Koozie Notes

Free Wired

via Gizmodo. Looks like Wired Magazine is handing out free 1-year subscriptions. I think I pay around $10-12 for my yearly subscription. My only complaint with Wired is that it's completely full of advertisements. I thumb through 15 pages of ads just to find an article to read.

-Chris

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Bad Weather

After two and half days without Internet access, the SBC repairman stopped by the house to repair my phone and DSL service. Central Texas has been pounded by thunderstorms and on Saturday one of those storms took out my phone line.

It's nice to be back on the 'net.

-Chris

Tivo considers Movie Downloads

Nice to see the Tivo is considering the option of movie downloads.

-Chris

Ouch Yahoo

via Lisa. I was surprised to learn that yahoo is blocking trillian.

Beginning at about 6 p.m. Wednesday, Yahoo changed its instant messaging language to prevent third-party services, such as Trillian, from accessing its service. Like previous statements, the company said the block is meant as a pre-emptive measure against spammers from its Yahoo Messenger service.

Trillian is a great product for instant messaging, if your friends all use different im services.

-Chris

Pirillo speaks on Gnomedex 4

I'm glad Chris Pirillo spoke his mind about the upcoming gnomedex convention. I concur with his thoughts and look forward to attending Gnomdex 4, Geeks Gone Wild.

I hope you dont mind my decision to bring Gnomedex back to its roots: the people.
No open bar, no Comedy Central - just a whole bunch of geeks gone wild on their own volition.

Last year, I finally got a chance to meet Chris in person along with the whole Lockergnome gang at Gnomedex 3. In short, I had a blast at Gnomedex and I expect nothing less at GD4.

-Chris

Software for GMail

Mark Lyon has written some software to upload your mbox or maildir email to GMail. There is also a program to download email from Gmail into any pop3 email client.

-Chris

How Microsoft Lost the API War

via Slashdot. Joel writes another interesting article titled, "How Microsoft Lost the API War."

Through their Empower ISV program you can get five complete sets of MSDN Universal (otherwise known as "basically every Microsoft product except Flight Simulator") for about $375. Command line compilers for the .NET languages are included with the free .NET runtime... also free. The C++ compiler is now free. Anything to encourage developers to build for the .NET platform, and holding just short of wiping out companies like Borland.

That's correct. MS is offering a free C++ compiler and MSDN Universal for $375.

-Chris

Blosxom & WordPress

Last night, I played around with two different Weblog packages, Blosxom and WordPress.

I was very surprised to learn that Blosxom consists of a single perl script. Yep that's right, a single perl script. Blosxom uses plain text files for storing posts and configuration information. Command line junkies will be at home with this simple, but powerful system.

If you are a Movable Type fan like me, than you should feel right at home with WordPress and their stunning GUI. WordPress requires PHP and MySql. Their site sports plenty of documentation to get up and running easily.

-Chris

I would also recommend visiting Blog Software Breakdown.

DidTheyReadIt?

Mark Gibbs explains how DidTheyReadIt's technology works in tracking your sent email.

The technique employed is conceptually simple: Embed an image in HTML mail to be retrieved when the recipient renders the message content and record the image retrieval details. It is a technique loved by spammers who use it to determine whether the address is "hot" - whether a warm body or something that appears to be one is on the other end.
But DidTheyReadIt aims to take the uncertainty out of delivery and remove the excuse, "Sorry, I never got your message."

USA Today also published a story about DidTheyReadIt.

-Chris

Russell Croman: Astrophotography

While reading the Sunday paper, I was shocked to learn that Russell Croman lives about a mile from me in South Austin. The Austin American Statesman published an interesting story on Russell and his backyard observatory. He has posted some really beautiful pictures on his web site.

-Chris