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SitePoint: "Instead, we wanted to clarify the issues surrounding site valuations,
and give site owners a clear picture of the factors that were affecting
their sites' values. We wanted also to provide starting points from
which you could work to translate those factors into dollar values."

"Blogging as a business is business. It takes business training and skills to make money with your blog."

-Lorelle VanFossen, "Business School for Bloggers: How to Make Money With Your Blog", Blog Herald, April 7, 2008

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We all know that networking can be vitally important, especially for freelancers and those with a bit of salesmanship to their jobs, but gigantic conferences like SXSW Interactive or O'Reilly...

In January, I wrote at length about the perception that Linux is not ‘officially’ supported. Yesterday, Linux-Watch released some figures that demonstrate how much of work toward the development of the Linux kernel has been contributed by paid professionals hired by large, profit-seeking corporations. Yes, I said paid professionals.

Two great quotes from Linux Foundation Marketing Director, Amanda McPherson, can be found in the last few paragraphs, both in relation to the unthinkable notion that profit-seeking companies would expend resources (money, time, people) improving something that they do not exclusively own and cannot sell. She notes that a savings from shared R&D costs do ultimately impact the bottom line (i.e. profit increases due to a decrease in expense, not an increase in revenue). I suspect that she wouldn’t be mentioning this if the cost savings weren’t (or weren’t expected to be) material.

Here is an interesting post from The Angry Admin ‘blog. The basic point being made is that Microsoft has succeeded in corrupting the ISO standard-setting process, attempting thereby to shake the faith in it and the standards that arise from it. Perhaps the title of the post should have made reference to the death of ISO, not ODF. Near the end, the company’s proficiency in FUD is highlighted; but, if true, it also reveals a slight difference from Microsoft’s typical modus in that a stalemate was considered acceptable. When it’s not winning the game, the company usually either bullies the other kids until it is declared the winner or picks up its toys and goes home; in this case, it opted to raze the playground. Could this be a sign of a weaker Microsoft? Maybe, maybe not. Time will tell.

In requiem,
-Brandon

Thinking about taking the plunge into entrepreneurship? The Small Biz Survival Guide offers a collection of checklists for starting your first business.

I joined the new Content Wrangler Community with hopes of improving my social networking with other content management professionals. Scott Abel discusses his goals for the community on his blog.

The Content Wrangler Community
is the new social network dedicated to people who value content as a
business asset, worthy of being effectively managed. This is the place
where technical communicators, medical and science writers, marketing
pros, online community managers, document engineers, information
architects, localization and translation pros, taxonomists, bloggers,
documentation and training managers, and content creators of all types
hang out. It’s much more than a blog. It’s a place to join your peers,
to share, to collaborate, to contribute, to find the information you
need.

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Source: CMS Report - Putting focus on today's Content Management Sy

Monday, the Associated Press released a story on Wal-Mart’s decision to discontinue the line of Everex Green gPCs in their brick-and-mortar stores. It appears that the retail giant has discovered that the demand for low-cost ($199USD) computers is much higher online than in the stores, so they decided to make the offering a web-only one, freeing up valuable floor and shelf space for other products that do sell well in the stores.

Becta's massive school database interoperability project (SIF) will create huge opportunities for Open Source software companies.

Hitherto, competition in the school's database market has been minimal due to schools being locked-in to proprietary, non-interoperable software normally based on Microsoft MS-SQL.

Capita-SIMS, the powerful and dominant schools database provider, has been instruct [...]

The 20th February 2008 was one of those 'Microsoft moments', when suddenly, the world changed. Just like when they 'got' the network (and we got NT), or they 'got' the Internet (and we got 'Internet Explorer'). This time they 'got' Open Source and Open Standards and the company is about to make another of their legendary radical transformations... or so they would [...]

"So what does this have to do with OpenEdit? Simple. We want to change
the world. Or more precisely, your world. The difference is we want to
change your world at work."

Complete Story

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pTools
today announced that it has enhanced its CMS software for Microsoft SharePoint
by integrating it with Window's Workflow Foundation. Organisations can now
generate content within the CMS and expose this content as web-parts for SharePoint. The latest release will be launched at
Microsoft's world-wide SharePoint Conference in Seattle this March and is part of pTools
alignment to Microsoft's .net applications framework.

pTools
integration of Microsoft's Windows Workflow Foundation gives the flexibility
and rapid deployment necessary for critical web content management initiatives
within the overall SharePoint workflow and document architecture.

Microsoft
Ireland Partner Manager, Sinead Doohan says “pTools software provides powerful
and enhanced CMS functionality for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server. By exhibiting at
the SharePoint Conference 2008 pTools will gain access and exposure to a vast
number of customers and partners interested in connecting, sharing and
collaborating on one of Microsoft’s fastest growing product lines.”

Linux FUD Pattern #5: Linux is not secure

There are some out there who would like for you to believe that Linux is unsafe. What better way to instill fear than to form doubt in your mind about a system’s abilities to protect your data?

Application Development Trends, 18/02/2008:

Roughly half (53 percent) of respondents said that they "have no plans to deploy Vista at this time." Other plans for Vista included installing it for testing (18 percent), new machines only (14 percent) and other uses (two percent). Just 13 percent said they planned to be fully deployed on Vista.

Glyn Moody's "Open..." Blog, 18/02/2008:

In the face of this evid [...]

by Kevin Guertin

IBM believes Linux is finally ready for the corporate desktop.

In an announcement this week at the Lotusphere 2008 conference in Orlando, IBM said that it will provide full support for Ubuntu Linux with Lotus Notes 8.5 and Lotus Symphony using its Open Collaboration Client software, which is based on open standards.

Antony Satyadas, chief competitive marketing officer for IBM Lotus, said the Ubuntu support for Notes and Symphony were a direct response to demand from customers. Lotus Notes 8.0.1 has limited support for Ubuntu Linux, but customers have asked for broader capabilities, he said.

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Source: Linux FUD