" /> CTDATA: May 2001 Archives

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May 31, 2001

Clarifying what the "Search" Button Means on CTDATA.com

Dave Aiello wrote, "I want to take a moment to point out a small change we have made to the page templates at CTDATA.com. As far as I know, we were the first Slashcode-based Web Site to place a search box in the top margin of all of our pages. That was picked up by the Slashcode Web Site itself when it started, our friends at Plastic, and a few others, so now it's standard operating procedure."


"We have a mechanism for reviewing the information people type into our Search boxes, and from the results, the following conclusions can be made:"


  1. Lots of people stumble onto our site because our content is so search-engine friendly.
  2. Some people who fall into the previous category haven't mastered the Back button on their browser.
  3. A surprisingly large percentage of those people notice the text box on the CTDATA.com page they land on, next to a button marked Search, and conclude that they must be able to resume their AOL Search by retyping their terms into our handy search tool.

Dave Aiello continued, "Rather than confuse these wayward users further, we decided to change the Search button on CTDATA.com pages to a button labeled Search CTDATA. We hope that our regular visitors are not annoyed by the apparent redundancy."

Danny Yee Experiments With Micro-Ads

Dave Aiello wrote, "Another thing Slashdot pointed to today was a brief analysis of two forms of micro-advertising recently developed for popular Web Sites. Although both examples cited, Google AdWords and a short-lived program recently run on the Weblog Robot Wisdom, are unique implementations, the results that the author got from this small study were quite interesting."


"When I was reading this report, I kept asking myself, 'Why haven't we done a study like this at CTDATA?' The reason I keep coming back to is that I was afraid of the cost of the ads, if they turned out to be very popular. That's a lame reason for holding back, and we may have to revisit this topic, because the surface has barely been scratched."


"The author of this study, Danny Yee is building a network of Web Sites that contain a mix of useful and interesting information. His work so far reminds me of the kind of work that Philip Greenspun has assembled over the years. I hope Danny (whom I've never met) doesn't mind the comparison. I mean it as a compliment."

Steve Gibson Discovers Roots of Denial of Service Attacks

Slashdot pointed out an article that Steve Gibson wrote, documenting his efforts to defend against a series of Distributed Denial of Service Attacks against his company's Web Site, GRC.com. This is one of the most outstanding investigations into "the community" that launches DDoS attacks that has ever been put together.


There are so many useful pieces of information to take away from this, that we consider it required reading for:


  • Internet Service Providers,
  • companies with mission-critical Web Sites on the Internet,
  • consumers and small businesses who have PCs on broadband connections, but have not educated themselves about network security.

Even if you have installed a "personal firewall" software product on your PC, you should read this article. The article provides documented proof of the performance of ZoneAlarm and BlackICE Defender against Sub7 Trojan attacks. We were surprised at the results.

May 30, 2001

Jakob Nielsen Reviews Amazon.com Honor System

InternetWorld has published an article by Jakob Nielsen that attempts to predict the types of Web Sites that will successfully raise a non-trivial amount of money from the Amazon.com Honor System. Not surprisingly, Nielsen suggests that this program will primarily benefit sites with which a user establishes an emotional connection.


Another interesting aspect of the article is that he discloses the amount of money he collected from visitors to his Web Site, UseIt.com, through this program. Although this somewhat contradicts his main argument, it indicates the amount of traffic that his site gets and the value his site's visitors place on its content.

May 29, 2001

Forrester Sticks Its Neck Out, Predicting Trend Beyond the Web

Dave Aiello wrote, "Yesterday, The Industry Standard reported that the IT research firm Forrester Research came out with a report that predicts the death of the Web as we know it. The next trend they expect to see develop (and hope to capitalize on) is something they refer to as the X Internet. This appears to call for the Internet to be a delivery vehicle for small executable programs that are thrown away after use."


"Forgive me, but didn't we have an attempt at this about three years ago? This strikes me as the prediction of a reconstituted audience for things like Java applets. Ugh."


"The rationale for this is weak. The article says that this is part of the classic IT forecast model of picking a bright spot on the horizon and laying out a path for the industry to get there. But, they will have a very hard time getting North American consumers there without some significant changes in the apparent evolutionary path of Internet access devices."


"Internet-enabled mobile devices in the telephone form factor are not a hit in this country or Canada. Practically no one has an Internet appliance. What device do they expect to base the first generation of executable content on, the set-top or the game console?"

Dave Aiello continues:


What the IT visionaries fail to grasp is the overwhelming advantages that have accrued to all Internet users as a result of the adoption of Server-Side Programming Techniques. Java Server Pages, Active Server Pages, mod_perl pages, and CGIs have all created more usable interactivity in the last two or three years than they have received credit for.


Until there is much broader deployment of broadband connectivity (which substantially outperforms DSL in availibility, cost, and reliability), I do not think we will see people abandon PCs and browsers in large numbers. This also says nothing of the AOL contingent, who are actually enticed by the slogan, "So easy to use, no wonder it's Number One!"


With respect to business customers, everyone who is not a WAP developer hates WAP with a passion. Blackberries are well designed for what they do, but as long as most of them ride on the Cingular Interactive Network, the data rate is too slow for anything much more robust than text email.


The best hope for this vision, as some Seattle and San Jose residents know, is Ricochet. But, that company is nearly bankrupt, and unlikely to achieve anything approaching a nationwide deployment in the foreseeable future.


For the sake of Forrester, I hope that they have not pointed to the next Interactive Television. For CTDATA's money, we're staying focused on the Web for the time being. I'll be happy to eat my words if it results in a more positive business climate in the near future.

May 24, 2001

TiVo Granted Patents on Digital Video Recording Technology

Slashdot is reporting that TiVo has been granted a number of patents on Personal Video Recording. We really like this product. After using it on a daily basis for more than a year, and seeing the vendor's commitment to enhance its usefulness, it's clear that they deserve patent protection for their ability to reduce hard disk-based video recording to something that's as easy to use as a microwave oven.


The most interesting comment added to the Slashdot article discussion so far is the one pointing to the section of the TiVo Web Site where they publish the TiVo-developed enhancements to the Linux PowerPC Kernel. Although the link appears in a question about the UltimateTV system (a competing PVR system from Microsoft), the comment praises TiVo for its commitment to OpenSource.

May 23, 2001

Comcast Buys Stakes in OLN and the Golf Channel from Fox

Earlier today, PR Newswire carried the announcement that Comcast has bought Fox Cable Networks' interests in the Golf Channel and the Outdoor Life Network. Perhaps this means that Comcast will soon carry these channels on their digital cable service.


This news is of particular interest to fans of the Outdoor Life Network who live in Comcast cable territories in South and Central New Jersey and Eastern Pennsylvania. For them, the only way to see the adventure sports that are OLN's bread and butter is to subscribe to DirecTV.

Just for Fun: More Interesting than Expected

Dave Aiello wrote, "I finished the audio version of Just for Fun : The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary by Linus Torvalds and David Diamond. I did not have great expectations for this book when I ordered it from Amazon.com. It has the earmarks of a hastily thrown-together biography designed to cash in on a celebrity at the zenith of his popularity. But, I was glad to find that the book provided some useful insights into:


  • Linus' life before Linux,
  • the development of Linux prior to 1.0,
  • his personal life, and
  • the techniques he uses to manage his jobs at Transmeta and as the lead developer of Linux."

Read on for more details....

Dave Aiello continued:


Many of the lesser cult-of-personality biographies that I have read in the past have paid little attention to the subject's childhood and young adulthood. A good portion of this book, however, is devoted to Linus' life up until the time he left The University of Helsinki in the mid-1990s. This section is particularly helpful because it clearly describes the development of his personality and identifies the traits that made him capable of developing the core functionality of an operating system.


Similarly, the book gives a concise explanation of the reason that Linux was initially developed. I had read about the fact that Linus had been intrigued by Minix, but the impression I had gotten was that he had developed a greater distaste for Minix than this book claims he did.


Just for Fun suggests that his initial focus had been on writing a terminal emulator that was better than that found in Minix. In accordance with his previous practice, he wrote his terminal emulator in assembly language. As he began wanting to save files to his computer's existing file systems, he found himself adding many of the key functions of an operating system to his self-booting terminal emulator. Over time, the terminal emulator evolved into the initial Linux kernel.


The book does not spend as much time on his present-day personal life as it does on his childhood or his time at The University. However, it is clear that his life has improved since he married his wife, Tove, whom he met when she was an undergraduate and he was a teaching assistant for one of her classes.


Mrs. Torvalds was already an accomplished practitioner of karate when Linus met her. The book leads you to believe that his continued exposure to her athleticism has made him more inclined to get involved in athletic activities during his recreation time. Considering his appearance in the mid-90s (he could have been the illustration next to the term "geek" in the dictionary), he has developed a more balanced lifestyle.


I knew more of the details of his job with Transmeta than I did about the other aspects of his life that I have mentioned so far. The book went into some detail regarding why he chose to work for this company, and why he does not feel it is wise for him to take a job with any company that is primarily known for its involvement in the Linux movement. He feels that doing so would compromise his position as final arbiter of Linux kernel patches.


I was interested in the portions of the book that attempted to illustrate his evolution as spokesman for the Linux Movement. He was reticent in this regard, in part because he is naturally uncomfortable speaking in public.


One particularly interesting passage was the description of the LinuxExpo '98 keynote in Raleigh, NC where he opened his speech with the controversial statement: "Yes, I am Linus Torvalds and, yes, I am your god." I was actually present at this speech, and it was clear to me that he was speaking with tongue in cheek. This is probably the single most controversial thing Linus has ever said.


Until I read this book, I did not know the extent of the controversy surrounding this speech. When I realized that this event was not only discussed in this book, but also in the book called Under the Radar (about the development of RedHat), I realized that I was present at one of the most well-known moments in the history of the Linux Movement.


Of course, there were some problems with this book. The first problem I noticed was the unannounced changes from first person to third person. From time to time, I found myself asking whether David Diamond or Linus Torvalds was speaking. This problem partially stems from the fact that the book tells Linus' life story and his personal philosophy. But, it also is the story of the process of creating the book, told from David Diamond's perspective. I can live with this, but I think it is an indication of less than top-quality editing.


I also feel that his reflections on the meaning of life and the association of the Linux Movement with man's fundimental goals on Earth are quite interesting. However, the manner in which they are presented runs the risk of embarassing people on two counts:


  1. Some people may consider this presentation an indication of Linus' hubris. This would not be correct, but it is a possible outcome if individual sentences in these sections are taken out of their context.


  2. Some would consider this a cheap attempt to appeal to his cult. It's fairly clear that Linus is not obsessed with fame or power, but there are millions who idolize him. When fans of a celebrity are so zealous, their behavior itself becomes a PR problem. No matter how interesting objective observers consider his insights on life, they could have been expressed in a more low-key way.



Notwithstanding these critcisms, I recommend this book. It is valuable solely for its historical insights into the Linux and OpenSource movements. I found the book informative and entertaining enough to make me look past its shortcomings. Also, I have to give Harper Audio credit for producing this book in audiobook form as well as hardcover.

May 20, 2001

LanceArmstrong.com Publishes List of Sites Related to Giro d'Italia

Dave Aiello wrote, "I have been meaning to build a Slashbox containing a list of Web Sites with good cycling content, but LanceArmstrong.com has beaten me to it. The site list is specifically oriented toward The 2001 Giro d'Italia, otherwise known as the Tour of Italy. But, you can easily follow these links and find the main page of cycling info."


"I am still likely to set up a Slashbox for CTDATA.com, but I don't feel as urgent a need to do it as I did before I found this list."

May 17, 2001

Article Validates Weblogs as Knowledge Management Tools

Dave Aiello wrote, "Last week, I had lunch with Michael Kolbrener of Automatic Media to discuss the state of development of the Slashcode Open Source Project and the uses that our companies have made of the product up to now. In the course of that meeting, I was struck by the fact that we agreed that the potential of Slashcode extends well beyond the traditional uses of Weblogs on the public Internet."


"For a long time, I have felt that Slash-based sites would be quite useful as Knowledge Management tools inside medium and large companies. So far, CTDATA has participated in the deployment of one such system within a large New York-based financial services firm. That implementation was very successful. In fact, far more successful than I would have imagined when we began the project."


"Earlier today, Scripting News pointed to an article on elearningpost called Grassroots KM through blogging. This article provides a well-researched argument for implementing a Knowledge Management system within a large corporation as a Weblog. It validated our implementation process by explaining its success in ways I hadn't considered...."

Dave Aiello continued:


This article should be required reading for Slashcode developers who are thinking outside the box, and for people trying to build Knowledge Management systems that will help employees improve their understanding of the task at hand.

Slashdot Story Illustrates Validity of Concerns about Rights of End Users under Copyright Law

Normally, we don't go out of our way to point out articles that appear on Slashdot. After all, everyone who is really into the Web and related digital technologies seems to read it anyway. But, an article that appeared on Slashdot yesterday was definitely worth studying because the author made a number of fair points about the possible erosion of the Fair Use Doctrine in Copyright Law as digital entertainment technology advances.


The article points to an LA Times article about anti-piracy measures that may be implemented in future Digital TVs. The author of the Slashdot piece points out that the types of copy controls being proposed may limit the value of devices like TiVo and other means that may be developed to allow people to time-shift or location-shift their viewing.


It's fairly easy to see why so many technology savvy people get so worried by these sorts of industry initiatives. The producers of television, movies, and music have every right to be concerned about the value of their product in an environment where rampant copying is condoned. This article, in context with some of the more reasonable Slashdot user commentary, illustrates the concerns that consumers will express once they understand the Entertainment Industry's goals (as well as the technology they intend to deploy) better.

More Motion Picture Production to be Done on Linux

The Wall Street Journal has another article documenting the increasing use of Linux as the underlying operating system for motion picture production applications. This article, which is syndicated through ZDNet, points out that momentum has built around Linux since its successful use by Digital Domain in the special effects sequences in the movie "Titanic".


The article does not really make clear the extent to which Linux adds value to the production process, apart from decreased cost and source code availability. How much do Pixar and Industrial Light and Magic need to modify the kernel in order to get the performance they want out of Linux? How much of the studios' efforts to convert from IRIX or Solaris to Linux is simply taking the time to port the application in the traditional manner?

Some New Jersey Public Schools Take "Zero Tolerance" Literally

The New York Times is reporting that the Manalapan, NJ Board of Education has jumped off the deep end when it comes to identifying threatening behavior exhibited by young children. The Times documents a number of cases in which ten year-old kids made obviously inoccuous excalamations that resulted in the students receiving suspensions and permanent police records.


There is absolutely no doubt that the parents in these districts are partly to blame. The article points out, "Last year, parents at the elementary schools pressed the school board to make sure no intruders entered the buildings, which prompted the schools to require that visitors be buzzed in." These parents need to learn how to assess risk more realistically and to be careful what they demand from their school administrators. Otherwise, they are likely to find hair-trigger policies like these put in place everywhere.


Of course, everyone in the Manalapan-Englishtown School District looks foolish now. The superintendant could have put a stop to this before his district made national news. But, that would have required a degree of finesse that teachers and administrators in our public schools too often lack.

May 15, 2001

Is Slashdot's Instability an Indication of a Slashcode Upgrade?

Looks like Slashdot is having some intermittent performance issues this evening. We saw an error displayed on the home page in Heading 2 sized print, but didn't take a screen shot. Ads are also missing from the home page at the moment.


Is this an indication that the engineers are trying a Slashcode 2.0 upgrade?

Eazel Shutting Down

Unfortunately, Eazel has announced that it is ceasing operations. Eazel is the developer of Nautilus, a graphical user interface enhancement that sits on top of Gnome. Read on to see a copy of the email that registered users of Nautilus received this evening....

Email Message to All Eazel Services Subscribers
Entitled "Eazel services shutting down"
May 16,2001, 12:30am EST

This message is to inform you that as of May 15, 2001, Eazel will
discontinue the public availability of Eazel Services. For more
information on why this is so, visit our web site at
http://www.eazel.com.

The specifics of what this change means follows.

As of May 15, 2001:

- No new user registrations will be accepted.

- No new login sessions will be accepted from registered users.

- Access to the Eazel Software Catalog will be discontinued. Nautilus
bootstrap install programs will no longer function.

- Live access to online storage files through Eazel Services will be
discontinued.


In order to make this transition as pleasant as possible, we have made
your online storage files available for download over HTTP. To retrieve
your files:

- Go to https://storage.eazel.com/d/da/daiello

- Log in with your Eazel Services user name and password.

- Download your files. As a convenience, you will note that there is a
file called 'bundle.tar.gz' which contains an archive of all files you
uploaded. This bundle file makes it possible for you to retrieve all
your online storage files with a single download.


We hope you have enjoyed using Eazel Services, and we regret any
inconvenience this may cause you.

Thanks for your support.

RFC Published Covering Responsible E-mail Advertising

Slashdot pointed out RFC 3098, How to Advertise Responsibly Using E-Mail and Newsgroups, subtitled "or - how NOT to $$$$$ MAKE ENEMIES FAST! $$$$$". This is the kind of document that is going to fall on many deaf ears. Obviously, the worst offenders will look at this only for the ironic humor of it in relation to their business.


However, one immediate use that this RFC could be put to is the education of clueless management people who confuse mailing lists and newsgroups with broadcast media. It is in the hope that wide distribution of the RFC encourages its use that we publish a link to it here.

Why CTDATA Supports Verisign's Continued Control of .Com Registry

Dave Aiello wrote, "If the last two years have taught us anything, it should be that what looks like a competitive marketplace on paper can be a cruel joke in practice. This is why I support the extension of Verisign's ultimate control over the '.com' domain registry. The reason I am talking about this today is that the U.S. Commerce Department and Versign are reported to be close to an agreement on extension of the current arrangement."


"Why do I feel this way? Well, I don't want a repeat of the antics that gave us charades like the Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) marketplace. While I feel that management of the federal agencies like the Commerce Department and the FCC is likely to be more effective under the current administration, I think many people will agree that tinkering with a service that is so vital to the Internet is a bad idea."


"In my opinion, root domain name servers must be operated by companies with financial staying power and a history of competent operations. I believe that Verisign has proven that it can manage the most critical domain registry on Earth through tumultuous periods in the market. They have never been the easiest company to deal with, but I prefer their methods to many other monopolies that I also deal with every day."

May 14, 2001

Doc Searls Deserves Abuse for Anti-New Jersey Bigotry

Doc Searls decided to make jokes at the expense of people from New Jersey today. At the same time, he said that no one had criticized him for pointing to a vulgar article that had appeared in The Onion. We don't really care about that, although it's certainly in bad taste.


Most of the people associated with CTDATA are from New Jersey. We don't feel insecure about living here. Nevertheless, we'd like to point out that we don't find his attempt at stereotypical humor funny.


Hey Doc, if this story on your Weblog is the only article of yours that a person ever read, wouldn't most people dismiss you as an uneducated jerk? You have written some really entertaining and educational stuff in the past. Why lower your standards now? And, why should you single out people from the Garden State for abuse because you remember overhearing people using profanity when you were a kid?


Don't blame a state for old bad habits.

New York Times Found Someone to Blame for the Market Bubble

Dave Aiello wrote, "Here's a shocker. The New York Times is the latest Old Media company to try to put a cap stone on the Dot Com era. And, surprisingly, they point to the New Age Consulting Firms such as Razorfish, Scient, Viant, and MarchFirst as the culprits."


"I find this frustrating because the analysis is so shallow. No matter what we think of people like Razorfish (who never met a Web page that couldn't be improved by the inclusion of a little platform-dependent Javascript) or any of the other firms mentioned, they offer nothing worse than the technology services offered by the Big 6 Consulting Subsidaries. Fortune 500 businesses were told that they needed the methodology of a New Age Consulting Firm in order to define their Web offerings properly. What these firms generally got for their money was the best a bunch of twenty-somethings on their first or second Web project could produce."


"After reading the New York Times article, I asked whether it was fair to blame the consultants more than the clients? CTDATA participated in one project where Razorfish was also engaged. I am convinced that the Razorfish people would have done whatever the client wanted. But in this case, the client wanted a Web Site that had wild graphics that no one with any previous Web development experience liked."


"If you take this anecdote and scale it up, are we left with a situation where the New Age Consulting Firms deserve the lion's share of the blame? Hardly."

Dave Aiello continued:


Perhaps more frustrating to me was the author's inability to point out obvious alternatives with better prospects for success that were right in front of Fortune 500 firm's faces. For example, until the Year 2000, many large corporate Intranets had grown up as isolated Web Sites supported by different profit centers. These Web Sites could have been integrated into a useful and coherent set of Web Services through the proper use of Portal Technology and Content Syndication. These were well known technologies that were easy to implement at that time.


What did many companies do instead? They tried to skip a generation of technology. Instead of building a portal for their employees, they tried to build more than one portal for different demographic groups of clients. This effort often failed because clients didn't want to have a window open to their supplier's Web Site all day long. Why would I want news headlines from Charles Schwab when I could get them from The Wall Street Journal instead?


Clients would have accepted a streamlined environment for buying things from their suppliers. That's what nearly all of the successful corporate Web Sites did in 1999 and 2000, and that's largely what they are doing today.


On the Intranet side, many companies we work with tried to build services for employee who are out of the office. In other words, let's keep the employees who are at their desks travelling between six or seven separate Web Sites and a number of databases that can only be accessed via the Lotus Notes 4.x client. Instead, let's build the broadband-enabled virtual office of tommorrow, complete with access to desktop applications from anywhere in the world via Citrix.


Many people who had already built successful Intranet Web Sites pointed out that there were a number of problems with the virtual office concept. Among them:


  • Many employees who would get the most value from a virtual office spent much of their time in airplanes.
  • Few employees had broadband connections to the Internet at home.
  • Most companies had not yet built the virtual private network infrastructure necessary to enable the virtual office.
  • All employees were less productive when they were in the office because of poor integration between otherwise successful Intranet sites.

Of course, this reasonable advice fell on deaf ears because it would have dictated a strategy of trying to get runners on base, instead of sending the best and brightest up to bat to hit a home run every time. Who were the Razorfishes of the world to say "no" to so many open checkbooks?


In the end, the New Age Consulting Firms failed because they could not say no to themselves. They could not stand the idea of producing good, useful Web Services, when their peers would making an all-or-nothing attempt at greatness. Their customers, meanwhile, had what appeared to be an unquenchable thirst for bleeding edge design and development. None of these people (consultants or clients) ever seemed to hire enough adult management to slow down and ensure they were making the right decisions.... until recently.


Maybe that's why it was easier for the New York Times to say it was all the consultants' faults.

Syndication Mailing List Produces FAQ for RSS Headline Syndication Format

Scripting News points out that the Yahoo! Groups Syndication Mailing List is in the process of developing an FAQ for all of the RSS Content Syndication Formats.


This is a welcomed development in that many developers have disagreed with the direction that the RSS 1.0 subgroup has taken. Some people with significant historical involvement in headline syndication have criticized the group evangelizing RSS 1.0 as being more interested in supporting the Semantic Web through the Reference Data Format (RDF) than in maintaining continuity with previous RSS versions or human readability of the headline syndication files.


Regardless of the political history of these groups, the FAQ has some useful information that has not been assembled elsewhere. This includes a good list of places where a site's RSS files may be validated and another list of places where RSS files are aggregated.

May 10, 2001

SportBrain is Useful for Runners, But Not for Multi-Sport Athletes

Dave Aiello wrote, "This is the third article I have written about SportBrain and my experiences in using it. At this point, I have logged more than 1.31 million steps taken while wearing the device. That's almost exactly 500 miles of walking and 85 miles of running since January."


"The major problem I am having with this device is that is not useful for sports that do not involve running or walking. When I participate in ice hockey officiating or mountain biking, the device only records heart rate."


"So, I am now trying to obtain a Polar S-710 Heart Rate Monitor. This is a lot more sophisticated and expensive training system than SportBrain. But, it is a logical step up in that it provides instant performance feedback through it's wrist watch display, and it is useful for both running and cycling."

Dave Aiello continues:


If I actually stop using the SportBrain, I will lose the ability to collect statistics on the tacit exercise I do in my daily life. So, perhaps I will use both, but stop using the SportBrain's Heart Rate Monitor Feature.


But, the number of cycling features I gain by starting to use an S-710 are mind boggling. I hope that Polar is able to clear its backlog on these units soon.

May 2, 2001

Kodak to Acquire Ofoto

Dave Aiello wrote, "The other day I saw a news article on Yahoo! that said that Ofoto was being acquired by Kodak. The two companies issued a joint press release confirming the news. This is a smart move by Kodak because Ofoto is the best on-line photo processor I have used."

"
I tried several on-line photo processors, but none of them has been consistantly better than Ofoto. Also, it has been clear for a while that Ofoto's print process has been improving steadily."

RCNJ Wins Chapter of the Year, Slashcode Web Site a Key to Success

It's not always obvious to us how many of the readers of CTDATA.com also look at the other Web Sites we maintain. But, The Rensselaer Club of New Jersey, the regional alumni chapter for Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, was recently selected as the winner of the Craig W. Angell '35 Chapter of the Year Award by the Rensselaer Alumni Association.


The importance of this award to CTDATA is two fold. First, Dave Aiello has been the President of the RCNJ for the last five years. More important, however, is the fact that the RCNJ Web Site was converted to a Slashcode base last September.


A lot of the RCNJ committee members feel that they would not have won the Chapter of the Year award without documenting their achievements on line. The productivity improvements provided by the Slash architecture were the keys in getting a lot of new content up on the site quickly. Therefore, this is a big win for the RCNJ, CTDATA, and the Web Publishing methodology to which we subscribe.