centre{source}

This is very cool. Codeweavers (makers of the popular Crossover Office suite) is throwing down the gauntlet on their mission to provide Windows compability in GNU/Linux:

We are on a mission to improve Wine until it can run nearly every Windows program, and we would like your help.

Over the past year we’ve completed support for a set of technologies key to making Windows applications install: the Component Object Model (COM aka OLE) DLLs and the Microsoft Installer service (MSI). That work is now largely done, and we would like to start taking advantage of it to showcase what Wine can do.

Microsoft announced the official name of its newest version of Windows…

Windows Vista, formerly known by its code-name Longhorn, is scheduled to launch in the second half of 2006, five years after Windows XP, the longest time lag between releases of its flagship operating system that runs on nine out of 10 personal computers worldwide.

Microsoft to debut ‘Windows Vista’ – Yahoo! News

Note: Swirbo does not condone this particular method of spam-filtering:

Vardan Kushnir, notorious for sending spam to each and every citizen of Russia who appeared to have an e-mail, was found dead in his Moscow apartment on Sunday, Interfax reported Monday. He died after suffering repeated blows to the head.

Hey folks,

Posting has been light as you can probably tell, as CentreSource is moving to new digs. We had a bit of a fiasco with Bellsouth — more on this to come.

Ticketmaster, aside from being an evil purveyor of “convenience” fees aka “ha ha monopoly” fees, is also proving to be quite the spammer, and demonstrating ably how not to handle e-mail marketing.

I bought tickets a few months ago on ticketmaster, and specifically opted out of any “special offers” they had listed. Nonetheless, they started sending me regular mail, which I specifically unsubscribed from (despite the fact that I never subscribed, which makes them a spammer).

Today I got another message from them. You can find a full copy of the message here. A very odd message. The sender is in the headers is “Concert.News” <concert .News@aeglive-la.com> — not Ticketmaster. The return-path is v-floae_feoipmfd_gnpabb_a@bounce3.rm04.net.

Can you run an open-source business?

The Business Experiment is a site meant to explore three concepts: wisdom of crowds, open-source business, and the distributed nature of work. The goal is to have the registered users of this site collectively start and run a real business. Business plans will be written. Financing will be sought (if needed). Employees will be hired. Systems of accountability will be put into place.

I love it when a firm focuses on innovation to regain the market lead. It shows me they have a true interest in advancing a market, improving on their products, and an overall dedication to the future of an industry.

Revolutionizing logistics can only carry you so far (aka: Dell) – someone has to do the hard job of coming up with new technologies. Thank goodness HP is leading the charge in printer technologies (vs ‘repackaging’ like Dell).

An article on Yahoo!News states the following:

CNET has a sweet section of their website that showcases individuals that trick their cars out with sweet tech gear. One of the coolest I saw was a guy that completed a slick install of a mac-mini into his Volkswagen GTI.

Check it out here:Show Us Yours: Car: Asskickenwagen – CNET reviews

Ever feel like you’re being watched? Trust your instincts, it’s most likely true. Employee monitoring, while old in concept, finds itself rapidly evolving thanks to the information age. Due to the advancements in technology, firms can affordably monitor, record, and analyze the daily actions of an employee such as Internet usage and even their physical location. As we progress into the next century, employee monitoring will play a powerful role in shaping both performance and social aspects of our business environment.

I’ve recently encountered two sites that are really amazing to me in that they are much more functional than a normal website, yet they are so simple that even the most basic user can use them. The first is http://www.printsmadeeasy.com/ and I first used it when I wanted to create business cards for CentreSource. Its truly an incredible site and accomplishes its purpose really well…