Blaming shoddy software on the geek set

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Nov 17, 20052 mins

Quoteworthy: Perhaps we of the geek tribe are to blame. We take it for granted that software often doesn’t work as advertised, we reflexively find workarounds, and we hardly notice all the scar tissue we’ve accumulated over the years. What if we just said no? — Jon Udell, in Just say no.

Wi-Fi: Cicero supports smart phone roaming between Wi-Fi and cellular networks.

Columnists’ Corner: Mario Apicella points out in Storage Insider that the current Sony DRM escapade of late is proof that “blending data security and storage should start at the OS level.”

Best of the blogs: Embarking on a piecemeal journey, Oliver Rist lays down the first post on fair use policy. This one is about e-mail, and others will follow shortly. Dave Linthicum outlines the steps to evaluating SOA technologies. “Get to work. This takes a lot of time,” he contends.

Hardware: MIT Media Lab demo’s a prototype of the notebook computer it plans to sell for less than $100. The system, intended for distribution to schools, will run at about half the speed of commercial laptops, features a low-power display and can be contorted to serve as a notebook, media player or electronic book. And it will run an open source operating system.