In brief
I couldn’t just stop with all the links I gave you on Friday, so here’s some more computing stuff that I’m sure you’ll find interesting:
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Encyclopedia [sic] Britannica Fights Back? – The EB tries to compete with Wikipedia by hiring a 15-member “advisory board.” I’m not quite sure what this board will be able to do, though: they surely can’t fact-check every passage in the encyclopedia to ensure that 12-year-olds won’t embarrass them again. And due to the laws of physics, 15 academics can’t satisfy Moore’s Law or some other fast-growing trend, like Wikipedia seems to. [8]
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The inbox makeover – With all the e-mail I’m getting from the various SoC mailing lists I’m subscribed to, this method of triaging my mail will come in handy. I just need time to set it up. [9]
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Whistle-Blower Faces FBI Probe – After revealing a doozie of a security hole in Cisco Systems’ network routers, Michael Lynn is being investigated by the FBI. It turns out that Cisco, who was trying to cover up news of the hole until it could release an update, has dropped the charges, but he is being investigated anyways.
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AOL Should Be More Like Apple – AOL made too many mistakes, not the least of which were merging with Time Warner or releasing any version of Nestcape above 3.x.
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Portable Video Players – My junior year, I rode the bus with a guy named Dev. One day, he pulled out one of these portable music players – a wallet-sized box – and tried watching a movie on it, trying to impress me with his gadgetry. No such luck. Creative’s new product is a solution in search of a problem, though I’m sure any iRiver fan will rush out to buy it soon.
;^)
John Gruber pointed out some great techniques for implementing on webpages without annoying the reader. One of these sensible techniques stays put as you scroll the page, and the other is a no-fuss approach that comes closer to the glosses (marginal notes) that you’d find in a printed book.
Of course, you’d only find footnotes, endnotes, or sidenotes useful if you write like me, trying to cram every last possible detail into a piece of writing.