Service review

Maghound: The Netflix of magazines

Do you really need (or want) Ski Magazine through the summer months, talking about how to keep in ski shape for the coming winter...which is eight months away? Or maybe you generally only read Cooking Light during the summer months for backyard picnic recipes?

You're in luck. Time Inc. has created MAGHOUND, a magazine service that operates much like Netflix. Instead of subscribing to particular magazine titles, you actually subscribe to a number of magazines, which you can swap out for other magazines at any time.

Getting tired of Time? Go online and schedule People to hit the … Read more

LinkedIn with apps makes social networking actually useful

Based on a nudge from Luke Kanies, I installed the TripIt application for LinkedIn. Others have been prodding me to use TripIt for at least a year, but this is the first time it made sense.

In one view, I could see my network activity, but right next to it is an upcoming trip to New York and people that I might want to reach out to while there, like my cousin.

What a perfect complement.

This is what Dopplr should have been, but it requires me to recreate my schedule (and network) just for it. I tried it for … Read more

Microsoft upgrades support with Premier Ultimate

As usual, ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley delivers an interesting bit of news from Redmond. Microsoft, it would seem, launched a significant new support offering as of August 18.

(T)he new offering, Premier Ultimate, is aimed at the company's largest customers. Via the new program, Microsoft works with customers to create a three-year roadmap, including a suggested set of services. Reactive support becomes something provided on an "as needed" basis, said Charlie DeJong, general manager of Support and Health Services for Microsoft.

Customers who sign up for Premier Ultimate get unlimited problem resolution support (with some … Read more

AT&T Wireless is gouging customers on international roaming charges

I've written before about AT&T Wireless' terrible international roaming rates for the iPhone. Well, imagine my surprise to discover that its roaming rates for its wireless cards is even worse. How much worse? Consider the bill I received from AT&T today:

Yes, that's really $1520.76 for one month's usage of my wireless card. But the shocking thing is that $1450.19 of it came from using the card for under three hours to pull down a total of 96 megabytes of data. That's roughly $15 per megabyte. What a bargain!

Given … Read more

Open sourcing Google Analytics wtih Piwik

I will admit to having a mild fetish for Google Analytics. Yes, I wish it updated more often as I would gladly stare at a real-time traffic analysis for this blog, but perhaps it's healthier this way....

At any rate, Piwik (formerly Phpmyvisites.com) looks to be a reasonable (and open-source) alternative to Google Analytics. You can watch a demo of it here.

Who cares if it's open source? Well, perhaps you should:

Since Piwik is open source, SEO's can adjust it to fit their company needs. For example, publishing sites may feel that referrals from Digg, … Read more

Apple must hate international travelers

This is my first trip overseas with my iPhone, and it's hard to express in polite language how disappointed I am with Apple's international data roaming packages. I say "Apple's" instead of "AT&T's" because with my old Blackberry on AT&T I didn't have the problem, so I'm laying the blame at Apple's feet.

What's the problem? The cost. With my old Blackberry, I paid an additional $9.95/month for unlimited data while roaming internationally. With my iPhone, I pay $24.99 per month for just 20MB. … Read more

Open sourcing the elimination of stupidity

Carrying the tag line "Because the internet needs prophylactics for memetically transmitted diseases," StupidFilter just launched to rid the world of inane comment spam, wasted messages on mailing lists, etc. I'm wondering if it will simply filter out my entire blog.... :-)

Here's the project's aim:

The solution we're creating is simple: an open-source filter software that can detect rampant stupidity in written English. This will be accomplished with weighted Bayesian or similar analysis and some rules-based processing, similar to spam detection engines. The primary challenge inherent in our task is that stupidity is not a binary distinction, but rather a matter of degree. To this end, we're collecting a ranked corpus of stupid text, gleaned from user comments on public websites and ranked on a five-point scale.… Read more

rPath on Red Hat's appliance strategy: "Some assembly required"

It's not surprising that Billy Marshall, former Red Hatter and current CEO of rPath, would be dismissive of Red Hat's new appliance operating system, given that he will be competing with it. But what I did find surprising is how dead-on his assessment is of enterprise software.

We talk about certification a lot (i.e., "Yes, we are certified to run on SQL Server"). The customer takes this to mean, "It will work well with SQL Server." But this isn't always the case. In fact, as Billy points out, it is often not the case:

According to Red Hat, the product will be a valuable alternative to rPath because it preserves application "certification." Apparently this means that customers will still need to assemble, configure, and maintain the components inside the virtual appliance. After all, "certification" is only valuable when the components are not provided as an integrated, optimized, and tested unit.… Read more

Microsoft's curious infatuation with Zimbra, redux

Wow. I had no idea when I stumbled across Microsoft's internal positioning against Zimbra just how little Microsoft feels there is to recommend its Exchange 2007 software against Zimbra. I'm not exaggerating. The best Microsoft can come up with to slam Zimbra falls into three buckets:

Zimbra is a small company. Zimbra doesn't integrate as tightly with Microsoft technology as Microsoft's Exchange does. Zimbra only offers Exchange-to-Zimbra migration.

I don't know about you, but I'm having a hard time getting myself pumped up to go fight the good fight against Zimbra after that battle cry. When the best Microsoft can say for itself is that its technology is incestuous and that it's a big company, it's time to look for alternatives.

Speaking of which, Microsoft lists several Zimbra strengths that sound much more compelling than its defense of Exchange 2007:… Read more