Finally Apple starting to wake up a little bit. They just released Boot Camp which will allow one to run Windows XP on an Intel based MAC.

I wrote "wake up a little bit" because what I've been saying for years is that they really just need to go all the way and allow OSX to run on any Intel box not some specialized piece of MAC hardware called an Intel MAC.

Update: Parrellels just announced a public beta release of their virtualization software so that you can run Windows, Linux etc. in a virtual machine within OSX. No need for dual booting (Apr 6, 2006).

Interesting little spam device called Spam Cube. However, there doesn't seem to be any indication that they update the spam detection on a regular basis (i.e. like virus definition updates with virus programs). If that is the case this device has about a couple weeks worth of use before it starts letting in all kinds of spam.

David Gewirtz has a very good article on why Goodmail is just bad.

An excellent post by James Robertson:

Looks like Rogers Cadenhead has found the dark side of Dave Winer - in the form of a "cease and desist" letter sent from an attorney Winer has retained. This is how Dave treats his erstwhile friends; it's not hard to figure out why fewer and fewer people can work with him. With respect to this "oh, it's hard to be Dave" post, Winer needs to buy a mirror. Every time he wonders why people dislike him, he can go have a look in it.

Oh, and to be extra clear - I take back every disdainful thing I ever said about Atom. The people involved in that effort knew about Dave, and I didn't. The whole thing makes a heck of a lot more sense now.

I knew within 5 minutes of meeting Dave Winer face to face that he would be an extremely difficult person to work with and deal with. It was very odd to me that most of the other people in the room seemed to be completely in awe of the guy. I just sat there shaking my head silently thinking "is this guy for real" (perhaps it was the virtual Dave that I met that day).

Russell nails a number of things bang on in his post:

The worst thing about all the Web 2.0 hype is the complete loss of business perspective. There’s a few companies out there that seem to get it but just about every other new website I’ve seen lately is nothing but features parading as businesses. Sure, these guys get to be entered in the “Flip It Quick Acquisition Lottery”, but beyond that, none seem to be creating anything of any real value.

...

What part of “Version 2″ don’t these people get? Doesn’t anyone remember the web bubble and bust from the v1.0 days? Remember what happened when Alan Greenspan finally looked around and said, essentially, “WTF is going on here?” Are they really that eager to duplicate that experience?

...

But let’s think of some of the popular new site launches lately… web chat and IM comes to mind. WTF is the business? All those Map mashups out there? WTF is the business? Calendaring and Ajax desktops? WTF is the business? They’re just FEATURES built on top of other company’s APIs, adding very little real value, and not making a dime of profit.

Yet another BlogChat type chat has been getting some hype lately. I've pointed out about a dozen similar chats over the last couple of years mostly due to their similarity to BlogChat that Brent Ashley and I developed in 2002. 3Bubbles falls into the same category. Brent blogged about it here.

Here is how they describe 3Bubbles:

Until 3bubbles nobody has developed a way to tightly integrated chat into the blogosphere naturally and specifically.

Blogs are communities based on communication -- posts, comments, cross-linking and trackbacks. The problem is that communication is slow. 3bubbles provides an alternative that is complementary to blogs by creating real-time dialogue between blog readers and authors in a secure and spam-free fashion

BlogChat has been doing this since 2002.

Due to all the gun violence around the GTA (Greater Toronto Area) there is discussion going on about banning toy guns. Read the article from the Toronto star here.

Lets analyse this for 2 seconds and see how ridiculous this is. They have this all backwards. They are going to stop kids from playing cops and robbers in their backyards but let folks over 18 walk around with these guns!!!! How does that make sense??

All the talk is about how this gun play while growing up leads to violence later in life. Same arguments that are made with violent TV shows and video games.

Well, I played cops and robbers when I was a kid and saw my fair share of violent movies and played enough violent video games. It has never ever lead me to go out and get a gun and shoot somebody.

Why don't we ban baseball bats and hockey sticks while we're at it. A baseball bat is a pretty common weapon in mobster movies and TV shows (ever watch the Sopranos?). I've never had the desire to mash someone's head in with a baseball bat. Even with a hockey stick I know better than to use it as a weapon even in a hockey game.

I can go on but its a waste of my time so I'll leave it at this.

Its about time Vonage and others like them get a clue. Although its likely too late for me as I've gone with the competition that was a bit smarter than them from the get go.

It was a very ugly win but a win none the less. I'll take it considering the disappointment over the past 10 years when they were supposed to do better!!!

It is time to work on 6 for next year!!!

Couldn't agree more. Had to copy it here cause of the mention of AJAX and KoZmo. From this TechDirt article:

There's been lots of talk about the possibility of "Bubble 2.0," which (so far) appears to be taking a lot of ideas from the original dot com bubble, and using dynamic HTML to make it look cooler (it moves! in a browser!). While it's true that some of these second attempts are doing things much more intelligently this time around, an increasing number are not. Once the money starts flowing (and, if you hadn't noticed, it's flowing), it seems that "lessons learned" get tossed out in favor of doing anything possible to jump on the gravy train. The only problem is that we've seen how this train ride ends, and it's a train wreck that we'd all probably be better off avoiding. Still, if you want to revisit the signposts of years past, here are two more: it's suddenly fashionable again to put your startup in "stealth mode." Stealth mode is a silly term for it. Being quiet about what you're doing certainly can make sense -- especially early on when you're still figuring out the details of your messaging and positioning. However, too many startups use stealth mode as a buzz builder -- as if not telling people what you do deserves more attention than having an actual product. It's that second use of stealth mode that tends to cause over-inflated expectations. The second bubble sign is when the failures of the original dot com bubble return from the dead to try to make it again. In this case, it's "boo.com," whose only claim to fame these days was how spectacularly it flamed out. However, in a bubble era when "any publicity is good publicity," the larger the failure you're trying to resurrect, the more publicity you'll likely receive. So, come on Webvan, Kozmo and others. It's time to come on back. All you need to do is use AJAX and it'll make people forget to ask if you have a business model.