b.cognosco
Where leaping to conclusions is my primary form of forward motion.
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Utah CIO On The Value Of Silly Patents
The Extortion Business Model
Does Walmart Buy American?
Personal VPN Recommendations
Detail on Directory Browsing and File Rendering
Klogging Roles
BN.com Faced With NASDAQ Delisting
Entrepreneurs Need to Know the New PR
The RIAA Wouldn't Lie
Protecting Radio Folders
How Does Kinko's Play in the Author and Publishing Business?
EU -- Racing Toward the Past
Next Step -- The Personal VPN
Instructions For ifLocal Macro
Head for the Hills, We Don't Need No Stinkin' Telco
When Nations Voluntarily Build Their Own Coffins
Thursday, August 15, 2002
Discover Common Goals to Unite Your Team
James Robertson finds a helpful article for team leaders on the 3M Meeting Network. The text that goes along with each bullet point is worth reading if you're responsible for building or managing any group of people.10 tips for shared purpose. Christopher M. Avery has written an article on 10 secrets to a shared purpose. This outlines some tips on how to build an effective and cohesive team:
- Establish shared clarity
- Select teammates for their motivation first, their skills second
- Acceptonce and for allthat teammates don't have to like each other
- Stop trying to motivate
- Determine if your team is "built."
- Know your most powerful team member
- Understand and honor the definition of consensus
- Become a "fast team" by knowing how to arrive at decisions quickly
- Don't fall into the "common enemy" trap
- Reorient the relationship when productivity begins to lag [Column Two]
Utah CIO On The Value Of Silly Patents
I appreciate Phil Windley's view on silly patents given my recent study of same in the graphic arts. I suspect Windley is right that pursuing patent enforcement, especially of questionable methods and processes, is a costly endeavor and one that not many companies can withstand.
Of All the Stupid....Yesterday I wrote about IM Bots. A pretty cool idea. Today I see in this Internet World article that ActiveBuddy has won a patent on the idea. I'm not a rabid anti-patent kind of guy, but this one seems pretty wimpy. There's plenty of prior art (like this Eliza IRC bot from June 1999). But whats more, small companies rarely win by having a patent. That's for IBM and other large companies who can employ hundreds of corporate attorneys. Even there most of them primarily use their patents defensively rather than offensively. The best way for a company like ActiveBuddy to win in the market is to spend their time and money on innovation, not in the courtroom.
I once had business dealings with a company called CoolSavings. They have a patent on online coupons. They spent so much time trying to convince us that we had to do business with them or they were going to come after us in court that we never did get to a business deal. I don't think its a smart way to do business.
[Windley's Enterprise Computing Weblog]
The Extortion Business Model
Cory's post on bogus patents is of interest because I have just been looking into a similar situation in the graphic arts.
Utterly bogus IMBot patent threatens entire field of innovation. When venture captial dries up, "innovative" companies like ActiveBuddy look for other revenue opportunities. In ActiveBuddy's case, the new money in the door will come from intimidating other technologists who ship instant-messaging bots, a concept on which the enemies of progress at the USPTO have just granted ActiveBuddy a patent. IM bots are an idea with well-known, invalidating prior art going back to well before the ActiveBuddy patent was filed. ActiveBuddy demonstrates its ignorance thus:"I am fairly confident, there were no interactive agents on IM at that point when the application was filed (August 22, 2000). I'm certainly not aware of any," said Kay, who doubles as ActiveBuddy's chief technology officer. [...](via /.)[Boing Boing Blog]
ImageX, of Kirkland, WA, fits Cory's description above quite well. Launched during the Dot Com bubble, the company has struggled since inception to find success with its e-procurement and e-commerce model, which it describes as follows:
ImageX (NASDAQ: IMGX) is a leading provider of Web-based services to streamline the management, production and distribution of business communication materials.The company provides marketing automation and branded communication solutions that reduce the costs of revenue generating activities such as sales channel support, collateral fulfillment and marketing program management.
But now ImageX has a new plan -- they have applied for patents on close to 60 (some estimates are as high as 90) processes and methods for producing print materials. Three patents have been granted and, at last count, they have received a sixth Notice of Allowance.
The problem is these patents appear to be, at best, questionable -- covering ideas and methods which seem to be common and routine rather than any significant new technology or development. The business plan appears to be to get as many of these issues through the USPTO as possible, offer a handful of small firms extremely favorable license terms to establish commercial value, and then wage a legal battle against major players.
What this means for industry innovators is unclear, but when a company receives patents for seemingly basic processing of routine operations, it does not bode well for innovators. This could adversely affect any company trying to raise efficiency through automation. More importantly, it raises the spectre of greatly increased burdens to fight legal battles over infringement.
It is not clear from reading the ImageX patent data that they actually invented much of anything. Certainly nothing to justify the following claim, which openly states the company's new view of where its money will come from:
[...]"These two patents illustrate the uniqueness of our technology and our production process," said Rich Begert, president and CEO. "They are at the core of our patent portfolio, and with three remaining Notices of Allowance and 47 print-related patents pending, we expect to start monetizing our patent portfolio." [WhatTheyThink?]
As someone who specializes in process automation for the print industry (not patent law) I have to say this approach to business worries me, but I can't state it any more effectively than Cory:
[...]When you file a patent, you aver that you have disclosed all the potentially invalidating prior art you know about. I wonder if there's a basis for pursuing a fraud claim against the inventors whose names are on the patent, since it's hardly credible that they didn't know about all this invalidating prior art before they told the federal government that they'd never heard of any of these well-known technologies.[...] [Boing Boing Blog]
The USPTO does not seem competent to review patent applications in the graphic arts, despite the fact that is their job and there is no other agency so defined. But once these patents are on the books -- no matter how frivilous or unwarranted -- it is almost impossible to invalidate them. So this is an important issue for an industry that desperately needs to remain free to innovate.
ImageX' new revenue strategy may well be intimidation of big industry players for royalities. If so, it seems a risky bet for all concerned. But I would certainly like to see someone at a major industry provider -- with suitable legal resources -- take a thorough look at this before unwarranted patents get on the books.
Does Walmart Buy American?
Walmart has been ordered to pay $464,000 in interest and lawyers fees for importing some wireless, rotating spotlights from Hong Kong. Several years ago Walmart was a big supporter of "Buy American". What happened?Judge orders Wal-Mart to pay in patent dispute.The two men invented a wireless, remote-control light that could spin all the way around.
Wal-Mart, which imported about 14,600 similar lights from a Hong Kong company, argued Golight's patent was invalid because the device was an obvious solution to a problem. But the judge said the item sold by Wal- Mart was likely a deliberate copy of Golight's product.
AP via New Jersey Online Aug 13 2002 10:45PM ET [Moreover - IP and patents news]
Personal VPN Recommendations
I've received two suggestions on my personal VPN query.Personal VPN's without Windows.[Curiouser and curiouser!]» Since you've probably got more than one computer at home anyway I would be inclined to look into one of the cable/DSL switches that also provides VPN. For example, the cable router that I could end up buying is the LinkSys BEFSX41 which includes built in VPN capability. At the back of my mind not running this through Windows hopefully exposes you to less risks.
I'd appreciate more informed opinions though.
This looks like a good solution as long as you don't need (want?) wireless access -- especially since the LinkSys is only $120 at BestBuy. It looks like this unit does everything you need to manage a personal VPN.
But I just purchased the D-Link DI614+, with mostly the same features of the LinkSys, sans the VPN endpoint, but with a wireless acces point built in. It supports multiple IPSec or PTP passthru connections, just not a VPN endpoint. So Scott Walker recommended this:
Here's how to do it in software on a single-diskette Linux box with two Ethernet cards:http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=4772
[...]This article shows you how to set up, at minimal expense, a working VPN gateway that uses the IETF's (Internet Engineering Task Force) IPSec (internet protocol security) specification. IPSec is an open standard and is supported by virtually all major firewall software and hardware vendors, such as Lucent, Cisco, Nortel and Check Point. This package will give you a widely interoperable IPSec that uses the de facto standard 3DES encrypted, MD5-authenticated site-to-site or point-to-site VPN. You should be able to do this without resorting to a full Linux distribution or recompiling a standard Linux kernel with a kernel IPSec module.[...]
Either way it looks like about another hundred $$ -- whether for another router or two ethernet cards and an old 486 PC. I'm inclined to go the Linux route and put it just behind my router, but first I have to learn enough about Linux to do it (or con someone into doing it for me.)
Detail on Directory Browsing and File Rendering
Notes on blocking /gems folder browsing and on rendering text files.Follow-up to Directory Browsing with Radio.A couple people have written in about my directory browsing post earlier today. Some thoughts:
Rogers Cadenhead reports that "The Python Community Server, the open source clone of the Radio Community Server at http://www.pycs.net, turns off directory browsing by default."
If you put index.txt in your "gems" folder, nothing will happen. This is because the "gems" folder disables a function in Radio called "rendering" - by which Radio transforms a simple text file into an HTML file and then uploads it to your web site. The gems folder is for any files you specifically want Radio to leave alone... so we need to create an HTML file called index.html that we can save in the gems folder. I've created one - download gems_index.txt (right-click, select "save as") and save it into your gems folder. Rename it index.html (in the gems folder), change the URL from http://your.blog.here/ to your blog URL, and Radio will take care of the rest.
By the way - rendering is a little-known feature in Radio. Create a folder in the "www" folder in Radio. Save a text file in there, wait a few seconds, then go to your web site. You'll have a file formatted with your site template - containing the text from the text file. Play with it a bit - it's a great way to save e-mails to the web, create static files for your web site (it's how I created the about page for this site), and other easy ways to add HTML pages to your site without thinking about it. [tins ::: Rick Klau's weblog]
Wednesday, August 14, 2002
Klogging Roles
Phil Wolff categorizing the skills needed to start and maintain a klog effort. His last point, klogging/blogging can improve your marketability, may be the most important in this time of economic stress. Those who put what they know front and center, in a way that is valuable and helpful to the audience, have taken a good first step to positively differentiating themselves from the crowd.But this changes the nature of the blog -- certainly between personal and professional blogs. I'm not sure yet just how personal is enough, how much is too much, how little is too terse. Something to watch as both the medium and the users mature.
Klogging Roles.. I forsee several klogging roles.
- Catalyst. Alpha blogger. Someone who klogs well, leads by example, provokes and inspires others to join a klogging community. If you've used Blogtree, naming your inspirations, you know what I mean.
- Coach. The person who helps newbies, builds internal FAQs, nurtures laggards, acknowledges great posts. Soft skills, communication and social skills, are not evenly distributed. The coach helps everyone join and get better. Chief metablogger.
- Armorer. Works with IT to develop configs, scripts, integration with enterprise apps and messaging services. Power macros. Engaging templates. Technologist and architect.
- Practice leader. Informal leaders of subcultures in larger organizations. The one in legal who drives the whole department to start klogging. The rep in the Cincinatti sales office who gets her colleagues to start customer-specific blogs. Watch for lists of like-minded colleagues. They may also connect to like-minded communities at suppliers, customers, and the wild blogosphere.
Mix and match.
One other point: I beleive (without hard numbers) that blogging and klogging can improve your personal marketability. I'm exploring this at Bloggers for Hire. Suggestions welcome. [a klog apart]
Recruit for excellence in one or more.
Hire ringers if your community is large enough.
BN.com Faced With NASDAQ Delisting
Interesting note, but I'm not sure it's a meaningful event. BN bookstores aren't going anywhere, and the corporate parent certainly isn't in any danger. They have one of the most smoothly integrated clicks-and-mortar operations anywhere, and their e-commerce is a much a part of the overall business as the retail stores.Bertelsmann's newfound love of traditional media could open the door for selling back their share in BN.com. That would open the door for Barnes & Noble corporate to sweep the young dot.com back into the fold.
Online bookseller faces Nasdaq exit. BBC Aug 14 2002 5:26PM ET [Moreover - Book publishing news]
Entrepreneurs Need to Know the New PR
If you're starting, growing, or running a business you need to read Udell's comments on PR in the age of blogs. If you're a PR firm you definitely shoould read them. Clearly, not all (even most) journalists are as blog savvy as Udell, but most in the tech industry soon will be, or they'll be writing about something else.
Contacting me: High-tech PR in the age of blogs. In June I met Mark O'Neill, CTO of Vordel, at the Web Services Edge conference. Today Mark sent me a pointer to his new blog. As you can see by glancing at my channelroll, I've subscribed to Mark's blog. [...]
Udell describes several interesting scenarios, but one of the most compelling is how simple the company/journalist contact becomes once the blog is introduced.
[...]
It happens that I've met Mark, and what Vordel does (web services security) is of interest to me, and although I won't be in SF on Sept 5 for the event Mark mentions in his blog, we'll undoubtedly be in touch. But quite often, I won't know the principal, or the company. What I hoped would start to happen, and am now certain will happen, is something like this:Hi, I'm XXX, [CTO|Architect|Product Manager] for YYY which does ZZZ. I have started a weblog that describes what we do, how we do it, and why it matters. If this information is useful and relevant, our RSS feed can be found here. Thanks!... [Jon's Radio]
The RIAA Wouldn't Lie
CD sales are down and it's all due to wretched hordes of music-stealing, file-sharing, copyright-evading, computer users who don't even have the decency to watch the commercials on TV ... or not.
CD slump, piracy link rebutted.Boston Globe Aug 14 2002 7:36AM ET -- Forrester Research says Internet piracy was not to blame - as the record labels claim - for a 15 percent drop in music sales in the past two years.
Protecting Radio Folders
A simple Meta tag to keep prying eyes from browsing weblog folders you don't want people to see.Prevent Directory Browsing in Radio.I think this should be an option built in to Radio, but it's relatively easy for you to do on your own. Here's the issue: Radio is a web content management system - when you add content to Radio, it automatically uploads that content to your website. For many users, their web site is hosted at http://radio.weblogs.com/. (Others, like me, host it at their own domain.) Radio maintains its content in a hierarchical folder structure. But relatively savvy individuals can type in your URL and add folders they want to "snoop" on - and Radio doesn't prevent this.
There's an easy way to do this: drop a text file into any folder you want to restrict access to. The text file is just a couple lines, and it includes a meta refresh command that forces the browser to load a new page. Here's my file - save it as index.txt, and drop it into any folder other than your "www" folder.
To try this out, try going to someone's Radio weblog and adding /categories after the URL. You'll now see all the categories they've set up. This isn't necessarily snooping, but there may be some private categories they've posted. (There are other examples, but hopefully you get the idea.) If you're the individual maintaining the blog in Radio, adding this text file to the folder will automatically redirect the browser to your site's home page.
Memo to Userland: I'd like this to be an option in the application itself. If I disable directory browsing, Radio should automatically drop this text file into any folder it creates.
[tins ::: Rick Klau's weblog]
How Does Kinko's Play in the Author and Publishing Business?
HarperBusiness Leadership in the 21st Century video forum pairs authors with Kinko's/Sprint to promote books.
Sprint and Kinkos Connect Top Authors With Audiences Across The Nation[...]four of HarperBusiness' top authors (James Collins, Jerry Porras, Geoffrey Moore and Noel Tichy) will discuss their groundbreaking works and today's hottest business topics during a special "Leadership in the 21st Century" forum. Created by HarperBusiness, Sprint and Kinko's, the event will be held live via videoconference on August 20 at 3:00 p.m. EDT. [...]
[WhatTheyThink]
EU -- Racing Toward the Past
How far back do you want to go today? EU now limits linking, P2P, and soon will likely have some stupid law banning VoIP/IM to protect their telcos. This is great. In another 10 years we won't have anyone to compete against globally but ourselves. The only surprise here is why the French aren't hatching these dumb ideas first.BT Broadband accuses P2P users of copyright abuse. EU Copyright Directive to spawn wider bans? [The Register]
Next Step -- The Personal VPN
I'm off into another area I don't know anything about -- VPNs. Now that I have Remote Access working for Radio I want to take the next step -- establishing a personal VPN for connection to my home network when I'm away. Several questions:- What does this require?
- Am I right in thinking a VPN would allow secure access to my entire network at home?
- Don't I need some sort of VPN or RAS server sitting behind my firewall and acting as a gateway to my other computers?
- Does W2K Pro have this built in?
- If not, what is the easiest way to do it?
- Doesn't W2K Pro have a built-in VPN client?
- Is this going to take longer, cost more?
Instructions For ifLocal Macro
Thanks Paul, I needed that. See this for background.Blunt Force Trauma: Managing Local and Remote URLs in Radio. "I don't know anything about writing macros for Frontier so how would I create an ifLocal macro? For my reference mainly, as I don't fully understand the fix but I most definitely understand the problem -- it's bitten me a couple of times already." Shouldn't be difficult. Code of the macros was posted already:on ifLocal (url1="/", url2=radio.macros.weblogUrl()) {
if radioResponder.flSameMachine {return (url1)} else {return (url2)}
} Create file ifLocal.txt in Macros folder of Radio, copy this code there and you're done. Now you can use iflocal() in your templates. [toolbox]
Head for the Hills, We Don't Need No Stinkin' Telco
Something to keep in mind when I move to my bunker in the mountains. Maybe I don't have to worry about whether or not the telcos serve my remote outpost anymore if I can get a few like-minded neighbors together. I already have a friend in Dallas who's spent the last five years doing high-speed spread-spectrum wireless for commercial networks. He says it isn't that hard or that expensive. Throw in a little Wi-Fi and who knows...Do It Yourself DSL.An article from Business 2.0 about a small town who got fed up waiting for the telcos to offer broadband in their community:
Oppedahl and about a dozen of his neighbors bought it last year for approximately $5,000. Then they scooped up cable modems, routers, and other equipment (usually for pennies on the dollar on eBay) and spent the past 10 months setting up the first subscriber-owned DSL co-op in America. While it all might seem unremarkable to outsiders -- it serves 12 homes at average DSL data speeds -- it does offer a compelling script for rural towns that don't want to wait until the next ice age to join the 21st century.
This isn't unlike the UTOPIA project in spirit, although UTOPIA is somewhat larger in scale (500,000 end users). [Windley's Enterprise Computing Weblog]
Tuesday, August 13, 2002
When Nations Voluntarily Build Their Own Coffins
I read this Register article and it says, basically, we now have the Germans, the Danes, and the EU Database Directive all working cohesively to make Europe into the technological and economic backwater of the 21st century.I don't know what the chances are of this sort of thing getting to the States. So far the stupidity is limited to Europe, and it truly is just one more step on their path to economic irrelevancy in our lifetime. At this rate they won't have anything to sell but old castles and pretty vistas by the time I retire.
Deep Linking - Another article on deep linking, another heavy sigh. Somebody call a timeout. And motion for Congress to send some eager beaver who likes to create new laws. Say, Berman, get over here. You want to introduce some Internet legislation? Okay, here's what you do. Introduce a bill that says the law doesn't recognize any cause of action based on someone linking to another person's site (after all that's what the Web was created to allow). But this law isn't there to protect people from their own stupidity, so if people want to use technical means to frustrate deep linking then they're allowed to do that. Now that would be a law that makes sense. So what are the odds of that getting passed? [Ernie the Attorney]
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