We’re testing the new version of the Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer. If you’d like to help us shake out the last problems before we make it generally available, see the blog post here, where you can also download it.
Freada’s book has been officially published. I’m very happy for her.
The book ought to be required reading for everyone who wants workplaces to be the kind of respectful and inclusive environment one can feel good about. This has been a shared passion of Freada’s and mine for over 20 years, beginning as professional colleagues at Lotus in the 1980’s and blossoming into love & marriage in the 1990’s.
Read more here.
Order the book
Steven Levy in Newsweek:
And is there a more canonical boomer’s tale than that of Mitch Kapor (born 1950), who majored in psychology at Yale, was heavily involved in the campus radio station, and after graduation became … a teacher of Transcendental Meditation. But ever since he’d come across a copy of “Computer Lib” in a Harvard Square bookstore, he was fascinated by computers, particularly the promise they had to empower ordinary people. He began designing software, and then, around the time the IBM PC was launched, came out with an idea to make spreadsheets more powerful. His product was Lotus 1-2-3, and when he sought funding for his company, in a long letter to venture capitalist Ben Rosen he presented his idealistic vision of a humanitarian company. There are things as important to me as profit, he wrote. Now, he says, “It was my equivalent of ‘Don’t Be Evil’ ” [the unofficial Google motto].
The Chandler team has completed work on the Preview edition and I am delighted. I am happily using both Chandler Desktop and Chandler Hub (web) for production calendars. I will have more to say at another time about the long, six year journey, but for now it’s enough just to celebrate the moment. Below is an announcement form Katie Parlante, V.P. Engineering and General Manager of the Chandler project.
I am pleased to announce that the Chandler Project has hit our Preview milestone!
This milestone includes:
- Release of Chandler Desktop 0.7.0.1
- Release of Chandler Server 0.7.0
- Upgrade of Chandler Hub to Chandler Server 0.7.0
- Many improvements to the Chandler Project website and wikiChandler Project is an open source, standards-based personal information manager built around small group collaboration and a core set of information management workflows modeled on Inbox usage patterns and David Allen’s GTD methodology. You can manage and share calendars, tasks, messages, notes and other information with the Chandler Desktop application and/or with the Chandler Hub web application.
The Preview releases are public-beta quality applications ready for daily use. The Chandler team hopes to use feedback from these releases to build great 1.0 releases.
Download the desktop application, sign up for an account on the web, look at screenshots, watch screencasts, read about features, read about the project and more: http://chandlerproject.org/
Now is a good time to get involved with the project:
http://chandlerproject.org/getinvolvedKeep up with project general interest news and information on the project blog: http://blog.chandlerproject.org/
Cheers,
Katie
Back in the day, as my kids say, IBM was a behemoth, not only huge, but powerful. IBM’s entry into personal computers in the 1980’s defined and shaped the industry for a decade until Microsoft outsmarted them. IBM remained a very big company, but their moves no longer commanded universal attention in the world of infotech startups. Now, IBM has reinvented itself, relying very heavily on open source software to serve the enterprise market and has regained its health.
All this has opened up a spot for Microsoft to become the new IBM, large and powerful, but not terribly relevant to innovation outside the enterprise. If I stand on the roof of my office on Howard St. in San Francisco and shout at the top of my lungs, there are probably 100 startups in the sound of my voice. None of them, I dare to say, are worried about what Microsoft is going to do, but they are all properly obsessed with Google’s next move and how it is going to affect their prospects.
In short, if Microsoft is the new IBM, Google is the new Microsoft – the defining company of the industry. Both Google and Microsoft are giant talent vacuum cleaners, hoovering up everyone with an IQ a few standard deviations above the norm. Each has a Nietzschean will to power, a conviction of the rightness of its mission, and propensity to act in ways which are regarded as arrogant.
Since Google is no longer the hot new startup, those ambitious new startups are themselves trying to become the new Google.
It’s a giant game of musical chairs.
“How do I prevent my porn links from being synchronized to my work computer?”
(The Foxmarks extension for Firefox synchronizes bookmarks between multiple personal computers. Over a quarter million people a day use it. See above for the rationale for the most requested feature.)
(if gasoline = heroin, this follows)
This is an actual piece of postal mail I received.
Mr. Kapor:
My name is Keith Yaskin. I am a reporter at the Fox Television Station in Phoenix, AZ. My producer assigned me to air a story about Second Life. I routinely contact members of the board of directors as potential sources. They usually have more independence than owners or managers. Although board members are paid for their service and therefore presumably will exhibit loyalty to the company, my understanding is they also assume legal and morale (sic) responsibilities on behalf of the public. If there is any trouble with Second Life, I am hoping you might share insight (sic) with me. My experience is members on the board have strong views. Please let me know if you have any information which might be helpful for my story. Thank you in advance for your time.
Keith Yaskin
Reporter Fox10 News
Phoenix, AZ
keith.yaskin@foxtv.com
Here’s what I thought about sending (but did not):
Dear Mr. Yaskin:
My name is Mitch Kapor. I am an independent blogger in San Francisco, CA. I’ve assigned myself a story about local television news. I routinely contact reporters as potential sources. They usually have more independence than producers or station managers. Although reporters are paid for the service and will presumably therefore exhibit loyalty to the station, my understanding is they also have a responsibility on behalf of the public. If there is any trouble with Fox10 News, I am hoping you might share your insights with me. My experience is that reporters have strong views. Please let me know if you have any information which might be helpful for my story. Thank you in advance for your time.
Mitch Kapor
I’ll again be co-teaching a graduate course on open source at UC Berkeley this fall in the newly-christened School of Information (formerly SIMS). The lead professor is my old friend and colleague Pamela Samuelson. The class is open to all grad students at Berkeley. we expect a mix from the I-School, the law school, and perhaps some from computer science and business.
The course focuses on the social, economic, and legal aspects of open source. It’s fairly small and participatory. For instance, students edit the Wikipedia as a class assignment and write an essay about their experience.
Monday will be the first session. Link to home page here. Link to syllabus here. This year the class will be webcast and open to public for viewing. Details will be posted when I have them.
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales told CNET in an interview that the German-language version of Wikipedia will get an experimental overhaul in the next few weeks designed to cut down on vandalism, edit wars, and misinformation. The technique is adapted directly from open source software development projects. Anyone can submit a change to an article, but it will have to be reviewed and approved by an editor with commit privileges.
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