Another Jeremy Blog

March 7, 2005 Leave a comment

This is why I like blogs in general and why I read Jeremy Zawodny's blog specifically. A long time (at least by Internet standards) Yahoo! employee telling everyone how useful Google's Desktop Search just got to him. A couple snippets:
I had tried the previous version of GDS a bit, as well as the company dog food (Yahoo Desktop Search or YDS). But both lacked the ability to search the most important asset on my computer: my e-mail archive.
Being one who does not use Outlook, that meant I was on my own until now. The latest GDS release has the ability to index Thunderbird mailboxes.
This is the killer feature for me. My computer just got twice as useful. It's funny how sometimes it just takes one feature to completely change your mind about a product, isn't it?
and
And yes, before you ask, I have pointed out how useful this feature would be in YDS to anyone who'd listen. More than once. And no, I can't tell you if you should expect to see it or when that might be–so don't ask.
So not only does he tell us 1) that he likes a competitors product better than his employers and that 2) he is actually going to use the competitor product, but he has let his employer know why and lets us know that he has done so. Good stuff. Kudos to Jeremy for the honesty and to Yahoo! for allowing such honesty in such a public forum.
–jeremy

Filed under Main Page

Google VS. Evil

March 6, 2005 Leave a comment

An old but interesting article about the difficulties of not being evil as you become a behemoth. Now, while I can't say I agree with every decision Google has made over the years, I still think that they really do try to do the right thing. While some people may not like certain end results, to me it's the intention that matters. Google's in a bit of a precarious position right now. A large part of their success has been due to the fact that there seemed to be a perception in the media that the company could do no wrong. You can't pay for PR that good. They seemed to have reached a size now that people are uncomfortable with them though. They've crossed some invisible line and now in some peoples mind they seem to be evil by default. Now, I can't say where Google is going or whether they'll continue to not be evil – but I can say that they have earned enough of my trust at this point that they really need to actively do something to lose it. …and I really hope they don't. The Internet will be a worse place if they do.
–jeremy

Filed under Main Page

Tiemann New OSI President

March 6, 2005 Leave a comment

It looks like Russ Nelson has stepped down as the OSI President, to be replaced by Michael Tiemann. I've had a chance to talk to Michael on several occasions and I'm sure he'll do a great job as interim president (it looks like his role is mostly going to be expanding the board to 9, so they can vote on a full term president). It's unfortunate what happened to Russ and I think it was much ado about nothing. He's been a member of the community for a long time and hopefully everyone can put this behind them and move on. It's good to see that he will stay on the board and continue to contribute to OSI.
–jeremy

Filed under Linux, Main Page

Good to Know People are Listening

March 6, 2005 Leave a comment

After making a comment in the LQ Podcast that I could not read any of the UK ZDNet articles in firefox, I am happy to report that someone from CNET contacted me and things seem to be working great now in Firefox. Fast response and good to see that this was cleaned up quickly. Nice!
–jeremy

Filed under Main Page

Sowing the Seeds of Open Source Advocacy

March 4, 2005 Leave a comment

An interesting article about properly advocating Open Source by Jono Bacon has been posted to LinuxDevCenter. Some good points are made and overall it's an article that almost anyone can glean some useful info from. It's sometime easy to get overzealous and I think we've all seen some cases where a person trying to advocate has done more harm than good.
–jeremy

Filed under Linux, Main Page

Microsoft and Shipping Software

March 4, 2005 Leave a comment

An interesting perspective from a really smart guy who worked at Microsoft for 15+ years and now works at Google. From the post:
I would argue that Microsoft used to know how to ship software, but the world has changed…
An good read from someone who has seen both sides on the coin.
–jeremy

Filed under Linux, Main Page

Final Reminder – LQ Podcasts Have Moved

March 3, 2005 Leave a comment

This is a final reminder that the LQ Podcasts have moved to the LQ Radio site. I've included an audio clip here to catch any of the remaining people using this feed for the LQ Podcasts. A new Podcast has just been posted, so head on over and listen.
–jeremy

Filed under Main Page, podcast

Tom and Sam Comment on Sun JDS

March 3, 2005 Leave a comment

Tom Adelstein and Sam Hiser have some harsh words for Sun and JDS. I had the pleasure of meeting both Tom and Sam in Boston at LWE. Sun has had a very up and down relationship with the Open Source community, to say the least. The fact that Tom and Sam were the authors of a JDS book, started JDSHelp, and were previously big Sun supports should hopefully help get Sun's attention on this one though.
–jeremy

Filed under Linux, Main Page

Peeking Into Google

March 3, 2005 Leave a comment

An informative article about Google that gives you a small peek into the inner workings. A minimal Red Hat running Google filesystem on a ton of $1,000 PC's. They do state that they have their own kernel patches. The question I have is, do they plan on ever making these available to the general Linux community? That would be nice. If this is a topic that interests you, you may also want to take a look at this. I'm watching it right now…
–jeremy

Filed under Main Page

Alan comments on Linus

March 2, 2005 2 Comments

Alan Cox gave a few comments about Linus in a talk at FOSDEM. For some reason Slashdot et al seem to be insinuating that there is some kind of feud between the two, but if you actually read the article you'll see there's not. Alan and Linus do have very different styles, they always have. There's nothing wrong with that though, in fact, it's probably a good thing. I guess it's better news if there's some kind of drama involved. On a side note, the article (and in fact any article I click on) on the ZDNet site is completely unreadable in both Mozilla and Firefox. I didn't know there were sites with such poor design methodology left in business. What a joke!
–jeremy

Filed under Linux, Main Page

← Older posts

Newer posts →