Topic: The Internet and the World Wide Web
Joel and Jeff discuss hiding and disabling of menu items, whether conversational communication styles are destroying writing on the web, and the eternal flame of software engineering: the object to relational mapping problem.
Scott Lemon is not happy with Firefox 3.0 and he, Ben, and Phil use his dissatisfaction to begin a discussion of browsers and other tech topics. Phil gives some statistics of browser usage on his blog Technometria, and they talk about Canvas (the HTML element, not the material), as well as a number of other related subjects.
At the Emerging Communications Conference 2008, Jonathan Christensen, General Manager of audio and video at Skype, speaks about the development of IP communications over the past 10 years, giving a brief history of VoIP. He talks about its evolution from being a technology for geeks only, to a mainstream application, and concludes the talk by discussing the threats and opportunities for the IP communications industry.
At the Tools of Change Conference 2007 Tim O'Reilly interviews Bruce Chizen, then CEO of Adobe Systems Inc., about the revolution in the publishing industry and Adobe's products. Through their publishing solutions, Adobe has a strong influence on both the print and online worlds. Listen to the story of the transition from Postscript and PDF to Adobe AIR and Digital Editions, which can be seen as the transition from print to electronic publishing.
Joel and Jeff discuss whether or not Joel is a Kiwi, how to have a meaningful beta (with versioning, even), some techniques for building engaging social websites, revisit the classic 12 part Joel Test, and the amazing-- but all too short-- life of Alan Turing.
Rick Falkvinge is a Swedish politician who recently founded a new party. Its values include freedom, upholding laws, and rights to privacy. These may sound like safe and just laws - things that are constant and don't need defending; so what's jeopardizing them? According to Falkvinge, that would be copyrights and patents.
Joel and Jeff discuss Macbook Air overheating and undervolting, constructive criticism, and engage in an extended discussion of Joel's management training program reading list. If you love classic books, this is the podcast you're looking for.
With the web upending traditional distribution models, publishers need to understand how their content is valued by the audience. In this talk, Jeff Patterson, CEO of Safari Books Online, shares research on the information seeking habits of their client base of IT professionals. As users weigh the worth of information in exchange for their time, money and attention, publishers must grasp not just what is sold, but what is read, used and reused.
Attempting to predict how technology will impact business in the future, is a daunting task. However, with the Internet, many consider the rate of change too rapid to even accept the challenge. Still, there are precedents to understand hyper-change and guide our expectations. Controversial analysts Nicholas Carr and Christopher Meyer offer their theories on the implications for business after everything is connected.
Joel and Jeff try to avoid talking over each other while discussing data generation, full text searching, cross-site scripting, Markdown, Microsoft's Silverlight, and how to get a job at Fog Creek software.
