SFGate Tag

  Tech Futures Where workers and investors will find opportunities in the years ahead Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, November 7, 2002 URL: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/11/07/techfut.DTL As the holidays approach, Silicon Valley is brimming with jobless workers and tapped-out investors. Happy chatter about vesting stock options has long since morphed into a cacophony of woe. Today...

  Picture This Government Web sites are for the people not incumbent office-holders   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, October 24, 2002 URL: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/10/24/govtsites.DTL Quick, what do the Web sites of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and the San Francisco County Board of Supervisors have in common? The answer: Both have been designed with a similar...

  Silicon Valley Fights Back Hollywood has a worthy adversary in South Bay Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Wednesday, October 9, 2002 URL: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/10/09/zoelof.DTL In Silicon Valley, where crack computer programmers and networking aces are now competing for jobs waiting tables and tending bar, the connection between government policies that are...

  Free Mickey Stanford Law Professor seeks to overturn the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, September 26, 2002   URL: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/09/26/bonoact.DTL Opening arguments are set to begin early next month in Eldred vs. Ashcroft, a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that will decide the future of copyright law, including...

  Berman-Coble Goes Too Far Legalizing hacking of P2P networks hurts start-ups, not thieves   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, September 12, 2002 URL: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/09/12/p2pleg.DTL Longtime congressional veterans Howard Berman (D-Hollywood) and Howard Coble (R-North Carolina) recently coughed up an incredibly vivid example of how easily government officials can unintentionally screw up the economy....

  Open-Source Government Free-software guru Bruce Perens has a new information-technology solution   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, August 29, 2002 URL: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/08/29/osgovt.DTL One thing most technology experts can agree on is that California's state government has squandered billions on ill-conceived information-technology (IT) projects in recent years. Whether it was the more than $100...

  Take The Medicine By not expensing stock options now, tech firms are just prolonging the pain   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, August 15, 2002 URL: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/08/15/stckopt.DTL The tech sector's head-in-the-sand reaction to the need to reform stock-option accounting practices is surprising for an industry that likes to pride itself on its supposed...

  Not a Moment Too Soon Digiportal's innovative challenge response ChoiceMail program means the end of spam   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Tuesday, July 30, 2002 URL: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/07/30/choicem.DTL For the first time in years, my e-mail inbox is totally and completely spam-free. There are no more ads for penile-enlargement services and no more appeals from...

  The Disintermediation Blues On the sad state of online car- and mortgage-buying services     Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, July 18, 2002 URL: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/07/18/disintermed.DTL Back when the dot-com boom was peaking, there was a lot of talk about how online services would blow away their anachronistic bricks-and-mortar competitors. Some of that has happened....

  Taxing Workers Cutting capital gains taxes could hurt Silicon Valley in the long run   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Wednesday, July 3, 2002 URL: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/07/03/capgain.DTL There is an old saying that sometimes a cure can be worse than the disease. Tech investors might be about to get a dose of just that type of...

  Fuel Cell Hold-up Government's go-slow approach promises to keep the technology on the shelf   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, June 20, 2002 URL: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/06/20/fuelcel.DTL The Bush administration's January announcement of the federal government's new $150 million annual FreedomCAR initiative to support fuel-cell research sounded like good news to many casual observers. After...

  Nanotechnology's First Fruits Products nearing market promise to lead the budding industry from hype to reality   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, June 6, 2002 URL: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/06/06/nanotch.DTL When most people think about nanotechnology, they usually conjure images of microscopically tiny contraptions such as the invisibly small submarine that was injected into a character's...

  Ocean Rescue Planktos Foundation hopes to reduce global warming by fertilizing the seas     Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Wednesday, May 22, 2002   URL: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/05/22/plnktos.DTL A group of scientists say it may be possible to simultaneously reduce global warming and increase dwindling supplies of fish around the world by adding relatively tiny amounts...

  Hollywood's Way Out New distribution platform is solution for copyright theft   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, May 9, 2002 URL: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/05/09/hrdwresol.DTL The debate about what to do about intellectual-property rights in the digital age usually revolves around two starkly different views about how the world should work. One side, led mostly by big...

  Shooting Blanks Growing digital rights movement needs to put some political heads on stakes -- fast   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Monday, April 22, 2002 URL: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/04/22/geekp.DTL Earlier this month, two prominent members of the open-source-software community, Jeff Gerhardt, host of the online "Linux Show," and Doc Searls, senior editor of The Linux...

  Sharing The Airwaves Spread spectrum technology could bring a new dawn for broadcasting   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, April 11, 2002 URL: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/04/11/sprdspctrm.DTL Consumer watchdog groups cried foul last February after the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., struck down federal regulations that limited the number of television stations a single...

  Cold Fusion Rides Again Science magazine publishes more evidence of tabletop nuclear reactions   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Monday, March 25, 2002 URL: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/03/25/tbltpfusion.DTL Science magazine dropped a bombshell earlier this month: The prestigious journal published a paper by a team of researchers at Tennessee's Oak Ridge National Laboratory who say they have...

  Vexing Options Accounting scandal fallout could mean positive changes for workers and investors   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Monday, February 25, 2002   URL: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/02/25/stckopt.DTL The golden era of virtually unlimited stock options for top executives may finally be drawing to a close, thanks to the recent accounting scandals at firms such as Enron...

  All Hail Creative Commons Stanford professor and author Lawrence Lessig plans a legal insurrection   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Monday, February 11, 2002 URL: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/02/11/creatcom.DTL Stanford law professor and author Lawrence Lessig and a small band of collaborators at MIT, Duke, Harvard and Villanova are about to embark on a new endeavor that...

  Search Me Doom ahead for search engines that charge listing fees   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Monday, January 28, 2002 URL: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/01/28/srcheng.DTL In a regrettable move, Internet pioneer Yahoo! recently joined competitors such as MSN.com, LookSmart and AltaVista in seeking payments from Web sites that want to be included in their online directories. Many...

  Political Weapons The missile defense shield will help neutralize the tech sector   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, January 17, 2002 URL: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/01/17/missiledef.DTL President Bush's problem-plagued missile-defense initiative promises to dramatically shift the balance of power between the technology community and the federal government. The controversial program has two key ingredients that make that...

  Playing The Biotech Boom Picking biotech stocks is not a game for novices   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Monday, December 31, 2001 URL: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2001/12/31/biotch.DTL The year 2002 is expected to be a banner one for the biotech sector, with more innovative research under way and more new drugs set to reach the market...

  The Westly Factor Why a usually obscure state election might matter most for tech firms   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Monday, December 17, 2001 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/technology/beat/ Next year's hotly contested race for governor is already beginning to grab the media spotlight. But many Silicon Valley tech leaders are already much more deeply involved...

  The "Last Mile" Problem ADCOs could finally bust open the local phone market   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, December 6, 2001 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2001/12/06/adcosbust.DTL At long last, a promising new group of firms with a sound business model might finally be about to crack open local monopoly phone and Internet-access markets to real...

  The End Of Hewlett-Packard As We Knew It? Revered company is between a rock and a hard place   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Monday, November 19, 2001 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2001/11/19/hpmerge.DTL The brewing battle over whether Hewlett-Packard should merge with ailing rival Compaq signals a major turning point for the legendary Silicon Valley company. History has...

  War Boom More Pentagon spending could actually hurt Silicon Valley   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Tuesday, October 23, 2001 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2001/10/23/techwar.DTL Shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Congress approved President Bush's request to boost the Pentagon budget roughly 65 percent by 2005 to more than $500 billion. Judging from the recovery...

  Energy Independence Now We Need A New Energy Revolution   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, October 4, 2001 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2001/10/04/newenergy.DTL Amid this week's latest batch of unbearably sad stories about the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, one of the most important stories is the one we haven't read. It's the story about...

  No Silver Bullets Giving Up Privacy for Security Will Leave Us With Neither   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Tuesday, September 18, 2001 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2001/09/18/nosilvbullet.DTL The terrorist bombing of the World Trade Center has led to feverish calls for increased government use of electronic-identification technologies that will further weaken privacy rights and undermine longstanding...

  Kick 'Em When They're Down Silicon Valley's Usual CEO Excuses Don't Tell the Real Story     Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, August 23, 2001 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2001/08/23/ceos.DTL You might think we've heard enough about what's gone wrong in our tattered high-tech economy. After all, hardly a day goes by without fresh reports of corporate...

  Slap the PUC It May Be the Last Chance to Protect Independent ISPs From Extinction   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Tuesday, July 31, 2001 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2001/07/31/pucdsl.DTL The state Public Utilities Commission is expected to rule shortly on a complaint filed last week by independent Internet service providers. The ruling will help determine whether...

  The New Napster The Record Industry Has Met its Match   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Tuesday, July 10, 2001 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2001/07/10/gnucleus.DTL If the recording industry thought Napster was a headache, it's going to get a genuine migraine from the latest version of Gnucleus, a free Windows-based open source software program released last month...

  The Next Frontier The Tech Sector Needs A Nanotechnology Target   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, June 21, 2001 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2001/06/21/nanotech.DTL The sputtering technology community sorely needs a major new catalyst to get growth back on track. Nothing would be better than establishing the national goal of developing a practical, working, cost-efficient nanovehicle within...

  Cisco's Slide Tech Bellwether Must Find A New Path To Success   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Tuesday, June 5, 2001 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2001/06/05/cisco.DTL "Are you ready?" As you may recall, industry bellwether Cisco Systems Inc. practically beat that catchy little phrase into our heads last year as part of its since-scaled-back multimillion-dollar TV advertising campaign. One...

  Free Higher Education MIT's OpenCourseWare Plan Fires the First Real Shot   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, May 10, 2001 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2001/05/10/mit.DTL In news that went largely overlooked a few weeks ago, MIT President Charles Vest announced that the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology plans to make the materials for nearly all of...

  Desktop Linux Eazel Inc. Could Change the World Or Go Broke Trying   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, April 19, 2001 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2001/04/19/eazel.DTL Those wondering when the technology sector will get off its knees should pay close attention to what happens to tiny startup Eazel Inc. over the next few weeks. The company is...

  Timing The Tech Stock Recovery Investors Should Trust Themselves, Not The Analysts   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Wednesday, April 4, 2001 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2001/04/04/techstocks.DTL Given the sharp decline in tech stock prices over the past few months, many of Wall Street's best-known securities analysts are trying to coax wary investors back into the market. Just...

  Buying The Grid Gov. Davis' Plan Puts Taxpayers on the Wrong Side of Future Technologies   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Tuesday, March 13, 2001 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/2001/03/13/electric.dtl Gov. Gray Davis' plan to exploit the current energy crisis by having state taxpayers buy and maintain approximately 24,000 miles of obsolescence-bound electrical transmission lines will hobble...

  ReplayTV vs. TiVo TiVo vs. ReplayTV   How One Little Button Could Wipe Out Commercial Television Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Tuesday, February 27, 2001 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/2001/02/27/replay.dtl When I went shopping for a digital video recorder (DVR) late last year, the clerk at my local Fry's electronics store told me that the identically priced TiVo...

Where's The Competition? How California's Leaders Helped Create the Energy Crisis  Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, January 25, 2001 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/2001/01/25/ctc.dtl We all know that when California's Legislature passed the ill-conceived energy deregulation bill in 1996, the stated goal was to reduce electricity prices over time by increasing competition among suppliers. Obviously, it...

  Machine Error The Case for Paper Ballots   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, December 21, 2000 ,/p> URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/2000/12/21/evoting.dtl Now that the jokes about hanging chads are beginning to subside, many are looking to new voting technologies in the hope they will help us clean up the sloppy election procedures that surfaced so alarmingly...

  Technical Correction "The Numbers Guy" And Wall Street   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Tuesday, November 21, 2000 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/2000/11/21/peratio.dtl The stock market's resemblance to a casino is becoming increasingly hard to ignore. It's common these days to see the stocks of respected, big-name firms such as Intel, Oracle and Apple Computer rise or...

  Faster Than Light Travel Will We Ever Travel to the Stars?   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Wednesday, October 18, 2000 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2000/10/18/lightspeed.DTL In the two years I've been at this column, I've been overwhelmed by the many intelligent and well-informed e-mails that have come pouring in. The response has been so good I've decided...

  Burn Your Cubicle Virtual Teams Are the Future of Work   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, September 21, 2000 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/2000/09/21/cubicle.dtl Woody Allen once observed that 80 percent of success is just showing up. He must not have had the future American workplace in mind. These days, letting knowledge workers not show up is fast...

  Fast and Easy New Browserless Apps Allow One-Click Searching   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, August 31, 2000 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/2000/08/31/oneclick.dtl What if I told you I could save you not just a few seconds but a few minutes every time you do an Internet search? Now you can, with a new breed of software...

  Little Man, Big Mind New Media Pioneer Gary Brickman's Remarkable Life     Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Monday, July 31, 2000 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/2000/07/31/brickman.dtl Bay Area new media pioneer Gary Brickman passed away quietly in his sleep last month. He was only 38. If you've attended any big tech events here in the Bay Area over...

  Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Coming Up With the Next Big Thing   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Wednesday, June 28, 2000 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/2000/06/28/bigthing.dtl The introduction of any major new technology usually gives rise to a fresh new crop of multi-millionaires. Often, the doting news media dubs them geniuses. But having met and covered many...

  Talking Computers Microsoft's Long-Range Plan to Thwart the Feds     Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Wednesday, June 7, 2000 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/2000/06/07/voicerec.dtl You've probably seen the ads yourself. A comfortably dressed, relaxed looking Bill Gates is talking directly into the camera. Blithely, he shrugs off the charges against his company, promising that Microsoft's "best days are...

  Digital Food Online Groceries Set Stage for Long-Awaited Revolution in the Aisles     Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Friday, May 26, 2000   URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/2000/05/26/grocers.dtl Leading online grocers Webvan and Peapod are in some serious trouble on Wall Street. A growing chorus of analysts claim it's impossible for online grocers to generate decent profits by making...

  Highway Robbery New electronic toll collection system won't fix traffic woes   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Wednesday, May 10, 2000 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/2000/05/10/tollbooth.dtl The long-awaited electronic toll collection system for the Golden Gate Bridge that is finally slated to be up and running by mid-summer demonstrates that technology used without intelligence can be...

  Napster How free music will change the planet   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, April 6, 2000 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/2000/04/06/napster.dtl It's hard to overstate the significance of the rise of Napster. Some say it's just another expression of human greed, a manifestation of the desire to get something for nothing. But the seemingly inconsequential act...

  Patently False Time for Bezos to get serious   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Friday, March 17, 2000 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/2000/03/17/bezos.dtl Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos has been getting a lot of praise lately for his deft handling of the growing controversy over whether his firm's patents might enable him to impose what amounts to a...

  Deposit This On the Internet, your bank is not your friend   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Wednesday, February 23, 2000 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/2000/02/23/netbank.dtl When the notorious bank robber Willie Sutton was finally apprehended, a reporter asked him: "Mr. Sutton, can you tell us why you rob banks?" Sutton's famous reply: "Because that's where they keep...

  Open Source TV Broadcasters should jump on the open source bandwagon, pronto     Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, January 5, 2000 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/2000/01/05/opensourcetv.dtl "There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling the transmission...

  Our Wacky Patent System And its perilous, toothless reform   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, December 23, 1999 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/1999/12/23/patents.dtl Back in 1912, a New York inventor named Arnold Zucker won a patent for a new device designed to prevent people from sleeping through the sound of a burglar alarm. Zucker's invention, described in...

  Click Here To Buy Online shopping tips from someone who hates to shop   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Wednesday, December 8, 1999 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/1999/12/08/eshopping.dtl I hate shopping. Don't get me wrong. I love buying things. And having things. It's just the getting of things I can't stand. It's annoying, for example, that most stores don't...

  Readers' Beat SF Gate column readers respond   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Wednesday, November 24, 1999 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/1999/11/24/readers.dtl When I started writing for SF Gate about a year ago, I promised myself I would respond to all emails generated by this column. It was, I thought, a matter of principle. What could be...

  Going Once, Going Twice, Gone! eBay is shooting itself in the foot   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, November 11, 1999 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/1999/11/11/ebay.dtl The very popular San Jose-based online auction company eBay recently touched off a Silicon Valley range war by blocking online inquires from AuctionWatch.com, a much smaller rival based in San...

  Big Idiot on Campus UC should broadcast class lectures online   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Wednesday, October 28, 1999 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/1999/10/27/lecturenotes.dtl Earlier this month, a lawyer representing the University of California system demanded that several Internet companies, such as Study24-7.com, Versity.com, and StudentU.com, pull lecture notes covering UC classes from their websites. UC's lawyer...

  Open Sesame How Collab.net takes open-source to the next level   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, October 14, 1999 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/1999/10/14/collabnet.dtl Wall Street hasn't caught on to it yet, but Collab.net, Inc., a San Francisco-based open source software start-up, is about to revolutionize the multi-billion-dollar global software industry. The four-month-old company is giving open-source...

  The Great Tech Showdown I'm rooting for Bill Gates   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Thursday, September 30, 1999 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/1999/09/30/gates.dtl I hope Microsoft founder Bill Gates wins his fight with the Justice Department. Before you fire up your flame-throwers, let me explain. I don't want to see Gates get off entirely scot-free. But I do...

  The Kids Are Not Alright Why Johnny can't compute   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Wednesday, September 15, 1999 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/1999/09/15/schoolreform.dtl The school reform movement is badly in need of reform. Right now, our nation's most prominent school reformers are almost totally ignoring one item that could go a long way toward improving our failing...

  Masters of Our Domain RealNames means just what the name says   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Tuesday, August 31, 1999 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/1999/08/31/domainname.dtl Clint Reilly's attempt to steal San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown's online thunder is beginning to backfire. Reilly, a real estate mogul and ex-political consultant running against Brown, recently tried to flummox the...

  Beta This Cleaning up the software industry's bug-infested nest   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Tuesday, August 17, 1999   URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/1999/08/17/beta.dtl How is it the multibillion dollar software industry gets away with knowingly and repeatedly selling defective products without penalty? Cars are subject to costly and embarrassing recalls at company expense. Canned goods and toys...

  Running Lame Most presidential candidates stumble online   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Wednesday, August 4, 1999 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/1999/08/04/lame.dtl The Internet has the potential to transform national politics. Unfortunately, that probably won't happen this year thanks to the way most presidential candidates are using it (with the possible exception of former New Jersey...

  Killing Uncle Sam The taxman meets his match online   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Tuesday, July 20, 1999 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/1999/07/20/taxes.dtl Many say the Internet is the biggest thing to hit humanity since the splitting of the atom. Unfortunately, that analogy may be painfully on target. Like the early days of atomic power when...

  Wanna Make a Bet? How the 'Net can improve your odds     Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Tuesday, July 6, 1999   URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/1999/07/06/gambling.dtl Did you hear the news that the National Gambling Impact Study Commission recently recommended a moratorium on new gambling establishments? The commission cited all the familiar, valid concerns: the toll gambling takes...

  We're Flying Blind Time for New Economic Metrics   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Tuesday, June 22, 1999 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/1999/06/22/metrics.dtl Garbage in, garbage out. The familiar dictum from the computer industry, known as GIGO, says that if your initial data is faulty, your final conclusions will also come up short, no matter how mighty your...

  Tech Stocks Has the boom gone bust?   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Wednesday, June 9, 1999 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/1999/06/09/techstocks.dtl So, which way do you think tech stocks are heading? It's one of the questions I'm asked most frequently. The topic is particularly hot right now, as many formerly high-flying Internet stocks are taking a group...

  Must See TV Get paid to watch   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Tuesday, May 25, 1999 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/1999/05/25/alladvantage.dtl You may not have heard about AllAdvantage.com yet. But if the Palo Alto-based start-up succeeds, it could mean big changes for the media. And for you. By advancing an unprecedented form of advertising, AllAdvantage's business model...

  The War Against Cold Fusion What's really behind it?   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Monday, May 17, 1999 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/1999/05/17/coldfusion2.DTL Two months ago, I reported that Dr. Michael McKubre, an electrochemist at Menlo Park-based SRI, was, like other researchers, generating unaccounted-for heat in a carefully-controlled cold fusion experiment. McKubre presented his findings at the...

  Oh Holy Net Does the Hand of God Know HTML?   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Wednesday, April 28, 1999 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/1999/04/28/holynet.dtl Recently, while driving through downtown Cairo, our tour guide, Mohammed, turned to me in surprise. "You're Jewish?" he asked, "I've always wondered something: do Jewish people think Jesus was a God, or...

  Love Bytes Will the Net flatten Maslow's pyramid?   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Monday, April 12, 1999 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/1999/04/12/love.dtl You remember Maslow. He was the noted psychologist who suggested in 1954 that people develop in a predictable way: serving our physiological requirements first, like food and shelter, before concentrating on higher order needs like...

  Killing the Rainmakers The dying art of high-tech public relations   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Monday, March 29, 1999 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/1999/03/29/pr.dtl Faced with shrinking profit margins and more competition despite strong sales, high-tech executives are cutting costs. And often, that means decimating corporate PR budgets. The problem is these cost-cutting high-tech executives are eating...

  Power To The People The return of cold fusion   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Monday, March 15, 1999 Read the original article here. Cold fusion is back. On Friday, March 26, 1999, the director of Menlo Park-based SRI International's Energy Research Center, Dr. Michael McKubre, will present the results of SRI's 10-year, $6 million-dollar...

  Biotech Rules Part II: Science, Serendipity, and The Web   Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate Tuesday, March 2, 1999 URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/technology/archive/1999/03/02/biotech2.dtl Thanks to a deluge of recent optimistic press reports, expectations for the biotech industry have reached a fever pitch. But will we, in our lifetime, really see the kinds of revolutionary biotech advances...