There is also the specter of patent shake-down operations, like Intellectual Ventures. Founded by ex-Microsoft executive Nathan Myhrvold and touted as a means to "encourage innovation", it appears to be a litigation factory in the making. Intellectual Ventures has been purchasing patents to construct a portfolio that it will then assert against someone, probably small and medium-sized businesses to start with. Most businesses, when faced with the prospect of an expensive patent infringement lawsuit, choose to pay a license fee, or shall we call it an extortion fee, rather than go to court and spend so much that even when they win, they lose. Income from license fees will fuel more attacks on more businesses. The effect of Myhrvold's business on Open Source could be crippling. But Microsoft, Intel, Apple, Google, and eBay have nothing to fear. They invested in the company, and will be excluded from attacks.

IP Gangsterism pure and simple.

The Monster Arrives: Software Patent Lawsuits Against Open Source Developers

The recent popularization of certain web technologies used by Google Maps has encouraged the development of more interactive web mapping techniques. Google's web mapping tools use a technology known as AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML). AJAX is a style of web application development that uses a mix of modern web technologies to provide a more interactive user experience. Wikipedia has a good discussion of AJAX technology.

By using AJAX, Google's maps draw and zoom quickly, pan smoothly, and can be extended to display a wide variety of information. This article shows how to make similar AJAX-based web mapping sites using an open source web mapping toolkit called ka-Map. ka-Map uses the MapServer web mapping server behind the scenes with AJAX and PHP to serve up the map content. All this comes together to provide a highly interactive means to viewing maps online.

Google Maps provides some very powerful tools, but once you want to add your own data layers, or further customize your own components, it may be easier to use your own toolkits. Tools exist for creating your own AJAX-based web mapping sites and are fairly easy to use. ka-Map coupled with MapServer is a powerful combination of open source web-mapping technologies. For a good example of a ka-Map application see DM Solutions Group's Maps for MapServer site.

XML.com: Build AJAX-Based Web Maps Using ka-Map

How to use teh MapServer

MapServer 3.5 Tutorial

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, JUNE 22: PC sellers, smarting at Microsoft for juggling them in a legal trapez, are now looking upon an 83-year old crusader to settle their old scores with the IT behemoth. Kerala chief minister VS Achuthanandan is on a trip to develop the state as India’s FOSS (Free and Open Software Systems) destination, with backing from National Informatics Centre (NIC).

FOSS is a niche market but today’s niche is tomorrow’s mass market, and was a hardware seller’s delighted quip to the Kerala government’s move, hardly months after a Microsoft crackdown on free supply of pirated software by dealers. "Offers of pre-loaded Linux operating system could yield good hardware sales margins," says PK Harikrishnan, president, Kochi-based All Kerala Computer Manufacturer and Dealers Association.

Kerala used to be known as the only 'Communist' holdout state in India, but apparently their current government is more social democrat, of the European tradition. Anyway, given that Kerala has the highest standard of living and literacy rate in India, it is the perfect place for something like this to take off: State Sponsorship of FOSS.

Imagine a large campus where FOSS development is carried out, grants are given to FOSS contributors around the world, and FOSS 'scholars' are invited to come and work.

Kerala, India, to be FOSS destination: State Sponsorship of FOSS

Woe is me, I wish I were top 20.

MemeStreams | Social Network - Most Recommended Users

RED Hot line Desk Phone Red Wall or Desk telephone with built-in Hot Line Tone or Pulse dialer. The line powered units will not dial on incoming calls, has nonvolatile memory (no batteries) and can be programmed from any Touch Tone phone.

The bat phone.

Viking K-1900D-2 - Hotline Desk Telephone - Red - K-1900D-2 , K 1900D 2 , K1900D2

Schtasks

Schedules commands and programs to run periodically or at a specific time. Adds and removes tasks from the schedule, starts and stops tasks on demand, and displays and changes scheduled tasks.

To view the command syntax, click the following command:

schtasks create

Creates a new scheduled task.

Convoluted Cron.

Microsoft Windows XP's Convoluted Cron - Schtasks

In part 4 of this series on analyzing data with XSLT, the MindMap Research Team realized that the cognitive data they're analyzing might be easier to understand if represented in the 3D space for which it is intended. The team decides to use XSLT to transform it into a 3D graph so changing the viewpoint changes the view of the data. This tutorial shows how to implement this from a command line and using a browser to display the results.

XML + XSLT + SVG = X-Power

Create 3D representations with XSLT and SVG

Inkscape is an Open Source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, Freehand, CorelDraw, or Xara X using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format. Supported SVG features include shapes, paths, text, markers, clones, alpha blending, transforms, gradients, patterns, and grouping. Inkscape also supports Creative Commons meta-data, node editing, layers, complex path operations, bitmap tracing, text-on-path, flowed text, direct XML editing, and more. It imports formats such as JPEG, PNG, TIFF, and others and exports PNG as well as multiple vector-based formats.

Inkscape's main goal is to create a powerful and convenient drawing tool fully compliant with XML, SVG, and CSS standards. We also aim to maintain a thriving user and developer community by using open, community-oriented development

Inkscape. Draw Freely

Cool perl script that guesses languages. Almost as good as having a mom at the world bank.

Me: Guesses slavic languages in general when I type english alphabet equivalents of Russian words. Pretty good.

TextCat Language Guesser Demo