Stateless Linux for the masses
Babeldisc looks like a consumer version of the virtual desktop/thin client/LTSP/etc concept. They use a Linux-based LiveCD (and soon USB fobs) to boot the OS, paired with networked storage for user...
View ArticleBlikistan?
Blikistan is a blogging tool named after the small ex-Soviet country Blikistan. Blikistan (the software) features a magic engine which pulls all the blog configuration and postings from a Socialtext...
View ArticleCubulus: Open Source OLAP ++
Cubulus is a new kid on the open source OLAP block. Written in ~ 3K lines of python, it implements mySQL-based ROLAP w/calculated aggregations stored in memcached, and includes rudimentary MDX and...
View ArticleUpcoming: Stonebreaker on 'Which of my databases you should buy'
Michael Stonebreaker's actual talk tomorrow (7-9pm) at MIT is entitled: "One Size Fits All in DataBase Management: An Idea Whose Time Has Come and Gone" And I hope to be there. I'm anxious to learn...
View ArticleMaking dumb phones smart
I also have become a fanatical Jott user. Jott is a cool piece of software that allows you to call in from your cell phone (or any phone you set it up for) and record a message. That message is then...
View ArticleGoogle Gears Roadmap
MS's Dare Obasanjo harshes on the Google Gears beta because it doesn't solve the big problem of offline/online synchronization. That seemed like a reasonable criticism, because that is a hard problem,...
View ArticleI too think Opera is a pretty good browser
I read a post recently by Jonathan Ellis that I've been meaning to write myself for a few months: I've been trying Opera 9.2 for a week, and I'm pleased with it enough that it's going to continue to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Square Swapping
My office sublease expires tomorrow at the hawk's nest on the 18th floor of the old Thinking Machines building in Kendall Square. Last night I moved my officestuff to my new digs above Dewey, Cheetham...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Elastra -- To Infinite Database and Beyond
EC2-ISV Elastra decloaked recently. The website is so-so, but here's a quote blog comment from an employee: Though a $360/month list price may seem comparable to a hosted solution, you are getting a...
View ArticleLies, Damn Lies, and Benchmarks
From Curt Monash: "2. Verticas software is 50X faster than anything non-columnar and 10X faster than anything columnar. Now, some of these stats surely come from the syndrome of comparing the future...
View ArticleClik here to view.
jQuery -- Love it
I've been meaning to write about jQuery, a fantastic javascript library that Dossy turned me on to. jQuery is a new-school javascript library that allows you to do fancy ajax-y special effects in a...
View ArticleMono for VM's?
BEA recently announced a version of their app server optimized for deployment via virtualization. They figured that since the Java platform virtualizes/abstracts the OS anyway, why not abstract to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Elastra delivers scalable OLTP. For Real?
Elastra now offers scalable OLTP via Amazon's compute cloud. Supported Db's include:MySQLPostgresqlEnterpriseDB When Elastra first decloaked late 2007, they were all about scaling read-only BI...
View ArticleDebugging My Long Distance Bill
I noticed my long distance telephone bills growing at a rapid clip, since I've been doing a lot more remote-tech-lead work than normal. It occurred to me that there may actually a solution to the...
View ArticleAbbreviated Parody of Paul Graham's 'Boss'
People aren't meant to have a spouse. I saw some married people in the cafe the other day and something seemed wrong. They weren't passionate. I have a unique perspective on human relations, having...
View Article'This looks good in practice. But does it work in theory?'
google-jstemplate has been open sourced. (The link points to a slideshow-overview containing the quote above). I've been pushing much more typically-server-side functionality down to the client, but am...
View Article3 Cool things from Microsoft now in my toolbox
LINQ - I wrote my first LINQ query last week. My normal web app works with heterogeneous data sources ( xml/object/sql ), and I *know* I'm going to love moving up the LINQ learning curve. This is a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
People Powered Transit
My friend Andy launched a startup about 6 months ago, and has been getting lots of press in the last week. He's a bike nut, so that's always what we talk about when I see him : the crazy cost of the...
View ArticleProps to Bookmooch
I'm enjoying the bookmooch service quite a bit. It's kind of an honor system based inter-library loan, except you aren't loaning books, you own them free and clear. And it's not between libraries, but...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Roll Your Own Netflix
more praise for 'discontinuous fractional ownership' In response to Props to Bookmooch, Replicate Technologies founder Ken Novak writes: Hey John, this sounds good. For dvds, cds and paperbacks,...
View Article
