Its been a while…

Happy holidays everyone.  I realize it has been a while since I have posted on what’s going on with AIM, ICQ, OpenAIM and the general state of messaging.  I have  about 5 posts queued up, and you will start seeing these being published over the next two weeks.

One interesting note this morning we had a major water main break not far from my house in Maryland.  I happened to mention it in my twitter feed, and about 5 minutes later The Washington Post picked up on my feed and others.

Glad that no one was seriously injured or killed.  Stay tuned for the latest news.

Cisco + Jabber = Enterprise Fun?

Today Cisco bought Jabber, Inc., which is an open source messaging and presence protocol that is supported by Google Talk and is the backbone to services such as Twitter.  For Cisco this is the second major acquisition of a communications company, with WebEx being that company.

Cisco seems very intent on going after the enterprise communication space and eat into Microsoft’s Office Communication Server (OCS).  As the enterprise space becomes a more diverse land of Macs mixed with Windows boxes and LINUX boxes, this move may help Cisco accomplish those goals.  In the enterprise space, Jabber is used by some investment banks on Wall Street as well as an internal messaging service at companies like AT&T.

Amazing Satellite Photos of Storms

There was a great series that the Boston Globe ran yesterday of very cool photos from satellites, the International Space Station and the Space Shuttle over the past few years showing the hurricanes and tropical storms.  The first thing that caught my attention was how large these storms are and the second is the amazing clarity of the storm details.  Pay particularly close attention to the eye of the storm, you can actually see the ocean below.

Snowy Day in DC

It always amazes me what happens in DC when the snow starts flying. Yesterday our 66 mile beltway around DC was backed up 26 miles because the roads were a little damp. Here was the view in downtown Bethesda today…as the theory goes, I trust my own driving but no one else’s driving.
Snowy Bethesda