cyberspacial musings
bits about the real and virtual worlds

CNet reports today that many of the e-mail viruses now infecting systems worldwide may have been created by spammers as a means for creating relays for sending spam. Since the anti-spam software has been pretty effective at stopping spam from specific servers, the next step for spammers is to try and get control of home [...]

I don’t know what else to say about this except that it’s really cool and worth the visit.

Yes, the fifth Builder.COM article was finally published. It took months of discussion over the content, but I’m pretty pleased with the results. The article is called “Follow these tips to help sales boost revenue” and discusses how software development managers can help the corporate sales team be successful. It’s an important article because I’ve [...]

Yet another sign of the declining software and information technology industry comes today from News.COM where we read that fewer college students are studying computer science. This is exactly the right thing to happen now — the job market was flooded for a while with college CS graduates who were expecting to get rich on [...]

I’ve received so many e-mails about my comments on Apple Music that I thought I ought to post some further thoughts on the subject. It has been widely reported that Apple has sold over 2 million songs within the first two weeks of launch. This is a remarkable number (although more than half were sold [...]

I couldn’t resist posting this quote from PeopleSoft CEO Craig Conway: Today’s biggest dependency is on the Microsoft operating system, and Microsoft most understandably is determined to continue that dependency. Their response to the push toward Internet applications is .NET. This is a strategy to convince you that if you use Microsoft development tools, Microsoft [...]

I’m often asked for my assessment of the software industry since the crash and most people are surprised at my answer. That surprises me. My assessment of this industry, as an “insider”, has been that the industry will not recover for 5 to 7 years and will certainly not be the same as it was [...]

Today, Apple unveiled their iTunes Music Store with the tag line “Downloads Done Right”. Not much has been published about this yet, but here’s my take based on what I can see from their web site. Frankly this service will have about zero impact on anyone currently sharing MP3 files. Here are the major problems [...]

I’ve been waiting for cell phone number portability for a long time. I currently use AT&T as my carrier, but have been disappointed with their service, particularly in downtown Washington DC. Today’s Washington Post reports on the upcoming change that requires cell phone number portability between providers. Put it on your calendars now — November [...]

Just read this on News.COM – “We are a conflicted industry,” [Disney Chairman Michael] Eisner said. “Hollywood studios spend enormous sums of money encouraging people to see its films and TV shows and then spend more money devising ways to control and limit how people can see its films and TV shows. Disney (is) mindful [...]