LaszloMail, the new email service from LaszloSystems, will be opened to the public in the next week or so. I was lucky enough to get a beta account, and spent some time playing with the application.
Author: jonathanboutelle
Vintage Computer Festival
The computer history museum in Mountain View is hosting a Vintage Computer Festival this weekend. The main event (1PM on Saturday) will be a retrospective of the Homebrew Computer Club, the original hobbyist’s organization that people like Wozniak and Jobs were members of.
For everyone who’s a fan of the new “camp” craze (barcamp, TechCrunchBBQ, MindCamp, TagCamp phenomena…these guys were the originals!
New Yahoo Maps kick ass with Flash
The new Yahoo! maps (released just over an hour ago) is amazing. The app is very smooth and slick, and makes heavy use of yahoo yellow-pages data. It’s integrated with real-time traffic info as well. The experience of dragging and dropping the map, and zooming in and out, is _nearly_ as smooth as google maps (hey for day one that is terrific. There’s lots of room for optimization with this kind of code).
Yahoo! is playing the fast follower game, and playing it well (see also an earlier post on the new Yahoo! email client). And they’re obviously thinking hard about using the right technology for the right job, rather than simply copying the google approach.
TagCamp this weekend
TagCamp (a BarCamp-like event focused on tagging and other types of user-generated content & structure) is happening in Palo Alto this weekend. Rashmi is going (though she apparently hasn’t decided what she’ll be presenting yet ;->). If you’re into tagging, this would be a good event to check out. The vibe at these “camps” (FooCamp, BarCamp, MindCamp, TechCrunchBBQ) is very high-energy, very DIY, much the way I imagine the early computer hobbyist meetings were in the 70s. In other words, A LOT cooler than a corporate conference, and free to boot! They are a lot of fun, and excellent places to meet like-minded individuals.
Blackjack Spreadsheet
I’m going to Vegas this weekend. Not really my favorite place, but this time I’m determined to actually try to have a good time. Therefore I will have to gamble. Blackjack seems fun, and at least has an element of skill, so I’m deep in study mode. The amount of preparation required is modest: three spreadsheets must be committed to memory. Fun! I feel like I’m back in third grade, learning my times tables again.
Micro-funding for startups: a new idea
Kevin Burton is raising money for his new startup (tailrank) in a pretty innovative way: he’s selling “golden tickets” that, besides letting you beta test his software (a “pro” account without adds for 6 months), also come with a public thank-you link on his blog. Scoble bought a ticket, and so did Dave Winer.
Mullet Layout on Blogger.com?
Hojuin is trying to get a mullet layout working on blogger.com. (The mullet layout is explained in greater detail here , along with a movable type implementation). Lots more mullet articles are available for the curious. It’s basically an easy way to display radically more content on the front page of a blog.
I unfortunately know nothing about blogger.com templates, so I’m not in a position to help. If there’s anyone out there who knows how to hack on blogger.com, please give this guy a hand. The blogosphere will thank you for it!
Googlenet: It’s all about mobile AJAX!
The google proposal to provide wireless access to all of San Francisco is a bold move by google to increase the mobile use of web-based applications among early adopters.
ZDNet snafu: top 25 on-demand providers
Yesterday, I found an article on zdnet called “Top 25 on-demand providers”. The article did not live up to it’s title: in fact, it was remarkably content-free! A little digging turned up the backstory : after ZDNet published the story, the analysts that created the list asked ZDNet to remove the content.
Now ZDNet really shouldn’t be publishing content that they don’t have a license to. But they shouldn’t edit stories beyond recognition, either. If an articles main content must be removed, the best thing to do would be remove the article entirely, not castrate it beyond recognition. Thankfully, for those interested in the on-demand software space, there’s a google cache still available with the complete list. The list is also below. Enjoy! [via ken novak]
Megatrend alert: Rich Clients, Web Services, and On Demand Software
The major trends in IT today reinforce each other in a powerful way. The two technology trends (Web Services and Rich Clients) are tailor-made for the new business-model trend (On Demand Software). The two technology trends also reinforce each each other, creating a self-reinforcing web of interactions that will accelerate once it gains momentum, and may not stop until it has absorbed most of the software world as we know it!
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