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Unintended Consequences of Nationalizing Banks

By Robert Passarella
October 14, 2008

This is not a post for or against the actions of the Treasury. This is a quick look at what may be on the horizon--so that we can all keep our collective eyes open. I invite you to add your own observations and questions in the comments. I'd like to start you off with a couple. Now that the US...

Everyday Automation - Renaming Files

By Jochen Wolters
October 14, 2008

Renaming multiple files at once in the Mac's Finder can be a pain, unless you use a renaming utility. While there is a wide range of such utilities available as third-party offerings, Mac OS X has a flexible renaming tool built right in.

Newsweek Repackaging Candidate Coverage for Kindle Bios

By Mac Slocum
October 14, 2008

Newsweek will aggregate its coverage of John McCain, Barack Obama, Sarah Palin and Joe Biden into four Kindle-only biographies. From Amazon's Kindle Blog: The book-length biographies contain archived reporting...

[TOC Webcast] Why Publishers Should Care About SEO

By Mac Slocum
October 14, 2008

Tools of Change for Publishing will host a free webcast with search engine optimization (SEO) expert Jamie Low on Wednesday, Oct. 22 at 1 p.m. eastern (10 a.m. pacific). Jamie...

PhoneFinger Gives A Helping Hand

By Giles Turnbull
October 14, 2008

Here's a desktop app to make iPhone developers smile

Jason Fried of 37Signals on Business, Focus, and Avoiding Interruption

By Timothy M. O'Brien
October 14, 2008

Jason Fried discusses the day to day operations of 37signals and some of his ideas for minimizing distraction in the workplace. Fried talks about his view that startups should focus on profit and product before accepting venture capital. In this video, Fried's focus on the fundamentals of product design suggest an austerity and simplicity uncommon in an industry suffering from a pandemic of hype.

XSLT-based XHTML Markup Sanitizer

By M. David Peterson
October 14, 2008

I've been meaning to write an XSLT-based XHTML markup sanitizer for a while now and tonight discovered I needed it sooner rather than later. In case you find benefit from it, here it is

After a tussle with new hardware interfaces

By Andy Oram
October 14, 2008

Hopes are high that we're enter an exciting new world of ground-breaking human-friendly devices. But will humans be able to master all the new human-friendly interfaces? I worried about this a couple weeks ago after I had the pleasure of checking out FILE 2008, the Electronic Language International Festival in São Paulo, Brazil. My conclusion is that such interfaces are hard to design properly, as well as hard to use.

Torkington's Law

By Nat Torkington
October 13, 2008

Here are two presentations that I've found particularly instructive in the market meltdown: Making Sense of the Mortgage Meltdown: many numbers, tables, and charts to help you see the full number of sigmas the last few years represent. Sequoia Capital on Startups and the Economic Downturn: this is a presentation from VCs about how startups should deal with the new...

Live Stream of MSR's Social Computing Symposium

By Brady Forrest
October 13, 2008

Microsoft Research is holding their annual Social Computing Symposium for the next two days. During the event their will be a number of speakers and discussion groups. The goal of the event is to bring together people from industry and academia. The four areas that are being discussed this year are Location (Monday morning), Boundaries (Monday afternoon), Play (Tuesday...

Games & Markets: Rules Matter

By Robert Passarella
October 13, 2008

As children (or even now as adults) most of us enjoyed games, whether they are sports, video games, board games, whatever. The defining quality in any of these pastimes is the ability to win in direct competition with others. What makes these games enjoyable is that once the rules are learned or agreed to by participants, skill should become evident...

Pocketrak 2G Gets MP3 Upgrade

By David Battino
October 13, 2008

In our recent review of the otherwise slick Yamaha Pocketrak 2G digital recorder, we complained that its MP3 recording topped out at just 128kbps. Yamaha just released a free firmware update that boosts the resolution.

Amazon MP3 Store: Excellent Customer Service

By David Battino
October 13, 2008

While sweeping some of the detritus off my desktop today, I discovered a free MP3 download code I'd sliced off a disposable cup from a sandwich shop. Seemed like a good excuse to try out Amazon's MP3 store. So I entered Amazon's MP3 Downloads area, input the first disposable song title that popped into my head, and clicked. Amazon prompted...

Readius Rollable E-Reader at Frankfurt Book Fair

By Mac Slocum
October 13, 2008

The Readius rollable e-reader will be presented at this week's Frankfurt Book Fair, according to the Readius official blog. First announced in July, the Readius is a cell-phone-sized gadget...

Overestimating the Home Page

By Mac Slocum
October 13, 2008

Brett Crosby from Google Analytics says a home page is often mistaken as the most important part of a Web site. From TechRadar: Where are your visitors landing, bouncing, and...

BBC Shifts Conversation Style: Go Where They're Already Talking

By Peter Brantley
October 13, 2008

I think this deserves to be pondered. BBC News is moving away from merely hosting comments to inciting discussion in a variety of formats and locations. From Reportr.net: For...

Joe Wikert Joins O'Reilly Media

By Andrew Savikas
October 13, 2008

We couldn't be happier to announce that Joe Wikert has joined O'Reilly Media as the General Manager of the O'Reilly Technology Exchange (OTX) division, which publishes our flagship "animal...

What will the night reveal to your digital camera?

By Kathryn Barrett
October 13, 2008

You may be surprised! The advent of digital photography has revolutionized the practice of night photography because a digital sensor can record the spectacular colors of the night. These colors are created by light waves in spectrums that are invisible to the naked human eye. For the first time we can truly "see" the world of the night around us. In a live webcast on Friday, Oct. 17, Harold Davis, author of Practical Artistry: Light & Exposure for Digital Photographers, will show why night photography has become increasingly popular among digital photographers...

Apocalyptically Underqualified: When Ignorance Can Be Fatal On The Job

By Noah Gift
October 13, 2008

Like much of the civilized world, I have been watching in unpartisan horror, shock, and awe, at the Vice Presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin reveal how "Apocalyptically Underqualified" she is to assume the position as Vice President of the United...

PyMOTW: trace

By Doug Hellmann
October 13, 2008

What's the Appeal of the iPhone to Developers?

By chromatic
October 13, 2008

Raven Zachary and Bill Dudney are co-chairs of the one-day iPhone Live conference in San Jose. O'Reilly News recently talked to them to answer the questions "What's interesting about the iPhone to developers?" and "What hints does the iPhone give to Apple's future plans?"

Over 300 iPhone Apps Use Location Look-Ups

By Brady Forrest
October 11, 2008

According to Skyhook Wireless over 300 iPhone apps are location-aware as of October 3rd. According to Mobclix there are over 4,000 apps in circulation. If these numbers are correct this puts the location-aware percentage at under 10% -- far, far less than I would have suspected based on my own experience. There were 5.5 location-aware apps released per day...

Tim In The LA Times On Getting Serious

By Brady Forrest
October 11, 2008

As Tim mentioned earlier this week during tough times it's important to work on things that matter. The LA Times dives into Tim's thinking with a piece published yesterday. From the story: O'Reilly argues that Silicon Valley has strayed from the passion and idealism that fuel innovation to instead follow what he calls the "mad pursuit of the buck with...

MVC As Anti-Pattern

By Brian Lesser
October 11, 2008

Recently I asked a group of developers to review how they build Web applications. With over 100 ColdFusion applications/sites in place, I wanted to see what we could do to reduce the cost of adding new applications and new features...

How to create Tabs with CSS and jQuery from scratch

By Eric Berry
October 11, 2008

Learn how to create a tabbed content window using CSS and jQuery from scratch.

Open Source in Defense

By Jim Stogdill
October 10, 2008

With recent events, open source software may be approaching a tipping point in defense. What comes after that tipping point is the really interesting part.

Seeing political links in color

By Marc Hedlund
October 10, 2008

Andy Baio and Joshua Schachter teamed up to create a totally interesting project for the political season: a way to immediately visualize the links from political blogs on Memeorandum based on how they tend to link -- to more conservative (shown with red tint) or more liberal (shown with blue tint) blogs. They write: ...we used a recommendation algorithm to...

Why is SPAM so hard to detect?

By FJ de Kermadec
October 10, 2008

Whether you opt for the nerdy designation of SPAM, prefer politically correct euphemisms such as unwanted messages, favor Apple's designation of junk mails or even, as we crazy Frenchmen do, nickname them pourriels, you have most certainly had the joy of dealing with unwanted pieces of data mudding the stream of information you swim in online. It used to be...

State-of-the-Art Websites Build an iPhone Web App and an App Store App

By Dave Aiello
October 10, 2008

When I started writing for Inside iPhone, I promised that I'd talk about why iPhone web apps are still important. I decided to make good on that threat this week. One of the reasons that I think its necessary to...

Programming with Safety Scissors and Glitter Glue

By Erica Sadun
October 10, 2008

Although the NDA is on the way out, not all is restored to sparkly brightness in the world of the iPhone SDK. Developers must still deal with day-to-day limitations built into Apple's development environment.

Frightening transparency

By Simon St. Laurent
October 10, 2008

I'm not very fond of people who claim that markets can solve all of our problems, but at the same time, I think markets can be very effective at one key economic task: setting prices. Our current financial problems derive,...

US Library of Congress makes a step towards PRESTO

By Rick Jelliffe
October 10, 2008

The US Library of Congress Thomas project is making user-friendly, structured URLs available as permanent aliases for its legislation. I have been pushing a similar approach, but taking it further, in the PRESTO approach.

The REST in PRESTO

By Rick Jelliffe
October 10, 2008

Roy Fielding's characterizations of what REST is about, made discussing CMIS, is helpful for understanding what PRESTO is about.

A New Science of Music: Digital Cantometrics and the Evolution of Music

By Timothy M. O'Brien
October 10, 2008

Armand Leroi is an Evolutionary Biologist with the Imperial College in London. Leroi is leveraging the ability of computers to analyze sound to create a Cantometric description of traditional music from various cultures. Leroi discusses his research and his new initiative to create a digital Cantometric survey of traditional music.

Ken Krechmer's Adaptability Standards

By Rick Jelliffe
October 10, 2008

I think Ken Krechmer's Adaptive Standards pre-suppose the kind of frameworking and support for modularity and plurality that I have been banging on about for the last decade. An interesting recent quote from him.

Radar Report on Where 2.0: The State of the Geospatial Web

By Brady Forrest
October 9, 2008

The amount of geocontent on the web is expanding. With it has come an increased ability to use this data to sell location-based services that are tied to the web. Andrew Turner and I cover this shift in our new report "Where 2.0: The State of the Geospatial Web". In the 55 page report we examine: How Web 2.0...

Did you read the book from that movie?

By Brett McLaughlin
October 9, 2008

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that media is changing the way books are viewed. In fact, video - and YouTube in particular - has already changed how books are sold. Most big fiction releases are heralded by short "book trailers" that give an almost movie-like feel to the contents of the book. But in a recent article published by the Christian Science Monitor, I was surprised to see that there's an even more notable link between movies and the sale of books.

VisualHub, AudialHub, and iSquint Discontinued & Open Source-d: Techspansion Shutting Down

By Todd Ogasawara
October 9, 2008

Developer Tyler Loch is shutting down Techspansion and discontinuing VisualHub and iSquint. But (having never met Tyler myself), he appears to be a class act by providing instructions to make sure customers can backup/migrate his software and Open Sourcing his apps.

Photoshop's New Era (at least for me)

By Derrick Story
October 9, 2008

I just loved reading Steve Simon's latest post about the abuses of Photoshop. Switching heads and adding fake moons has irritated me for years. So much so, that I've tried to swear off Photoshop many times. Then I started playing with the beta versions of the upcoming version of Photoshop CS4, and I fell in love all over again. Why?...

TOC Recommended Reading

By Mac Slocum
October 9, 2008

The Future Is A Foreign Country (Timo Hannay, Nascent) As with my journey to Japan, my personal response to all this internet-enabled weirdness was one of almost unadulterated joy....

First Frontlist O'Reilly Ebook Bundle (Including EPUB) Now Available

By Andrew Savikas
October 9, 2008

With today's release of iPod: The Missing Manual, Seventh Edition, by J.D. Biersdorfer and David Pogue, we're beginning the release of nearly all new (frontlist) titles as ebook bundles....

Flex Author Joey Lott on a User Group Tour

By Marsee Henon
October 9, 2008

Starting at Refresh Detroit earlier this month, author Joey Lott is on a cross country tour visiting as many user groups as he can. Stops include AS3 Apex (10/4) in St. Louis, Cleveland Flex User's Group (10/9), Central PA Adobe...

Coming Soon....David Pogue on The Basics

By Sara Peyton
October 9, 2008

"Nothing I've ever written has ever prompted a reaction like last week's e-column. In six days, over 1,150 of you added comments to the online version at nytimes.com/pogue." So writes David Pogue, in his e-column today. "The column was the...

Testing Rails Partials

By Philip C. Plumlee
October 9, 2008

Test Driven Development works best when each test case targets one aspect of a class's interface. So this post will demonstrate a simple and direct way to test a partial without testing the Views, layouts, and Controller actions surrounding it. On very complex projects, this technique keeps your partials decoupled.

oVirt, Open Virtualization Done Right

By Mike McGrath
October 9, 2008

One thing that most people don't realize with virtualization is that its not the actual virtualization layer that is important. It works, they all do. The important part is in the management tools and that's something that's been sorely missing from the Open Source arena for too long.

Web 2.0 Expo CFP Extended One-Day; Now Closes 10/9

By Brady Forrest
October 8, 2008

Because of the emails, IMs, and phone calls asking about late submissions to Web 2.0 Expo SF we've decided to leave the CFP open an extra day. So if you wish to speak you'll be glad to know that the CFP for Web 2.0 Expo SF will be open until October 9th. We use this Call For Participation to...

eInk...

By Nick Bilton
October 8, 2008

Guest blogger Nick Bilton is with the New York Times R&D Lab during the day and NYC Resistor at night. Working in the R&D Labs at The New York Times, I'm constantly asked, "How long will paper be around?" or more to the point, "When will paper really die?" It's a valid concern, and a question no one can answer...

Thoughts on the Financial Crisis

By Tim O'Reilly
October 8, 2008

The other day, we received a blistering email from a Radar reader complaining about our silence on the subject of the economic meltdown. I wrote back: There are a lot of people bloviating about the financial crisis. It's outside of our area of expertise, so there didn't seem to be a lot of urgency to add to the hot air....

Voice Detective at Work

By Perry Norton
October 8, 2008

Whether you use audio to sell cheese, catheters, or to warn the world about epidemics, there’s an effective process for creating the right sound for your audience. I start with some detective work.

Watch the YouTube Video, Buy the Product

By Mac Slocum
October 8, 2008

YouTube's Content ID service, something we've covered in the past, gives publishers two options for handling unauthorized videos: the material can be removed from YouTube or it can be...

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