“Human power output is a bit like a modern high performance engine, but with tiny amounts of power.” Simon Butterworth discusses the pros and cons of different types of cranks and gearing ratios.
www.slowtwitch.com
Microsoft’s sacred cash cow
“Recently, I’ve had a crisis of faith. Perhaps I’ve rebooted Windows one too many times.” Former Microsoft employee Jeff Reifman tells on why addiction to Windows revenue, mediocre products, and missed opportunities could spell doom for the software giant.
www.seattleweekly.com
Browser innovation, Gecko and the Mozilla Project
“The more people who use browsers based on open, standards-compliant technologies, the better the chances we will all enjoy viable choices in the way we conduct digital transactions.” Mitchell Baker puts Mozilla, Gecko, Safari and other emerging browser technologies into context.
www-archive.mozilla.org
Monitoring hard disks with SMART
“Many users and system administrators don’t know that SMART systems are built into most modern ATA and SCSI hard disks.” Bruce Allen explains how to use Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology (SMART) to monitor the health of your hard disks and preempt catastrophic failures.
www.linuxjournal.com
Spam bots – and how to avoid them
“Once your email address is in the hands of spammers, regaining control of your inbox is a very, very difficult job indeed.” Nobody likes to receive spam, but what can you do to avoid it? Essential reading for anyone keen to ‘throw a spammer’ in the works.
www.bestprac.org