Niall Kennedy's weblog

Niall Kennedy's Weblog

Page 68 of 72, covering posts published in September 2003.

$100,000

Ever wonder what a $100,000 bill looks like?…

Johnny Cash is dead

Johnny Cash died this morning of heart failure stemming from complications from diabetes….

Skype your way around the globe

Skype is a new P2P telephony and instant message application created by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, the creators of KaZaa. The IM capability sounds like a good fit so people will be used to logging on and staying connected even when they are not performing the service's primary use. Right now the app is ad-free but how long until it becomes infested like KaZaa?…

Robert Frost on education

Robert Frost : "Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self confidence."…

Moneyball and Billy Beane

Next week I will be attending an event with Michael Lewis and Billy Beane as part of the Moneyball book tour. The moderator is Roy Eisenhardt, the ex-VP of the A's back in 1985 who almost sold the team to Tampa for $37 million. What would you like me to ask on your behalf?…

Blogger Pro no more

I received an e-mail from Evan Williams tonight. "We're no longer offering Blogger Pro as a separate product and we're folding most of the features into regular (free) Blogger." "You will continue to have access to features like RSS and post-via-email that are still not in the free version. You'll also have priority support from our expanded team and new support system" For supporting Pyra I am presented with a Blogger hoodie. Where will new users get their RSS from? You may want to take a look at TypePad….

We Want Your Soul

According to We Want Your Soul, I am worth £14678 and 50% of people have a purer soul than I do….

Bill Joy to leave Sun

Chief Scientist Bill Joy is leaving Sun. Bill has been working mainly from Aspen for the past few years, but I have not seen any reporters pick up on his already shifted work schedule….

Open Office 1.1 RC4

Open Office 1.1 RC4 is now available….

$87 billion

$87 billion for Iraq & Afghanistan. Can we build build "safe, stable, and self-governing societies" at home before we turn our sights abroad? What really irked me about last night's speech was comparing the United States' invasion and rebuilding of Iraq and Afghanistan to the rebuilding of Germany and Japan after World War II. In related news, I paid $2.45 a gallon for my turbocharged (92 octane needed) 29 mpg Jetta yesterday….

20 and 40 GB iPods

Today Apple released two new iPods. Press release here. I want one. I keep thinking that I should wait until a Windows version of iTunes ships, or until after the next MacWorld until I place my cash on the table. Last week I attended an event sponsored by Mercedes USA. At the event I got to experience Sirius satellite radio for the first time. I am not inspired to buy a satellite radio unit or a subscription because I feel my money and playlist would be better served by an iPod. I can grab NPR radio shows online and sync…

College students fined for infected computers

Some colleges have started fining students for not properly maintaining their own systems against a virus attack. I am sure Apple will pick up on it and market the fines as monetary proof that Apple is a better total cost of ownership….

Workers need help turning computers on

One in seven workers need help turning their office computers on or off according to this study. "Research showed that about a fifth of staff asked for help to save or print a document and could not create a table on their screens to make it easier to write data." On my first day at Callan I was told to wait for a member of our IT staff to turn on my computer for me. I write code, so I must not know how to work the machine? There are plenty of support nightmares out there….

IBM kicks off global Linux ad push

IBM is launching a global advertising campaign for Linux. I like the idea of experts in each of their fields contributing to one learner. The idea of a child may work against IBM as companies view Linux as new and unproven….

It’s good to be king

King Mswati of Swaziland has 10 wives and a fiance, and he holds a yearly festival where 50,000 bare chested women compete for his attention. Sounds like an interesting way to meet women. I hope he has better taste than Bill Clinton….

New Microsoft mice

Today Microsoft officially announced their new mice and keyboards. The wireless devices are available by the end of the month and the new wired Intellimouse Explorer is not available until February 2004. If you take a look at a close-up of the Wireless Intellimouse Explorer you will notice more well defined finger grooves and a scroll wheel chamber. My scroll wheel seems to always be blocked with gunk of some form, so hopefully the new design is more gunk resistant. There is a leather Wireless Intellimouse Explorer as well….

Israeli Scientists Crack GSM Mobile Call Security

An Israeli scientist said on Wednesday his team had found a way to break into mobile phone calls made on the popular GSM network, allowing eavesdroppers to listen in on calls and even take on a caller's identity….

Tips for Candidates re Weblogs

Dave Winer has been doing a lot of research about political candidates and how they should be using weblogs….

Pimp Juice

Now you too can own your very own can of Pimp Juice….

Chinese food and Pirillo party Saturday night

On Saturday night I had dinner with Dave Winer, Robert Scoble and his family, Jake Savin, Brad Neuberg, Don Park, Steve Gillmor, Phil Wolff, Cheyenne, Pat Delaney, Bryan Bell, and a few other names I cannot remember. If I left you out leave a comment and I will edit you in. Brad is working on some really cool JXTA project named Paper Airplane which he plans to release into beta this week. Steve Gillmor is a little too RSS crazy and would like to do away with all e-mail and instead turn to RSS. I argued that his gripes with…

Revolve : The Bible meets Cosmo

Tommy Nelson has a brand new version of The New Testament geared towards teenage girls: Revolve. ABC News has a pretty comprehensive review. As a child I had a version of the Bible (old and new testaments) rewritten to appear as a comic. If I had been given a King James version it would have never been read. So I think different inroads for the same content is a good thing. In case you are wondering…I was raised Irish Catholic but I am currently consider myself agnostic and in defiance of any dogma. The last service I attended was Zen…