Life in the Desert
At Arizona State, a new bastion of sustainability.
Designing BSD Rootkits: An Introduction to Kernel
James Pyles writes "A lot of why I requested this book for review was sheer curiosity. Like many people, I'm used to thinking "Rootkit = bad". Why the heck would any author or publisher want to take on the liability of teaching their readers how to behave unethically and criminally? The little voodoo doll on the cover did nothing to allay my concerns. However, once I had the book in my hands and began to work through it, I saw it with different eyes. I recently reviewed O'Reilly's, Linux Kernel in a Nutshell for the European version of Linux Magazine and the No Starch Press book Webbots, Spiders, and Screen Scrapers: A Guide to Developing Internet Agents with PHP/CURL and Kong's Designing BSD Rootkits seems related to both. As the book's subtitle implies, this text is more about teaching the reader beginning kernel hacking than it is about becoming the programmer's version of a criminal mastermind."
AIDS Experience: Site Wins Webby
The Webby Awards has named the World Vision AIDS Experience the best Rich Media Advertising of 2007, Non-Profit/Educational category, in the People’s Voice voting.
Yahoo Sales Chief Joins Martha Stewart
The post-Terry Semel era at Yahoo sees a shakeup at the top of its cross-platform, North America sales team, as Wenda Harris Millard moves from the portal company to Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia.
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| Yahoo Sales Chief Joins Martha Stewart |
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Did Millard jump or was she pushed? Millard had been Yahoo's chief sales officer, and a member of Yahoo for six years. Yahoo announced her departure in a statement, and the elevation of David Karnstedt to head of a combined search and display advertising sales unit.
The text regarding Millard's departure in Yahoo's statement bears the sort of clues that one of Semel's top sales recruits had the door held wide open for her to exit:
As part of the reorganization, Wenda Millard, Yahoo!'s Chief Sales Officer in the US will be leaving the company effective immediately.
(Gregory Coleman, Yahoo!'s EVP of Global Sales) added, "While Wenda was a big contributor to our success in the past, the industry has shifted and requires a different set of skills to take the business forward. We appreciate her dedication during her years of service and wish her well in the next chapter of her career."
A "different set of skills" sounds like a back-handed swipe when one takes a peek at Millard's experience. This is from her now-purged bio on Yahoo's management page:
A seasoned executive with over twenty-five years of publishing and advertising experience, Millard was formerly Chief Internet Officer at Ziff Davis Media and president of Ziff Davis Internet. Previously, she was executive vice president of DoubleClick, where she was responsible for establishing the DoubleClick brand and oversaw the operations of DoubleClick Media.
Here is what Paid Content reported on Millard's new job; Millard has been a member of the Martha Stewart board of directors prior to this:
Wenda Harris Millard?s appointment as president of media signals a shift in organization and an acknowledgment that broadcast, print and internet belong together. MSLO CEO Susan Lyne credits Martha Stewart with knowing that if they stayed in silos, the company never would be able to deliver.
Yahoo's statement makes it sound like Millard, a Harvard MBA, spent her time hanging around the Yahoo cafeterias, drinking coffee and talking about the end of The Sopranos. Lyne touted Millard in the Paid Content piece as "a really strong head of media" who can deliver a cross-platform strategy for MSLO.
Will the real Wenda Harris Millard please stand up?
As for Yahoo, the reorganization of its sales teams, combining Search and Display under Karnstedt, looks like more power consolidation. Karnstedt's boss Coleman reports to Yahoo president Sue Decker, who looks more and more like someone positioning herself for Semel's old office.
Karnstedt's quote in Yahoo's statement contained what sounds like a touchy-feely strategy to building sales for the combined ad services:
"By taking a more holistic approach to advertising sales, Yahoo! will become a more consultative seller, which should make buying complete solutions easier for our customers across Yahoo! and our partner network," said Karnstedt.
Holistic approach? Consultative seller? Are Yahoo's customers buying ads or sandalwood incense?
The phrasing just seems odd with Yahoo facing the continued dominance of Google at the top of the online ad market, and a host of competitors like Microsoft, AOL, and Ask.com snapping at its heels. Yahoo shareholders might have preferred a little tougher talk out of their new sales leader.
Yahoo, Wenda Millard, Martha Stewart, Online Ads
China's terracotta tomb site hides mystery building
BEIJING (Reuters) - The tomb of China's first emperor, guarded for more than 2,000 years by 8,000 terracotta warriors and horses, has yielded up another archaeological secret. (Read on Source)
Despite Standards Vote, OOXML Still Has a Shot
The International Organization for Standardization last week said the draft Office Open XML file formats by Microsoft have not achieved the required number of votes for approval by the organization and the International Electrotechnical Commission as an ISO/IEC DIS 29500 international standard. At least 66.7 percent of the 104 votes need to be positive, and no more than 25 percent of the votes to be negative.
SEOmoz's Hiring, the Best Resume Ever & An Overdue Link Roundup
Posted by randfish
This week we're diving into the hiring game - trying to find the people who will help us make both the free and premium content on the site even more valuable over the weeks and months to come. Jane's in charge of hiring our new customer service / office manager and Jeff's doing double-duty, seeking out both a web developer and a GUI designer. We've already received one resume that's so incredibly cool, I've just got to share:
Brockway Sampson Applies to SEOmoz (for those who aren't aware, Brock is a bodyguard character from the ingenius animated series, the Venture Bros.)
Despite the stiff competition, I'd love it if you checked out and shared our open positions on Craigslist (after all, the best people almost always come through community referrals):
- Dear Exceptionally Talented Admin Rockstars
- Seeking Web Development Rockstar
- Seeking User Interface & Web Design Rockstar (yes, yes, we have a pattern of using a particular noun in our hiring posts)
On to the link roundup for the last couple weeks!
- Gary Price notes that Wikipedia may not be the fully open system it is today for much longer.
- Danny covered Nielsen's Search Engine market share data - I personally think Google is much closer to 70-75% - Loren shows us Hitwise's numbers, which puts them ~65%
- Aaron Wall has some terrific Link Building Tips based on New Search Filters
- Donna has a really good question for Adam Lasnik. I'd love to know the answer to that, too :)
- Sketchcast launched this week - I got to play with it in early beta, and I think I might give it a spin for a Whiteboard Friday sometime soon (need to get a pen input device, first).
- I'm so envious of Brian Clark and Copyblogger lately - every post & every title is linkbait, but no one seems to give him a hard time about it (maybe I just need thicker skin) :)
- Rae's got a terrific post on paid links that Google will never spot.
- Since Fantomaster's triumphant return to blogging, he's had some great posts, including one on Blackhat tactics (from way back in June) and one on defending from DDOS attacks.
- Alex (aka Shylock) has a great post on white hat link building (I like it mostly for the format)
- That Adam Guy is offering to answer your questions in Google Groups
- Speaking of Google Groups - John Mu, webmaster turned Googler, analyzes stats for the forum - cool stuff.
- I'm one of those geeks who likes to take a peek at where design might be heading, and I think this post actually gets close.
Don't worry about me... I'm not busy - 
- also... What great links did I miss?
PC Magazine reviews Apple iLife '08: 'A triumph'
... your photos; iMovie, a basic but almost unbelievably easy video editor; iWeb, a template-based Web design program; iDVD, which turns iPhotos and iMovies into slick, attractive DVDs; and GarageBand, which ...
Affiliate marketing most cost-effective channel for UK merchants
At the recent Affiliate Summit in the UK, e-Consultancy did a keynote presentation, based on a survey of over 240 UK merchants [survey sponsored by buy.at]. The presentation can be downloaded here. (Read on Source)
AOL to lay off 20 percent of staff
AOL will lay off about 2,000 employees, or approximately 20 percent of its staff, as it continues its transformation into an online, ad-supported business and moves further away from its traditional revenue model based on dial-up Internet access fees.
The layoffs will begin on Tuesday and will continue over the coming months, CEO Randy Falco said in a memo sent to employees on Monday and obtained by IDG News Service.
The staff reductions will allow AOL to increase its investments in "high-growth areas of the company," Falco wrote.
"So where is this taking AOL? Put simply, my vision for AOL is to build the largest and most sophisticated global advertising network while we grow the size and engagement of our worldwide audience," the memo reads.
"We're now in a position to win as an advertising-supported business. We have a bright future as a company if we can execute on this vision," Falco wrote.
Whether AOL can truly meet the expectations that its parent company, Time Warner, and its investors have for it as an online ad-support business is still uncertain.
In August, when Time Warner issued its second-quarter financial report, some observers were surprised that AOL's online ad revenue grew only 16 percent during the quarter, well below the about 26 percent growth of U.S. online ad spending that quarter.
This prompted speculation that Time Warner might be inclined to spin off AOL or sell it, but in September, Time Warner Chairman and CEO Richard Parsons dismissed the rumors.
Parsons said Time Warner wants AOL to complete successfully its transition to an ad-supported business, taking full advantage of the opportunity in the vibrant online ad market, and isn't currently considering selling it or spinning it off.
"We're doing better than I had hoped [with AOL] but we still have a long way to go. We have to make sure we stay tightly focused there," Parsons said then at a Goldman Sachs conference, responding to questions from a financial analyst.
While acknowledging that it's likely that Time Warner will at some point sell off AOL's ISP business, he said that wouldn't happen for at least a year or 18 months.
One reason is that the Internet access business, although shrinking, still accounts for a majority of AOL's profits and a substantial portion of the traffic on the AOL network of Web sites still comes from access subscribers, he said.
Also in September, AOL announced it had integrated various ad networks into a single platform, hoping the move jumpstarts its online ad business
The integrated ad platform, called Platform A, meshes AOL units like Advertising.com, Tacoda, Third Screen Media, Lightningcast, and AdTech.
AOL also announced at the time its plans to move its headquarters from Dulles, Virginia, to New York in order to be physically at the center of the U.S. advertising industry.
"AOL now has one of the largest and most sophisticated ad networks in the world, and we're well positioned to compete where the ad market is heading," Falco wrote in Monday's memo.
The employees losing their jobs will get what Falco described as "generous severance packages" along with help in finding new jobs.
Melbourne Supremacy: PokerListings.com and Pacific Poker Roll Out Another $15K Aussie Millions Freer
Hot on the heels of two other high-value freerolls, PokerListings.com and Pacific Poker are set to send one more of their players, expenses-paid, to the richest tournament in the Southern Hemisphere. At stake in another upcoming freeroll: $15,000 in cash and prizes with a lucrative package, including buy-in plus expenses, to the 2008 Aussie Millions. (PRWeb Oct 16, 2007) Post Comment:Trackback URL: http://www.prweb.com/pingpr.php/SG9yci1Db3VwLVNpbmctTG92ZS1UaGlyLVplcm8=
Bloglines Suffers Major Outage
RSS reader Bloglines has suffered a major outage over the weekend with the service simply ceasing to update any blogs from just before midnight PST February 24. (Read on Source)
I need to make money now Is that all you need to do? Posted By : Youcandoit
Make real money working from home, sounds good but will it really make you happy. One member looks at wealth growth alongside personal growth. What one will you prioritize after reading? More: continued here
WPP launches $2.1 bln hostile bid for Taylor Nelson - MarketWatch
WPP launches $2.1 bln hostile bid for Taylor Nelson MarketWatch - By Simon Kennedy, MarketWatch LONDON (MarketWatch) -- UK advertising giant WPP on Wednesday launched a 1.08 billion pound ($2.13 billion) hostile bid for Taylor Nelson Sofres after the market research group repeatedly knocked back its previous advances ... GfK ditches TNS merger talks and plans sweetened cash offer GfK to stymie WPP bid for TNS with all-cash offer |
Kindle the Flames of Progress
There is an elephant just over the horizon, waiting to rush up and shake up the world. It is the Kindle, a new eReader for eBooks from Amazon.com. In its debut, it elevated hopes and sent prognostic...
WE HEAR
THAT Universal Music Chairman Doug Morris will be the only music executive besides Clive Davis to be granted a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame...
Data Demand to Drive 4G Broadband Forward
New report shows explosive growth ahead for high-speed wireless -- yet WiMAX may emerge a loser.
Network Time Protocol (NTP) Server and Client Setup in Ubuntu
The Network Time Protocol (NTP) is a protocol for synchronizing the clocks of computer systems over packet-switched, variable-latency data networks. NTP uses UDP port 123 as its transport layer. It is designed particularly to resist the effects of variable latency (Jitter).
Why Russia Was Wrong to Invade Georgia
According to John McCain : In the 21st century, nations don't invade other nations. Seriously. He said that without even a hint of irony. The mind truly boggles. And in related news, Ike Turner says you should be kind to your wife. Video below the fold. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post... (Read on Source)
Browser war redux, patch time, iPod news
Google garnered headlines all week with its new Chrome browser. Rival Microsoft announced it will release just four patches next Tuesday, but that may not be cause to think the day will be an easy one for those responsible for keeping systems patched. Also looking ahead, Apple is expected to announce iPod news. Otherwise, a warning was issued about new trickery from spammers and in case we all weren't aware of it by now, social-networking sites could be ripe for malware.
Autonomy Enables Apple(R) iPhone(TM) for Business Process Management
... be ensured of rapid and seamless integration with their existing infrastructure, such as LDAP, VPN, corporate information sources, virtualization and authentication. One of the major challenges for organizations pursuing ...
Intel: No virtual bridge from Xeon to AMD
VMware customers are getting a bit more freedom in the way they can transfer virtual machines from one Intel-based server to another, but they shouldn't hold their breath waiting for a bridge between Intel and AMD-based systems, an Intel executive said Tuesday.
With its line of Xeon 7400 processors released this week, Intel is enabling customers using VMware's vMotion technology to move virtual machines between two servers even when they are based on different families of Intel chips.
[ Stay up to date on the latest virtualization developments with InfoWorld's Virtualization Report blog and newsletter. ]
VMotion is VMware's technology for moving running virtual machines onto a different physical server. It's used by some customers for load balancing or for building fault tolerance into applications.
Before the 7400 series, formerly known as Dunnington , the two servers had to use the same family of Intel chips for vMotion to work, said Doug Fisher, vice president with Intel's Software Solutions group, at the VMworld conference in Las Vegas. With the 7400 and future chip families, that restriction is lifted.
VMware CEO Paul Maritz mentioned the development in his speech at the start of VMworld Tuesday. "Now you'll be able to buy hardware essentially independent of your vMotion strategy," he said.
The compatibility goes back only to the previous processor family, the 7300 "Tigerton" series, and will extend to the next generation, known as Nehalem. "We'll always give at least three generations of compatibility," Fisher said.
Intel made a big deal about the news, but AMD said its Opteron processors have had a similar capability for years. AMD doesn't change the microarchitecture of its processors as frequently as Intel, so compatibility between different Opteron lines is not an issue, said Margaret Lewis, AMD director of commercial solutions.
Customers looking to move virtual workloads between AMD- and Intel-based servers are out of luck, however, at least for the foreseeable future, according to Fisher.
"It's not going to happen," he said on the sidelines after his speech. The companies' chip architectures, while both x86, are too different and change too frequently to be made compatible. "We'd have to slow the pace of innovation to make it happen," he said.
Lewis suggested it was only Intel, not AMD, that changes its architecture frequently. "We'd need to sit down with Intel and VMware and discuss how to make it happen, and we would welcome that discussion," she said.
AMD would stand to gain the most from such compatibility, since it would give companies one less reason to buy Intel-based servers.
Dunnington is a six-core processor with a larger, 16MB Level 3 cache to boost performance. VMware CTO Steve Herrod said VMware will keep its per-socket pricing the same for Dunnington, "so customers can get more virtual machines per processor" without paying more in licenses.
It was one of several ways Fisher said Intel is working with silicon to usher in a "second wave" of virtualization. The first wave was using the technology for server consolidation and building virtual environments for software testing, and the second is to use it for load balancing, high availability and disaster recovery.
Citing IDC figures, he said that in 2007 about 12 percent of all servers in production were using virtualization, up from 8 percent in 2006 and 4 percent the year before. Virtualized servers run at 52 percent capacity on average, he said, compared to 10 percent to 15 percent for non-virtualized systems.
VMworld continues through Thursday.
Judge Approves Common Fund Assessment Reallocation
NEW YORK - The ephedra multidistrict litigation judge on Oct. 17 granted a motion by the plaintiffs to change the common benefit fee for each gross settlement to allocate 1 percent to expenses and 5 percent to attorney fees (In Re: Ephedra Products Liability Litigation, 04 M.D. 1598 [JSR], S.D. N.Y.; See October 2007, Page 8). Full story on lexis.com
Give Your Gadgets Some Space
This week we launched a set of new features to all iGoogle users in the U.S. These features were designed to make it more powerful and bring more information to the homepage. At the heart of this release is a feature we call 'canvas view,' which gives you the option to maximize your gadgets into full-screen mode. To use the Gmail gadget as an ... (Read on Source)
15 Linux Music Players - Download your Favorite
SmashingDownloads: "Songbird is one of the best music application for Linux. It supports MP3, FLAC, and Vorbis on all platforms; WMA and WMA DRM on Windows; and AAC and Fairplay on Windows and Mac."
'Tendulkar told Procter he heard some abuse'
Indian cricket officials have strongly criticised Adam Gilchrist, the former Australian wicketkeeper, for questioning Sachin Tendulkars honesty during the controversial Sydney Test last year. In his soon-to-be-published autobiography, True Colours, Gilchrist said Tendulkars evidence in the Harbhajan Singh racism case was a "joke" and raised ... (Read on Source)
E-Voting's Biggest Test
As the US heads into a historic and contentious presidential election, concerns over electronic voting technology could be about to stir up controversy over the legitimacy of some results. (Read on Source)
Illegal pharmaceutical ads infiltrate gov, edu sites
Hundreds of thousands of webpages belonging to businesses, government agencies, and schools have been infiltrated by scammers pushing Viagra, Tadalafil, and other drugs. The towns of Birmingham and Horwich in the UK and Princeton University in the US are among those who have been hacked. (Read on Source)
IBM, Papermaster Back in Court Over Apple Job
Lack of resolution could push Big Blue and its former employee to trial over non-compete agreement.
Cellhut Is Donating To Breast Cancer Research Through Unlocked Cell Phone Sales
One of the internet's leading sellers of unlocked phones is featuring a special selection of phones that with when purchased Cellhut will donate $1.00 to breast cancer research. (PRWeb Nov 21, 2008)
Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2008/11/prweb1648934.htm
name: MAGPIE