Dumb and dumber...

What can I say... hire a consultant to handle your sensitive information and it was pass to an intern who makes $10.50 an hour. Everybody point fingers at different direction does that makes okay?

A backup tape was stolen from his car last month containing at least 770,000 social security numbers (with the corresponding names) for Ohio taxpayers. It also contained the social security numbers for another 64,000 state employees. Today the intern issued a statement with his side of the story.

http://tech.blorge.com/Structure:%20/2007/07/26/800000-stolen-social-security-numbers-a-22-year-old-scapegoat/

bye bye Netflix (for now at least).

lost some subscribers to Blockbuster?
http://business.bostonherald.com/businessNews/view.bg?articleid=1013160

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/07/24/ap3946471.html

well, I don't really make decision base on the stock price. But I do like Blockbuster's idea of mail + drop off at the store. And I did have some of Netflix DVD from out of my states...which takes about 3 days to arrive...and 3 more days to return :-( As long as the price is good... WHY NOT!

it's been great testing out Netflix and Blockbuster... I think I watched enough movies.

Netflix strike back @ $8.99 for 1 at a time Unlimited

Netflix strike back @ $8.99 for 1 at a time Unlimited

I want it NOW (Blockbuster only)

If you do live near by a Blockbuster and you don't use this "service" shame on you!

Why would you want to stop by a blockbuster store near you?
1) there is e-coupon (I think once a month you can rent from the store).
2) store checkin for you mail DVD, so they can sent you another one without the lag of mail.
3) sick of browsing for DVD? Well.... they do have laptop setup for you also.

looks like Blockbuster win this round.

Web 2.0 (Blockbuster vs Netflix)

not sure if Blockbuster has any plan to upgrade their site... but I found Netflix's site to be more friendly in suggesting movies to watch. I do enjoy a short preview and customer suggestion. They also have a friend and family area...which is some what of social network setup.

So base on that, I would say Netflix is doing much better here.

Real Project, real result

It's always fun to hear about why/how a project select the technology to use. It could be cost, resource, scheduling ... policy?

http://www.kerika.com/2007/06/why-we-chose-java.html

.....

• Using C or C++ would have resulted a lot of platform-specifc coding for the graphics and file management: in other words, we wouldn't be building a cross-platform application, but rather building the same application repeatedly, and painfully, for each platform.
  
• Using Flash or SVG would likely have given us a great user interface, but there was, and remains, a dearth of programmers who are proficient in these platforms, which would have made recruiting a harder task, and, more importantly, there wasn't a rich ecosystem of third-party and open-source tools for Flash and SVG.
  
• Using the .NET platform would have resulted in Kerika looking like just another WinForm application – in other words, looking like all our clunky competitors!

.....

IDE news!!! Netbeans and Eclipse

No it's not a race, choose your own tool for the project.


Netbeans 6.0 M10
http://www.netbeans.org/community/releases/60/index.html

Eclipse also release it's IDE code name Europa 3.3
http://www.infoq.com/news/2007/06/eclipse-europa
also release are all of it's projects.... VE seems to be missing from the list :-(