• Microsoft wants Open? Really? Microsoft Decries Cloud Computing Group's Lack Of Transparency
  "A shadowy group of IT industry companies — possibly including IBM (NYSE:IBM) — is preparing to release a series of guidelines for maintaining interoperability in cloud computing. But Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT), in a delicious stroke of irony, doesn't feel the group's efforts have been carried out with a suitable degree of openness."
  (tags: cloudcomputing microsoft standards)
• Pixily: online paperless document management
  "Go Paperless, Save Space. In some ways, spring cleaning is like a little move we do annually. Instead of moving out of our homes or apartments …"
  (tags: paperless office)
• I'm starting to evaluate paperless (home) office techniques. Any ideas?
  "Going green? Or going neat? Get rid of that paper!"
  (tags: paperless office)
• WSJ.com calls the "Sun Cloud" a pun
  "Cloud-themed puns have since multiplied, generating even a few seemingly contradictory uses. Sun Microsystems Inc. recently unveiled a product called the "Sun Cloud." Microsoft Corp. sells a cloud service called "Azure," which the dictionary defines as a cloudless sky. Apple Inc., of course, is doing its own thing: Its new Mobile Me product is branded not with the word cloud, but with an image of one."
  (tags: sunmicrosystems cloudcomputing)
• Will network capacity keep up? Android, RIM Gain, Smartphone Web Traffic Soars – InternetNews.com
  "RIM's new mobile app store likely to do better than Microsoft's and Android's mirroring early success of iPhone, according to study."
  (tags: mobile iphone android smartphone RIM marketplace)
• I'm new to Skype, but am impressed by its quality and ease of use: Skype, the long distance king
  "Only five years after its launch, Skype has emerged as the largest provider of cross-border voice communications in the world," said TeleGeography analyst Stephan Beckert."
  (tags: skype voip)
• Identity on my Mind: Browsers, Boxes and Clouds
  (tags: Identity Management Digital Cloud Computing Higgins CardSpace Concordia)

• Sacrifice a Banker Today?
  (tags: Non Sequitur Banking Economics)
• We Follow #Identity
  (tags: Identity Twitter WeFollow Digital Identity. Long Tail)
• Will Twitter effectively monetize its popularity? Twitter to seek revenue from businesses | Reuters
  "Internet start-up Twitter is taking a much-anticipated first-step in its quest to parlay its popularity into revenue by offering certain customers an expanded range of services."
  (tags: twitter)
• Discovering Identity – a Facelift
  (tags: Discovering Identity blog)
• I'm glad I didn't buy an iPhone last week. New iPhone to feature faster web access, improved graphics?
  "the rumor mill is humming with speculation that the iPhone is in line for a major hardware upgrade. "
  (tags: mobile iphone)
• Remind me based on where I am and what I am doing: converging location and context
  "A new version of the software called ReQall Pro, which launches today, focuses on issuing reminders in the right place at the right time. ReQall Pro works with iPhones and Blackberrys, using the location information collected by these devices, as well as information gleaned from the contents of each memo, to work out when (and where) to jog a user's memory."
  (tags: mobile gtd LBS LocationBasedServices context)

• Samsung's Papyrus E-book Reader Joins the Party – but lacks wireless
  "In the battle for e-book reader domination, Samsung's Papyrus—a new touchscreen model—proves to be a formidable foe against the Amazon Kindle and Sony PRS-700 behemoths."
  (tags: ebook amazon sony kindle samsung)
• Warning: Tweet with Care
  (tags: Humor Twitter Non Sequitur)
• Rumor Mill: Acer launching Android phone in September – FierceWireless
  Acer will launch its first phone running on Google's Android platform in September, according to the Philippine BusinessMirror.
  (tags: mobile android acer)
• Want to revew an interesting collection of innovative business card designs?
  So you want some business card design inspiration? Well here you have 400 creative and beautiful business card designs all on one page.
  (tags: graphics businesscards)
• Laptop class warfare: Apple vs. Asus | CNET News
  A little more than a year after the launch of the MacBook Air, a new luxury laptop has arrived from Dell. This calls for another look at the notebook versus Netbook argument, the computer equivalent of bourgeoisie versus proletariat. In this case, Air versus Aspire; Adamo versus Eee."
  (tags: apple laptop sony netbook dell asus)
• Sprint Looks to Power Gadgets Beyond Cellphones – WSJ.com
  "The Overland Park, Kan., company is now talking with companies such as GPS device maker Garmin Ltd., Eastman Kodak Co. and SanDisk Corp., which makes storage devices, about delivering wireless Internet service for their products, according to a person familiar with the matter."
  (tags: mobile sprint)
• Smart Phones are Edging Out Other Gadgets – WSJ.com
  "Smart phones — beefed-up cellphones such as Research in Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerry and Apple Inc.'s iPhone — come with an operating system, do email, and surf the Internet. They also offer digital music, digital camera and personal-navigation features."
  (tags: mobile smartphone)
• #Identity Fraud Hits Cars, Too! FBI breaks up $25 million 'car cloning' ring.
  "Capping "Operation Dual Identity," arrest warrants for 17 people were executed in Tampa and Miami, Florida; Chicago, Illinois; and in Mexico City and Guadalajara, Mexico. They were accused of "cloning" vehicles, which is making stolen cars look like legal ones."
  (tags: Identity automobile identitytheft)
• Komodo dragons kill Indonesian fisherman – what a terrible way to die!
  "Komodo dragons, the world's heaviest lizards, can grow up to 3 meters (10 feet) in length and have a toxic bite that they use to kill prey such as buffalo, returning to feast when the animal succumbs to the poison.
  "Despite their ungainly appearance, the carnivorous reptiles can run as fast as a dog in short bursts, jump up on their hind legs, and kill animals with a blow of their powerful tails."
  (tags: lizard komodo)

• Twibes – make personal Twitter people recommendations
  "Below are the people you follow. Click the 10 people who you find the most interesting, entertaining, undiscovered, or inspirational."
  (tags: twitter)
• TOTUS: Teleprompter of the United States
  (tags: TOTUS Obama politics)

• 50 Great Widgets For Your Blog
  "We’ve assembled a list of 50 useful or simply cool widgets for your pleasure. And remember, the first rule of widgetizing your blog is – don’t overdo it!"
  (tags: blog Widget)
• SuperNews! Twouble with Twitters // Current
  "A young man struggles against the pressure to Twitter his life away."
  Great video!
  (tags: twitter Humor)

• Abe on Facebook
  (tags: Lincoln Facebook)
• Sticky Notes for Websites | An interactive sticky note bulletin board for your website
  "Put a sticky on your website.
  Unique communication with your visitors. Post news and events.
  Let visitors speak. Filters prevent unwanted comments.
  Get notified of new messages by email.
  One line script change."
  (tags: notes sticky bulletinboard)
• More Twitter Clouds and Fascinating Games
  (tags: Twitter Tag Cloud games words)
• American Council on Exercise: Whole-body Exercise Band Workout
  "Exercise bands are great exercise accessories. Not only are they portable and easy to use, they're extremely effective for developing muscular strength and endurance."
  (tags: fitness health exercise resistance)
• Resistance band exercises: Sports Injury Clinc
  "Here is a list of exercises which can be performed using resistance bands. Click on an exercise to view a description, video, the muscles being worked and related injuries."
  (tags: health exercise resistance)
• Microsoft Geneva: #Identity Management – information and resources – from @karayem
  Wide array of information and resources about Geneva claims based platform
  (tags: Identity IdentityManagement microsoft Geneva)
• Cisco Acquires Camcorder Maker – WSJ.com
  The acquisition of Pure Digital Tecnology "is the latest move by Cisco to diversify away from its core business of selling computer-networking gear to businesses."
  (tags: Cisco PureDigital)
• Carbon Footprint, Climate Change, Go Green | EarthLab.com
  Calculate your carbon footprint … mine is quite high because of all my travel.
  (tags: energy environment green)

• Ultralinguq – recommended by Evernote
  World-class dictionary, translation, and grammar software
  (tags: evernote grammar dictionary translation)
• Custom Twitter Backgrounds at Twitter Image
  (tags: twitter)
• Flocking around Twitter
  (tags: Twitter Digital Identity)
• TweepSearch – from @dacort
  Search Twitter profiles by user name or keyword
  "Enter a username (@dacort) to search that person's followers, or just a keyword to search all bios currently indexed."
• Ian Yip: What does an IBM acquisition of Sun mean for Identity Management?
  "what's going to happen to the software stack? There are overlaps EVERYWHERE! There are too many products to talk about in detail but IBM cannot simply throw Sun's stack away because of the backlash they're going to get from customers and the community at large."
  (tags: Identity sunmicrosystems IdentityManagement IBM)
• Final Chapter for Sun Micro Could Be Written by IBM – WSJ.com
  "If the deal does go through, IBM is likely to pay $10 to $11 a share for Sun, according to people familiar with the matter. That would put the purchase price around $8 billion — or about $6.5 billion including the $1.4 billion in cash on Sun's balance sheet."
  (tags: sunmicrosystems IBM)
• Behavioral analytics could extend #identity management security — Government Computer News
  "The traditional tools of identity management — user names, passwords, ID cards and biometric information — can fall short of ensuring that people are who they say they are. Behavioral analytics and, more recently, trusted reference networks are now widely used in the financial industry as a third tool for managing information access."
  (tags: Identity IdentityManagement)
• AFEI – International Collaborative Identity Management Forum: from @dchesebrough
  "The International Collaborative Identity Management Forum is a community with focused activity around authentication, trusted mechanisms and identity proofing and vetting. It is working towards a solution to the problem of efficient identity authorization amongst participants in extended enterprises."
  (tags: Identity IdentityManagement AFEI I-CIDM)
• IBM-Sun Merger Called Anticompetitive
  "A tech industry group largely made up of IBM rivals says a merger between Big Blue and Sun Microsystems would be harmful to competition in the IT industry and lead to higher prices for software and hardware."
  (tags: sunmicrosystems IBM)
• Web powerhouse Sun Micro poised at brink of IBM's maw
  "Its name was once synonymous with the Internet. It championed networking at a time most people thought e-mail was revolutionary. It used to be mentioned in the same breath as Microsoft and Intel. Now, Sun Microsystem's biggest coup may well be selling itself to one of the industry's oldest names at a sky-high premium, spelling perhaps the end of an era for a loss-making firm that shed virtually its entire stock value in under a decade."
  (tags: sunmicrosystems IBM)
• Sony, Google Challenge Amazon – WSJ.com
  "In a strike against Amazon's Kindle electronic book reader, Sony and Google plan to launch a partnership Thursday that will give users of the Sony Reader device access to more than half-a-million public domain books from Google's ambitious book digitization project. The books will be offered to Sony Reader users free via the online Sony eBook store. The companies wouldn't reveal financial terms of the deal."
  (tags: google amazon sony kindle)
• IBM Signals Strategy Shift With Talks to Buy Sun – WSJ.com
  "International Business Machines Corp.'s talks to spend up to $8 billion on embattled Sun Microsystems Inc. is a departure from the strategy IBM Chief Executive Samuel Palmisano has long followed."
  (tags: sunmicrosystems IBM)
• The 'IBM buys Sun' story | Paul Murphy | ZDNet.com
  "Since sometime last summer a company called Southeastern Asset Management has been both accumulating Sun shares and hawking them to various big players. They got nowhere with HP, nowhere with Microsoft, nowhere with the Koreans, and nowhere with IBM – but recent political change has changed that: bringing IBM back to the table with no anti-trust concerns between them and a kill Sun agenda."
  (tags: sunmicrosystems IBM)
• Axialis Software – IconWorkshop
  "With Axialis IconWorkshop™ you can create, modify, convert and manage all kinds of icons for Windows®, Macintosh®, Unix and application toolbars."
  (tags: icon Axialis)
• Web 2.0 Icons – Free stock icons.
  "23 freeware “iPhone-like” icons of Web 2 Social Bookmarks and Networks for use in blogs, websites, desktops, software"
  (tags: web2.0 icon)
• Clarence Wang''s Internet Marketing Insights
  "In April 2008 I started my adventure into this Internet Marketing arena in order to follow my dreams of becoming an Internet entrepreneur. This blog is my record of that journey. You can be part of this as well."
  (tags: blog marketing coolblog)

• In the Clouds at Community One
  (tags: Sun Microsystems Cloud Computing)
• Meet Baby Olivia
  (tags: Family Grandchildren)
• The Green Ghost Horse
  (tags: St. Patrick's Day)
• Why IBM Wants Sun – BusinessWeek
  "There are plenty of reasons for IBM (IBM) to want to buy Sun Microsystems (JAVA). While computer hardware has steadily become a less important part of IBM's business, Sun is much more than a hardware company. It has been one of the most important Silicon Valley innovation factories of the past two decades—much of it in software. Combining IBM, the innovation leader of the East, with Sun, an innovation leader out West, would yield a formidable player."
  (tags: Sun IBM)
• IBM-Sun deal would mean big things for telecom – FierceTelecom
  "Carriers increasingly are getting interested in offering their own cloud computing services, and that's another area in which an IBM-Sun combination could become very influential"
  (tags: sunmicrosystems Telecommunications IBM)
• Voyij: Travel Deal Aggregator – referred by @rikardkjellberg
  "Voyij searches hundreds of sites to aggregate 'deal' content – something that is just not being done in travel. Voyij deals are defined as last minute specials, distressed or undersold inventory (the last few seats on the plane or last few rooms in the hotel that will go empty if not sold), advertised specials and published fares and rates."
  (tags: Travel)
• Amazon Faces Suit Over Kindle Device – WSJ.com
  "Cable programmer Discovery Communications Inc. filed a lawsuit Tuesday against Amazon.com Inc., claiming Discovery owns a patent to technology used in Amazon's Kindle electronic-book reader."
  (tags: amazon kindle)
• Only a Rumor? "IBM in Talks to Buy Sun" – WSJ.com
  "International Business Machines Corp. is in talks to buy Sun Microsystems Inc., people familiar with the matter said, a combination that would bolster IBM's heft on the Internet, in software and in finance and telecommunications markets."
  (tags: Sun sunmicrosystems Business IBM)
• BlackBerry Phones Arrive in Mongolia
  "Mongolian mobile network operator, Mobicom has announced the launch of the BlackBerry range of smartphones in the country"
  (tags: mobile Blackberry smartphone Mongolia)
• Is T-Mobile's G1 Near a Major Android Update?
  "A highly anticipated upgrade to the Android mobile operating system for the T-Mobile G1, otherwise known as the "Cupcake update," is slated for April, according to buzz in the blogosphere."
  (tags: mobile android)

At today’s CommunityOne conference held today in New York City, Sun announced the Sun Open Cloud Platform, a cloud computing infrastructure, powered by Java, MySQL, OpenSolaris and Open Storage.

"Sun’s approach to cloud computing blends our expertise in developing open source software and communities with unique design innovation. Sun’s Open Cloud platform is the first step in delivering on our vision of a world that has many clouds that are both open and interoperable," said Dave Douglas, Senior Vice President, Cloud Computing, Sun Microsystems. "Our cloud architecture empowers developers with the expanded interoperability and freedom of choice they need to easily take advantage of the agility, efficiency and cost benefits of cloud computing."

We Sun employees have been invited to try our the Storage as as Service offering.  I’ll check it out soon and report on this blog.

Technorati Tags: Sun Microsystems, Cloud Computing

A neighbor down the street from our house went all out for St. Patrick’s day!  Yesterday evening, my granddaughter and I walked down to see the (previously white) horse almost glowing in the twilight.

It brings new meaning to the phrase "Going Green!"

Technorati Tags: St. Patrick’s Day