SJL's Radio Weblog

System Maintenance: I've moved this weblog off of Userland's Cloud server and onto the www.loftesness.com server. Next step is to link this more tightly into my personal web site. I also should probably put a re-direct back on the Userland Cloud server re-directing to the new location. Not sure how to do that!

Kudos: Brent Simmons retired from Userland yesterday. Dave's tribute to Brent is great! Brent's been a big help to me on many occasions. I wish him all the best in his new adventures!

Life: Craig Jensen follows his dream.
"What am I going to do? I'm not sure. One thing I'm considering, if my wife and I can figure out how to pay for it, is to follow in my son's footstep and go the guitar school. Does that sound weird?"

Radio: Jon Udell describes "Radio Userland" as a publishing system. It is that -- but I prefer to think of it (and use it as) a personal notebook with public (or private -- controlled by me) access.

CTO Forum: InfoWorld's 2002 CTO Forum is coming up in April in San Francisco.

Radar: Japanese Video Stores Make Mobility Pay.

Tools: Microsoft Project 2002 looks like a major upgrade.

Extended Enterprise: OpenTravel Alliance Publishes XML Specifications Supporting Travel Industry Messaging.

Techniques: O'Reilly Network: Visual Display of Quantitative XML Data.

ZDNet has a whole page of Project Liberty updates.

Scott McNealy of Sun writes in ComputerWorld why Microsoft should join the Liberty Alliance. Meanwhile, IBM remains neutral. Microsoft has announced its entry into the Customer Relationship Management software business.
Microsoft Customer Relationship Management will be available as a standalone product as well as an integrated solution to Microsoft Great Plains® Dynamics, Solomon and eEnterprise. Its expected availability in North America is in the fourth quarter of 2002.

InfoWorld: Picking through the Hailstorm.
"In addition to selling the infrastructure for companies to run their own .Net My Services programs, Sohn said that Microsoft plans to eventually run datacenters attached to MSN that offer these services, but that the company will not set itself up as the primary datacenter for .Net My Services."

Spending Time Online [This item was prompted by some comments Dave Winer made yesterday amplified by David Reed today.] It's interesting to me how my online habits have changed over the last 20 years. Let's try to think through what's been happening over that period of time. Sometime in the early 1980's I bought an Atari 400 along witn one of Don Stoner's Microperipheral's 300 baud modems to go with it. (Don was an amazingly creative guy. He died about three years ago.) A while later, I got a TRS-80 Model 100 on the first day they went on sale. It also included a 300 baud modem. At the time, I was working for IBM and doing a fair amount of traveling. That Model 100 went with me almost everywhere I went. In many ways, my current Blackberry reminds me of that Model 100 -- both were "freedom machines" you could take almost anywhere. A bit later, I got my first IBM PC -- initially with a Hayes SmartModem 300 and, a while later, upgraded to a Hayes SmartModem 1200. So much for machines and modem speeds. On the other side, I was talking to CompuServe via dial-up into a local node. I also did some local BBS surfing and some late night long-distance BBS surfing. At one point I signed up for Tymnet's night/weekend dialout service specifically designed for early online addicts like me. I got involved in the early days of writing RBBS-PC, a bulletin board package for the IBM PC written in BASIC. I never actually ran my own BBS for any period of time -- I always wanted to use my computer and phone line for dialing out! Somewhere along the way, I had a second phone line installed after too many complaints about it being busy and too many instances of me being knocked off the line when someone at home picked up a receiver elsewhere in the house. Back when I first had just the Atari 400 (with it's membrane keyboard), I discovered CompuServe. They had a forum called HamNet (started by Don Stoner, W6TNS - now SK) dedicated to amateur radio. I spent a lot of time on HamNet - for some reason it became my online hangout. I'm sure a lot of the reason HamNet was so pleasurable for me was the other folks who were also online there. We shared a lot about ham radio, our computers, etc. and the quality of the dialogue was just great. I see the AOL ads on TV now where folks talk about how they love to hear "You've got mail!" when they log on. I remember similar excitement when I'd logon to HamNet and see "10 messages waiting"! HamNet is still around (it's been available on the web for the last several years) -- but, curiously, I spend very little time there any more. [Incomplete...more to come later today..] [Note to SJL: Think about the new comment feature in Radio Userland. Is there a "You've got Mail!" page for the Radio owner that should be created to easily present new comments that have been posted?]

Foveon John Robb has been writing a bit about Foveon. As John points out, so has the Economist. Richard Lyon, Chief Scientist of Foveon, will be speaking at an EE380 seminar at Stanford this coming Wednesday.

Today's News The Boston Globe's Sunday Magazine reports on Myriad Genetics and the patent lock they have on breast cancer research.
"The controversy swirling around Myriad's patents goes to a fundamental question about all gene patents: Is there something wrong with a patent system that allows one company - or any institution, for that matter - to "own" the genetic material found in every human being?"
Also in the Boston Globe, an update on CMGI - after the bust.
"The Internet isn't dead. CMGI isn't dead," McMillan said. "But the fact that people believe that will make it easier for us to set conservative expectations and deliver. A few years ago, the Internet was the Second Coming," McMillan added. "The hype about the Web was Messianic. And it wasn't true. Now we're dealing with a swing in the opposite direction. Everyone is declaring that the entire Web is over. That's not true either."
The Economist reports on the PayPal IPO.

Can you really change the world on purpose? Can you set out to earn a billion dollars on purpose and actually achieve that goal? In a EE380 Seminar at Stanford a few weeks ago, Andy Rappaport from August Capital talks about how these things don't happen on purpose -- but by accident.

I'm heading off this morning to the Stanford EConference 2002.

Bruce Schneier speaks about security as a business problem at this year's RSA Conference. One of his basic points is that the current state of affairs in software licensing (where suppliers disclaim liability for anything and users are basically left with "take it or leave it" license terms) is a major reason software developers don't take security issues seriously.

PingID has a great list of advisors. They've done a bit of work defining use cases associated with digital identity.

Today's News OpinionJournal: Daniel Pearl - RIP. NY Times: What's Doing in Sonoma County?
"It is that very expanse that sets Sonoma apart, with a topography that varies from mountains to farmland to redwood forest to rugged coast. There are 11 separate microclimates, each yielding its own gastronomic treat. Blueberry enthusiasts will argue there's no better place to be. Lavender lovers will say the same; so will artisan cheese fans, olive oil aficionados and anyone remotely enthralled by the grape."

Cringley's take on the impact of charging fees to Internet radio stations.

VeriSign runs the XML Trust Center. Their new Trust Services Integration Kit is available for download.

The Federal Reserve has released the final report on its US Retail Payments Research Project. This study has lots of interesting data and detail about how payments flow in the United States.

WSJ: An eBay Merchant Disappears, Failing to Deliver the Goods.
Those who knew Mr. Richardson still can't explain why he misused and abandoned an apparently successful business. Ms. Murray says she and her family have found evidence on Mr. Richardson's computer that her husband was gambling over the Internet. She says she thinks that he may have had gambling debts. "I didn't realize the man had it in him to be a criminal," she says.

Recession is code word for opportunity. Eastside Journal Feb 20 2002 11:30PM ET
"When times are tough, conventional wisdom dictates that businesses cut back on expenses and exercise caution while waiting for the economy to recover. Unconventional wisdom advocates the opposite approach. Instead of applying the brakes during recessionary times, this school of thought believes in putting their pedals to the metal. Grab market share while the grabbing is cheap, they say. It's the way the rich keep on getting richer."