September 2002

Installing Notes 6

by Volker Weber

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I am in the process of installing Notes and Domino 6. Playing it safely I first uninstalled the beta and did a fresh install of the release code. Don't want to run into trouble with maintenance updates later. Nice surprise: There was a last minute visual change. Notes has new icons. Gotta keep something yellow. The old ones were to blue anyway. :-)

One hour later ... Done. Servers and clients. Keeping my fingers crossed ...

Bäuerliche Satelliten, digitale Knechte

by Markus Nolte

Der Überblick über die Futterwiesen kommt aus dem All, der über die Viehbestände mit Hilfe des Bauern-PDA "FarmHand": Australiens Landwirte setzen auf Hightech, um sich das harte Leben leichter zu machen.

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Google Unveils Mid-Market Search Appliance

by

The most significant change for corporations, however, is the addition of functionality for searching secure content. The appliance now enables users to search secure information protected by basic authentication or Microsoft NTLM, the authentication protocol used on networks that include systems running versions of Windows NT earlier than Windows 2000, and on stand-alone systems. All documents from protected web servers are kept within the physical appliance, and users performing searches only see documents to which they have access authorization in the search results.

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Notes and Domino 6 available for download

by Volker Weber

The code went gold last week and is available for download now on Partnerworld. Should be out for the public real soon now. Thanks to Ingo for blowing the whistle.

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And you think you had a bad day at work

by Volker Weber

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Das Internet kommt zu mir

by Volker Weber

Kai Pahl: Gestern meinte jemand via AIM zu mir: "Bist du schon wieder im Internet unterwegs?"

Eine Verkennung des "Paradigmenwechsels" der stattgefunden hat, seitdem ich auch zuhause eine Flatrate habe. Ich bin nicht mehr im Internet unterwegs. Ich bin im Internet da.

Andere müssen ihren Rechner erst einschalten, hochfahren, Browser anschmeissen, eMail-Programm starten und dann Internetverbindung herstellen. Dann können sie sich im Netz bewegen. Viel Aufwand, denn man ergo nur dann betreibt, wenn man ein Ziel bzw. ein Grund hat.

Ich bin dagegen quasi permanent online. Auf dem PowerBook laufen permanent bestimmte Automatismen ab. Nein, ich bin nicht den ganzen Tag im Internet unterwegs. Das Internet kommt zu mir.

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The Mollusk and Calvin Smiley Guide

by Volker Weber

You think you know what all those smiley faces mean. You still should not miss the mollusk and calvin smiley guide!

Radio not online

by Volker Weber

Alexis Smirnov: "I'm puzzled why Dave and Co still have not implemented the obvious functionality of being able to access weblog editing UI directly from http://radio.weblogs.com?" Paresh Suthar: "Amen to that!"

I am puzzled why so many people use the client-based Radio Userland, instead of a wonderful server-based content management system like Movable Type. No need to worry about where your files are, whether you have ftp access, how to backup your stuff. Post from everywhere, let other contribute to your weblog.

If you use Radio, please tell me why. I don't get it.

Light sabres galore

by Volker Weber

Choose your weapon

Deutsche Hacker lassen Paris leuchten

by Oliver Tunnat

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Nach der Blinkenlights-Installation, die aus einem Hochhaus in Berlin ein riesiges Display machte, ist jetzt die französische Hauptstadt dran. Illuminiert wird die Nationalbibliothek.

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Content-Management

by Oliver Tunnat

Wer als Unternehmen eine Website betreibt, kommt ohne Redaktionssystem nicht aus. Doch die Wahl eines Content-Management-Systems ist schwierig. Ein Experten-Interview mit Oliver Zschau, Chefredakteur von Contentmanager.de. Das Angebot katalogisiert und gewichtet derzeit über 800 Content-Management-Systeme und gilt als eine der führenden deutschen Websites zum Thema.

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Lotusphere 2003

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Mark your calendar and make plans to attend Lotusphere 2003 -- the 10th annual conference on Lotus software technologies and solutions!

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Domino 6 to gain WebSphere muscle

by Volker Weber

Fulfilling promises made earlier this year, IBM on Wednesday will announce plans to bundle its WebSphere application server software with forthcoming versions of Lotus Domino 6, which will be formally introduced next week.

The move is designed to open the Domino platform to the world of Web services and J2EE, and to expose the Domino platform to WebSphere application developers.

"We are trying to proactively and progressively guide our installed based towards the richer set of Web services and J2EE-based applications, as well as continue to open up Domino to people who are writing J2EE-based apps today," said Ken Bisconti, vice president of messaging solutions at IBM Lotus Software, in Cambridge, Mass.

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Foot photos

by Volker Weber

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WebSphere Studio 5 Opens Its Doors for Developers

by

Version 5 of WebSphere Studio Application Developer and WebSphere Studio Enterprise Developer are now available (via PassPort Advantage) for migration, development and testing of applications targeting WebSphere Application Server V4.0.3 and WebSphere Application Server V5.0 (Beta). In addition, WebSphere Studio Enterprise Developer V5.0 supports integrated development of z/OS based CICS, IMS and batch applications.

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Ouml;

by Volker Weber

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Three Corporate Lessons

by Volker Weber

So, we will be going through change. Here’s three lessons from large corporations to help you survive change….

CORPORATE LESSON 1

A crow was sitting on a tree, doing nothing all day. A small rabbit saw the crow, and asked him, "Can I also sit like you and do nothing all day long?”

The crow answered: "Sure, why not.”

All of a sudden, a fox appeared, jumped on the rabbit... and ate it.

Moral of the story is: To be sitting and doing nothing you must be sitting very, very high up.

CORPORATE LESSON 2

A turkey was chatting with a bull. "I would love to be able to get to the top of that tree," sighed the turkey, "but I haven't got the energy.”

"Well, why don't you nibble on some of my droppings?" replied the bull. They're packed with nutrients."

The turkey pecked at a lump of dung and found that it actually gave him enough strength to reach the first branch of the tree. The next day, after eating more dung, he reached the second branch. Finally after a fortnight, there he was proudly perched at the top of the tree. Soon he was spotted by a farmer, who promptly shot the turkey out of the tree.

Moral of the story: Bullshit might get you to the top, but it won't keep you there.

CORPORATE LESSON 3

A little bird was flying south for the winter. It was so cold, the bird froze and fell to the ground in a large field. While it was lying there, a cow came by and dropped some dung on it. As the frozen bird lay there in the pile of cow dung, it began to realise how warm it was. The dung was actually thawing him out! He lay there all warm and happy, and soon began to sing for joy.

A passing cat heard the bird singing and came to investigate. Following the sound, the cat discovered the bird under the pile of cow dung, and promptly dug him out and ate him!

The morals of this story are:

1) Not everyone who drops shit on you is your enemy.
2) Not everyone who gets you out of shit is your friend.
3) And when you're in deep shit, keep your mouth shut

Zeldman: OSX Blues II

by Volker Weber

After losing another 48 hours to the perplexing misbehavior of OS X 10.2.1 Jaguar, we find that it is unusable on our dual processor G4 and we will have to content ourselves with OS 9 until we buy our next Mac.

We gave it our best shot. Dropped wads of dough on OS X compatible software upgrades. Spent hours tinkering with preferences, moving files and folders, downloading and configuring OS X browsers and other applications, and learning the ins and outs of window and file management under the new OS.

We updated DragThing, Euroda, Transmit, Fetch, Mozilla 1.1, Netscape 7, Tex-Edit Plus, Typeit4Me, PageSpinner, and Photoshop 7. We installed Chimera (lovely) and Opera 5 for OS X (needs work). Created keyboard macros and custom shortcuts. We learned to appreciate Column Views, Dock popups, and other OS X niceties. Began to think today was the day we’d start working excusively in Apple’s new operating system.

We nearly made it.

Then, like outnumbered combatants, one application after another began unexpectedly quitting. Poof, poof, poof. Down went Photoshop, DragThing, Mozilla, Transmit.

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Ray: Software Platform Dynamics

by Volker Weber

Many of us gray-haired people who have worked in the software industry for decades have independently developed conceptual frameworks for how the platform business operates. Patterns began to emerge in the very early IBM mainframe era, and have been further developed by most every platform vendor since.

Given the level of interest, I thought that I'd share with you a document, entitled "Software Platform Dynamics", that I've used in the past to help associates get up to speed with the nature of the software platform business. It's a fairly dense collection of thoughts gathered over many years; I hope that it serves to further the discussion...

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Linux is not about free software, it is about community

by Volker Weber

Although Microsoft cannot compete against Linux on price, the company will use its community of professionals to outsmart the open-source movement, Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer told an audience of Microsoft Most Valued Professionals (MVPs) in London on Monday.

"Linux is a serious competitor," said Ballmer. "We have to compete with free software, on value, but in a smart way. We cannot price at zero, so we need to justify our posture and pricing. Linux isn't going to go away--our job is to provide a better product in the marketplace."

He acknowledged there was more to Linux than free software--the main benefit of the open-source movement was the community developing software and sharing ideas. "Linux is not about free software, it is about community," he said. "It's not like Novell, it isn't going to run out of money--it started off bankrupt, in a way."

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Ballmer is right. It is all about community. And the community is pissed with Microsoft. That's what you need to turn around. No need to beat anybody.

Kodak Pro DCS-14n, 14 megapixel full-frame CMOS

by Volker Weber

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Kodak has announced the new 14 megapixel DCS-14n. This new digital SLR is even more remarkable for its capture device, a 13.89 megapixel full-frame (36 x 24 mm) CMOS sensor. The magnesium-alloy body is built around a Nikon F100/F80, has a built-in portrait grip and is notably smaller than any previous Kodak DCS D-SLR. The camera is powered by a Lithium-Ion battery, takes Compact Flash (Type I/II) and SD/MMC storage, supports JPEG-ERI (higher dynamic range JPEG) and also features an orientation sensor. The camera should be available in December with an expected street price of US$4,000.

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Training wheels for KPMG web designers

by Volker Weber

Zeldmann: As we hinted in yesterday’s Report, today’s MeyerWeb includes a fixed version of KPMG that works as well in Mozilla and Opera as it does in IE. Eric Meyer made the fixes on his own initiative in about 150 minutes, merely to prove that the makers of the KPMG site do not have to exclude non-IE browser users, and he is making his fixes available to the site’s owners free of charge.

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Manu-und-Stephan-heiraten.de

by Volker Weber

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What should I put on the fence?

by John Keys

What do you do, if someone puts up a notice, prohibiting you from chaining your bike to the fence at work?

Set up a web site about it, of course...

The fence in question is in front of a brick wall in London (that's the UK - not Ontario). Behind the brick wall are three or four flats. We are talking London W1, right in the centre of town, so when on the market they are no doubt expensive. There are rubbish bins behind the fence.

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Lotus Discovery Server 2.0: Deployment, Planning, and Integration

by Volker Weber

The Lotus Discovery Server is a knowledge server. It provides search and expertise location solutions designed to ensure that the relevant knowledge and collective experience of an organization is readily available to help individuals and teams solve everyday business problems.

In this IBM Redbook we give an in depth discussion of the architecture and capabilities of the newest release of the Discovery Server - Discovery Server 2.0. We discuss the key aspects involved in planning for the deployment of this product, from both organizational and technical viewpoints.

We also discuss: the key elements of a solid infrastructure design to ensure scalability and reliability, development and maintenance of an enterprise taxonomy, integration of Discovery Server into your existing environment and applications, usage of the Discovery Server API toolkit, and ongoing Discovery Server maintenance.

This book is appropriate for both technologists, and project managers, involved with Lotus Discovery Server related projects.

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SPIGGL Online

by Volker Weber

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Gut gemacht. Mal gespannt, wie lange es online bleibt.

Ray Ozzie Interview in eWeek

by Volker Weber

eWeek: Groove announced three servers last year. Does this mean that more logic will be put on the server and less on the client, and does it mean that you were wrong about the server not being necessary?

Ozzie: [...] The Relay Server has always been a piece of the architecture because otherwise you'd have no way to work offline. Relay Server, Enterprise Integration Server and Enterprise Management Server—those originated about the same time. [...] The fourth server, which we haven't talked a lot about, is an audit server. It's key to pharmaceutical and financial services users because it maintains a verifiable audit history of what people on those clients are doing, for regulatory reasons. The audit server will be in 2003: tested in the first half of the year, gold later in the year.

eWeek: What about a Web services server?

Ozzie: That's another one. We're calling it Web Services Access Point. Consistent with the Groove philosophy, there's no applications logic on it. The Groove client is where the applications live. Each application is called a tool set and exposes Web services on the client. The Web Services Access Point is told by the clients where they are. That is going into beta in the fourth quarter [of this year].

[...]

eWeek: Some critics say collaboration software ought to use a browser interface.

Ozzie: The browser interface is the best answer for universal access to transaction systems and applications. But it's not the way to work with other people. People work offline, they use their laptops, they go home, they work on planes and in hotel rooms, where there is not high bandwidth. You need to pick the right architecture for the problem you're trying to solve.

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Groove Partner Briefing 2002

by Volker Weber

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Jeroen Bekkers is on his way home to Rotterdam. Before he left, he put some pictures up on his website. This one from Plum Island Beach near Newburyport is my favorite. :-) Also, take a look at his desktop wallpaper.

Microsoft Application Analyzer for Lotus Notes

by Volker Weber

Microsoft: Learn about your Lotus Notes applications with this non-invasive analysis tool. The tool has two modules:

* Data Collector. Use this module to compile raw data about your Lotus Notes applications and to view an executive summary report. The Data Collector does not collect any actual data from within the databases or modify the data or databases in any way. It collects usage and structure information only.

* Data Processor. This separate module is only available as a service offering from either a a Microsoft Certified Partner or Microsoft Consulting Services.

Hmmh, let's get this straight. Microsoft gives you a tool that collects data from your Notes apps. You get an Executive (read: dumbed down) summary of that data. If you want the real stuff, you turn that data over to a Microsoft partner, who prepares a sales (read: dumbed down) pitch for your Executive.

Clever scheme.

smash.GIF

EU approves IBM buy of PwC Consulting

by Volker Weber

International Business Machines Corp. won permission from the European Commission on Monday to buy PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting for $3.5 billion in cash and stock.

The merger gives IBM, the world's largest supplier of computers and computer services, the consulting arm of PricewaterhouseCoopers , the world's largest accounting firm. The combined IBM-PricewaterhouseCoopers will rank a close second to top consultant Accenture Ltd. , formerly Andersen Consulting.

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HTTP Tunnel

by Volker Weber

Most corporate networks today are behind firewalls. The purpose of a firewall is to prevent unwanted users from having access to machines within a companies intranet. At the same time they allow people in the intranet to access the internet. Unfortunately due to the way some firewalls are setup, only allow certain applications work. The Answer ?

HTTP-Tunnel allows people behind restrictive firewalls to use previously blocked applications through their firewall.

The functionality of HTTP-Tunnel is an application that runs in your system tray acting as a SOCKS server. Your application sends data to the HTTP-Tunnel client running on your desktop which then tunnels the data over HTTP (Port 80) to one of the state of the art six servers run by HTTP-Tunnel.com This servers then sends the data to the real destination and vice versa. This forwarding mechanism allows people to use any internet application from behind a firewall.

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Kindermund tut Wahrheit kund

by Volker Weber

Kinderworte ... manchmal ohne Worte

Beim Schwitzen wird die Haut undicht und das Wasser sickert raus.
Wenn Babys noch ganz klein sind, haben die Mamis sie im Bauch. Da können sie nicht geklaut werden.
Was werden eigentlich Männer im Himmel, wenn die Engel alle Frauen sind?
Ich bin am 27. Juli geboren. Komisch, genau an meinem Geburtstag (!)
Ich habe Locken, Papa hat Locken, Mama hat nur Haare.
Mein Papa ist Wassermann und meine Mutter ist Wasserwaage.
Wenn man Kinder haben will, muss man entweder Sex machen oder heiraten.
Morgens kuschele ich immer mit Mama, da mag ich keine anderen Männer in ihrem Bett.
Heiraten ist gar nicht so schlimm. Ein bisschen Sex, aber sonst geht es.
Wenn ein Mann und eine Frau sich verlieben, lügen sie sich zuerst ein bisschen an, damit sie sich auch füreinander interessieren.
Wenn ich erst mal aus dem Kindergarten raus bin, suche ich mir eine Frau und heirate.
Die Liebe findet einen immer, egal wie gut man sich versteckt.
Schwanger werden ist einfach. Dafür nimmt die Mama so einen Papierstreifen und pinkelt drauf. Das ist alles.
Wenn eine Frau ein Baby bekommt, wird sie Gebärmutter.
Mein kleiner Bruder ist schon abgestillt. Jetzt muss er noch abgeflascht werden.
Ich heirate später mal die Mama. Eine fremde Frau will ich nicht.
Wenn Frauen zuviel Männersamen abbekommen, wachsen Ihnen kleine Bärte.
Mamas und Papas brauchen keine Eltern mehr, deshalb werden die dann Grosseltern.
Bleibt das Wasser auch über Nacht im Meer oder lassen sie es abends ab?
Kühe dürfen nicht schnell laufen, damit sie ihre Milch nicht verschütten.
Regenwürmer können nicht beissen, weil sie vorne und hinten nur Schwanz haben.
Meine Mama kauft nur Eier vom freilaufenden Bauern.
Im Winter legen die Hühner keine Eier, weil ihr Eierloch zufriert.
Im Frühling legen die Hühner Eier und die Bauern Kartoffeln.
Ich brauche keinen Hustensaft, ich kann auch ohne husten.
Einmal war ich so krank da hatte ich 40 Kilo Fieber !
Ein Pfirsich ist wie ein Apfel mit Teppich drauf.
Wenn man kranke Kühe isst, kriegt man ISDN.
Pilze die fliegen, darf man nicht essen, die sind giftig.
Die Fischstäbchen sind schon lange tot. Die können nicht mehr schwimmen.
Ich bin Rosenkohl-Vegetarier.
Am liebsten esse ich Milchreis mit Apfelkompost.
Wenn ich Limo trinke, habe ich danach immer Mund-Pupse.
Für Kartoffelsalat muss man die Kartoffel erst nackt machen.
Die Chinesen essen mit Fischstäbchen.
Mineralwasser ohne Kohlensäure mag ich nicht, das ist mir zu flüssig.
Mama schimpft immer, dass der Haushalt eine Syphilisarbeit ist.
Ich bin zwar nicht getauft, dafür aber geimpft.
Immer soll ich mein Zimmer aufräumen, dabei bin ich als Kind geboren und nicht als Sklave.
Mama cremt ihren Bauch immer mit Öl ein, damit unser Baby später keine Streifen bekommt.
Müssen Mütter auch Gras essen, damit Milch aus den Brüsten kommt ?
Mein Bruder ist erst 3 Jahre alt. Das ist noch ziemlich neu.

[via Anything about]

Geschäftsbayerisch

by Volker Weber

Des sog i da:
Diese Sache möchte ich besonders betonen.

Do wensd ma ned glei obhaust:
Mit dieser Sache möchte ich mich im Moment nicht befassen.

Kon scho sei:
Es spricht einiges dafür, dass ...

So is a wieda ned:
Der Sachverhalt ist komplizierter als er sich darstellt.

Schau ma moi:
Detaillierte Aussagen sind im Moment nicht opportun.

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MSWeb: An Enterprise Intranet #1

by Volker Weber

It’s nearly impossible to develop a successful information architecture against a backdrop of explosive content growth, content ROT, and the political twists and turns common in any organization. And, we’re sorry to say, we don’t have the Holy Grail. But we’ve had the privilege of getting up close to a large number of corporate intranets. And the best approach we’ve seen so far is that taken by Microsoft’s intranet portal (MSWeb) team.

Before you protest, we admit that yes, we understand that you probably don’t have the same resources at your disposal as does Microsoft’s team. But we think everyone can learn from their efforts; what they’re doing today is what most intranets will be doing in three to five years

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Eins noch ...

by Volker Weber

Konstantin Klein: Über eine Nachricht des Tages habe ich mich ehrlich gefreut: Christian Ströbele ist eine elende Nervensäge, ein Rechthaber und manchmal sogar (igitt!) ein Gutmensch; aber daß die Menschen in Friedrichshain, Kreuzberg und Prenzlauer Berg ihn direkt in den Bundestag gewählt haben (an aller Listenarithmetik der Berliner Grünen vorbei), geschieht den Glatten in der Politik (wir wissen, wer gemeint ist - und es gibt sie in allen Parteien. In allen.) doch ganz recht.

Amen.

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The Lifecycle of a 'Big Idea'

by Volker Weber

Sally Bean's model of the lifecycle of Big Ideas in business, from her commment on the article 'The first cardinal sin of KM.' I have nothing to add ...

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Grün gewinnt, Deutschland verliert

by Volker Weber

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Die Wahl ist vorbei und der Ausgang ist ein Desaster.

Der einzige Gewinner sind die Grünen, und das auf ganzer Linie. Das erste Direktmandat und eine Trendumkehr vor dem Abstieg in die Bedeutungslosigkeit. Schröder riecht die Kriegsangst der Deutschen und riskiert einen Streit mit den Amis, um die letzten Punkte zu halten. Die SPD verliert trotzdem, darf aber weiterregieren. Die CDU/CSU gewinnt, jedoch nicht genug, um Schöder abzulösen. Die FDP gewinnt, bleibt aber weit hinter den gesteckten Zielen. Immerhin beweist sie, dass die Deutschen weder völlig verblödet sind, noch sich mit rechtsradikalen Resentiments fangen lassen. Die PDS landet da, wo sie hingehört. Schills und andere Rattenfänger kriechen nicht mal unter ferner liefen.

Die Mehrheit wird für Rot-Grün noch mal schmäler, die Union behält die Mehrheit im Bundestag. Und alles bleibt, wie es ist. Der Wähler hat gesprochen.

Nächste Woche darf der deutsche Michel dann aufwachen, um zu sehen, dass es nicht gut ist. Gar nicht gut.

Microsoft Eats the Dog Food

by Volker Weber

We live in a project world, where project managers and project teams work together to deliver results on time, on budget, on spec, and on the money. Except for one project team that uses all kinds of mistakes, questions, quandaries, and what-ifs to make everyone else's projects run more smoothly: the project team that's creating the next version of Microsoft Project, the software first released in 1990 that's designed to make it easier to live in project world.

Project's general manager, Chris Capossela, says that he uses his own project's thorniest problems, and their solutions, to run better projects everywhere. "We use the old version of Project as we're building the new one," Capossela says. "At Microsoft, we call that 'eating your own dog food,' because it forces us to see what's wrong with our own projects and what's wrong with the software." In fact, in the course of upgrading Project, the project team came across a number of important lessons and improvements that can make any project more likely to succeed.

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Härtetest für Softies

by Oliver Tunnat

Weniger Aufträge, weniger Jobs: Die Krise erfasst die erfolgsverwöhnte Softwarebranche. Viele junge Unternehmen leiden, die Platzhirsche profitieren.

Sie waren ein Wachstumsmotor und boten Arbeit satt: Deutschlands Softwareunternehmen. Nur der Fachkräftemangel drohte sie zu bremsen. Deshalb holten sich die starken Softies Verstärkung aus dem Ausland. Mit der Green-Card-Initiative half ihnen sogar der Bundeskanzler dabei. Mehr als 10 000 Spezialisten kamen aus aller Welt ins Land. Insgesamt stieg die Zahl der Softwerker und IT-Experten in Deutschland auf fast 400 000 im vergangenen Jahr.

Bitter für sie: Inzwischen geht es bei vielen Unternehmen nur noch bergab. Die Branche absolviert derzeit den schwersten Härtetest ihrer Geschichte. Der Glaube an grenzenloses Wachstum bröckelt. Erstmals wird in diesem Jahr die Zahl der Beschäftigten in der traditionellen Boombranche schrumpfen. Selbst hoch qualifizierte Experten müssen sich plötzlich nach einem neuen Job umsehen. Dabei waren sie lange Zeit die Stars auf dem Arbeitsmarkt im Lande.

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S.P.Q.R. Egregia Dicta

by Volker Weber

Bei Anke Groener gefunden: Eine alphabetisch geordnete Auswahl römischer Spruchweisheit.

Aequam memento rebus in arduis servare mentem!

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Betrug bei eBay

by Oliver Tunnat

Etwa 150 Kunden des Internet-Auktionshauses eBay sind durch einen Betrüger um ihre Ware geprellt worden. Das berichtet die Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (WAZ). Der Online-Auktionator geht von einem Schaden in Höhe von mindestens 100.000 Euro aus. Inzwischen ermittelt auch das Berliner Landeskriminalamt in dem Fall.

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IBM Lotus an der Spitze

by Oliver Tunnat

Laut dem neuen IDC Messaging Report über den Markt für integrierte Collaboration Software rangiert Lotus Notes/Domino mit 49 Prozent Marktanteil jetzt zum sechsten Mal in Folge an erster Stelle.

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Genius at work

by Volker Weber

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KPMG's website as viewed in Internet Explorer and Mozilla. Who hires these guys?

[via Zeldmann]

WakkaWiki

by Volker Weber

Wakka is a server-side application written in PHP that allows you to build and maintain collaborative websites. At its core, it's what people call a Wiki engine -- an application that poweres a website with features similar to the original Wiki site. Wakka can also be used as a high-level site building framework, if you're willing to learn about WakkaPlugins.

Wakka is not a content management system. While CMS-like applications can be built upon Wakka as a base, Wakka's real strength is simplicity.

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WakkaWikki is written by Hendrik Mans, Wiesbaden, Germany and currently is a 23k download. It is free to use and you can host it on any ISP that supports PHP and MySQL. As I found out on Hendrik's weblog you can also spend hundreds of Euros a year to have somebody else do something very similar for you. If you don't like free stuff, that is.

[via Haiko Hebig]

Being Wireless - why Wi-Fi "lily pads and frogs" will transform the future of telecom

by John Keys

Everything you assumed about telecommunications is about to change. Large wired and wireless telephone companies will be replaced by micro-operators, millions of which can be woven into a global fabric of broadband connectivity

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Una recopilación de los mejores fondos de escitoria y salvapantallas

by Volker Weber

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What is KM?

by Volker Weber

Knowledge comes alive in an organization when people learn to trust one another and seek out and build upon their capabilities and aspirations -- individually, across functions and with other companies.
— Charles Savage

Knowledge management is an oxymoron and could run the course of a fad. Knowledge innovation is fundamentally sustaining a collaborative advantage for the excellence of an enterprise, the sustainability of a nation's economy and the advancement of society.
— Debra M. Amidon

People do not manage knowledge; knowledge manages people.
— Alvin Toffler

Knowledge management is about the use of computer and communication tools to help people gather and apply their collective data, information, knowledge and wisdom in order to make better, quicker, wiser and more effective decisions.
— Gene Meieran

Knowledge Management is the transformation of knowledge into business—and learning the transformation of information into knowledge.
— Matthias Bellmann

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NetworkWorldFusion: Java technology brouhaha not over for Domino users

by Volker Weber

An open source project designed to replace Java technology originally expected to be in the next version of Lotus' Domino collaboration software will not be completed in time - as some users hoped - to coincide with the shipment of Version 6 in two weeks.

However, Lotus later this month plans to release details on how Domino and parent company IBM's WebSphere Application Server will be combined to provide, without additional cost to Domino users, the Java technology that was yanked.

"You will hear something major about integrating Domino with WebSphere," says Ed Brill, senior manager for messaging and collaboration at Lotus. "We will provide a deployable JSP capability in the Domino platform that will come from a bundled version of WebSphere."

He said Lotus is not resurrecting Garnet but would provide a "functionally equivalent" technology. He would not say if the bundle would include the ability to edit and store JSP in Domino, or if there will be a deployment tool to load JSP from Domino to the WebSphere engine.

But Brill said the JSP support would come without additional cost to Lotus users.

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notestips.com: The rocky road to R6 and looking forward

by Volker Weber

The R6 release date was announced as the end of Q3 2002, but even at this late stage problems persist. Lotus announced just last week that two large features were being removed from the initial Gold release of 6.0 due to testing failures. It is obvious that this is a product that could do with more development time but it simply doesn't have it.

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XML.com: Euro-XML

by Volker Weber

The new European currency, the euro, has a symbol € in Unicode 3.2 as character U+20AC. How can we use it with XML?

There are three ways of representing the euro in XML:

- numeric character references,
- character entity references, and
- direct characters.

This article examines these and other more arcane but important ramifications.

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Microsoft enters the WLAN market

by Volker Weber

BBN_WSNKT04.jpg

New hardware from Microsoft - that is always good news because they do hardware really well, much better than software. This time it is only relabled Linksys gear. If it sticks to the wall, MS might go in big time with nextgen stuff and finally get it right with try #3.

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CVS Version Control for Web Site Projects

by Volker Weber

Version control is a special kind of software used to track and manage changes. In our case, CVS version control is used to track any sort of change made to our web sites, whether it's a single edit of one file to fix a typo, or a series of adjustments to a project where several files, folders, and graphics are added to (or removed from) the site.

In an uncontrolled site where multiple authors have access to edit and contribute, the potential for conflict and problems arises--more so when these authors work from different offices at different times of day and night. You may spend the day improving the file index.html for a customer. After you've made your changes, another developer who works at home after hours, or in another office, may spend the night uploading their own newly revised version of the file index.html, completely overwriting your work with no way to get it back!

With the same site under CVS version control, the late-night author will be alerted to a conflict with the file index.html, presented with the exact parts of the index.html file that are causing a problem, and asked to adjust their work to incorporate anything you added and committed to the site while working on it earlier in the day.

If a customer needs to remove a recently added page or content area for legal reasons--or if they simply prefer an earlier version of their site--CVS can be used to restore the entire site to any previous state of their choosing, rolling back multiple variations and edits by all authors until a satisfactory site can be put back in place.

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World, meet Roomba

by John Keys

roomba.jpeg

I have seen the future and it sucks. It also sweeps and removes dust and pieces of dirt. Its name is Roomba. Tomorrow, at roughly 7:00 A.M. eastern time, iRobot, makers of the ill-fated My Real Baby (which was manufactured in partnership with Hasbro) will announce and release what may be the world's first useful and affordable robot. And what, you may ask, does this $199.95 wonder do? It cleans floors, of course.

If this cordless, sub-$200 floor-cleaning robot really works as advertised, Roomba could be the first consumer robot that actually does something (please, Sony, I love the AIBO, but it really doesn't do anything) and is widely adopted by consumers around the world.

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Oll Korrekt!

by Volker Weber

Mit Militärstrategien kannte er sich aus - in der englischen Rechtschreibung nicht ganz so. Der deutsche General Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben (1730-1794) kämpfte in den amerikanischen Unabhängigkeitskriegen. Der Legende nach unterzeichnete er Berichte und Meldungen aufgrund mangelnder Ortographiekenntnissen regelmäßig mit "Oll Korrekt" statt "all correct", um sein Einverständnis zu erklären.

Und so soll die heute wohl bekannteste Redewendung der Welt entstanden sein. "Oll Korrekt" wurde abgekürzt zu "O.K." und "O.K." im Laufe der Jahre zu "Okay". Kein Ausdruck wird bis heute in Amerika, Afrika und Europa häufiger verwendet, um Einverständnis zu signalisieren.

Quelle >

Ducks, ducks and more ducks

by Volker Weber

RegDk.jpgRegDk.jpgRegDk.jpgRegDk.jpg

We have a few thousand ducks sitting in the backyard. My neighbor is organizing a Duck Race event next weekend, and we have to keep them until then. Another marketing genius at work. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck or looks like a duck, then it is a duck.

Ducks, ducks and more ducks.

Win a Dell Laptop, Sony Camcorder ...

by Volker Weber

... and lose a few friends by entering their e-mail addresses into a database (*) owned by the marketing gurus at Groove Networks and hosted by Sweepstakes Online.

I don't get it. These people build an application (and a platform) that only works for you, if you convince your friends, partners, and their grandma to also use it. Now, when they download this thing, they need to register. Then they need to activate the product by entering all that information again and finally it goes into the online directory (if you chose to publish that data). Once you installed the application, it will check for updates automatically and tell you when you should be installing new stuff.

If this product is any good, it should ignite a chain reaction, because everybody tells everybody else in order get them on. If it is bad enough, then conventional marketing kicks in. General advertisement is too expensive, weblogs reach only a fraction of the audience, Jon Udell cannot reach everybody else. And Steve Gilmor went out on a limb to declare Notes dead, only to convince the audience that Steve is dead.

Next on the list? Collect e-mail addresses through Sweepstakes and "free" downloads. Stay tuned, the saga continues.

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*) Don't forget to read the fine print: Open to legal residents of the 50 United States and the District of Columbia, Canada (except the province of Quebec) and the United Kingdom age 18 and older.

developerWorks: Develop rock-solid code in PHP

by Volker Weber

The series Develop rock-solid code in PHP is about solving practical, real-life problems in medium- to large-scale applications. In this article, PHP veteran Amol Hatwar discusses how to use variables effectively. He also shows how to make script configuration easy by constructing a configuration file parser using variable variable names in PHP.

In my previous article, I looked at factors that must be considered during planning, designing, and even writing code. In this installment you will dive straight in, get your feet wet with code, and see things in action.

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Straw, the GNOME 2 desktop news aggregator

by Volker Weber

Straw is a desktop news aggregator for the GNOME environment. Its aim is to be a faster, easier and more accessible way to read news and blogs than the traditional browser.

News aggregators read news, weblog or other feeds over the web and aggregate them so the news items are readable from a single place, regardless of their source. The data format aggregators utilize to do their job is called RSS, standing either for Really Simple Syndication or RDF Site Summary, depending on who you ask. At the moment, there are two different, incompatible specifications, with different objectives: RSS 0.9x/RSS 2.0 and RSS 1.0. Straw supports both of them.

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E-Mail SNAFU

by Volker Weber

This is an example of how someone hitting reply on an e-mail instead of forward can cause problems:

> From: mary.b.callahan@us.pwcglobal.com
> Sent: Thursday, September 05, 2002 10:48 AM
> Reply to: tmurray@TMCapital.com
>
> Subject: All time low

> Ok first -- here is the e-mail I received from Tripp, the new guy I met last
> week. If you want to go out, perhaps we can get him to pay for drinks at Park.
> Since we have not slept together, he will of course be trying to impress me
> and will, therefore, do anything I ask. Unlike John, who fell asleep during
> sex last night. I went over to his place last night around 11:30. We started
> having sex. When I noticed his eyes were closed for a little too long, I said
> "John wake up." At which, point he shot up saying "what'd I miss." Yes, I
> think that is a new low.
>
> Let me know about tonight. I think you need company.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> Tripp Murray ;
> To: Mary B Callahan/US/ABAS/PwC@Americas-US.com>;
> cc:
> Sent: 09/05/2002 10:01
> Subject:
>
> So are you off to the Bon Jovi show tonight in Times Square? Sounds like it is
> going to some turnout. What division of audit are you in for PWC?
> Are you heading out tonight? A friend of mine is leaving for MBA School in
> France so, he is throwing himself a going away party at Park, ever been?
> What are the plans for this weekend, recovery from the long weekend or adding
> just a little more hurt to the situation?
>
> TTFN,
>
> Tripp Murray
>
> Associate
> TM Capital Corp.
> One Battery Park Plaza
> 35th Floor
> New York, NY 10004
> (Tel) 212-809-1937
> (Fax) 212-809-1450

This has been forwarded to almost anybody in the industry.

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Tell you why, IBM don't like Monday

by John Keys

Pragmatismus statt Kreativität - der neue Name der Beratersparte gibt die Richtung vor. Die Mitarbeiter werden bei aller Mühe, die mit der Integration und der Platzierung der neuen Marke einhergehe, dazu aufgefordert, das operative Geschäft dabei nicht aus den Augen zu verlieren. "Unsere höchste Aufmerksamkeit müssen wir darauf richten, den IBM-Aktionären ein starkes viertes Quartal zu präsentieren", lautet die unmissverständliche Ansage.

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Deutsche Version von Trillian 0.74 erhältlich

by

Kostenlose Trillian-Version komplett in deutsche Sprache übersetzt. Nachdem am Mittwoch die englischsprachige Version von Trillian 0.74 veröffentlicht wurde, steht nun auch eine vollständig in deutsch übersetzte Version des Instant Messenger bereit. Am Donnerstag erschien bereits eine Sprachdatei zum Download, um einer installierten Version die deutsche Sprache beizubringen.

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Downlod >

Mein Avatar und ich

by Markus Nolte

So manche neue Technik wirft Fragen auf, die wir uns ansonsten nie gestellt hätten: Wäre man lieber Cinderella oder Lara Croft, Krümelmonster oder vielleicht Big Jim? Dreidimensionale Avatare als Nachrichtenboten über das 3G-Handy: Ein Riesenspaß, mit dem sich Geld verdienen lässt?

Avatare sind realistische Kreaturen aus dem PC und fanden sich bislang meist als "Hostessen" für Internetangebote im Netz wieder. Der bekannteste Avatar ist die hübsche Ananova, eine synthetische Nachrichtensprecherin, die im Jahr 2000 für eine Ablöse von unglaublichen 95 Millionen Pfund zum Telefonanbieter Orange wechselte. Ansätze, Avatare zu bestimmten Anlässen an Websurfer zu vermieten, gab es zwar, doch die Dotcom-Krise ließ solche Geschäftsideen wieder in der Versenkung verschwinden.

Die Firma 3dme.com aus Boston versucht einen neuen Anlauf in diese Richtung. Dabei spekuliert man vor allem darauf, dass die Fortentwicklung im Mobilfunksektor dazu führt, zahllose Handybesitzer für den eigenen Message-Avantar zu begeistern.

Im Augenblick werden die Websurfer schon einmal kostenlos angefüttert. Für eine gewisse Zeit darf man sich ein neues dreidimensionales Ich aussuchen und Mailempfänger damit erschrecken. Das Webportal erlaubt bereits heute den Versand von Multimedia-Messages (MMS) in den Mobilfunk. Wer nun glaubt, das Ganze sei kaum mehr als grober Unfug, dem sei gesagt, dass Handylogos und Klingeltöne gegen die liebenswerten 3D-Monsterchen, reichlich blass aussehen.

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Und so sieht's aus (Achtung: .WMV als MIME)

On vacation

by Volker Weber

vacation.jpg

Gone for half a week. See you on the other side ...

Ray on Instant Messaging

by Volker Weber

IM will grow up in the enterprise based not on provider cost models, but instead, like software, will be based on simple economic models that directly relate to business value delivered.

Interconnection increases the value of all providers' systems, making it easier for all to demonstrate and justify those systems' underlying business value. There's ample evidence that it's short-sighted not to just do it.

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vowe's choice

by Volker Weber

Lots of updates at vowe's choice >

Härtetest für Softies

by Volker Weber

Weniger Aufträge, weniger Jobs: Die Krise erfasst die erfolgsverwöhnte Softwarebranche. Viele junge Unternehmen leiden, die Platzhirsche profitieren.

Sie waren ein Wachstumsmotor und boten Arbeit satt: Deutschlands Softwareunternehmen. Nur der Fachkräftemangel drohte sie zu bremsen. Deshalb holten sich die starken Softies Verstärkung aus dem Ausland. Mit der Green-Card-Initiative half ihnen sogar der Bundeskanzler dabei. Mehr als 10 000 Spezialisten kamen aus aller Welt ins Land. Insgesamt stieg die Zahl der Softwerker und IT-Experten in Deutschland auf fast 400 000 im vergangenen Jahr.

Bitter für sie: Inzwischen geht es bei vielen Unternehmen nur noch bergab. Die Branche absolviert derzeit den schwersten Härtetest ihrer Geschichte.

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P2P swamps broadband networks

by Volker Weber

Peer-to-peer file sharing applications are taxing the finances of broadband operators, who are struggling to manage the off-network traffic.

That's the main conclusion of a study, titled The effects of P2P on service provider networks, by network management firm Sandvine which warns P2P activity "threatens to swamp" broadband operators in off-network traffic - a serious problem for operators because it drives up their network access fees.

P2P activity accounts for up to 60 per cent of the total traffic on any service provider network, Sandvine found during its study. Users downloading and uploading files accounts for only a portion of this data traffic. It's the overhead generated by these applications - advertising, searching functions, and other transactions largely transparent to most users - that are the real bandwidth hogs.

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"We want IM to be like e-mail."

by Volker Weber

As Wall Street begins to embrace instant messaging, some financial giants are putting a squeeze on the technology's famously fractious service providers.

Read more about instant messaging
Two weeks ago, six top financial institutions met privately with AOL Time Warner, Microsoft, IBM and other leading corporate instant messaging providers and urged them to build communications networks that interoperate. For the Wall Street firms, a lack of IM interoperability has been a source of increasing frustration and a possible pinch on profits.

The meeting, which took place at Merrill Lynch's New York offices, was among the first convened by the Instant Messaging Standards Board (IMSB), a newly created consortium led by financial services firms Lehman Brothers, J.P. Morgan Chase, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, UBS and Deutsche Bank.

Formed two months ago to act as ambassador to the IM technology industry, the IMSB plans to make a public announcement about its organization and goals in coming weeks. While the board does not intend to create its own standards, it hopes to nudge IM providers to adopt standards published in the marketplace.

"The goal is to pressurize vendors to adopt interoperability standards," said Navin Rajapakse, assistant vice president at Lehman Brothers and one of the members of the 10-plus member board. "We want IM to be like e-mail."

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Outlook Express becomes attack platform, of sorts

by Volker Weber

There's a pleasing symmetry about the latest security issue involving Outlook Express.

For the last couple of years Outlook (Lookout) Express failings have been exploited to infect users. So why not take advantage of its features to send viruses in such a way that they might fool detection by AV and content checking tools?

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Ciao bella

by Volker Weber

ciaobella.jpg

Lotus Pulls Roaming User Feature from Domino 6

by Volker Weber

Lotus removed two features from Domino 6 that it has been testing in the Release Candidate because they didn’t meet Lotus’s standards for stable code, Lotus said. Domino 6 won’t include the roaming user feature or the single copy template when it’s released later this month. However, the features will be included in the first maintenance release — 6.0.1 — early next year.

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ePro: No Client Licenses Needed with New Domino Utility Server

by Volker Weber

When Domino 6 hits the street at the end of this month, companies won’t have to worry about forking out money for client licenses if they buy a new server called the Domino Utility Server and use Web browsers to let employees access applications running on it. Alan Lepofsky, Lotus’s senior offerings manager for messaging, talked about the new server Tuesday morning at an executive conference sponsored by e-Pro Magazine in Vail, Colorado.

Lotus is expected to announce the server in conjunction with other products surrounding the release of Domino 6 this month. The server will let companies deploy Domino for applications, but it can’t be used for e-mail. Domino Utility Server will be priced on a per-CPU basis.

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Design Your Own O'Reilly Book Cover!

by Volker Weber

oreillytn.gif

Have the staff at O'Reilly given your latest manuscript the cold shoulder? Can you never get Andy Oram to return your emails? Does Laurie Petrycki have a restraining order out against you? Has Tim -- the man himself -- told you to "bite the big one"? Believe me, I know how it feels.

But now, thanks to our superior technological know-how, the folks at InterLink BBS have enabled you to create your own O'Reilly book!

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[via Schockwellenreiter]

Beautiful

by Volker Weber

laetitia.jpg

Groove Security Brochure

by Volker Weber

"I think Groove's security work is fantastic", that's a quote from David Sturz @ Microsoft. It strikes me as odd, that someone from Microsoft ... OK, OK, that's not what I wanted to rant about.

Everybody seems to be pitching this new whitepaper about Groove Security today. You can download it for free, well not exactly for free. You need to leave some arbitrary data for First, Last Name, Company and E-Mail Address. a@b.com should be fine thank you very much: By submitting your contact information you agree to be contacted by Groove Networks.

Is Groove at the end of their cold call list? What's next? Maybe AOL style CD carpet bombing?

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O'REILLYS TIERLEBEN - Die Magie der Dinge

by Markus Nolte

weasel.jpg

Wie kommt das Kamel aufs Computerbuch? Was hat das Wiesel mit Webdesign zu tun? Die Cover von O'Reillys Computerbüchern sind Kult - auch wenn kaum jemand weiß, wie es zu den eigentümlichen Titelbildern kam. Chefgrafikerin Edie Freedman kann es erklären.

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Trillian 0.74 und erste kostenpflichtige Version erhältlich

by

Der Instant Messenger Trillian erschien jetzt in der Version 0.74, die vor allem um Fehler bereinigt wurde. Parallel veröffentlichten die Trillian-Macher eine kostenpflichtige Pro-Version mit weiteren Funktionen und Möglichkeiten. Die kostenlose Freeware-Version soll weiterentwickelt werden.

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Even free, iCal isn't worth the price

by Volker Weber

ical_glitch.jpg

Apple's newly released iCal is the most beautiful calendaring program I have ever seen. It's a shame it sucks.

I don't use those words loosely; iCal is rife with bugs, display glitches and mind-boggling interface oversights. Just hours after its release, reports are flooding in over printing issues, constant crashes, import SNAFUs and other assorted problems more usually found in early beta -- even alpha -- versions of software. The fact that Apple allowed iCal to be released in its current state is nothing short of astounding.

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Kerpal calls Abtar sound board

by Volker Weber

Your daughter come to my house today. And she come on my property and then she kick my dog. And now my dog needs operation.

Excellent stuff for boring meetings.

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Anti-trusting Microsoft

by Volker Weber

Imagine a Monty Python skit with John Cleese riding on a bus. Out of the blue, he hits the person standing to his left. Stunned, the person says, "You just hit me."

"No I didn't," Mr. Cleese responds. A few seconds later, Mr. Cleese hits the person standing to his right.

"Hey, you hit me," that person says.

"No I didn't," Mr. Cleese insists. A few seconds later, Mr. Cleese hits again. Again, he's accused. Again, he denies. Soon, Mr. Cleese can't move a muscle without everyone around him cowering. He stands to give someone his seat; the person jumps back. He reaches out to help an old lady, and passengers scream.

Microsoft has a John Cleese problem.

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Who framed Internet Explorer

by Volker Weber

We discovered that it is possible for an attacker to execute script on any page that contains <frame> or <iframe> elements, ignoring any protocol or domain restriction set forth by Internet Explorer. This means that an attacker can steal cookies from almost any site, access and change content in sites and in most cases also read local files and execute arbitrary programs on the client's machine (script in the "My Computer" zone).

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To give you a little demonstation what an iframe is, look at your files on my website. If this window is empty, you are not using Internet Explorer 5 (and "better"):

Site redesign completed

by Volker Weber

I have completed the redesign for vowe.net (as if it is ever complete). The content from vowe.de has migrated to the right hand navigation. "vowe's choice" is a blog in itself and also sits in the right hand menu under "Certificates". It has a very similar design tweaked to its purpose.

The old vowe.de has retired. This new site is available as vowe.de or vowe.net. Comments very welcome !

BTW: The picture on the front page does not go away. It lives right here.

Knowledge sharing, knowledge logs, and the unexpected

by Volker Weber

More formal and structured knowledge management systems are focused on getting more mileage out of known solutions to known problems. That has a place, particularly in large and dispersed organizations. But all organizations today are also faced with the problem of responding effectively to the unexpected. Weick and Sutcliffe make a compelling case that this is the more important problem for most organizations. And they offer a series of prescriptions for increased mindfulness to respond to that problem.

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Knowledge repositories are not the driving problem in knowledge management

by Volker Weber

The first problem that needs to be solved is helping knowledge workers understand how knowledge they don't already possess from experience might be relevant to solving their problem at hand. All the well-organized repositories in the world won't be relevant until an individual knowledge worker decides they need to turn somewhere else for help.

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Die Download-Datenbank

by Oliver Tunnat

Eine der größten Download-Datenbanken des deutschsprachigen Internets soll es ab sofort bei der Telekom-Tochter T-Online geben. Unter der Webadresse „Download.t-online.de“ könnten Nutzer mehr als 20.000 Programme aus rund 600 Kategorien kostenlos ansteuern. Die Datenbank kann auch über die T-Online-Bereiche T-Games und Computer erreicht werden.

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IBM: Stellenabbau nach Übernahme von PwC-Consulting

by Oliver Tunnat

IBM will nach der Übernahme der Consulting-Sparte von PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) am 30. September rund 4.000 Stellen streichen. Damit würden rund fünf Prozent der Beschäftigen aus den fusionierten Consultingsparten ihre Stellen verlieren, heißt es in einem Bericht des „Wall Street Journal“. Die Entlassungsaktion soll im vierten Quartal erfolgen.

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Homebrew TrackBack Tutorial

by Volker Weber

What is TrackBack? Basically, it's a way of recording who has linked to your posts and notifying others that you've linked to them (invented by the folks from Moveable Type).

Because I haven't seen any documentation or tutorials about how TrackBack works, I'm going to summarize what I've managed to observe about TrackBack behavior and how I added it to my homebrew PHP/MySQL CMS.

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Answering machine messages

by Volker Weber

Hi. This is John: If you are the phone company, I already sent the money. If you are my parents, please send money. If you are my financial aid institution, you didn't lend me enough money. If you are my friends, you owe me money. If you are a female, don't worry, I have plenty of money.

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Bluetooth kostet Milliarden

by

Gemäss Gartner verursacht Bluetooth Support- und Nutzungskosten in Milliardenhöhe.

More>

Erst handeln, dann denken

by Volker Weber

Immer wieder witzig, wenn ein kurzes Hirn erst handelt und dann denkt. Lesen Sie hier die "Gedanken eines Frontschweins". Vorher Knabbereien einkaufen und Bier kalt stellen.

Und bitte nicht petzen. Die sollten schon selber drauf kommen, dass man sowas besser in einer geschlossenen Umgebung macht.

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Wohnst Du noch ...

by Volker Weber

sabine_t.jpg
... oder lebst Du schon?

Confused by IBM's messages around content management?

by Volker Weber

People are confused by IBM's messages around content management in the portal space. Do not mix up their use of Content Manager and content publishing. Here is the short list of buzzwords directly from their site: (emphasis mine)

WebSphere Portal provides a customizable single point of access to information, applications and people for increased productivity.

WebSphere Portal content publishing provides non-technical users the ability to control the content that is published to portals & web sites.

IBM Content Manager provides an enterprise content management framework--- a centrally managed repository for all types of content produced anywhere in a company.

WebSphere Portal is offered in three versions: Enable, Extend and Experience. An IBM Content Manager license is included in Experience. Content Manager is sold separately, but already integrated with the Enable and Extend offerings.

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Manage your content with PHP

by Volker Weber

In this article we’ll build a simple, template-driven site that separates style, content, and structure in your website. We’ll create a cross-browser stylesheet switcher that remembers the user’s preferences, touching on php variables, cookies, if statements, and including pages with require_once.

The separation of style from content has become the bugbear of the HTML developer. Traditionally, we’ve used well-written CSS and XHTML to achieve this separation, and we’ve seen how much easier it is to update our sites or provide multiple styles when we write our markup this way. By adding some very basic PHP to this mix, we can take this modularity a step further, making it easier not only to update our styling, but our structure as well. In essence, we can create our own basic Content Management System.

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Attracting and Keeping Good Folks

by Volker Weber

Chris Sells: Once a good person has been hired, keeping them is a matter of letting them do what they're good at, helping them get better at what they're not so good at, making sure you don't waste their time on stuff that doesn't matter, showing appreciation for a job well done and otherwise staying the hell out of their way.

Amen.

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Schalten - und hui!

by Volker Weber

Ein richtiges Auto - das hat ein Kindheitstrauma tief ins Bewusstsein gebrannt - muss vier Türen haben. Mindestens. Meine beiden Großmütter wohnten Hunderte Kilometer entfernt. Wenn die Familie sie zweimal im Jahr besuchen fuhr, dann saß der ketterauchende Vater auf dem Fahrersitz eines papyrusweißen Trabant 601 Kombi, daneben die Mutter mit dem Autoatlas im Schoß und auf der Rückbank die Kinder - der vier Jahre ältere Bruder, die acht Jahre jüngere Schwester und ich. Es war eng. Es war stickig. Es gab kein Fenster zum Herunterkurbeln. Das Ein- und Aussteigen war Folter: die Vordersitze nach vorn drücken und durch die viel zu schmale Tür hinaus, sich dabei am Querholm den Kopf stoßen, am gut gefetteten Türschloss die Hosen beschmieren, am Sitzgestänge die Knöchel stoßen. Vermutlich empfand der gemeine DDR-Bürger die Jämmerlichkeit seines Autos als viel demütigender als alle Bevormundung durch Staat und Partei.

Also: Ein richtiges Auto muss vier Türen haben. Der Alfa Romeo Gtv hat nur zwei. Vielleicht wird es trotzdem ein nettes Wochenende mit uns beiden, dem Auto und dem Autotester.

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Fake AP

by Volker Weber

If one access point is good, 53,000 must be better.

Black Alchemy's Fake AP generates thousands of counterfeit 802.11b access points. Hide in plain sight amongst Fake AP's cacophony of beacon frames. As part of a honeypot or as an instrument of your site security plan, Fake AP confuses Wardrivers, NetStumblers, Script Kiddies, and other undesirables.

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Nothing here is true

by Volker Weber

An anonymous e-mail sent three weeks ago urging single New Yorkers to designate the first car of every subway train the "singles car" has sparked a grassroots movement so large that Metropolitan Transit Authority officials say they're struggling to keep up with the changing face of the agency they're charged with running.

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Harry Potter Nimbus 2000 Broom

by Volker Weber

nilmbus2000.jpegA replica of the broom Harry uses in the movie Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, the Nimbus 2000 features a grooved stick and handle for easy riding. Enhancing the excitement are the vibrating effects... Read the reviews: :-)

When my 12 year old daughter asked for this for her birthday, I kind of wondered if she was too old for it, but she seems to LOVE it. Her friends love it too! They play for hours in her bedroom with this great toy. They really seem to like the special effects it offers (the sound effects and vibrating). My oldest daughter (17) really likes it too! I reccomend this for all children.

My 12 year old daughter is a big Harry Potter fan, and loved the part with the Nimbus 2000, so I decided to buy her this toy. I was afraid she would think it was too babyish, but she LOVES this toy. Even my daughter's friends enjoy playing with this fun toy. I was surprised at how long they can just sit in her room and play with this magic broomstick! A great buy for any Harry Potter fan!

I recently bought this for my son, Vantro. He's a HUGE Harry Potter fan. Seen the movie 32 times (in the theaters) and made the paper. This toy gives him the ability to fly around the house zapping things. My only problem I see with the toy is the batteries drain too fast and his sister fights him over it, so now I need to buy her one.

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Alexis Smirnov: Changed high-tech PR game

by Volker Weber

Just about every blog I’ve checked this morning had a link to Ozzie’s reply to Joel’s article on Platforms. The fact that a lot of people expected a public reply from Groove/Ozzie tells a lot about how blogs have changed high-tech PR game. Can’t wait for other software executives to catch up!

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Heute in SPIEGEL Online: Lisa an Holger - Wo bleibt Dein Stück?

by Volker Weber

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Das könnte Lisa sein. Aber wer ist Holger? Doch sicher eher dieser als jener. Und das müsste dann Alex sein. :-)

Die URL des Artikels (/politik/ausland/0,1518,212360,00.html) ist mittlerweile nicht mehr gültig.

Für die sportlich ambitionierten Leser...

by Oliver Tunnat

Sportler sollen ihre Muskeln vor und nach einer Belastung dehnen, so die gängige Lehrmeinung. Doch offenbar kann Stretching weder Verletzungen noch den Muskelkater verhindern.

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Eclipse 2.0.1 available

by Volker Weber

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Download here >

IBM weiterhin auf Einkaufstour

by Oliver Tunnat

Jetzt hat das Unternehmen aus Armonk/New York die kalifornische Firma Access 360 gekauft – einen Anbieter von Software zum Management von Personendaten, etwa von Mitarbeitern, Kunden oder Geschäftspartnern.

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Bundestagswahl 2002

by Oliver Tunnat

Für Unentschlossene geht es hier zum "Wahl-O-Mat".

Like Trillian, for Mac OS X

by Volker Weber

FireBuddyList.jpgWhat is Fire? It is an Multiplatform Instant Messenger client based off of freely available libraries for each "service". Currently Fire handles ICQ communication, and Yahoo! Pager communciation. All "services" are built off of gpl'd libraries, including firetalk, icqlib, msnlib, and gtkyahoo (linux libraries).

Fire looks somewhat like AIM (on Windows at least) but is much much more. It can handle similtaneous connections to AIM, ICQ, Yahoo , IRC, MSN and Jabber IM.

Disclaimer: There are few programmers working on Fire. Those programmers have jobs and spend a precious few hours a week working on Fire.app and other projects. There are certain features that are just to big for one or two people to implement by themselves. You can ask away, but there is never any guarantee. Fire.app is free, it will always be free, I have never, nor never will charge for it. Fire.app is open source. Those things being said, we can't fix every bug immediately. We write Fire for our gratification, and it pleases us greatly that others find it interesting. We get lots of Fire e-mail, and attempt to answer every single e-mail. Don't be offended if wedon't answer you though. If you really want some feature, code it up (or find a friend to code it up) and submit it. We will gladly take source code from others. Now, onto the help.

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More BBC feeds

by Volker Weber

Adrian Holovaty finds more RSS feeds from BBC:

Regional feeds: United Kingdom, England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales, World, United States, Europe, Africa, Asia-Pacific, Middle East, South Asia

Entertainment feeds: Entertainment, Music, Film, TV and radio, Showbiz, Arts, Reviews

Education feeds: Education, Hot topics, U.K. systems, League tables, Features

Business feeds: Business, Market data, Your money, E-commerce, Economy, Companies, Business basics

Other feeds: Front page, Technology, U.K. politics, Political interviews, Health, Sci/tech, Talking Point, Programmes

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The OS tables are turning...

by Volker Weber

I recently bought a Hama multi-slot card reader, primarily for reading the Smart Media cards used in our camera. Plugging in the device crashed Windows. Period.

About to package the thing up to take it back, I passed the house server running Linux. What the heck, I thought, and plugged it in the back. "Ooh, hello", said the kernel. I mounted the emulated SCSI device, and grabbed the pictures of the Smart Media card. Easy as that.

The tables have turned. In times past, it used to be that peripherals Just Worked with Windows (mostly because the vendors targeted the drivers to that platform). Not any more.

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Ohne Worte

by Volker Weber

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Ray to Joel, on Platforms

by Volker Weber

Very well written, carefully edited. One interesting gem:

We have an "OEM Adaptation Kit", and a product called the "Groove Platform OEM Edition". No, they're not listed on our Web site. You may have heard that Groove's platform is being integrated, bundled, and broadly distributed with an upcoming version of PTC's computer-assisted design products. Although not yet generally available, this is the mechanism by which PTC will integrate the Groove platform into their product.

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XML zone : Integrating data at run time with XSLT style sheets

by Volker Weber

Many applications now take advantage of XML to format business data. This allows the use of self-describing, tagged data that can be handled on a wide range of platforms and programming languages. Integration between heterogeneous applications is made easier through the use of XML data formats. Web services technology, for example, promotes the use of XML-based message formats for backend application data. However, integrating that data into user output during run time can be a challenge. In this article, Andre Tost describes how data integration can be achieved through the use of XSLT style sheets.

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BBC news feeds

by Volker Weber

The BBC is publishing four new RSS feeds that you can use in your portal or news aggregator: Front page, Technology, UK News and World News.

[via Radio UserLand]

SuSE Linux 8 running on Xbox

by Volker Weber

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The Xbox Linux project is making great progress. If they continue at this speed then the Xbox will finally be wildly successful in this country, although in way that Microsoft did not plan for.

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Neuer Bildschirm: Außer dem Benutzer kann niemand etwas darauf lesen

by Markus Nolte

Eine japanische Firma hat einen Computerbildschirm entwickelt, auf dem außer dem 'autorisierten' User niemand anderes etwas erkennen kann. Eine neue Technik ermöglicht es, nur mit einer Spezialbrille die Darstellungen auf dem Bildschirm zu erkennen. Für Außenstehende hat es den Anschein, als würde der User mit einer Sonnenbrille vor einem weißen Bildschirm sitzen.

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Steve Gillmor postmortem

by Volker Weber

Last weeks column (See "Notes is Dead") touched a deep nerve. I expected it would; I did not undertake the piece lightly, as some have suggested. Notes at its core is highly personal, and its proponents take it that way. I know -- I'm one of them.

And he still does not get it.

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Alexis on the Groove/ISV gap

by Volker Weber

Alexis Smirnov follows up to Joel's harsh critism:

So do I think Joel's article is wrong? No, it simply fails to capture the real issue with Groove - there are two different views of "Groove Platform". One is being offered by Groove Inc. and another is wanted by ISVs.

Groove Inc. defines the platform as Runtime plus Transceiver. Want to build on the Groove Platform - write a Groove Tool. Most ISVs define the platform as Runtime. Period. Most of the people thinking of integrating Groove's collaboration capabilities only want the Runtime. This is why Joel's analysis of cost/benefit of integrating Groove with CityDesk is right on the money - it illustrates the Groove/ISV gap. In Groove's defense, they do claim that the Runtime can in fact be used by ISVs in their applications (whoever there seem to be technical issues with this model in the current release). But still, the primary positioning of the platform is Runtime Tranciever.

So, its not that Groove thinks they don't have a platform (or they're clueless) - its just that their priorities are out of sync with those of their partners. This strategy flaw can be corrected. And if enough people complain, I believe it will.

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Nein, das ist nicht Markus

by Volker Weber

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Markus Nolte hat ein Weblog

by Volker Weber

Der Noltebär hat gequengelt, dass er kein Perl und kein MySQL hat. Und dann habe ich ihm den Ameisenhügel gezeigt. Und nun hat er ein eigenes Weblog. Ganz stilecht in grün. Schauder. :-)

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Knowledge Networks and Communities of Practice

by Volker Weber

Knowledge and learning have become the new strategic imperative of organizations. Recent surveys by The Conference Board and the American Management Association show that at least one-half of U.S. companies, and up to 72% of overseas firms, have some kind of knowledge management initiative underway. Other studies put the figure closer to 80% for global corporations. Chief Knowledge Officers and Chief Learning Officers are popping up everywhere. These strategic knowledge initiatives are ushering in a rich array of opportunities for applying OD expertise. This article will first describe the new logic driving interest in knowledge management and then focus on how OD practitioners can participate in that strategic conversation, and support knowledge creation and sharing through building communities of practice.

[Hint: OD = Organizational Development]

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John Patrick: Newbury Surfing

by Volker Weber

The latest addition to NewburyOpen.net is that they have made a "mobile" version of their wireless node that sits on top of one of their cars. They plan to park it next to various places every Sunday and provide free wireless Internet service in new locations every week. For their first day out it happens to be parked by a Starbucks, which is somewhat intentional since NewburyOpen.net wants to make the statement that free WiFi is the way to go, not $14 by the hour.

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Create your bar codes here

by Volker Weber

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Paul Graham: A Plan for Spam

by Volker Weber

I think it's possible to stop spam, and that content-based filters are the way to do it. The Achilles heel of the spammers is their message. They can circumvent any other barrier you set up. They have so far, at least. But they have to deliver their message, whatever it is. If we can write software that recognizes their messages, there is no way they can get around that.

To the recipient, spam is easily recognizable. If you hired someone to read your mail and discard the spam, they would have little trouble doing it. How much do we have to do, short of AI, to automate this process?

I think we will be able to solve the problem with fairly simple algorithms. In fact, I've found that you can filter present-day spam acceptably well using nothing more than a Bayesian combination of the spam probabilities of individual words. Using a slightly tweaked (as described below) Bayesian filter, we now miss less than 5 per 1000 spams, with 0 false positives.

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Old vowe.net archive pages

I explain difficult concepts in simple ways. For free, and for money. Clue procurement and bullshit detection.

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