Tuesday, July 16, 2002
Six options offered to rebuild Ground Zero
Phil HirschkornBalancing competing goals for redevelopment and a victims' memorial, six preliminary plans for rebuilding the grounds of the World Trade Center and its adjacent areas were unveiled Tuesday.
I'm not really too psyched about any of the plans.
Where are the 'Construction Set' Games?
Where have all of the Heathkit's, the chemical experiment toys and the other types of "builder" sets gone, and are they due for a revival, soon?
Amazon.com Launches Web Services
Amazon.com Web Services is available free of charge. It is also integrated with the Amazon.com Associates Program which allows web sites to earn referral fees from purchases made at Amazon.com via links on their web sites.
Knowledge management for call centres
James RobertsonCall centres are all about getting customers the information they need, as quickly as possible. To meet this goal, the knowledge resources of a call centre must be managed in a coordinated and integrated way.
Knowledge management has a range of practical tools and approaches for meeting these challenges.
Call Center: Profit or Loss?
Bruce TognazziniThe call center had no interest in hearing anything I had to say. It's not that they don't want to hear my solution; they don't wanna hear nothin' about nothin'. They are as heavily defended against incoming information as a Middle-Ages European castle with the drawbridge up and the archers in formation.
The TAO of Topic Maps
Steve PepperSomeone once said that "a book without an index is like a country without a map".
However interesting and worthwhile the experience of driving from A to B without a map might be in its own right, there can be no doubt that when the goal is to arrive at one's destination as quickly as possible (or at least without undue delay), some kind of a map is indispensable.
I think I need to print this out before I can read it - it looks interesting, but it's too dense for me to understand without "holding" the words...
Day 27: Using real headers
Mark PilgrimThink of your weblog as an outline. The top level is labeled by your site name. On your home page, you list entries from several days. So the second level is labeled by your date descriptions: "Tuesday, July 16, 2002", or something similar. On each day, you make multiple posts, which may each have their own title. If so, then you have a third level, labeled by your individual post titles.
Now mark up your weblog as an outline, using real
<h1>,<h2>,<h3>tags. Screen readers rely on these tags to interpret the structure of your pages. Your pages do have a structure, but without proper header tags, screen readers can't find it. In a minute, I'll show you how to use CSS to make your headers look the same in visual browsers as whatever<font>-based monstrosity you're currently using.
Cool, I already did this! Well, except for the CSS trick, but I only learned that yesterday...
A Technical Look at Shooting Down an Airliner
Captain Robert LambertThe two missiles that would most likely be employed in this effort would be the AIM-9X Sidewinder and the AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles. While both of these missiles are capable of destroying an airliner, in my opinion the AIM-120 would be used.
What About Government Accountability?
Ron PaulAccounting scandals dominated the headlines last week, and publicity-hungry politicians from both the House and Senate enjoyed acting self-righteous while grilling WorldCom executives. However, the message that Congress will clamp down on corporate accounting practices rings hollow with at least one journalist. Neil Cavuto from Fox News recently offered a very important question that desperately needs to be asked of Congress: "Who the heck are YOU to judge? Given the incredible fiscal mismanagement that pervades the federal government, Congress is "throwing stones from a very big glass house," as Mr. Cavuto puts it. It's refreshing to hear Mr. Cavuto point out the hypocrisy of politicians standing in judgment of executives whose misdeeds pale in comparison to their own reckless spending.
It Ain't Rocket Science Anymore
Bill WalkerThirty-three years ago, men could walk on the Moon. Today they can't.
House votes 385-3 for wiretaps, life sentence for malicious hackers
Declan McCullaghThe House of Representatives on Monday overwhelmingly approved a bill that would allow for life prison sentences for malicious computer hackers.
Discussion at Slashdot.
GM's Billion-Dollar Bet
Dan BaumThe hydrogen car has been a long time coming. GM is betting $1 billion that the end of internal combustion is near.
Discussion at Slashdot.
Macworld Expo 2002, New York
Rob McNair-HuffCheck often for notes about the Macworld Expo news that is important to small business owners, freelancers and everyday Mac power users.
Users Must Beware of Legal Trends
Dan GillmorRecently, some top minds in law and technology assembled at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School. One was Lawrence Lessig, the Stanford University law professor who said, persuasively, that the future is bleak unless people step up to some serious issues. The forces of absolute control are on the verge of deciding what kind of creativity and innovation will be allowed, and as a result, they're damping down progress.
Broadband horizon
Wayne RashAn organization called the Ethernet in the First Mile Alliance is working on a new Ethernet standard designed to use existing infrastructure to provide true broadband access to the Internet. The idea is that if phone companies can use wiring they already have to provide Ethernet at 10Mbps to customers instead of DSL or T1 lines, and do it at significantly lower costs, they will.
