Google Compute.

I just saw on my Google toolbar, a "New" button, which when clicked gives this explanation:

Put your idle computer time to good use

Google would like to request your help on Google Compute, a new feature for the Google Toolbar. By turning on this feature, you can allow your computer to work on complex scientific problems when it would otherwise be idle. The work it does is automatically sent via the Internet to researchers who combine it with information sent by thousands of other users.

The first beneficiary of this effort is Folding@home, a non-profit academic research project at Stanford University that is trying to understand the structure of proteins so they can develop better treatments for a number of illnesses. In the future Google Compute may allow you to also donate your computing time to other carefully selected worthwhile endeavors, including projects to improve Google and its services. [ Go ] [ FAQ ]

Is this really new or did I miss it when it came out and my toolbar was "retro".

[The FuzzyBlog!]

neva,Arial,Sans-Serif size=2>Reports on Weblogging as journalism.

A excellent list of blog related articles.

This article is written for a newspaper editor and journalist audience but is useful to anyone exploring blogs for their business. Essentially Steve breaks down the types as:

• Basic - the single writer contributing regular short items on a specific topic.
• Group - This is a simple variation of the basic weblog, with multiple writers contributing -- sometimes with an editor screening and editing others' entries, sometimes without.
• Family and Friends - the name says it all
• Collaborative - a highly democratic version - or a free for all, depending on your POV
• Photo, video, audio and cartoons - however, the majority are still text
• Community - remember Geocities?
• Business/corporate/advertising - I believe that, if managed properly, blogs for business can become a powerful communication resource... but businesses must proceed with caution! Please see my Blogs4Business blog.
• Knowledge based blogs ( K-logs) - blogs used inside a company are an alternative to expensive KM (knowledge management systems)

ng weblog on the Internet.

dana color=#0066ff size=1>Radio. One site is public - my community site - intended for anybody to read and containing stuff not directly related to my employer. The other site is private to those within my employer's firewalls.

 

NYT: New Top-Level Change at AOL Could Foretell Fresher Content

James de Castro resigned yesterday as president of America Online's flagship interactive service and was replaced by its vice chairman, Ted Leonsis, signaling an intention to resurrect Mr. Leonsis's long-held vision of the service as a medium for presenting original programming.

Personally, I think this is good news. He has vision. We shall see.

[marketingfix]

He says "On a normal day when I updated repeatedly throughout the day, your support for conditional GET reduced my aggregator-related traffic by almost 40%." His stats page now tracks the savings. [Scripting News]

When You Don't Know What the Heck You're Doing ...

Like a lot of technical folk, I frequently find myself doing things where I just plain "don't know what the heck I'm doing".  I mean the 1st 10 or 20 times you do anything there are always nuances, details and such that just plain don't make sense.  So what I do is always look for someone smarter than me, someone geekier than me -- in that area.  So, for example, if I need to:

• Figure out MySQL replication, it's a quick jaunt over to Jeremy [ PPT ]
• Deal with *nix system administration, it's a hop, skip and jump over to Apokalyptik
• Learn about accessibility, run NOT walk over to Mark and then spend a lot of time there.  Just outstanding.
• Get into Java stuff, dash off to Spain and visit Russell (and also envy him being in a warm climate)
• Figure out anything PHP then it's a cast of many including Simon, Natrak, the Drupal project (reading source is good), Keith, Apokalytik (again)
• Review the latest in online marketing, power walk over to Inluminent and try hard not to get distracted by the pictures
• Do Python stuff then I need to see Mark (again)

So while this isn't news to anyone I suspect, this blog entry is definitely tribute to those that have helped me.  Perhaps these resources will be useful to others.  Thanks everyone.  And I apologize in advance for anyone I left off.  Bear in mind that this was a quick core dump (inspired by getting Pear coding working via looking at the Drupal code base when I hit a snag). 

[The FuzzyBlog!]

States vote to simplify sales tax rules in hopes of winning court approval to tap into $45B of projected revenue losses. [internetnews.com: Top News]