Last month I began my annual break from technology. Using previous technology breaks as my guide, I had expected to spend a lot less time at the computer and cell phone. My plan was simple, straight forward, and summarized in a simple slogan, Blog Less, Relax more. A month later, I write this blog post with the realization that my Technology Break of 2009 was a complete utter failure.
It was only a matter of time before someone was going to ask the final "what if" question for Internet users.
I'm sorry, but you're dead. Now what happens to your gigabytes of online data, Websites, automatic payments, and "virtual money"?
A new category of online services is emerging: A "Last Will and Testament" for Internet assets. It's just the start, and perhaps we'll see businesses producing "daemons" or "after-death worms" delivering payloads that represent your interests in perpetuity.
Every year, there are some key information technology people that make mostly sound and trustworthy predictions for the coming year. I'll be updating this page through the week with links to these visions of what we may expect in 2009. My own thoughts and vision for 2009 and CMS Report will come later in another post (I am not worthy to place my own comments here).
Content Management and Social Publishing Predictions
Dries Buytaert (Drupal Project Lead) - Drupal, Acquia, and Mollom
In keeping with tradition, the following are seven articles that were posted here at CMSReport.com and received less attention than I had hoped. Either the reader didn't show up to view the article or there was little discussion on the subject matter. I'll let you be the judge on whether these articles deserved the obscurity they received in 2008.
There is so much that I want to do here at CMS Report, but my time has been limited these past couple weeks. Some things that have been going on in my world:
Mark Van Pattern has written a piece on PBS's MediaShift titled, "How the Focus on Print Hurts Our Newspaper Site". His story is a common story I hear time after time from those in the newspaper business.
Last year, I started looking for a linux laptop and ended up just migrating my old Windows laptop over to Ubuntu Linux. Since my personal preference is for smaller sized laptops, I have also been keeping an eye on the new low-cost netbooks. Currently, I'm leaning toward the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 with Ubuntu already installed. However, my personal sweet spot for a laptop seems to be in the 10 to 12 inch range.
Today, at Dell.com I came across reference to a yet to be released Inspiron Mini 12 (1210)! While there have been rumors circulating on the Web that Dell will be introducing a 12.1 inch Mini netbook or (and) E Slim, I don't think anyone has reported seeing actual references of the Inspiron Mini 12 at Dell.com. Until now! Perhaps we'll be seeing the Inspiron Mini 12 released this week or possibly next week? If the price is reasonable and Ubuntu is available, this Mini 12 will be my next notebook.
By now you've heard of Google's new Chrome browser which is currently in beta. But did you ask yourself, why would Google want to enter the Internet browser market? There are a number of reasons to why Google may have developed this browser, but I believe the explanation given by an article posted at CNET's Webware is the most likely reason.
On the Web, a site that responds a few milliseconds faster can make a big difference in people's engagement. It's for this reason that Google believes its new Web browser, Chrome, is a project worth investing in rather than a footnote in the history of the Internet.
Chrome, Google said during its Tuesday launch event, is much faster at showing Web pages than the most widely used browser, Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Google's hope is that performance will open up the bottleneck that chokes the speed and abilities of today's Web-based applications...
...Why speed means money
Google benefits materially from fast performance. First, when it comes to search, Google discovered when its search page loads fractionally faster, users search more often, which of course leads to more opportunities for Google to place its highly lucrative text ads. Second, a faster Web application foundation means that Google's online applications for e-mail, word processing, spreadsheets, and calendars can become faster and fuller-featured.
ComputerWorld has put together one of the greatest # Best lists I've seen in a long time. Check out 15 great turning points in tech history.
In every industry there are key milestones that mark a change in the course of history, and the fast-moving technology field has more than its share. Presented here are 15 turning points that shaped the computing world as we know it today, including some that still continue to influence its direction for years to come.
On Monday, Microsoft announced from their IEBlog that they were reversing their decision for how Internet Explorer 8 would be compatible with Web pages designed for Internet Explorer 7 as well as Internet standards. You may recall that earlier this year Microsoft announced that Internet Explorer 8 in "Standards Mode" would actually be rendering pages in Internet Explorer 7's "Standards Mode". If you really wanted to have IE8 follow the latest standards then you would need to insert a special tag to your pages.