Archive for Dec 2010


Endpoint: What Does it Mean?

I'm trying to determine the effectiveness of a bit of nomenclature. You can help me by taking the following poll: \tWhat does the term "endpoint" mean to you?survey software
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Streams of Micromessages: Building the Live Web

Steve Gillmor recently described a breakfast meeting Micorsoft's Ballmer had with Twitter's Costolo, it's timing, and--more interesting--what it means called breakfast with Twtter. The point of the article is that Microsoft's empire is built on a crumbling foundation that has at it's very base "Outlook." Outlook is vulnerable because it's not real-time. Microsoft's efforts to bring real-time into Outlook have largely failed. Here's Gillmor's words: For all the power and money Ballmer commands at Microsoft, he faces a serious vulnerability at the heart of his Windows/Office stack. In a word: Outlook. If Outlook goes, Office goes. If Office goes,
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The Problem with Identity Proofing

As part of settling IIW Europe, I needed to send a wire transfer for $5000 to a company in London. I logged onto my account at my bank and set it all up. This process involved not only logging in with my secure password, but also having a "security code" sent to my phone four times along the way that I needed to type into the Web page to prove I was in possession of my phone--or something: once for setting up the wire account, once for setting up the recipient, once for sending the wire, and once for
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Readings for December 12, 2010

Open API Ecosystems - A nice set of slides from John Musser Reality Check - America must get out of the way so Israelis and Palestinians can see clearly, without any obstructions, what reckless choices their leaders are making. China's Army of Graduates Struggles for Jobs - Villagers who will work in China's factories are in demand, but many college graduates seeking professional jobs find their value plunging. Out of Our Brains - From Andy Clarke who wrote Natural Born Cyborgs Did you use one of these 10 most overused buzzwords in your LinkedIn profile this year? - Treesaver
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The Kynetx Rule Language has Modules

KRL (Kynetx Rule Language) started out as a fairly small domain specific language for augmenting Web pages. We integrated with several online services (like geolocation, weather, and so on) to make what we were doing simpler to write. Later, as KRL grew, we added more integrations with Web APIs and services like Twitter. We've increased the abstraction capabilities of the language by adding first-class functions. Lately we've realized that many of the native integrations of external APIs we've done could--and should--be done by developers working in KRL. If only they had a way to encapsulate and share them! Now
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Starting a High Tech Business: We Believe...

I'm the founder and CTO of Kynetx. This series of articles relates my discoveries and feelings about starting a high-tech business. This is the twenty-ninth installment. You may find my efforts instructive. Or you may know a better way---if so, please let me know! A while back I was pointed to this TED video by Simon Sinek on how great leaders inspire action. The talk is marvelous and is well worth watching. The line I like best: "[Martin Luther King] gave the 'I have a dream' speech, not the 'I have a plan' speech." Here's the primary point: Every
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Capture Mode and Emacs

One of the "new" things in Emacs is something called Org mode. If you're an Emacs user and need an outliner, a calendar, a TODO list, or just a place to capture your thoughts, it's great. I've been using Org mode for a while and love it's features. A while back, I started using it with Remember mode to capture thoughts about a book I'm writing, notes in meetings, and a personal journal. I learned over the weekend about something called Org-capture, a Remember mode replacement and took a few minutes to get it set up. Since there were
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Podcast: Kaliya Hamlin Interview Me on Personal Data Ecosystems

Kaliya interviewed me for her Personal Data Ecosystem podcast series. Here's her description? In this podcast Kaliya talks to Phil Windley who is the CTO and co-founder of Kynetx and co-founded and co-produces the Internet Identity Workshop with Kaliya & Doc Searls. He gives his perspective on the key differentiator between today's social networks and Personal Data Ecosystem the emergence of the personal data store where individuals control their own data. He also covers the event based architecture his company Kynetx is developing and refers to the project neck pain demo. In the podcast he mentions Twillio.
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Readings Weeks of Nov 29th and Dec 6th, 2010

Web Developers Get Real (Time) - Technology Review Who owns Wikipedia? Algorithms Can't Pick College Football Champions or Predict Economies Gates: Wikileaks Consequences for U.S. foreign policy? I think fairly modest. Why Gawker is moving beyond the blog How Comcast became a toll-collecting, nuke-wielding hydra \tThe Joy of Stats with Hans Rosling - Watch the 4 minute clip embedded in the article. Amazing. WinerLinks and outliners Jon Udell on what the Elm City project teaches us about computational thinking and education. TSA Searches, Bomb Risk Near Zero (Commentary) "This illusory quest for zero risk helps terrorism achieve its goals.
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Podcast: Ylian Saint-Hilaire on MeshCentral

This week Scott and I spoke with Ylian Saint-Hilaire of Intel about his MeshCentral project. While we were talking I just kept thinking how cool it would be to use Kynetx react to the events this system creates. I didn't indulge myself however, that will wait for a future conversation. Here's the description from IT Conversations: MeshCentral, a remote monitoring and management web site, allows a user to connect with home or office devices from anywhere in the world. It requires a special management agent on computers, but once installed, the computers will show up in the My Devices
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Starting a High Tech Business: Move As a Pack

I'm the founder and CTO of Kynetx. This seriesof articles relates my discoveries and feelings about starting a high-tech business. This is the twenty-eighth installment. You may find my efforts instructive. Or you may know a better way---if so, please let me know! Yesterday we had a short service degradation at Kynetx caused by a server that kernel paniced. As the incident was in play, I received periodic reports from Wade Billings and Dan McGarry about what steps were being taken to remediate the problem and address customer notification and concerns. Afterwards, I tweeted: The nice thing about working
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Podcast: Carmine Gallo on The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs

This week Scott and I sit down with Carmine Gallo about his new book The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs: Insanely Different Principles for Breakthrough Success. We talked to him a year ago about his ideas on how Steve Job's gives great presentations. The conversation was a lot of fun. Here's the write-up from IT Conversations. Apple's Steve Jobs has a reputation for innovation, particularly with Apple's company slogan of "Think Different". Carmine Gallo wrote a book that reviewed Jobs' presentation secrets and now details his innovation secrets. Gallo discusses his book, including the seven points of innovation followed
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Luncheon: Improving Application Performance

If you're an IT director in Utah, then you might consider coming to a luncheon on December 14 at the Tuscany in Holladay. Niel Nickolaiesen, Kelly Phillips, Darin Swan, and Brad Jones will be the panel. I know all of them except Darin and think it will be a great event--besides the food is bound to be good in any event. I've signed up. (Full disclosure: the event is sponsored, in part, by Direct Pointe and I'm on their board.)
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