As I mentioned in my lwn interview a few weeks ago, I’m curious about where the Open Collaboration Services/Social Desktop is going- while I have not been able to figure out if this is the right way to do it, it is obvious that the Free desktop needs to start experimenting with and exploring this [...]
Apologies if I’ve seemingly been ignoring you; it isn’t personal. :/ But my vicious head cold is clearing up, and I now have home internet again. So expect slightly improved service from me in the near future. (Note that I am still studying for the bar, so I’m mostly still pretty swamped, but at least [...]
Early this week I published Columbia Science and Technology Law Review Volume 10, completing my responsibilities as Editor-in-Chief.
We have some interesting articles that I’m glad to have worked on – particularly, I think, the very interesting (and readable!) article on what is known in contract law as the ‘mailbox rule’- and how it is obsolete [...]
Usually, I’m above saying ‘I told you so’, but sometimes… well, lets just say that it is clear that most of the people commenting in this bug about the ‘confusion’ caused by the Ubuntu One mark didn’t read my old posts on trusting open source companies or my (old, not terribly good) trademark paper. To [...]
The world needs more lawyers like this:
I often explain to businesses that the main reward for a great, original product is a succesful business based on that product, and that intellectual property notwithstanding, the best way to protect most great ideas is by consistently excellent execution, high quality, responsive customer service, continued innovation and overall [...]
Some anecdotes on data loss in the cloud:
online backup provider loses data, sues systems provider
Nokia’s Ovi service loses user contacts and images
ma.gnolia lost all user data
A more complex case, where the provider did (mostly?) the right thing:
Yahoo closing its locker service after 10 years
These are not necessarily straightforward; each failure has disparate causes (too much [...]
Seth Nickell and I (mostly jokingly) chatted ages ago about setting up a hacker colony/coop in Detroit, and that was when houses were merely cheap and not practically free. Looks like some artists are going through and doing basically the same thing we were thinking of, with a green twist to boot. Maybe that is [...]
Why yes, that is a swamp buggy. Besides driving it, I spent some quality time with family, some time getting bitten by mosquitoes, and some time in canoes. Good weekend all around.
Probably not coincidence that this was the first time I’ve flown into New York since I moved here and not been excited about getting [...]
Three good customer service experiences I’ve had of late:
lenovo: I bought an X41 tablet not long after Lenovo bought the Thinkpad brand. I was a little worried about the impact the purchase would have on customer service, but in my first interaction with them (yesterday, 2 1/2 years after the purchase) their service was prompt, [...]
things I did not expect to do Friday: buy an album because I saw a music video. I’m not sure I’ve ever done that, even when I went through an MTV-watching period in my teens.
(Tangent: how come I didn’t know there was a last.fm creative commons station?)