Technometria with Phil Windley
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In the 17th century, William Ames wrote a book called
Technometria. Technometry meant literally "the measure of a skill or
art." As Ames used it, he meant the study of the theory of the
interrelation of the arts and sciences. (See Why
Technometria for more detail.)
This is the Technometria podcast. I'm Phil Windley and I'm usually joined
by Scott Lemon and Ben Galbraith, good friends and
great technologists in their own right. Matt Asay has been a co-host in the past. We may talk him into coming back someday.
Technometria is our attempt to make sense of the technology that
surrounds us through exploration, analysis, and, hopefully,
reason. In these podcasts you'll find discussions of Web 2.0,
programming and software development, open source, identity, new
media, enterprise computing, and many other topics.
If you enjoy these podcasts, let us know by giving them a rating or sending us a note. You might also
enjoy Phil Windley's
Technometria blog.
In its short history, the Nintendo Wii has become one of the most popular game consoles available. In particular, its remote controller is sophisticated, containing a number of input devices that outperform regular personal computers. Johnny Lee, a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University is working on a number of exciting projects with the controller. He joins Phil and Scott to discuss his applications, including his video demonstrations available on YouTube.
OpenDNS is the world's largest and fastest-growing DNS service. The service is used by hundreds of thousands of schools, businesses and homes as they navigate the Internet, blocking phishing sites and also the power to block adult sites, proxies and individual domains. David Ulevitch, the company's founder and CEO, joins Phil and Scott to discuss the technical issues of DNS and how OpenDNS operates.
eComm is a brand new telecom event for those interested in radical innovation and seizing the next opportunity wave. The initial keynote speech will be given by Jonathan Christensen, General Manager, Audio & Video, for Skype. Lee Dryburgh, founder of eComm Media, talks with Jonathan in preparation for the upcoming March conference. He discusses the background of VoIP and how Skype became the first practical mass market of a VoIP application.
Facebook is a social utility that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them. It is also one of the hottest websites in today's world, and is having a major impact on career and business. Jesse Stay, co-author of the upcoming book "I'm on Facebook--Now What???" joins Phil and Scott to discuss the book and the current status and future of Facebook, both as a social networking site and a place for business.
More and more Web sites are being rewritten as Ajax applications and traditional desktop software is rapidly moving to the Web via Ajax. But, often, this transition is being made with reckless disregard for security. Ajax developers desperately need guidance on securing their applications. Billy Hoffman, co-author of Ajax Security, joins Phil and Scott to discuss the book.
OpenIDDevCamp was a gathering to develop web-based applications that use OpenID. Attendees included web designers, developers and testers all working together over the weekend to enable OpenID on their sites or just learn more about this technology. Scott joined Phil to discus the event as well as the OpenID concept.
The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) has always been the place where companies announced and demonstrated the newest gadgets and electronic devices. Phil and Scott are joined by three attendees, Brad Baldwin, Scott Barlow, and Randall Bennett, to discuss some of the products. They talk about visual devices, robotics, and how power consumption is an issue that needs to be assessed in new devices.
Phil regularly holds a meeting that he calls the CTO Breakfast. It is an opportunity for people who work in technology to discuss current issues. In this episode, Phil holds an online version of the meeting. The group review such topics as the recently released Amazon SimpleDB, MIT's open courseware project, and how LinkedIn just open their site to developers. They also discuss the status of open source social networking and the problems of monetization. The group finishes with their predictions for early 2008.
As consumers continue to adopt using media on demand, developers are working to come up with tools that allow computer users to access material. Deeje Cooley, product manager for Adobe, joins Phil and Scott to discuss the Adobe Media Player (AMP), which allows a user to watch their favorite shows, anytime, anywhere. It also allows content businesses new waysto create, deliver, and monetize high-quality content and advertising through a customizable cross-platform player that supports both downloaded and streamed media.
Zope is a high-performance application/Web server, content management system. It is a complete, robust, scalable solution. Rob Page, CEO and President of Zope Corporation, joins Phil and Scott to discuss the status of Zope, as well as the company. He reviews the background of the system, including what led them to use Python as part of it. He also gives some examples of successful implementations. He talks about why the company made Zope open source and discusses the challenges of making money in open source.
