Four short links: 6 February 2012

Four short links: 6 February 2012

E-Commerce Analytics, Text Mining on Hadoop, Bozonics, and It's Safe To Write With a Mac Again

by  | @gnat  |  6 February 2012

  1. Jirafe -- open source e-commerce analytics for Magento platform.
  2. iModela -- a $1000 3D milling machine. (via BoingBoing)
  3. It's Too Late to Save The Common Web (Robert Scoble) -- paraphrased: "Four years ago, I told you all that Google and Facebook were evil. You did nothing, which is why I must now use Google and Facebook." His list of reasons that Facebook beats the Open Web gives new shallows to the phrase "vanity metrics". Yes, the open web does not go out of its way to give you an inflated sense of popularity and importance. On the other hand, the things you do put there are in your control and will stay as long as you want them to. But that's obviously not a killer feature compared to a bottle of Astroglide and an autorefreshing page showing your Klout score and the number of Google+ circles you're in.
  4. iBooks Author EULA Clarified (MacObserver) -- important to note that it doesn't say you can't use the content you've written, only that you can't sell .ibook files through anyone but Apple. Less obnoxious than the "we own all your stuff, dude" interpretation, but still a bit crap. I wonder how anticompetitive this will be seen as. Apple's vertical integration is ripe for Justice Department investigation.

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Makers and hackers: The Where Conference is looking for you

Makers and hackers: The Where Conference is looking for you

Visualizations, RFID installs and a Mini Maker Faire will be featured at Where 2012.

by  | @brady  |  3 February 2012

The 2012 Where Conference is looking for makers, hackers, developers and do-it-yourselfers who are working in the geolocation and mapping spaces.

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What is Apache Hadoop?

What is Apache Hadoop?

A look at the components and functions of the Hadoop ecosystem.

by  | @edd  | +Edd Dumbill |  2 February 2012

Apache Hadoop has been the driving force behind the growth of the big data industry. But what does it do, and why do you need all its strangely-named friends, such as Oozie, Zookeeper and Flume?

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A discussion with David Farber: bandwidth, cyber security, and the obsolescence of the Internet

by  | @praxagora  | +Andy Oram | 30 January 2012

David Farber offers his big ideas about where the Internet is headed: how long it can last, slaying the bandwidth bottleneck, and waiting for the big breach.

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Moneyball for software engineering, part 2

Moneyball for software engineering, part 2

What if Billy Beane managed a software team?

by  | @codermetrics  | 30 January 2012

A look at the "Moneyball"-style metrics and techniques managers can employ to get the most out of their software teams.

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Survey results: How businesses are adopting and dealing with data

Survey results: How businesses are adopting and dealing with data

A glimpse into enterprise use of big data.

by  | @acroll  | 23 January 2012

Feedback from a recent Strata Online Conference suggests there's a large demand for clear information on what big data is and how it will change business.

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