I just downloaded the last version of Mozilla's Firefox browser, 1.07, here which addresses several security problems that were recently uncovered. The flaws which were addressed were rated as “highly critical” by many security alert aggregators dealt with the buffer overflow as I mentioned in this post on Somewhat Frank. A number of other security issues were reported in this recent eWeek article. Also check out this mozillaZine article for further details.
« August 2005 | Main | October 2005 »
Friday, September 23, 2005
Thursday, September 22, 2005
The Otter Group Offers Podcasting For Learning Whitepaper
The Otter Group recently released a report titled Podcasting for Learning you can find the whitepaper here. According to the Otter Group the article:
"Podcasting for Learning" captures the beginning of our journey using podcasts as a new medium for learning.”
The article skates over basic RSS and podcasting but goes into detail as it progresses. It also highlights the groups experience producing the Negotiating Tip of the Week Podcast with Dr. Josh Weiss, Associate Director of the Global Negotiation Project at Harvard's Program on Negotiation helps enrich the program using online resources. It is worth a read…you might learn something from it.
WSJ MBA Rankings Missing Key Programs
The Wall Street Journal yesterday (September 21, 2005) released their MBA school rankings with Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth as number one overall MBA program nationally and Purdue University (one of my Alma Mater’s) ranking number one for regional programs. They can be found online here.
Interestingly, the WSJ determines its rankings from recruiter’s feedback which is different method then the rankings of Business Week, U.S. News & World Report or other media outlets. One of the articles "Take Full Advantage" in the WSJ special section emphasized the recruiter’s preference to recruit full time MBA students over part-time or online/distance learning students. They had a number of reasons for this preference from students not being focused in part-time programs to online programs are to easy to do. They even referred to part-time and online programs as MBA Lite programs which is completely unwarranted and in most cases untrue. StopBuyingCrap.com highlights the WSJ article well in this blog post.
I strongly disagree with these recruiters and wonder what rock they have been living behind. I think this perspective by recruiters is very close minded and not with the times of the Business 2.0 environment where nearly everything is or has already moved online. These recruiters that totally discounted part time and online programs need to realize a few things:
1.) Part-time and online MBA students do not have time to put their career on hold to go back to school full time and lose valuable work time and experience.
2.) Part-time and online MBA students have current real life on the job experience to bring to class or online discussions while full time students may very well be out of touch with the true business marketplace.
3.) Part-time and online MBA programs are not easier then full time programs. As long as the part time and online MBA program in question is fully accredited by AACSB they are just as difficult as full time programs and sometime probably harder on the students due in part to outside distractions.
4.) Part-time and online MBA students become excellent at managing their time since they have such very little because of other obligations like a full time job and a family.
I think part-time and online programs will increase in value with time and eventually corporate recruiters will realize how ridiculous their past perspectives were. For example, many top Universities already have part time programs but are also starting to offer online programs. Schools like Babson, Duke, Indiana, Syracuse, Massachusetts, Arizona State, Tulsa, and Penn State just to name a few are now offering online programs. While articles like "Do Online MBAs Make The Grade?" from BusinessWeek report on the popularity of online programs I do not feel it digs deep enough to highlight some of the better known schools offering MBA programs online and instead gives more emphasis on low light offerings that do not have full accreditation. This perspective makes it seem like there are not enough good online programs available which is not the case.
The WSJ, BusinessWeek and US News & World Reports should read this article on Forbes.com and better understand the part-time and online student and programs since it is only a matter of time until they are commonplace. Not to mention, these media outlets should ditch the negative attitude they associate with part-time and online MBA programs and start giving them the respect they deserve since many students are going through more rigor to get them then a full time MBA student would. They should also start ranking them just like the full time programs because students deserve it. They would love to hear how part-time and online MBA programs stack up against one another. I believe it is only a matter of time until the next Bill Gates, Jack Welch or Craig Newmark proves the part-time and online programs a success by holding a part-time or online MBA themselves.
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Opera Web Browser Is Now Free
To compete with the free web browser offerings of Firefox, IE and the soon to be released social browser Flock, Opera has decided to start offering all version of it's Opera browser free of charge. Previously, they offered two versions, a free version with advertisements and a pay version without ads. Now they have just one version and you can get it for free by going here. I wonder how they are going to compensate their current paying customers? Also check out this wonderful browser comparison chart on Wikipedia.
What's All The Buzz About WiMax?
WiMax has been in the news a lot recently and I wanted to address the buzz since it appears WiMax is on it's way.
What is WiMax? According to Intel's website:
"WiMAX is a standards-based wireless technology that provides high-throughput broadband connections over long distances."
This new wireless technology adheres to the IEEE 802.16 standards and will be able support many different applications and networks much like a "final mile" broadband connection does now. Some of these applications include, On-Demand video, "final mile" broadband, and other cellular connections. So WiMax can act like your home Wi-Fi network but on a much larger scale. While a home Wi-Fi network usually has a range of a few hundred feet with speeds of up to 54 megabits per second, a single WiMax antenna is expected to range of up to 40 miles with speeds of 70 megabits per second or more. This could be an excellent solution for rural areas that have not been offered broadband or DSL services due to there location. For example, some of my relatives live in a home surrounded by trees and in a rural area outside of a small city. They cannot get Yahoo DSL or any type of broadband so they have had to get satellite Internet for the last several years which is extremely expensive in comparison but offers a faster solution then dial-up. WiMax could be just what they need to offer them the "final mile" connection to support their own home Wi-Fi network.
So when can we expect to see WiMax? Well it seems that it could be very soon. Sprint Nextel as is currently said to be testing a WiMax network as reporter here. While Verizon is reported herehere.
What is EVDO? EVDO to also experimenting with WiMax service. Additionally, an Argentine school was reported to be testing WiMax technology is a wireless radio broadband data protocol being adopted by
many CDMA mobile phone providers in Japan, Korea, the United States and
Canada. Verizon also recently struck a deal with Dell Computers to start placing a Verizon Wireless EVDOpost. While this is not WiMax is it wireless broadband offering data services at 2M bit/sec EV-DO and the 14.4M bit/sec High-Speed Downlink Packet
Access with pricing starting around $80 per month.
cards in next years Dell laptops as stated in this
So the wireless revolution continues and it is only a matter of time before we see cellular broadband services like EV-DO and WiMax competing for users as adoption rates increase much like cable services and DSL do today. This blog post further describes what we can expect from WiMax and EV-DO. While this post on WiDATblog discusses the most recent WiMax happenings. Finally, check out the WiMax Forum here.
Somewhat Frank Blogger A Chicago's Finest CFF Event Nominee
Through my philanthropic involvement in Chicago
I was recently nominated as one of Chicago's
Finest at an upcoming Cystic Fibrosis Foundation event called "A Chocolate
Affair" on November 11, 2005. As a result, I am collecting donations for the
event. The nominee who gathers the most contributions will be given the title
of Chicago’s
Finest. If you are interested in giving me a hand, I thank you in advance for
your support, and really appreciate your generosity!! To support me in leading
the battle against Cystic Fibrosis please go here.
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Is Google Testing A Wi-Fi Service?
According to several reports online and throughout the blogosphere, Google has started testing a Google Wi-Fi which is a free Internet access offering. The testing is taking place at a two locations (a gym and pizza parole) near Google’s Mountain View, California headquarters. Nate Tyler a Google spokesman was quoted as saying:
"Google Wi-Fi is a community outreach program to offer free wireless access in areas near our headquarters.”
I guess we will have to wait to hear the rest of the details of this project. However, it is evident Google is dabbling with the idea of getting into the telecommunication business.
Check out Google’s Wi-Fi project here where it is referred to as “Google Secure Access”. Check out this article on Business 2.0 where it is referred to as GoogleNet and this post on A Stitch of Haste for more information. Additionally, this Engadget post provides more details on the project.
Music Industry Should Reward, Not Sue Baidu
Chinese search engine Baidu.com was served with a copyright infringement lawsuit yesterday by a local affiliate of global music giant EMI, Shanghai Busheng Music Culture Media Co. Baidu has an mp3 music search at mp3.baidu.com that searches the Internet for mp3 files and returns them in results.
So why are they getting sued? That is wonderful question since really they are just offering a search service just like Google or Yahoo. However, it appears that the music industry disagrees. When it comes to enabling users to search on music that is on the Internet it appears you have to get permission from individual Music Company’s whose content you are returning in your results. This does not make sense and I do not think Baidu is doing anything illegal by offering mp3 search results. If anything, Baidu is doing the music industry a great service and should be rewarded since they should really be filing lawsuits with each individual website that hosts the illegal music downloads not a search company that finds and returns them in results. I guess Baidu is going to have its day in court to decide if the legal system agrees. If Baidu loses the lawsuit they may have to remove the mp3 search from its site or rework the search to make sure it returns pay-per-download results like a GoFish music search result does. You can check out a GoFish search here.
ProTrade Offers New Stock Market Fantasy Sports Game
The book Moneyball by Micheal Lewis (one of my favorites) analyzed sabermetrics and acted as an inspiration to Mike Kerns and Jeffery Ma in releasing a new website today called ProTrade. ProTrade offers a new way to play fantasy sports. ProTrade will treat professional athletes like stocks in a fantasy stock market game. The value of these players is influenced by the players performance on the playing field. So think of these athletes as investments and at the end of a season the trader with the best portfolio wins and is rewarded win a prize jackpot. This idea is very similar to BlogShares in the blogosphere but is going after a larger sport enthusiast demographic.
There are so many useless statistics in sports that carry too much weight and there are other stats that carry little weight but are so valuable. For example in baseball, the point of the game is to score the most runs. So why isn't runs scored one of the main stats used in baseball? Furthermore, you are more likely to score runs if you get on base, so why isn't on-base percentage the most heavily publicized and used stat in baseball? Therefore, I think this product will help bring the more important stats to light. Based on the success of fantasy sports games, I think this will be a successful and profitable endeavor.
What is ProTrade's business model? It appears that since registration and portfolio creation is free ProTrade plans to generate revenue from advertisements as well as 2 to 3 percent commissions on jackpots set up on league play.
ProTrade has some pretty decent backing with investors like
former sports agent Jeff Moorad and Arizona Diamondback general partner and Kevin Compton a Silicon venture capitalist who is the principle owner of the NHL
San Jose Sharks. One other interesting fact in about ProTrade in closing is that co-founder Jeffery Ma was one of the
infamous MIT blackjack card counting students that took so many casinos
that they were banned and inspired the best-selling book "Bringing Down The House
Currently, ProTrade is only offered for NFL players but other leagues are soon to follow. To find out more about ProTrade check out these blog posts by Kevin Glennon, Mike Trader and The New Economy. Also co-founder Jeff Ma has a blog of his own here. Also check out the ProTrade Manifesto since it spells out 8 reasons why ProTrade will revolutionize sports.
Monday, September 19, 2005
Will Users Flock To New Social Browser?
Flock is a new web browser that is creating a lot of buzz in the blogosphere. It is set to debut to the general public sometime in October according to the recent post on Flock's blog. Flock is built on the Mozilla Firefox framework but has added a number of new features that allow it to be somewhat interactive and offers social related items to take on the Web 2.0 mindset. It sounds like a souped up Firefox with a social twist but beta testers are saying it is more.
The two key features that Flock seems to have incorporated into the Firefox base browser are as follows:
- Social Bookmarking - very much like de.licio.us you are able to click a "+" sign within the browser to add a quick bookmark of a webpage or blog post.
- Blogging tools - integrates with blog platforms to allow users to post Flickr images to blogs, create new content, and even update content via the browser.
What does all this buzz about Flock really mean? In short it means this browser has lots of bells and whistles with it's main role no longer just navigating through the web. I was not fortunate enough to be in the beta group however my friend Michael Arrington over at TechCrunch was and has this to offer about the new integration of blogging software into the new Flock browser:
"...it rocks. Setup was very easy (I tested it with my personal blog). It has functionality for editing posts (even posts not created with Flock), quick toggle between preview and viewing the actual code, and, the best feature in my opinion, the ability to simply drag flickr photos directly into the post and manipulate them. They also allow quick and easy technorati tagging. Wow. I mean, really, wow. This stuff is not trivial to build. The ajax functionality is stunning."
I definitely will give this browser a test drive when it is released to the public. It sounds like I will find the blogging tools to be extremely helpful in streamlining the blogging process (i.e. adding tags, images, links).
Wired News recently published this article on Flock. Lee Odden has a good blog post on Flock here. TechCrunch has an update post on Flock here. Additionally, sign-up for Flock email updates on Flock's website here.
MSN and AOL Rumored to Join Forces
It was not very long ago that Microsoft was the clear king of software, the desktop and online, with Internet Explorer, MSN dial-up and Hotmail offerings but things have changed a bit in the last five or six years. Google has emerged and become an applications powerhouse and invaded the desktop space with its products like Picasa and Desktop Search. Yahoo has also been a solid player in the online space for ten years with its portal, search and mail offerings. Things might change even more in the near future with Microsoft.
According to a Wall Street Journal report last Friday, Microsoft has realized this and is rumored to be talking with AOL Time Warner to work out some sort of working agreement or possible 
acquisition. Investment bankers have not been involved yet so it appears the talks are preliminary but it would be interesting to see what a MSN/AOL merger would do to the landscape of the online space. You might these talks ironic since AOL and MSN used to be arch rivals in a heated battle to attract and lock up dial-up users. Though, the adoption rate of broadband and the settlement of an anti-trust lawsuit seem to have diluted that rivalry. Now they appear friendly with one another and could possibly to team up and take on Google and Yahoo. It will be interesting to see what happens next since the right type of move could vault them up the online space hierarchy.
5 Blogs Before Lunch points to an Ad Age Report on the potential impacts of an MSN/AOL merger. VOIP Now and Bloggoff also give their perspective on a potential deal. Finally, check out this Red Herring article for more information.
Splog Reporter Improves Features and Reporting Flow
I am happy to announce that Splog Reporter had added yet another way for users to report splog by adding a bulk import list feature. In response to several users requests we added the feature to allow users the ability to upload a comma-delimited file of splog URLs to Splog Reporter. This added feature should make splog reporting easier for splog fighters that have lists of splogs they want to report.
Additionally, Splog Reporter’s reporting flow has been changed a bit to make it a true one-click process by removing the required supplemental information fields from the Splog Reporter form. Users that use the bookmarklet or Firefox extension will now be able to simply click on those toolbar items and report the current page as splog. Just to clarify, not every URL that is reported is ultimately tagged as splog because of our back-end verification system we have in place.
It is our hope that these changes will help to make reporting splog even easier in an ultimate effort to rid them from our blogosphere. To find out more about the latest feature read our more recent news release.
Friday, September 16, 2005
Technorati To Host Second Web Spam Summit
Technorati is hosting the Second Web Spam Summit next week in Mountian View, California. Unfortunately, due to my geographic location (Chicago, Illinois) and my day job, I will not be in attendance to represent Splog Reporter. Jeff Johns is also unable to attend for the same reasons. However, I hope the summit goes well and addresses many of the issues that web spam and spam blogs or splogs cause to search engines, the web, and blogosphere. I hope that in the future Technorati offers these spam summits in the broadcast fashion so that more than just he Mountian View region can easily attend on such short notice. To learn more about the summit check out this link by Naill Kennedy on Technorati’s site.
Is A Video iPod Next?
Yesterday I posted iTunes Is Now Accepting Video PodCasts where I speculated that the next iPod will be a video podcast ready player. Then this morning I stumbled upon a BusinessWeek article by Arik Hesseldahl titled Apple: A Pocket Full of Movies? which discusses in detail the possibility of an iPod video player. I think the article covers iPod's handle on the music industry well and addresses the next generation of iPod's. In the article it discusses Apple CEO Steve Jobs perspective on the iPod and I agree with Steve in his thinking that listening to music is an on the go passive activity while watching video is not. It will be interesting to see the angle iPod eventually takes, if any, on creating a video player. I also agree with Arik that an iPod that plays home videos and downloads video podcasts would be a good start at a video iPod player.
Startup Mixology: Tech Cocktail's Guide To Building, Growing & Celebrating Startup Success by Frank Gruber
