How to Become a Hotspot Guide

Grok Headline matches for How to Become a Hotspot Guide

TV Guide Offers Movie and Sports Guide

TV Guide Offers Movie and Sports Guide 08/30/2004 06:34 AM
To keep up with my beloved Cubbies I usually use tv.yahoo.com, but sometimes I find that the site doesn't respond, or it only has a day's worth of sports listings....

Hotspot Helper

Hotspot Helper 01/16/2004 11:01 AM
MediaTracker is offering a low-cost way for venues to manage their hotspots: The management software, ControlAP, costs $149 and can support several platforms and both external APs plugged into a computer or an internal wireless card. Because the software is Java based, it can be run from a handheld with a wireless card. "It's a do-it-yourself mechanism to control hotspots," said Dario Laverde, MediaTracker's founder. "The initial target is cafes and small store fronts." The software enables a captive portal Web page where end users can sign in or see a welcome page if the hot spot is free. For now, a cafe may decide to offer 30 minutes of free use, then require customers to approach the counter where they pay the barista for additional use. A cafe could also ask customers to buy another coffee in exchange for additional use rather than set a price based on time, Laverde suggested. An employee authorizes additional use from a computer behind the counter where the ControlAP software can be integrated with existing point-of-sale software. The next version of ControlAP will support credit card billing. The software logs traffic and allows a cafe to block URLs or users by MAC address. It can be used to manage wired connections, too, so a cafe that may have some wired computers available for customers can manage those together with users of the Wi-Fi network from the same tool. Laverde says that thousands of people have downloaded the free version of the software, which is meant to serve as a trial version because it limits simultaneous users to five and offers stripped-down features. The full version of the software was just introduced this week. MediaTracker isn't alone in the market chasing independent cafes that don't want to partner with any of the larger hotspot operators, but it does offer some unique differences from its competitors. Surf and Sip, for example, offers a hosted hotspot management solution that either costs $50 per month if the hotspot is free for users, or 25 percent of profits for a paid location. Sputnik offers a robust solution for managing hotspots but is designed for the small to medium-sized hotspot operator that has multiple locations. AirPath Wireless also offers a hotspot management solution but seems to be targeting larger hot spot operators--Sprint uses AirPath's solution. NoCatAuth is also an option but appropriate mostly for technical folks....

A Hotspot on Every Corner

A Hotspot on Every Corner 07/29/2004 08:25 PM
Details are sketchy, but New York City may allow six telecom firms to pay up to $25 million per year to install wireless transmitters on 18,000 lamp posts: The article is full of sturm und drang about health effects, but the real story is that the city is trying to counter its dead zones without tearing up the streets. It's unclear precisely what kind of transmitters these will be, but you can bet your boppy that the goal will be wireless backhaul for the majority of the points using mesh or simple point-to-point. This endeavor could bring massively improved voice, 2.5G/3G cell data, and Wi-Fi into a city without ripping up all the roads once again or putting giant cell antennas on every last building. The companies include well-known and never-heard-of-'em: the New York Post says they are two cellular providers, Nextel and T-Mobile, three non-cellular companies, ClearLinx Network Corp., Crown Castle Solutions, and Dianet Communications. The sixth, IDT Business Services, will provide telephone service via the Internet. [link via GigaOm]...

SBC is Hotspot Hero?

SBC is Hotspot Hero? 07/26/2004 12:37 PM
They're late to the game, but they're ready to party: It's a funny thing. When SBC Communications first announced their FreedomLink plans last year with plans build 6,000 hotspots over a couple of years, it seemed like yet another announcement of large numbers with no track record. Cometa was still on its 20,000 hotspots prediction and had only a handful. McDonald's hadn't decided its partner and was in limited trials. Wayport seemed stuck on hotels. And T-Mobile stayed focused--as it still does--on a few ubiquitous chains. In the space of a few months, SBC has moved from last man in, to practically first mover. Let's review: The UPS Store. They will install Wi-Fi in thousands of UPS Store outlets, which are places that business people already congregate. This will probably also necessitate a change of thinking for that mailing and business operation so that they can make it easier for people to work for periods of time in their stores. Wayport managed services. They hired Wayport to build out their FreedomLink locations instead of creating a new division with no experience in house. Wayport's Wi-Fi World and McDonald's. They're the first telco to sign up to resell Wayport's McDonald's network, which will ultimately be several thousand stores over the next couple of years. Wayport/McDonald's supplier. They're also providing DSL and other connectivity to many of the McDonald's that Wayport is disconnected, which is part revenue, part branding for them as part of the Wi-Fi World co-marketing model Wayport is pursuing. Airports, airports, airports. They have roaming agreements now for their FreedomLink users onto Concourse, Wise, Wayport, and (reportedly) Sprint PCS's airport locations. There are only a handful of major airports not represented by those networks: SFO and Boston Logan are the two that come to mind. Pushing Wi-Fi into homes. SBC is selling 3,000 Wi-Fi routers a day to their home DSL users. This will drive adoption by their users of Wi-Fi. People without Wi-Fi will buy adapters or new systems because of the ease of sharing. Pushing hotspots subscriptions to their DSL subscribers. It's a coming, and it's going to be good--SBC keeps saying in its press releases that they will offer FreedomLink at a substantial discount to their DSL subscribers. $10 per month for unlimited use? $8? $15? Who knows. But it's an audience they've already got and they can offer them nationwide service with several thousand locations...

Hotspot Camera

Hotspot Camera 01/05/2005 06:47 PM
Did Kodak just build 802.1X into a camera? Kodak will release a camera in June that can upload photos via T-Mobile hotspots. The software to enable this uploading isn't due until fall, for some reason. The new Easyshare-One sounds like a combination of Apple iPod Photo, PDA functionality (for wireless and previewing), and digital camera. It comes with a trial for using T-Mobile's service. I'm guessing that this camera's fall software release will leverage the 802.1X authentication that T-Mobile has added to its North American venues. 802.1X is both simple and hard. If Kodak preloads unique accounts, or allows people to set this up through PC or camera back software, there's very little complexity. The 802.1X supplicant in the camera can manage the connection. The camera will retail for $600 plus $100 for the optional Wi-Fi card. Terms of the free trial service and monthly pricing are yet to be determined. It's a direct shot across the bow at cellular operators who are offering poor upload speeds on their high-speed network. Given that T-Mobile has articulated a long delay in their 3G rollout plans and don't want to clog their GPRS networks, this seems like a perfect symbiosis for Kodak and T-Mobile....

New UK Wi-Fi Hotspot Finder

New UK Wi-Fi Hotspot Finder 01/09/2004 09:52 PM
Firstly, i would like to say "Happy New Year".

Anyway, this posting is because i have made a new UK Hotspot finder site that finds the nearest Wi-Fi Hotspots (Commercial and Free) to your postcode.

At the moment, Wi-Fish.com (the name of the site) is UK-Only because of the search algorhythm...

Psst, need a Hotspot locator?

Psst, need a Hotspot locator? 07/19/2004 04:40 PM

Direct and Related Links for 'Psst, need a Hotspot locator?'

Need to be able to locate Wi-Fi Hotspots in a hurry, perhaps JiWire’s Portable Hotspot Locator is just the tool that you need. The Portable Hotspot Locator enables you to search for and find Hotspots quickly thanks to the ability to search by State, city and even Location Type….

free hotspot lambeth rd se1

free hotspot lambeth rd se1 02/10/2004 03:00 AM
as said before by others, bought 11g network card, plugged it in, free access. around junction of kennington rd & lambeth rd, lambeth se1

Charter, Cisco Hotspot

Charter, Cisco Hotspot 06/09/2004 05:35 PM
Unstrung.com Jun 9 2004 9:42PM GMT

Which Hotspot Networks Still Stand?

Which Hotspot Networks Still Stand? 05/19/2004 01:26 PM
With the slow rundown of Cometa's clock starting today, which companies remain standing?: I do have a little ego, and my article in Feb. 2001 in The New York Times was the first comprehensive piece written in a major publication about the nascent Wi-Fi hotspot industry. Several companies were striving to raise funds into the mouth of the dotcom collapse, which claimed bloated business plans or too early attempts to capitalize on a technology that only a small number of laptop users had access to. While researching the story in Dec. 2000, I spoke to the chief marketing officer of the Aerzone division of Softnet. Three days after I spoke to him, Softnet pulled the plug because they couldn't raise the funds to perform the build out that they'd contracted with airlines and airports to handle. The firms I interviewed for the article were Wayport, Surf and Sip, Global Digital Media, AirWave, SkyLink (not quoted), and MobileStar. Let's start in reverse order. What's clear from examining each of these firms is that execution and timing mattered as much in 2001 as they do today: controlling costs and building out a robust network in the right place can only go so far: users who pay are still required. MobileStar: While initially well funded, MobileStar had extremely high run rates. I's technical standards were top notch, but expensive, and expenses ran far ahead of any potential revenue. They went bankrupt late in 2001 and had their assets purchased by T-Mobile HotSpot. The company reportedly went through as much as $90 million in investment income while producing no more than a couple million in revenue. T-Mobile has continued to use its brand name and high-level partnerships to run what is generally considered to be an excellent network that's overprice for day use, but not far out of scale on their unlimited monthly plans with one-year commitment. Sky.Link Internet Plus: A promising Canadian firm with hotel and airports service, the company disappeared abruptly a few months after my article came out. It resurfaced briefly with fewer locations before taking a final plunge. Its history and disappearance are a mystery. AirWave: AirWave was a small San Francisco Bay Area set of hotspots in restaurants and coffeeshops that decided that the software they'd written to manage access points was a better product than the hotspot business. In 2002, they exited hotspots, spinning off their locations to...

City to become wireless hotspot

City to become wireless hotspot 05/19/2004 06:13 AM
Anyone in the centre of Cardiff will be able to surf the web or pick up e-mails on their laptop under a new broadband scheme.

Second Wi-Fi Advertising Hotspot Network

Second Wi-Fi Advertising Hotspot Network 05/02/2004 03:37 PM
FreeFi will overlay advertising on Wi-Fi free hotspots; The press release claims FreeFi is the first Wi-Fi ad network, but it's only narrowly the case: DotSpot launched in March and both builds out hotspots and then sells advertising on them. The FreeFi site makes it clear that FreeFi is a software gateway overlay. The FreeFi system uses a Web-based advertising bar that apparently a user must agree to open in order to gain access. It says it doesn't rely on spyware, popups, or other annoying tools. (The FreeFi logo cleverly incorporates the open Wi-Fi hotspot warchalking symbol.)...

T-mobile WiFi Hotspot

T-mobile WiFi Hotspot 04/09/2004 04:00 PM
I arrived here at Honolulu International a little earlier than I wanted to this morning as my wife had to...

MCI's Hotspot Network

MCI's Hotspot Network 03/23/2005 12:40 PM
The attention that MCI has gotten from its expanded hotspot network is bewildering to me: I cover the industry obsessively, and so I know that MCI is just reselling locations available from Boingo and Wayport. Still, there have been piles of articles trying to articulate how MCI's hotspot plan fits into their rest of their operations. There's a strategic goal there, of course, but the articles--not the one linked to, however--often confuse the private-label reseller relationship that Boingo has with MCI (and with Earthlink, Fiberlink, and other companies without -link in their names) and Wayport with, well, everyone, with MCI building out a hotspot network a la SBC or T-Mobile. Although the IDG story linked to says that the service costs $40 per month for unlimited Wi-Fi/broadband when added to a dial-up and VPN account, it's unclear exactly how that works as MCI's Remote Broadband Access FAQ states that wireless charges are in addition to dial-up charges. Just another way in which it's hard to figure out what, precisely, something costs....

Coming Soon to a Wireless Hotspot Near
You: Ads

Coming Soon to a Wireless Hotspot Near
You: Ads 05/03/2004 12:26 PM

Oregon Gets Biggest Hotspot

Oregon Gets Biggest Hotspot 02/10/2004 02:40 AM
It's always worrisome to qualify networks as the "biggest" but in this case I'd bet that eastern Oregon really does have the biggest hotspot in the country: Yesterday, Boardman and Hermiston, Ore. turned on a 600-square-mile hotspot. The network came about through a public/private initiative and was built by EZ Wireless. The network will be used by the Morrow County Emergency Management and Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program, the police force, and citizens. Initially, it will cover 600 square miles which includes four counties and seven cities, some in Washington. The second phase, which should be complete this summer, will add another seven cities. The press release isn't online and any news organizations in the area either don't post the stories online or require subscriptions from visitors wanting to read the stories online....

Put a Hotspot Search on Your Page

Put a Hotspot Search on Your Page 11/04/2003 12:52 AM
Like what you see at left? You can have it, too: The JIWIRE hotspot locator can be added in one of two dimensions to your page by following the link....

Hotspot Problems Universal

Hotspot Problems Universal 01/19/2004 01:59 PM
A Malaysian user of the state-run operator's Wi-Fi service has trouble getting on: Then he gets no help from customer service. It seems that getting technical help when trying to connect to a hotspot is problematic anywhere you go. Ultimately, the writer finds more luck using free hotspots....

New UK Wi-Fi Hotspot Finding Site

New UK Wi-Fi Hotspot Finding Site 01/03/2004 08:47 PM
Firstly, i would like to say "Happy New Year".

Anyway, this posting is because i have made a new UK Hotspot finder site that finds the nearest Wi-Fi Hotspots (Commercial and Free) to your postcode.

At the moment, Wi-Fish.com (the name of the site) is UK-Only because of the search algorhythm...

North Pole Gets Wi-Fi Hotspot

North Pole Gets Wi-Fi Hotspot 04/15/2005 08:43 PM

Hotspot Users Survey

Hotspot Users Survey 06/24/2005 10:01 PM
A group at the University of Virginia wants some answers from hotspot users: They're compiling a study in which they're recruiting folks who regularly use hotspots to fill out a very brief questionnaire....

Stupid hotspot connection processes

Stupid hotspot connection processes 02/10/2004 02:47 AM
I tried to check my email during a stopover in Frankfurt from the Luftansa lounge.  Good news -- they have a Vodaphone WiFi hotspot.  But there's one problem.  Signing up to connect to the Hotspot requires that you receive a password on your mobile phone via SMS.  My Sprint PCS phone doesn't work in Europe.  Adding insult to injury, none of the landline phones here in the lounge allow outgoing toll-free calls.  So I can't even reach the Vodaphone help line to see if there's another way to log in.

I can understand the convenience of SMS, but why should connecting your laptop to a WiFi hotspot need to involve a text message to your mobile phone?  Doing the security over the Net via SSL seems perfectly acceptable, as it is for virtually all online purchases.  It's as though a catalog retailer told me to go respond to an email in order to accept my credit card over the phone.

Oh well, I guess I'll have to wait until I get to Helsinki to connect (and to upload this post!).

Nomadix patents Wi-Fi hotspot log-in
tech

Nomadix patents Wi-Fi hotspot log-in
tech 01/27/2004 08:59 AM
The Register Jan 27 2004 12:34PM GMT

WiFi for God: New Hotspot on Prince
Street

WiFi for God: New Hotspot on Prince
Street 12/29/2003 11:54 PM
"I'm happy to announce the reintroduction of open WiFi into my neighbourhood. Emanating from Reinvented World Headquarters here at 100 Prince St. is a WiFi beam stretching out onto Prince Street and right into St. Paul's Anglican Church. The usefulness of the WiFi for religious purposes remains to..." (370 words - posted by peter) 4 replies

Wayport wins McDonald's hotspot gig

Wayport wins McDonald's hotspot gig 04/22/2004 06:33 AM
WLAN, burger and fries

Another Small Pa. Town Marks First
Hotspot

Another Small Pa. Town Marks First
Hotspot 02/10/2004 02:40 AM
A restaurant in Bradford, Pa. believes it's the first in the area to offer a hotspot: Customers, who include executives from Zippo and KOA, can use the network for free. The restaurant owners decided to offer the network when it ordered a high speed access line to speed up credit card payments. They hope the network will encourage more business people to visit. Earlier this week we wrote about a KFC in another small Pennsylvania town that was the first in its area to offer Wi-Fi. It appears that Wi-Fi continues to spread even to the small towns....

ISN WiFi Hotspot on Kent Street

ISN WiFi Hotspot on Kent Street 12/29/2003 11:54 PM
"Island Services Network has turned on an open Wifi hotspot in their third-floor offices above the old Home Hardware location on Kent Street between Queen and University, next door to Tim Hortons. You can see evidence of this if you sit near the front of Timothy's down the street -- SSID ISN1 will..." (65 words - posted by peter) 1 reply

Telus snaps up hotspot provider

Telus snaps up hotspot provider 08/03/2004 02:14 PM
Business in Vancouver Aug 3 2004 6:39PM GMT

.Mac members get T-Mobile HotSpot trial

.Mac members get T-Mobile HotSpot trial 04/07/2005 10:13 AM
Apple has added a new offer for members of its .Mac services -- a free 30–day trial of the T–Mobile HotSpot Wi–Fi service, which provides access to more than 5,400 wireless broadband locations in the U.S...

India Wi-Fi Hotspot Market Blooming

India Wi-Fi Hotspot Market Blooming 04/03/2005 11:52 PM
The number of hotspots in India is expected to grow tenfold with 3,000 active by December: for a country with many times the U.S. and with a vast technically trained population--and extremes of poverty as well--hotspot growth is a given. The government only recently legalized the use of 2.4 GHz and 5.1 GHz devices for this purpose. Dishnet announced a 6,000-hot spot network this week with 2,000 planned to be active by December; Microsense has 200 now with 1,000 expected by December; other networks have hundreds of locations targeted, too. Prices have plummeted as growth has expanded--but probably not fallen "100 percent" as the article indicates....

Frozen polar waste gets Wi-Fi hotspot

Frozen polar waste gets Wi-Fi hotspot 04/14/2005 01:42 PM
Santa and elves said to be pleased

Boingo Bolsters Hotspot Security

Boingo Bolsters Hotspot Security 09/08/2004 04:08 PM

Google Wireless Hotspot Finder

Google Wireless Hotspot Finder 12/31/2004 04:44 AM
I4U Dec 31 2004 8:40AM GMT

Penn. Town Gets Second Wi-Fi Hotspot:
the Library

Penn. Town Gets Second Wi-Fi Hotspot:
the Library 05/12/2004 11:11 AM
Newtown, Pa., renovates library and installs Wi-Fi, doubling town's Wi-Fi hotspot count: The small town of Newtown has a Starbucks with fee Wi-Fi access as its sole reported public Wi-Fi. This library isn't public; it's supported by membership dues since 1760. The library isn't sure whether they will open the Wi-Fi access to all, or just to members....

Netopia Offers Hotspot Solution

Netopia Offers Hotspot Solution 06/28/2004 12:59 PM
Netopia joins a handful of other companies offering a hotspot-in-a-box solution: Netopia's hotspot solution costs $300 for customers that already have a DSL modem and an additional $40 a month for support. Users, which could be a cafe or retail location, are given cards with log on numbers that they can sell or give to end users. Netopia will also sell customers Web site design and maintenance service. Sure and Sip and AirPath are just two of a handful of other companies that offer hotspot services to venues. These services are aimed at venues that don't want to deal with supporting a network themselves. It's unclear yet if the pricing structures set up by these providers will fly in the market....

Intel employees put hotspot on the North
Pole

Intel employees put hotspot on the North
Pole 04/14/2005 01:54 PM
Intel is contributing to global warming, the company admitted Thursday. Not the bad kind, though. Two employees at Intel Russia have erected what may be the world's most northerly Wi-Fi hotspot 130 kilometers from the North Pole.

Sony Inks Korean Hotspot Deal for PSP

Sony Inks Korean Hotspot Deal for PSP 03/28/2005 07:50 AM

Wireless Watch Japan is reporting that Sony has partnered with Korean internet provider KT Corp. to offer internet service for the PSP via the company's 14,000 hotspots. It's not unexpected, of course, but that pretty much cinches it for any nay-sayers: the PSP is going to get a proper web browser, and soon. So not only will the PSP be a mobile gaming rig, an easy video platform, and an MP3 player, it'll also be a down-and-dirty internet machine. And once the keyboards begin hitting the shelf, we'll have ourselves quite a little unit for $250.

PSP Running Wi-Fi for Korea [WirelessWatchJP]

The Cloud enables SIM-based hotspot
access

The Cloud enables SIM-based hotspot
access 12/03/2003 07:30 AM
Pitching for enterprise guest Net access, too

City of Cerritos aims to be biggest U.S.
Wi-Fi hotspot

City of Cerritos aims to be biggest U.S.
Wi-Fi hotspot 12/03/2003 08:40 AM
On Jan. 1, the Los Angeles suburb of Cerritos, Calif., will become the biggest Wi-Fi hotspot in the U.S., according to wireless Internet access company Aiirnet Wireless LLC. In the absence of complete DSL (digital subscriber line) or cable coverage, the city of Cerritos gave Aiirnet permission to use city property such as lamp posts and traffic lights to mount antennas and offer wireless broadband access to Cerritos' 50,000 residents, as well as businesses and the city itself, Aiirnet, of Woodland Hills, California, said in a statement Tuesday.
Grok Description matches for How to Become a Hotspot Guide
GrokA matches for How to Become a Hotspot Guide

Omniture lands $14.5 million in VC
funding

Omniture lands $14.5 million in VC
funding 05/13/2004 04:48 PM
InternetRetailer.com May 13 2004 8:41PM GMT

Ask mc chris

Ask mc chris 03/14/2005 05:05 PM

Chris TV 3.60

Chris TV 3.60 08/28/2004 05:08 PM
TechTree Aug 28 2004 8:48PM GMT

Who is Chris Kohler?

Who is Chris Kohler? 09/17/2004 10:22 PM
G4 Tech TV Sep 18 2004 1:50AM GMT

"Chris Heathcote"

"Chris Heathcote" 03/28/2005 10:47 AM

Thanks to Chris Pirillo

Thanks to Chris Pirillo 04/14/2005 10:21 AM

After running the bit< /a> about Mr Picky yesterday, I got several emails saying that there are others who say the same thing -- "If Dave's there, I won't be." So it seems likely that Chris Pirillo was under the same kind of pressure when he invited me to keynote Gnomedex, and that makes me all the more appreciative of his support. Thanks Chris!

And to everyone else, listen to what I do at Gnomedex, I'm sure it'll be recorded. People slime me and it's not fair. I work hard at conferences to make sure everyone gets good value. I work for the "audience," a term that needs updating in the age of the blog. There are always a few people who feel otherwise. As they say in France, c'est la vie!

Chris is Available on Thursday

Chris is Available on Thursday 03/14/2005 06:07 PM

Chris Barr Is Available On Thursday: I don't even know how to explain this.

Who? Chris Barr is a graduate student in the Department of Media Studies at the University at Buffalo.

What? Chris will perform the actions and events scheduled for him by the users of this web site.

Where? In and around Buffalo, NY.

Some of the things people have scheduled are pretty interesting.

Chris should attempt to do a handstand for as long as possible. Walking around on his hands is an added bonus. As this shouldn't last an hour, he should have the new Mars Volta ablum playing so that he can listen to it for the remainder of the hour.

Communicating with Chris

Communicating with Chris 04/29/2004 04:07 PM

I've been spending  alot of time communicating with Chris - so this is pretty interesting to me. I guess he's holding judgement on how well I manage our IRC channel - I more or less just say "make it work" - let me know if there's a problem, which this morning - there was.

Hopefully when Chris gets back from class - he'll solve that problem.

:-)

Communic ation Media and Social interactions in projects. I have a lot of things I want to publish here, but not enough time in the day to write them all. However, this one particularly struck my interest.

I'm interested in communication between people. This is part of the reason that I find LiveJournal and other social networking software so interesting - it shows relationships between people simply, and allows communication between them as well. (And if you think LiveJournal isn't social networking software, you don't understand the term: Building relationships and the results of them is a huge part of this site.)

There are a number of different ways that I communicate with people around me. The first is the people I'm physically close to: people who live on campus and near me, that I can actually see in real life. This method of communication is good in lots of ways - quick, face to face discussions can achieve a lot in the ways of interpersonal relationship building. However, it doesn't work very well in technical situations. You can't teach people how to program in a face to face situation. Spoken language can't convey many of the technical needs that learning non-spoken languages requires. Spoken language is great for relationships, but not for technical discussions.

The same applies to phone conversations, but even more so. In a conference call, you can discuss ideas, you can toss around plans, but you can't actually get down to the meat of implementation. I'm likely biased because that's where my work centers, but I'm a coder, and you can discuss high-idea plans over my head all day, but until you get down into telling me what the next feature to code is, and suggestions for coding it, I'm just going to sit and twiddle my thumbs.

Online communications are where this kind of thing. In group based online communications, there are a number of different ways of working through things. Some of the communications methods I use are email, IRC, and wiki-based information storage.

IRC is similar to phone conversations in that it's designed more for social and discussion based issues rather than coding. However, the ability to say "Let's take a look at line $foo in my patch at [link]" and actually discuss function calls, variable naming, and similar topics makes it a quick real-time medium for discussion of possible issues. Implementation ideas can be discussed, and then everyone can just kind of hang out and hack.

E-mail is one of the best methods for patch discussion. Technical patches can be attached, with long explanations of why things are done the way they are. At the same time, you get the group aspect with things like mailing lists, and you can discuss issues back and forth all day. Not the best way to build social relationships, perhaps, but a great way to hack on code. Bugzilla based systems are simply extensions of this - they allow you to do patch-level discussions in a mailing list format, a truth accentuated by the fact that many of Bugzilla's features are based around email and sending it out to people who want it. This is one reason why Bugzilla is a great system even in small setups - it's the forefront (as far as I know) of issue and feature tracking software.

Wiki based storage is great for a lot of things - documentation, general plans, outlining of todo lists, and so on. Wikis are much more of a form of permanent storage - slower than any of the previous methods mentioned, even with things like RSS feeds for Recent changes. Socialtext workspaces avoid this a little bit by creating mailing lists of recent changes that get sent out on a regular basis, keeping people up to date on what's changing in the workspace. However, the social aspects of most communications are almost completely gone.

Social communications exist in many aspects of almost all projects. Whether you're talking real life, phone, IRC, or email, there's always drama. (If you think that things like Zilla avoid Drama, just see some of my discussions with marksmith from a couple months ago. ;)) Wikis avoid this, obviously, but are clearly more of a form of permanent storage rather than an interactive communication medium. For idea discussion, real life or phone is best, but for patch discussion, email is the place to be.

Some people try to separate the social aspects of working on a project from the technical aspects. The idea that this can be done while achieving any kind of reasonable productivity level is ridiculous - you have to be able to interact with the people you work with to get anything done. This is part of the reason why people like bradfitz< /SPAN> don't make the best project managers for large scale projects. He works pretty well on things like memcached where he's the maintainer and the largest contributor to the code, accepting patches from people who have a high level of technical skills. That kind of project is much easier to deal with, because the people act in a professional way - which many people who volunteer their time for LiveJournal do not. They (and I include myself in this) seem to have some kind of expectation of having their code looked at by people who can accept it - and when code is bad, many people don't have any desire to look at it. Managing a project with patches from people who really don't understand the technical aspects of the code they're patching is frustrating, and difficult to work with.

I'm a code monkey - I don't do management well, I'm a drama queen (or have been in the past at least - I like to think I'm starting to move past that), and I'm not the best at interacting with people. But interacting with people, through many of the media describe above, is necessary in so many cases that to ignore social interactions in a project is simply ludicrous. By crschmidt@livejournal.com. [Christopher Schmidt]

day by day by chris muir

day by day by chris muir 03/13/2003 10:21 AM
Read the latest from Chris Muir here, and bookmark him .. Website Of The Day: Day By Day .. conservative cartoon site! .. pending replacement .. great cartoonist

track this site | 7 links

"Chris Bailey"

"Chris Bailey" 04/17/2004 02:21 AM

Right on to Chris Schmidt!

Right on to Chris Schmidt! 05/25/2004 02:50 PM

Chris Schmidt is the young man who brought FOAF to LiveJournal.  He's kicking ass right now - as we speak to bring FOAF to Drupal.

Right on - Chris!  Keep going!

FOAF Tools - Ah, the power of tools. Many people lately have been ragging on FOAF as a kind of tired standard, because there's no killer application for it. To a certain extent, I agree - there's no highly visible use of FOAF in the world right now for the general public. There are a lot of sites out there that offer some FOAF support, but very few of them actually do well at creating something that's useful to the general public. For a format which is so good at storing personal information about people, it seems that a large resource like this really could be used in a lot of ways. I've been working lately on a couple of different ways to make FOAF more usable to the world at large.

In the past, on the internet there were many annoying things. Pop up windows and ads were among them. However, recently I've resolved these issues in my own setup so I only have to deal with them when I have to be away from home. As a result, I've had time to find other annoying things on the internet - like the annoyance of filling out the same profile information on every website on the planet. I have accounts on so many sites that I can't even count anymore, and every time it's the same information: Name, email address, AIM, Yahoo, MSN, ICQ, Jabber, Address, Dog's name as a child. All these fields need to get filled out every time I go create an account at a new site. Now, this doesn't seem like the most effective use of the web. This information is out there! I store it in a machine readable format - yet machines aren't reading it. What's the point of keeping and maintaining an up-to-date FOAF file, if no one but me gets to look at it? This kind of thinking is what led a bunch of social software developers - people who run sites like Tribe, Ecadamy, PeopleAggregator - together. These people saw FOAF as a way to change this. By taking advantage of the formats already available, these sites can build on a strong, open source base of FOAF, and create distributed profiles from it. No longer do I have to type in all my messaging names at every site I sign up on. Simply drop in a FOAF URL, and let the backend take care of the rest. Eventually, you may not even need to do that - simply sign in as crschmidt@livejournal.com, and let authentication between the servers do the rest. It may sound like something that won't ever really happen, but it's happening now, even here on LiveJournal. LiveJournal has a need for this kind of thing as much as anyone else. Imagine no longer needing to fill out all your information every time you want to create an account at another site like DeadJournal or Blurty. Simply drop in your FOAF URL - already provided by LiveJournal - and your information will be filled out for you. I don't know about you, but that sounds cool to me.

Now take that idea a step farther. LiveJournal has friends lists - which FOAF provides. By using these lists, when you sign up at DeadJournal.com, DeadJournal may be able to go through and tell you who matches your data - offering you, from the get-go, a pre-built form of your Friends List at the new site. Never perfect - obviously, not everyone at the old site will neccesarily have an account on the new site, so you can't match everyone. However, such a tool may have the ability to email users and ask them to join their site, as do tools like Orkut now.

However neat distributed profiles and logins are, however, they aren't really a fun toy. Sure, it saves me some effort - and I like the idea, trust me - but it's not something that will really have a measurable affect on my daily life. FOAF is designed to describe relationships, so we should use it for that. One major thing that we use relationship for is to determine how well we know someone. A friend of my friend is most likely my friend. A friend of a friend of a friend may also be my friend. These may be people I communicate with on a regular basis. If I communicate with them online - via a mailing list, perhaps, or via email in general. One of the major problems with email today is spam - how to deal with it, and how to prioritize your email. If you think that you communicate mostly with people among people you know, then you may be able to use FOAF to help you sort your mail. Since FOAF typically includes a "sha1sum" of your email address - something that is unique to your email, but can't be used to find out what your email address is - you can build a database of who the people you know are. You can then use this information to do something to your emails to indicate who they are from. For example, I built a list of all my friends and their friends, along with an email address. Then, every time an email comes in, I check to see if it's from one of them. If it is, then I add something telling my email client to show me who it's from. If it's, for example, from "jessical", a level 1 friend, then I may want to highlight that, or give it priority. If it's from "allex", I may just want to flag it, but not treat it as important - allex is only a level 3 friend. In this way, I can prioritize my mail - people who I know are more important to deal with, while people who I don't know can typically wait. I have some simple example code of how this might work at http://foaf.crschmidt.net : the mbox-protector script builds a flat text database of users in you friends web, while the mailchecker checks an email coming in on STDIN for a match.

FOAF is a useful protocol for both profile data - useful for transferring between sites - and for relationships - building a web of who you know. This is just part of the reason why I took the time to add FOAF support to LiveJournal. As limited as it may be, it's still powerful enough to build these tools, and more powerful tools on the web to make your life easier are always a good thing. By crschmidt@livejournal.com. [Christopher Schmidt]

Chris Abraham: J'Habite Ici

Chris Abraham: J'Habite Ici 04/10/2005 12:55 AM
J&apos;Habite Ici .. Permalink

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Chris Pirillo On Witnessing IE7

Chris Pirillo On Witnessing IE7 04/06/2005 03:29 PM
IE7 is going to happen - and I've officially seen it on Dean's screen. I can't tell you what's happening and where it's happening, but I can certainly share with you my feelings (which aren't under NDA). In a word: hopeful. They're moving forward, and the right folks are truly listening. I wasn't fully able to explore the pre-beta program, but I could see potential painted in the pixels. I, too, had my doubts: "Is Microsoft going to abandon browser development again?" After speaking with a couple of team members, I would speculate not. They'll likely walk with IE7, jog with IE8, and run with IE9. Beyond that? Anybody's guess. But I can tell you this: Dean Hachamovitch is my kind of geek. Would I recommend upgrading to IE7? Sight unseen, I'd probably still say yes.

Chris Abraham: Paleoconservative

Chris Abraham: Paleoconservative 04/10/2005 12:55 AM
Paleoconservative .. Permalink

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Chris likes Blogware

Chris likes Blogware 05/15/2004 01:18 AM

Well - if Chris Pirillo likes Blogware - then I guess it's a hit!

Congrats to Ross and team!

Bl ogWare 0wns!.

I've been through just about every major blog option out there - MT, Blogger, GreyMatter, Radio UserLand, LiveJournal, etc. I must say, even though the template structure within Lockergnome.net is complex, this system is quite simple (at the same time). For novices, there's virtually no learning curve. Though it's difficult for me to pinpoint my favorite option, the "Edit This Entry" link is surprisingly handy! The photoblog integration with e-mail posting capabilities works well, too. Code purists won't appreciate the legacy tags, but (perhaps) one day, I'll spend more time tweaking more than just the outward appearance of this thing. Color me sold.

[Chris Pirillo]

mc chris Answers Your Questions

mc chris Answers Your Questions 03/22/2005 03:39 PM

Chris Nolan says I'm "stingy"

Chris Nolan says I'm "stingy" 03/17/2005 03:22 AM

Chris Nolan calls me "stingy" with the links. Of course, I don't think I am. Chris, here's some feedback on how you could make it easier for people to point to you. (This may prove useful for others.)

1. Make your RSS feed easier to subscribe to. You have the badges for Yahoo, Bloglines and MSN, but I use Radio. You could have put up a badge for Radio, that would be super-convenient, or just put up a white-on-orange XML button. I tried clicking on your Feedburner icon, but that didn't get me the URL, it offered to save it to my hard drive. And Feedburner is really gross, I don't like supporting them. But sheez, if need-be put the URL of your feed on the page itself. (PS: I was able to figure out where the feed is, and have subscribed.)

2. If you call people names and expect them to link to you, well, don't. Didn't your mother teach you that when you were a kid. Don't stare and don't call the other kids names.

3. You didn't even point to me when you called me a name. At least then I would have seen you in my referer log. And I'm like everyone else, I like flow and I like new readers. I have point ed to you Chris, many times. How many times have you pointed to me? You may be surprised that there are people who's sites I helped build by sending readers to them, who have never pointed back to me.

4. If you've written something you want to be read by Scripting News readers, send me an email with a link. That's what I do when I want to be read by the readers of someone else's blog. I'm polite about it, I don't come out and ask for the link, I say something like "Thought you'd find this interesting" or "FYI" and leave it at that. If I don't get the pointer, no big deal. And I try not to do it too often, so it's seen as a welcome source of a link to the person I send it to, rather than some kind of obligation.

5. I don't often point to political blogs, whether they're written by men or women, black or white, although I do subscribe to quite a few. So maybe what you experience as "stingy" is just a difference in focus.

Chris Ware on French TV

Chris Ware on French TV 03/14/2005 05:28 PM
Mark Frauenfelder: Chris Ware is one of the best cartoonists around, and a French TV channel has produced a documentary about him. You can get a torrent to download a 100MB file of the documentary from Kempa.
Link (via Drawn!)

The Chris Pirillo Show

The Chris Pirillo Show 01/06/2005 07:37 PM

Kudos to supreme geek Chris Pirillo for launching his first live broadcast today. Be sure to add his feed with MP3 enclosures to the new "Podcasters" group in FeedDemo n 1.5.

US Internet Tax Ban - Rep. Chris Cox
(R-Calif.)

US Internet Tax Ban - Rep. Chris Cox
(R-Calif.) 12/27/2004 11:53 PM
WebTalkGuys Radio Dec 28 2004 3:09AM GMT

Chris P. Carrot for President

Chris P. Carrot for President 09/04/2004 01:27 AM
Chris P. Carrot for President Give peas a chance?

Chris Abraham: War and Pornography

Chris Abraham: War and Pornography 04/10/2005 12:55 AM
War and Pornography .. Permalink

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Chris Abraham: Men in Black (MIB)

Chris Abraham: Men in Black (MIB) 04/12/2005 05:55 AM
Men in Black (MIB) .. Permalink

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chris jordan photography

chris jordan photography 04/19/2005 04:29 AM
Intolerable Beauty €” Portraits of American Mass Consumption .. Chris Jordan .. photographs

chrisjordan.com
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"Chris Lydon interviews"

"Chris Lydon interviews" 11/10/2003 11:14 PM

Chris Abraham: In My Ute I'm Goin' to
Carolina

Chris Abraham: In My Ute I'm Goin' to
Carolina 04/10/2005 12:55 AM
In My Ute I&apos;m Goin&apos; to Carolina .. Permalink

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Chris Stone turns up at StreamServe

Chris Stone turns up at StreamServe 04/19/2005 09:56 AM
Back in November, I mused over Chris Stone's departure from Novell (see link below) and since then many have asked me what Stone might be up to. At last month's BrainShare conference, I did run into some folks who had been in contact with Stone and all agreed that he was biding his time and relaxing before jumping back into the fray.

Chris Nolan: The Stand Alone Journalist
is Here...

Chris Nolan: The Stand Alone Journalist
is Here... 06/05/2005 11:18 PM
...And the newsroom has left the building. "If the folks in the building want to insist that what they do has some sort of magical quality, well, today's stand alone journalists have an even better chance of becoming the next generation's most trusted names--plural--in news."

"Chris Lydon's latest interivew"

"Chris Lydon's latest interivew" 12/15/2003 10:29 PM

Chris Hofmann Interviewed at NewsForge

Chris Hofmann Interviewed at NewsForge 07/15/2004 03:16 PM

How to Become a Hotspot Guide

The following phrases have been identified by the grok system as matching this entry: "chris harrington" omniture