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Email marketer harnesses the power of Gentoo

Gold Lasso uses an open source infrastructure to power its email marketing business. Cofounders Elie Ashery and Michael Weisel say open source is the only way to keep prices down and"truly compete in the current marketplace." And, they say, Gentoo Linux is the only way to keep their system truly secure. But finding employees who can manage a system built on Gentoo has been a challenge.



Software consolidates applications/OSs in data centers. (ThomasNet)

Sun Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Software v1.0, installed on Solaris OS, helps enable organizations to move applications and operating systems (OS) off PCs, consolidate them in data center, and present them to end users on devices through high-performance display protocols. It provides bridge between desktops and servers, allowing users to access desktop environments from PCs as well as thin ...


Untimely Summary Judgment Motion Dismissed

NEW YORK - The ephedra multidistrict litigation judge on Aug. 4 ruled that a Body Dynamics Inc. (BDI) summary judgment motion filed six weeks after the deadline was untimely and prejudicial and dismissed it (In Re: Ephedra Products Liability Litigation, No. 04 M.D. 1598 JSR; Russell Wilburn v. N.V.E., Inc., et al., No. 06 Civ. 13046, S.D. N.Y.). Full story on lexis.com


What's in a Free Software License?

iTWire: "'Open source' is a hot buzzword today. It's important to understand free software is still subject to a license just like conventional shrinkwrapped packages..."


Are You Cool? Do You Exercise With Your Kids? Posted By : Stacy Kubach

If you want to boost your kids' immune systems, spend time exercising with them every day. When most adults think about exercise, they imagine working out in the gym on a treadmill or lifting weights. If you have a teenager, consider taking him/her to workout at the gym with you. Family exercise can be a great avenue for you to observe your kids' behaviors and energy output. Walk them to the bus stop; coach them during soccer and baseball practice, and take them swimming. You can watch to make sure they are perky and having fun while on your weekend hikes and bike trips.


In Flag City USA, False Obama Rumors Are Flying

FINDLAY, Ohio -- On his corner of College Street, Jim Peterman stares at the four American flags planted in his front lawn and rubs his forehead. Peterman, 74, is a retired worker at Cooper Tire, a father of two, an Air Force veteran and a self-described patriot. He took one trip to Washington in...


Administering Heparin Soon After Stroke Can Increase Risk Of Serious Bleeding

The common practice of administering heparin soon after cardioembolic stroke is associated with an increased risk for serious bleeding, according to an article in the Archives of Neurology. However, it appears that anticoagulation with warfarin therapy may safely begin shortly after stroke.


Social Media Love-In: Phase 2 Coming Soon

Social Media Love-In: Phase 2 Coming Soon Wow - when I posted an invitation this morning for ProBlogger readers to promote their social media profiles on this post I didn’t know what would happen - but I suspected it would be fun. (Read on Source)


Aug. 1, 1949: FCC Gets In on Cable TV

1949: A secretary at the Federal Communications Commission sends a letter to cable pioneer Ed Parsons in Astoria, Oregon, asking him to explain his community-antenna television system. It's the first-known FCC involvement in cable TV.

Parsons was a radio engineer and station owner who'd worked in Alaska, Washington and Oregon. He and his wife saw television demonstrated at a broadcasters' convention in Chicago in 1947. Mrs. Parsons wanted one of the new-fangled gizmos, and Ed bought one when Seattle's KRSC-TV, Channel 5, announced plans in the spring of 1948 to go on the air.

Parsons had to figure out a way to receive the TV signals from Seattle 120 miles away to Astoria, near the mouth of the Columbia River. He rigged a large antenna atop the Astoria Hotel and ran a coaxial cable across the street to his apartment. He got it working November 25. Problem solved.

Problem created: The apartment was the only place in town that could pick up the signal from Seattle, and soon friends, neighbors and total strangers were crowding into the Parsons' living room to watch the modern marvel.

Parsons was nearly driven out of house and home: "People would drive for hundreds of miles to see television. We had gotten considerable publicity ?. And when people drove down from Portland or came from The Dalles or from Klamath Falls to see television, you couldn't tell them no."

He ran another cable from the hotel roof down to a TV set in the hotel lobby. So many people clogged the lobby that they got in the way of the hotel's paying guests. Parsons began running cable to other people's homes. Problem solved, industry born.

The Cable Center says Parsons charged the people he hooked up only for his materials and labor, never exacting a subscription fee. But MSNBC reports that Parsons charged $125 ($1,150 in today's money) for installation, plus $3 ($27.50 today) a month for service.

The Cable Center credits Parsons with inventing cable TV, because his system, completed in February 1949, was the first in the United States to use "coaxial cable, amplifiers and a community antenna to deliver television signals to an area that otherwise would not have been able to receive broadcast television signals." Nonetheless, the center notes that Jim Davidson beat Parsons to the punch with the first cable program: the Tennessee vs. Mississippi college football game on November 13, 1948.

In any event, FCC secretary T.J. Slowie wrote to Parsons on August 1, 1949, requesting "full information with respect to the nature of the system you may have developed and may be operating." Parsons complied, and an FCC attorney eventually concluded that CATV was a common carrier, subject to FCC jurisdiction. The commission, however, didn't adopt his recommendation, and it would be 1965 before the FCC decided to regulate cable TV.

Source: Cable Center, MSNBC


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Digital cameras baffle Britons


Spammers leverage interest in Olympics

Public interest in the Olympic Games is helping spammers, who are using text related to the games in e-mails to get users to click through to their malware and phishing Web sites, or to go to product sites, according to an executive at Symantec.

Spam messages were 78 percent of all messages in July, up from 66 percent a year ago, according to a monthly report on spam released by Symantec earlier this week.

While spam is increasing overall as a trend, there has been a spike ahead of the Beijing Olympics, said Shantanu Ghosh, vice president of Symantec's India product operations, on Thursday. Symantec's center in Pune, India, has one of nine security response labs run by Symantec worldwide.

[ For news about IT at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, check out InfoWorld's special report. ]

"The objective of spammers is to make you curious enough to look, and they always pick up on topical events," Ghosh said. A favorite with spammers this season is to tempt users with tickets to the Olympic Games, he added.

After the Beijing Olympics start on Friday, there is likely to be a flood of spam prompting users to click on links to view videos or photographs of sports events at the Olympics, Ghosh warned. The links may take users to phishing sites or sites dispensing malware, he added.

Spammers have been taking advantage of public interest in the run-up to the U.S. elections and other issues, Symantec said.

E-mail offering or advertising Internet or computer-related goods and services, accounted for 22 percent of spam in July, followed by e-mails promoting general goods and services, at 21 percent. The share of scams to lure people into investing in fraudulent schemes was 8 percent, while phishing messages used to trick users into revealing personal information such as e-mail address, financial information, and passwords accounted for 5 percent, according to Symantec.


Shorts May Like Earnings This Week; WalMart Earnings and Inflation Reading On Tap

Stocks managed to end the week higher despite a selloff midweek after American...


Europe Markets: Automakers climb again in steady Europe

European shares moved off early lows on Tuesday, with autos doing well as the euro put in another lackluster performance against the dollar and UBS up after unveiling a plan to separate its investment banking and wealth management arms.


Evening Reading

So hopefully a few of you guys have noticed the little opinion/analysis thingies showing up in a few news items. As we get a bit more comfy with things I'm sure they will show up more often assuming we have something worth while to add. The idea being to add a bit of a knowledgeable analysis to things as they happen. Faylor talking about EA publishing on Steam or Blake talking about console makers and their budget title approaches, etc.

As for the the videogame news around these parts: