  A beige-box grass-roots effort.  They’re going to do something with those old four foot high server cases.  They will be works of art, albeit minimalistic.

    Zen and the art of computer case modding.

  • Geek Girl: Linux or .NET?

    Geek GirlWired News:

    For her part, Sullivan has a theory about the mystery woman’s true geek roots.

    “I think she’s a Mac user,” she said.

  • 1200 bps

    Reverand Jim:

    Yes, that’s right, 1200 baud.

    I used an HP 1200bps external modem.  To connect to BBSes.  When I was in elementary school.  I remember tearing through the latest Focke’s BBS list.  It was the definitive guide to DC-metro BBSes.  I’d print it out on my Okidata dot-matrix printer on fan-folded continuous feed paper with the holes on the sides.  Then I’d grab a pen or pencil, mark up some interesting BBSes, fire up Procomm and try to connect.

    Fidonet.  LORD (Legend of the Red Dragon).  TradeWars 2002.  SysOPs.  Wildcat!  WWIV.  RemoteAccess.  Renegade.  Fidonet.  Commander Keen.  Wolfenstein 3D.  Lemmings.  1200.  2400.  9600.  14.4.

    *Sigh*

  • Baby

    Good luck Sam and Sue.

  • Wireless Automotive Area Networks

    Wi-Fi News:

    See the USA with a Wi-Fi array: I’m trying to hard to fit the jingle to the story, but automotive Wi-Fi may take off, with units in the car talking to mobile components to transfer music, misc. Imagine having a gateway in your car that provides an Car Area Network (CAN). Imagine bridging the CAN to GSM/GPRS as needed. Imagine bridging the CAN to a hot spot location when you’re near one. Imagine that you can do that today with…a Macintosh running OS X or a Windows XP box with the right hoo-ha. But in-car, permanent components would be better. [via TechDirt]

    I wouldn’t use CAN, as CAN in Automation has that acronym covered.  I wouldn’t use CANOpen either.  I stumbled across the technology which is usually carried over an RS-232 or similar connection and usually connects components and sensors at a very low level.

    Random: I found out about the stuff at a real time and embedded conference several months ago.  How about WAAN?

  • Nokia Battery Life

    Russ:

    Be smart and have longer battery life. Works for me.

  • Mono Debugger Released

    Here’s the scoop from the mono site:

    • After six month of extensive development, Martin Baulig has released the first version of the Mono debugger. The Mono debugger is written in C# and can debug both managed and unmanaged applications, support for multiple-threaded applications and should be relatively easy to port to new platforms.
    • Details of the release are available in post.
    • The debugger contains both Gtk# and command line interfaces. The debugging file format used in Dwarf (its already supported by our class libraries and the Mono C# compiler; To debug C applications, you need a recent GCC, or to pass the -gdwarf-2 flag to gcc).

  • 802.11__insert_something_here__

    Wi-Fi News has some greate coverage of the future of 802.11(insert something here).

  • Newest Red Hat Beta

    OSNews:

    Late last night Red Hat made available on its ftp web site a new beta of its upcoming Red Hat Linux 8.1 distribution, codenamed Phoebe 8.0.93 (they used the same codename as in the first beta a month ago (8.0.92)). ISOs here, documentation, release notes.

    I’ll hold off until 8.1, but from the looks of things, it shouldn’t be too long.

  • Phoenix Themes

    Wow, there are a lot of themes available for Phoenix. [via Sean & Scott]

  • Secure Mail Relaying

    Jeremy Zawodny has set up a mail relay using Exim that he can access from anywhere using SSL.  Nice!

  • LinuxWorld Hype

    CNet:

    Linux advocates will convene at a trade show in New York this week to promote their wares, tout customers, swap business cards and make their case that the operating system is growing up.

    We’ll see.  Recent ‘trade shows’ that I have attended in recent years have been a poor imitation of conferences past.  This holds true for PhotoPlus East and PCXPO.  Linux is getting bigger and bigger though, so I’m not sure how the show will be.