Oh, this doesn't bode well. Broadband over power lines (BPL) was supposed to allow rural areas to get broadband internet cheaply and easily. Looks like there are some short circuits to clean up. Deborah Asbrand's July 6, 2004 article in MIT's Technology Review is Broadband Power Surge. It's subtitle is “Electric utilities are beginning to…

Two really good sections of this article. First is on a legal Russian music download service. I used Puretracks myself with no problem. Of course I had a $10 credit as a Telus high-speed customer. The second section is very, very interesting. Gillian dives into the whole, do you need face-to-face meetings and what defines…

Some recent articles from Gillian Kerr of Toronto. I especially like her review of Smart Meeting. I haven't used it, but my gut tells me…cool, but not yet. Of course technologies like this will be in common use in the future, I'm sure of it. But it just isn't there yet. Regardless, good reads! Here…

Paranoid? Actually not really. Have you seen “The Recruit” with Al Pacino and Colin Ferrel?. Okay, if you haven't this is a spoiler…but the data is being snuck out of the CIA using an USB flash drive hidden in the recessed bottom of a thermal coffee mug. I really like my flash drive, but I…

I don't think this is a terribly new idea, but one that has been used under the guise of “Typical user”, etc. Regardless, the philosophy behind personas is powerful and important: “Design with your users in mind.” Of course you might have several different personas to manage. A browser, an existing customer, a potential customer,…

This is the second of recent articles on RSS (webfeeds). The PC World article is longer and gives a good list of tools whereas this one focuses on just SharpReader and FeedReader. I think the moment IE supports webfeeds, this whole space is going to just explode. I don't think most home users are comfortable…

A good piece of opinion. I'm surprised, actually, at how many sites didn't break with scripting and ActiveX turned off, but having your banking site kack out on you because you're trying to keep from having your banking info phished out from under you isn't good. I'm still happy with Firefox and given how long…

I tried Furl, thought it looked interesting, but chickened out on doing some of the sign ups…now I'm going to try it again. Amy Gahran has been writing a good bit about Furl and it sounds pretty darn useful. This article, though, is about copyright and is a good read. All of us who write…

This feature is very much like Shinkuro. And it is powerful. Making sharing files easy and secure should be one of the core requirements of any good collaboration system. One of the exciting new capabilities within the soon-to-ship version 3.0 is Groove folder synchronization. Hugh Pyle, a Groove Networks developer, provides some background. [Groove.net Weblog]

Small, safe fuel cells are finally coming to pass. This is a fantastic development. This should decrease the size and weight of laptops and other devices while increasing the on-battery running time. TOBISHA TO MARKET THUMB-SIZE FUEL CELL: “TOKYO – Toshiba, one of the Japanese companies racing to develop electronic devices powered with a miniature…