(Hear the MP3 version with additional commentary in beautiful monophonic audio.)
News and Housekeeping
- The Benefits of Registration. If you haven’t already done so, please become a registered member of IT Conversations. Doing so will give you access to personalized features of our web site such as Personal Program Queues, SmartBrowse, and more. Just look for "Register" in the yellow menu bar on any IT Conversations web page.
- iTunes Users. Don’t forget that if you’re subscribing to our feeds using iTunes, you may be missing many of our programs! By default, iTunes only checks for new shows once each day and then downloads only one show. We’re publishing 2-3 great programs every day, so unless you go into the Settings section on the Podcast page (see the button in iTunes’ lower-right corner), you’ll be missing as much as half our programs.
New Programs This Week
Listed in increasing order of listener rating.
- Julie Hanna Farris – Scalix (rated 2.8 by IT Conversations listeners) 20 years ago at Bell South, Julie designed a distributed-computing mail system for 100,000 employees. After helping Lotus with its messaging strategy around cc:mail and Lotus Notes, as well as several startups, she founded Scalix Corp., a leading provider of Linux-based email. Learn about the new Scalix Community Edition, a free, unlimited-use version of its Scalix Enterprise Edition, and about interoperability issues between Scalix and Microsoft Exchange, and why Farris doesn’t lose sleep worrying about Microsoft.
- Jon Bostrom – Mobile Computing on the Edge (3.0) Jon Bostrom tells us how Nokia is moving mobile computing to the edge of the network. How are the different development platforms based on C++, Java and Python changing the mobile user experience? What are the different possibilities which multi-channel phones have opened up? It’s another great session from ETech 2005.
- Policy Panel Workshop at Supernova 2005 (3.1) Who owns the Internet? No one, of course. But without some knowledge of the arrangements under which packets are moved from one network to another, the foundations of the global infrastructure remain hidden and consumers have no way of knowing the commercial factors that frame the accessibility of bandwidth. This is one of many policy questions discussed in the Policy Workshop Panel from Supernova 2005.
- Devin Akin – Wireless Security (3.1) What’s new in wireless security? How mature are wireless intrusion detection systems? What are the three most important factors to consider for companies trying to secure their wireless infrastructure? In this interview with Sondra Schneider, Devin Akin answers these questions and tells us how to secure wireless networks.
- Peter van der Linden – Linux (3.3) Peter van der Linden is an author and software consultant who specializes in Linux and open source. He discusses his new book "Peter van der Linden’s Guide to Linux", written about how to use and set up a Linux based desktop or laptop computer. He also talks about the history of the Linux operating system and its future obstacles and growth opportunities as a competitive desktop and laptop operating system.
- Play by Today’s Rules or Change the Game? (3.4) In this discussion from BlogHer, women bloggers question whether they need to compete with male bloggers on the men’s terms, or if their goals and needs are fundamentally different. Charlene Li and Halley Suitt spark a debate about how women bloggers define and achieve success.
- Craig Newmark – Craig’s List and Hurricane Katrina (3.4) It may have his first name in its title, but the service founded by Craig Newmark is more the result of its community of posters and readers than it is of those who run it. Now in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, that community has found ways to utilize this amazing resource to help the victims. Craig’s List is now one of the best ways for people in the Gulf Coast region to find places to stay and ways to get there. The site is also helping displaced and relocated people locate one another.
- Michael Frumin (3.5) From the Where 2.0 conference, Michael Frumin of Eyebeam talks about Fundrace.org, which mapped the amount of contributions made by people to the candidates in the presidential race. He describes how he got the idea and the media frenzy that followed when all this public data was represented in a geospatial way on Fundrace.org.
- Daniel Imhoff (3.5) On Tech Nation, Dr. Moira Gunn spoke with Daniel Imhoff, the Executive Director of Watershed Media and the author of "Paper or Plastic: Searching for Solutions to an Overpackaged World." You’ll think twice the next time you pick up a blister pack of pills.
- David Sretavan (4.0) On Biotech Nation, Moira spoke with Dr. David Sretavan, Professor, Opthamology and Physiology and Program in Neuroscience at UCSF who returns to tell us about the knife that cuts nerve endings one-fiftieth the width of a human hair.
- Doug Kaye — That’s Me! (4.4) Here’s a twist! This week, Moira interviewed me. We talked about the history of IT Conversations and this new phenomenon of Podcasting.
The O’Reilly Pick of the Week:
This week’s IT Conversations/O’Reilly Pick of the Week is a great program from last year:
- William Gibson on Tech Nation (3.3) This week’s O’Reilly Pick of the Week is a popular interview with William Gibson by Dr. Moira Gunn from last year. Listeners know him best through his novels, including his first, Neuromancer, where Gibson coined the word "cyberspace."