From: [email protected]
Sent: Monday, September 26, 2005 12:42 AM
To: eWEEK readers
Subject: Domain of the cat; solar flares; rhymes with …
“Hello, kitty!” exclaimed Spence when he heard that ICANN had just approved a top-level domain name that had a certain feline ring to it. Alas, the Katt was soon crestfallen when he discovered that the approved TLD was to represent Catalan-speaking people and was spelled .cat, not .kat as the Mouser had assumed. “Maybe I should team up with some folks in Katmandu, Nepal, to push for a .kat domain,” groused the Grimalkin.
The KattPhones new ring tone, “Dont Cha,” by The Pussycat Dolls, diverted the disillusioned Drudges attention to a crony who said that the usually jovial Jonathan Schwartz, president of Sun Microsystems, was unhappy about some “open sources” within the company. In a message to all Sun employees, Schwartz wrote, “For the sake of your colleagues around Sun, please do not share Suns confidential information.” The Sun exec went on to say that recent leaks of photos and data to the press will only diminish media coverage when products are actually announced or released. Noting that although hes “a huge believer in opening Sun to the world,” Schwartz pointed out that “the unauthorized sharing of Sun confidential information is illegal and against company policy.” “Schwartz is sounding downright Jobsian these days,” laughed the Lynx.
The pal also noted that the Linux Mark Institute issued a statement last week claiming that recent press coverage reporting that the attempt to register the Linux trademark in Australia had failed “is not the case.” LMI said the Australian authorities pronouncement that the word “Linux” isnt distinctive enough to warrant a trademark is only an initial ruling and definitely not the end of the fight. LMI also said that it “is confident that the final determination will be favorable.”
Bidding his pal adieu, the Katt cracked open a Heineken and considered sitting down and writing a “blook,” the new buzzword for a book thats serialized on a blog site. Hackoff.com is running a murder mystery set in the dot-com bubble era as a blook and promises a hardcover release next year. Stymied when he tried to apply the adage “write what you know” to his blook endeavor, the procrastinating Puss pondered the lawsuit filed last week by The Authors Guild alleging that Googles Print Library Project is a massive infringement on the copyrights of authors. Susan Wojcicki, Googles vice president of product management, claims that Googles project to make millions of books available to the world doesnt “show a single page to users who find copyrighted books through the program—unless the copyright holder gives us permission to show more.” “Hmm, maybe I should wait until the dust clears on that case before becoming an author,” tittered the temporizing Tabby.
The lax Lynx soon received a call on his land line from a pal who asked what he thought of the DJ Ditty, Dells new MP3-playing iPod challenger. “Well, first off,” cackled the Kitty, “a product name should never present its detractors with the potential for scatalogical rhyming.”