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Bumper crop
I have the most amazing rear car bumper in the world. Things goes for a ride on it and never fall off. I was on the expressway the other day and after driving for about five miles at 65 miles per our, another car pulled up next to me and the driver motioned that there was something wrong at the rear of my car. After pulling over, I found my organizer perched on the bumper where I had set it down when I was putting groceries into the car. And it wasn't even sitting flat. It was standing on end. Wow! What a bumper. Then I left one of my kids swim trunks on the bumper another time and it made a long winding trip home. Beverage cups don't seem to fair as well, probably because I leave them on the roof without that wind protection that things get back on the bumper.
For some reason, I have a long history of leaving things vulnerable at the rear of whatever vehicle I'm driving. Years ago, I was hauling a drumset home from a performance in the rear of a friends pickup truck when I gazed in the rearview mirror and saw the bass drum rolling down the interstate highway, cars dodging this way and that frantic to avoid the percussion projectile. I remember thinking, "where's a good bumper when you really need one?"
Back when I edited the developerWorks newsletters, now so ably piloted by John Swanson, I used to try to draw some weak parallel between these personal reflections and technology, like saying that the lesson here is that it's OK to be a little late getting on the road with a leading edge technology as long as you can at least catch the rear edge of it as it goes by. But I won't go there.
Categories
: [ humor ]
Mar 26 2008, 09:10:54 AM EDT
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UCLA and IBM partner on open source adventure class
  
In this 23-minute podcast, hear about an innovative computer science class at the University of California at Los Angeles that offers students the opportunity to choose an open source project adventure, focused on Web 2.0 technologies, and interact with professionals from IBM during the project. UCLA computer science professors Paul Eggert and Jens Palsberg join IBM project lead Gergana Markova and classroom assistant Gabe Nataneli in the discussion.
LISTEN (23:06)
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Related resources:
The Class of 2.0 IBM Teams
With Universities on 21st Century Skills (Marketwire)
Youstayfly student project: Mash-up that allows users to search for songs, browse lyrics, find similar artists and songs and provide related game quizzes. Uses last.fm, LyricsFly and SeeqPod.
Virtual Music student project: A Web site built using Ruby on Rails that allows users to create accounts, upload music for later play via browser, create and share playlists, and play music quiz games.
Instant Attractions Mash-up student project: Provides a Web interface where people can quickly find information, allowing them to determine the available activities in the immediate area that are occurring in the immediate future. Utilizes Google Maps API,and the Google Movie listing.
Categories
: [ education | opensource | rubyonrails ]
Mar 25 2008, 06:19:26 PM EDT
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Downloads update: Lotus Quickr and developerWorks ekits
developerWorks' Robin Langford joins me for a quick update on some new download offerings.
--Lotus Quickr is a Web 2.0-based team collaboration offering, which transforms the way everyday business content such as documents and rich media (such as photos and videos) can be shared and enables more effective team collaboration across organizational boundaries. This is a 90-day free trial.
--developerWorks e-kits give you a collection of tutorials, articles, webcasts, podcasts, and demos about a particular product, task, or role.
LISTEN (3:33)
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Categories
: [ lotus | socialnetworking ]
Mar 25 2008, 06:07:12 PM EDT
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Rob Crowther on planning a semantic Web site
Rob Crowther, a Web developer in London, joins us to preview his highlighted article on planning a semantic Web site. This week we stretch the limits of recorded telephony capturing the coversation with Rob via a USB stick mic through a laptop through Skype Out over a cell broadband card to Rob's cell phone with Rob standing in a concrete stairwell. Let it be said, we at dW will always be pushing the boundaries to bring you a little more of a glimpse into our people and content.
LISTEN (3:58)
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Additional resources on this topic
Categories
: [ semanticweb | xml ]
Mar 04 2008, 11:44:36 AM EST
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How to rein in power-hogging data centers

In this 14-minute podcast, Dan Esty, one of the world's leading experts on corporate environmental strategy, and Dennis Quan, CTO of IBM High Performance On Demand Solutions, look at the explosion of power use by today's rapidly growing data centers. A recent EPA report estimated data centers use 1.5 percent of the total electricity generated in the United States — a figure that has doubled in the past five years and will double again by 2011 at an operating cost of $7.4 billion annually. The problem and solutions, including a smarter approach to IT, are discussed.
LISTEN (14:30)
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Related resources:
Continue the discussion at The Raised Floor blog
Electric Green
Categories
: [ datamanagement | green-it ]
Feb 26 2008, 01:15:31 PM EST
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Booch, Nackman, and Royce on IBM Rational at five years
 
In this 18-minute podcast, Grady Booch, Lee Nackman, and Walker Royce join developerWorks' Scott Laningham and Michael O'Connell on this fifth anniversary of the IBM acquisition of Rational to talk about what it has meant for each company and for the software profession in general. Refinement of Rational's focus, the expansion of IBM's software paradigm, the further embracing of open source and open standards, the investment in growing technical talent, and the Jazz platform are all discussed.
LISTEN (18:08)
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Related resources:
Jazz.net
Rational zone on developerWorks
Jazz community space on developerWorks
Categories
: [ ibm | jazz | opensource | openstandards | rational | rup ]
Feb 19 2008, 04:31:50 PM EST
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