• Microsoft Enterprise Search Blog : Innovation on Linux and UNIX
  Company bought by Microsoft, company stops developing on Unix and Linux operating systems: "When we announced the acquisition [of FAST by Microsoft] two years ago, we said that we were committed to cross-platform innovation—that we’d “continue to offer stand-alone versions of ESP that run on Linux and UNIX,” [...] With our 2010 products scheduled for release in a few months, we’ve just started to plan for our next wave of products. As a part of that planning process, we have decided that in order to deliver more innovation per release in the future, the 2010 products will be the last to include a search core that runs on Linux and UNIX." (fast microsoft linux unix support search )
• Subscriptions are the New BLACK. (+ why Facebook, Google, & Apple will own your wallet by 2015) – Master of 500 Hats
  The key to successful revenue generation on the net, by one very, very, tired and emotional VC: "Well at this point i hope you've pieced it all together. The key to success — one might even say DOMINANCE — in payment systems is to begin with the foundation of frequent-use products, so that users won't forget their passwords." (startups freemium advertising facebook business_models identity user_experience )
• Newsmap
  A Flash-based visualisation of what's in the news. A more elaborate presentation of the kind of thing at http://www.guardian.co.uk/zeitgeist (google visualisation news )
• The Answer Factory: Demand Media and the Fast, Disposable, and Profitable as Hell Media Model | Magazine
  How Demand Media is mass-producing how-to videos and other content. It's algorithm-based and relies on a huge army of low-paid freelancers to churn stuff out quickly and reliably. (video business_strategy algorithms )
• YouTube – Eigenharp Pico – Live recording "Winter Movement"
  Quite an astonishing piece from Geert Bevin. Amazing what you can do with just 18 keys (and a breath pipe and a strip controller). (eigenharp video music )

I returned to taking a few photographs after quite a break. Only this and one other made the grade, though.

Tags: photography

• Blairometer: how Twitter rates Tony Blair at Chilcot
  "Below are the 50 most recent tweets that include the word 'blair' with a minus sign indicating a negative comment and a plus for a positive one" (tony_blair twitter fun chilcot )
• The Forrester Blog For Consumer Product Strategy Professionals
  "I was sitting on the edge of my seat, ready to hear Jobs demonstrate that new category of device. But he didn't." (ipad apple ipod_touch )
• The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs : Live blog will be here
  Fake Steve Jobs gives a better keynote than the real one…

  "10:04–pretty basic NLP keyword hypnosis so far, do you feel yourself being lulled and going under?

  10:10–behold, bitches." (ipad apple launch steve_jobs humour )

• BSkyB wins in £709m lawsuit against HP-EDS – Supplier Relations – ComputerworldUK
  "BSkyB has won at least a substantial part of its £709 million lawsuit against EDS, over a failed £48 million customer system implementation. [...] The judgement is expected to change the legal basis for sales pitches and contracts. It is likely to mean that IT services companies will have to be very careful about what they suggest they are able to do during sales meetings, as they may be held accountable even if discussions are informal." (law eds hp bskyb software_failure )
• PDFescape – Free PDF Editor & PDF Form Filler
  I have a PDF form which will not save with my data — you have to spend money for that. Or you can use PDFescape, which allows you to open the form and fill it in online, then download it and save it with your data. Hooray for clever people. (pdf tools forms )

• data.gov.uk launch – a set on Flickr
  Really great photos from Paul Clarke at the data.gov.uk launch (photography government data open_data launch )
• Ooyala scores partnership with Telegraph Media Group, will power its video content
  "Ooyala, a US-based provider of video platform applications and services, and Telegraph Media Group (TMG) are today announcing that they have signed an agreement for Ooyala to power online video on the publisher’s websites, which includes news site Telegraph.co.uk." (brightcove ooyala video telegraph )
• Crayola Crayon Colors Multiply Like Rabbits | FlowingData
  Very pretty: "In 1903, Crayola had eight colors in its standard package. Today, there are 120, along with special packs like Gem Tones and Silver Swhirls. What happened? Above, from Weather Sealed, shows the growing color selection (and a few color retirements) in the standard package from 1903 to now." (history visualisation )
• DMGT Planning 15 iPhone Apps In 2010, But Why Do Newspapers Love iTunes? | paidContent:UK
  "Richard Titus, former BBC mobile contoller turned Associated Northcliffe Digital CEO, tells the FT that he’ll launch 15 new apps in H110, in the quest to become: “the leading mobile publisher of applications in Europe”. [...] but Titus is not a paid content believer and all the DMGT apps will be free and ad-supported. So what can DMGT expect to get? More Mail Online readers to sell integrated cross-media ad packages to big brands, increased engagement and sales from its classifieds business and a good chunk of cheap marketing for 15 of its digital brands." (newspapers daily_mail dmgt iphone business_models )
• Best and Worst Jobs 2010 – The Wall Street Journal Online – Interactive Graphics
  "The 200 best and worst jobs in the U.S. in 2009 based on five criteria — environment, income, employment outlook, physical demands and stress — according to a newly released study from job site CareerCast.com." Software engineer comes in at Number 2. At Number 5 is… historian, obviously. (jobs trends salaries )

• Agile as a ‘Cargo Cult’ « Made by Many
  "In our rapidly converging media world, we hear the word “agile” bandied around a lot these days – sometimes, it has to be said, by people who don’t actually have a scooby about what it really means to work in an agile way. [...] It’s like the “open sesame” of integrated thinking, design and development – literally opening a treasure cave. It’s like a silver bullet. It’s as easy as swallowing the red pill." And of course, says Tim Malbon, it's not like that at all. (agile opinion )
• Data Underload #4 – Little Things | FlowingData
  "Your age versus how easy it is to amuse you" visualised. (visualisation humour )
• WildlifeNearYou: It began on a fort…
  Simon Willison's story of how a project intended to last a little more than a week took… ooh, slightly longer than planned. About a year longer. But it's a great story of how enthusiasm can sometimes get the better of you (and how you can then get the better of that). (development software_in_practice )
• Letters of Note: Your pal, John K.
  "In 1998, aged just 14, aspiring young cartoonist Amir Avni decided to get in touch with the creator of Ren & Stimpy, John Kricfalusi. Being a hardcore fan of Kricfalusi's work, Amir sent him an introductory letter along with a few cartoons he'd drawn, some of which contained relatively unknown characters of John's. To call Kricfalusi's response 'generous' would be an understatement [...] ast forward 12 years and Amir is currently in his 4th year of the Animation program at Sheridan College, even having worked as part of John's Digital Inking crew on the George Liquor Show." (animation drawing inspiration comics cartoons )
• All opinions welcome | Jon Canter | Comment is free | The Guardian
  "News vox pops underline the great democratic right to not have a clue what we're talking about" Jon Canter saying, essentially, that television news continues to fail to distinguish itself from The Day Today. (television news )
• Top Sites: The 500 Most Important Websites on the Internet
  "The table below contains a list of the top 500 registered domains (∗.example.com) ranked by the number of linking root domains." As of December 2009. (seo links marketing )

• New York Times Ready to Charge Online Readers — Daily Intel
  "New York Times Chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. appears close to announcing that the paper will begin charging for access to its website, according to people familiar with internal deliberations." (nytimes publishing newspapers business_models )
• Eigenharp Alpha Unboxing Video on Vimeo
  Fetish video — yes, it's an unboxing. "The long awaited Eigenharp Alpha has finally landed in the US … and here is the unboxing video to prove it." Good Star Wars-style comments at the end. (eigenharp unboxing video )
• Telegraph Digital Dev Chief Quitting For More ‘Entrepreneurial’ Future | paidContent:UK
  "Telegraph Media Group’s head of digital development, Greg Hadfield, is leaving the company after a year in the job, to be strategic products director at Brighton digital design house Cogapp…" and sadly he doesn't have too much good to say about his soon-to-be-former employers. (innovation jobs telegraph newmedia )
• BBC – Web Developer: A/B Testing
  "A little while ago I was talking to our interaction designer Pekka about a link we had in the masthead that was under-performing. We suspected it was the wording that wasn't working, and after thinking up a few possible options Pekka said it would be great to be able to "A-B test" some of them." And then they went and did it. And they've provided the source code. It's an excellent, if very small, example of a (BBC) team doing something very responsible and giving something back. (bbc abtesting testing web_analytics javascript )
• ongoing · Doing It Wrong
  Tim Bray thinks that enterprise systems should be built like web applications. "What I’m writing here is the single most important take-away from my Sun years, and it fits in a sentence: The community of developers whose work you see on the Web, who probably don’t know what ADO or UML or JPA even stand for, deploy better systems at less cost in less time at lower risk than we see in the Enterprise." He's got some good ideas, but I think he's basically mistaken. I found myself siding with the critics in the comments section, who very eloquently take his examples apart one by one. (software agile management architecture enterprise_architecture culture )

• YouTube – Kayla Kavanagh ~ Eigenharp Pico: York Minster
  A lovely piece of music on what might ordinarily be a piano synth, but then around the 1m:25s point her fingers stop play the melody… and it carries on without her. She's been recording it, and then for the second half she layers another line on top of that. Really excellent. (eigenharp video music )
• How we create and deploy sites fast with virtualenv and Django | Open Source at The Washington Times
  "A commenter on my last post was curious how we use virtualenv to deploy sites and how it is helpful. It goes a bit deeper than that. There are a few parts that make everything work." (django configuration_management washington_times git setup )
• Why the reporting of 3D TV is mostly hype: PaidContent
  (3d hdtv analysis )
• Video: Burj Khalifa base jump | Art and design | guardian.co.uk
  "Two men have set a world record for the highest base jump after parachuting from the top of the world's highest building, the Burj Khalifa." And this is the video evidence to prove it. (video stunts )
• bar|none: First Impressions of the Eigenharp Alpha
  "I was lucky enough to recently acquire an Eigenharp Alpha. I'm definitely one of the first which shows also that I had absolutely no self-control when this beasty was announced and was one of their very first orders right after the announcement. Well it has arrived and I've spent just a few days with it and here are the first impressions." And it largely lives up to the hype. (eigenharp review music hardware )

• border-image demonstration page
  A great demonstration of 9-slice image use in CSS3. (css webkit borders css3 )
• Our top people of 2009 by tags | Help | guardian.co.uk
  A wonderful side-effect of a well-managed and well-designed content management system, I'd say… "The magic of tags means we can count the number of times we've produced content that is significantly about a subject, for a set time period, and even within a specific folder (a folder containing all our people tags for example). This means we can produce an end of year rundown of the people who've provoked us to produce the most – and least – in 2009." (data guardian tagging )
• Only the Best BBC Micro Games / BBC Games from the past
  "Welcome to "Only the Best BBC Micro Games". Only the best is a BBC Games website dedicated to restoring the memories of our time spent with the classic and wonderful BBC Microcomputer." (games software bbc_micro )
• BBC Emulator
  An online BBC Micro emulator. Wow! (emulator bbc_micro )
• Crowdsourced document analysis and MP expenses
  Simon Willison writes candidly about the lessons learnt during two crowdsourcing exercised around MPs' expenses. (mps_expenses guardian crowdsourcing software_development )

• klein.gif (GIF Image, 600×415 pixels)
  Recycling Klien bottles, courtesy of commenter MC (humour maths system:filetype:gif system:media:image )
• Orig Williams obituary | UK news | The Guardian
  "He was trying to put together a team of Welsh-speaking players when he realised that gates were declining because of the increasing interest in Saturday afternoon televised wrestling. He left the club and began to work at fairgrounds as a boxer and wrestler in the late 1950s." I'm wondering if I find all stories of wrestlers so engaging. It reminded me of another one I read a while back… (obituary )
• Norbert Rondel | West End 'hard man' | Professional wrestler | Obituary | UK news | guardian.co.uk
  Trained rabbi, car dealer, wrestler and professional heavy. A fascinating story from the archives. (obituary )
• ProSwitcher Yet Another iPhone Multitasking Interface | iPhone
  It was only a matter of time… "Ryan Petrich showcased ProSwitcher for jailbroken iPhones, ProSwitcher enables palm pre like multitasking for jailbroken iPhones. ProSwitcher app that shows exactly how simple power features can drastically improve the iPhone user experience." (iphone hacking multitasking )
• Mag+ on Vimeo
  "This conceptual video is a corporate collaborative research project initiated by Bonnier R&D into the experience of reading magazines on handheld digital devices. It illustrates one possible vision for digital magazines in the near future, presented by our design partners" What I like most about this is that the production process for each magazine seems much more believable, unlike the (flashier) Sports Illustrated concept reader which appeared to require far more labour, including vast video production, per issue.
  at BERG. (design video future gui magazines )

• Palm – Project Ares
  "Project Ares is the first mobile development environment hosted entirely in a browser, lowering the barriers for web developers to jump into mobile development." (palm development webos )
• Computational Thinking: Jon Udell
  Jon Udell's presentation to UCEA, April 2009, on Computational Thinking: what it is, and why it's an important skill for everyone. (presentation data )
• Barac consulting | Notes on designing the Guardian iPhone app
  "Finally the Guardian iPhone app is out there [...] It was a huge job getting it done and I can’t pretend to know everything about the process but I was involved from the outset in devising the look of it, the user interface as well as the navigational structure. I am very proud to have played a part creating the first Guardian iPhone app, pleased with the result and ecstatic with it’s reception." (guardian iphone design )
• Crisis of Credit Explained in Animated Infographics | FlowingData
  "This video (below) explains how we got into this credit crisis. It's a lot of greedy business folk who borrow, borrow, and then borrow more money. Why do they borrow the money? How do they make money by borrowing money? Watch the animated infographics for an explanation" (video economy graphics economics recession )
• Mystery of Tony Blair's money solved | Politics | guardian.co.uk
  "The winner of the Guardian's online contest to solve the mystery of Blair's finances is Richard Murphy, a crusading accountant from Tax Research UK. His entry unearthed the small print of the Partnership (Accounts) Regulations 2008 to reveal that Blair has found an unusual method to keep his wealth secret from the rest of us. [...] There were a large number of other entries to the Guardian competition – rapidly dubbed the Blair Rich Project. Some responses set out to be witty. [...] Others merely took advantage of anonymity to be rude about our former prime minister." (tony_blair crowdsourcing accounting corporate guardian competition )