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Why You Should Use Ad Block Extensions, Even if You Don’t Block Ads [Firefox Tip]

By Whitson Gordon, Lifehacker – September 27, 2010 at 08:00PM

Why You Should Use Ad Block Extensions, Even if You Don't Block AdsWhether you block internet ads or not, ad-blocking extensions are pretty handy. Not only can you use them to block offensive material, rickrolls, and other unpleasant things, but reader Dave-Farquhar lets us know that they can also block malicious software.

Ads on the web can be all kinds of annoying, but some people prefer not to block every internet ad they see—after all, it is how most web sites (including Lifehacker) make their money, and are able to keep pumping out content for free. Even if you don’t block ads, though, it may be worthwhile to install an ad blocker (like Adblock Plus for Firefox), if only for its malware-blocking powers.

You won’t see it on the list of ad filters when you first install most ad-block extensions, but a few folks have created a filter that maintains a listing of domains used for spreading spyware and malware. It started out as a tool for DNS servers, but has since been converted to a filter so those using ad blockers can take advantage of (on Firefox or Chrome). Hit the link to read about it and subscribe to it, and don’t forget to install Adblock Plus on Firefox first if you haven’t already.

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Eight Species of Patent Strategy – Part 1 the framework

By Bill Meade, Ph.D., Basicip's Blog – September 27, 2010 at 01:49PM

Introduction:

When invited to give a talk for an American Corporate Council Association (which changed its name to the Association of Corporate Council) in 2004 I was asked to speak on “patent strategy.”  When I complained “That is a pretty big topic, can you narrow it down a little for me?”  the answer was “No.  You are a great person to speak on patent strategy, just do the best you can with it.”

So, I invented an eight step analytical framework to make sense of all the kinds of patent strategies I had been involved in while the patent portfolio manager at HP, as well as an IP consultant with other clients.  Six years later, I am still using the same eight species of IP strategy in my IP consulting and teaching, and I’ve found that clients and students see this analytical framework, and then immediately snatch it out of my hands and apply it to their situations in order to frame their problems.

As we work through our first book from BasicIP’s consulting practice experience running 450 invention workshops around the world, I’ve found this framework to be indispensable to laying out a step by step argument about why IP programs need invention workshops.  The eight species framework has become the foundation on which new analytical frameworks are being built.  So, just to be sure this framework isn’t shot full of holes I’ve been tricking local law firms in Boise (Zarian Midgley Johnson, Hawley Troxel) former bosses, the IP manager training guru for the Licensing Executive Society, and even a local law school dean (Yes, Boise is getting its own law school!) into looking over this framework and seeing if they can see anything wrong with it.  So far, no problems.  So, the purpose of this blog post, is to work out the Eight Species IP framework in format that is a little more formal than the PowerPoint decks it has until now, called home.

The Framework:

Figure 1 displays the eight species of patent strategy.  I derived these eight steps from the steps that a successfully licensed patent follows in its life cycle.

TheBigVenn01.pptx.jpg

Figure 1

The steps a successfully licensed patent should follow over its life cycle are as follows:

  1. A defined business model.  Principle: If you don’t know how you are going to monetize a patent before you apply, you are never going to monetize that patent.  Beginning with the end in mind is a Steven Covey principle.  Beginning with a profitable end in mind is closer to a law of nature when it comes to patents.  Example patent strategies that come out of defining IP business models might be IBM’s shifting to a for-profit IP business model under Gerstner (see 149 in his excellent book W.S.E.C.D.) to justify investing in research.  Or, a startup that has been small but that is becoming larger, may need to change business model from “hiding in the shadows of an industry” (a great place for every small company to start) to “buying oligopoly membership” as it grows.
  2. Targeting profitable IP.  If the IP management team is not specifying what it wants inventors to invent, then it won’t get what it needs.  Typical engineering management is very busy, not that confident in its IP knowledge or strategy ideas, and so the tyranny of the urgent crowds out making a list.  Example targeting strategies related to patents while I was at HP was Steve Fox’s mantra of “future looking, competitively preemptive, and gap filling” inventions that were wanted. While these are great general goals for targeting IP, the wise CTO will take these goals one step further and specify specific technologies from them.  For example, while I was at HP Boise in Y2K, we continued to receive halftoning invention disclosures – by then an “old” technology.  And when halftoning disclosures were filed as patents they cost more, took longer, and ended up capturing less, than an equivalent investment of money and inventor time in a future-looking technology like internet printing.  So decommissioning halftoning as an invention disclosure target would be a second example of a patent targeting strategy.  For a great example of making patent targets specific, see Steve Fox’s chapter (11) in Patrick Sullivan’s PROFITING FROM INTELLECTUAL CAPITAL.
  3. Generate and capture IP.  Generating and capturing involves training and dragooning.  If you look at how inventors come up to speed in your organization, you will find that about half of them require writing four to six invention disclosures before you can tell how good an inventor they will be.  The other half writes great disclosures from the start.  Training involves how you reach the non-instant-on half of your employees and providing them with the deliberate practice necessary for them to come up to speed inventing.  The dragooning involves everyone.  You can dragoon people into inventing in an infinite number of ways: with a simple “IP strip-mining” exercise, with an intensive off site brainstorming exercise, or by telling them they don’t get their paychecks until they fill out 6 enabled invention disclosures.  Or, you can give away iPods randomly to people filling out invention disclosures.  Whatever strategy you choose will be better than not having a strategy to dragoon inventions from people.   If you don’t have a dragooning strategy, you will capture =log(of what you should be seeing).  Most patent attorneys in companies have complained about “not seeing enough” from their inventors.  But few strategically dragoon their inventors.  Get a training and dragooning strategy.  They work well together!
  4. IP triage is what happens after an invention disclosure has been turned in, but before it is acted on.  The default triage strategy in most IP organizations is to sit around a table and read the invention disclosures and then invent rules for how to disposition the disclosures.  Every quarter another meeting is held, the rules are reinvented from a new set of invention disclosures.  The process repeats four times a year.  An improved triage strategy includes developing four 1 to 10 rating scales that each disclosure is rated on, having two or three independent raters rate all the disclosures, and then automatically dispositioning the disclosures without group discussion if they fall below X or above Y.  Then, the group discussions can be focused on defining what each of the four ratings scales mean, and discussing disclosures that generate ratings variations.
  5. Prep and process.  This is the stuff of patent agents and attorneys.  Prep and process is one of two species of patent strategy where every IP department scores at least a B is in prep and process.  This is craft.  Quality.  Goodness to attorneys and patent agents. So, I don’t talk much about prep and process strategies.
  6. Portfolio management.  There are many kinds of patent strategies involved in portfolios.  For example, international patenting.  Nobody can afford to file in every country, so a natural patent portfolio management strategy is a factorial design of IP across countries to cut down patent costs but to maintain enough coverage to protect products internationally. Another portfolio management strategy example would be to build a strong portfolio in a specific area to feed a licensing program. Another might be to defensively publish heavily around big patents that are obtained to preempt other companies from capturing improvement patents.  Portfolio management strategies are truly legion.  But today, almost all the contact most IP organizations have with portfolios is in deciding on patent maintenance fees.
  7. Litigation.  A second “B or above” patent strategy area for every IP organization.  Please note that litigation is the only species of the eight kinds of patent strategy, taught in law school.  Also note, that none of the eight species of patent strategy are taught in business schools.  In fact, the eight species of patent strategy are something of a “no man’s land” where companies have to paste together business processes the best they can to cover.
  8. Monetization.  Deciding how you are going to make money with your patents is one thing.  Cashing checks from IP is another.  There needs to be a lot of feedback between monetization and IP business model.  Business models that are so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good need to be tested and refined into monetizable business models.  Checks will not come back to your company for IP unless you have a strategy on how you are going to monetize the IP.  Managers need their feet held to the fire.  Business processes need to be set up, run, fed, refined, and refactored.

The next post in this series will talk about how IP strategies evolve in the wild of the electronics industry starting with stage one where a growing company has no IP strategy (see Figure 2).

The Eight Species of IP Strategy Framework - Birth

Figure 2


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11 Online Sources For The Best In Mac Freeware [Mac]

By Nancy Messieh, MakeUseOf – September 25, 2010 at 01:31PM

mac freewareAside from the well known resources for free Mac apps like Softpedia, cnet and of course Apple, there are some other great sites out there listing, reviewing and rating all of the Mac freeware available for download.

Whether you’re looking for games or applications, freeware, open source apps or abandonware, you’re bound to find what you need on one of these sites.

MacUpdate

MacUpdate lists both free and paid applications, but if you’re only in it for the free stuff, you can easily filter your search results to include free apps only. Updated on a daily basis, MacUpdate features only the best in Mac software, with all applications rated and reviewed before being added to the site.

mac freeware

AppDonkey

AppDonkey features a list of over 1,000 completely free Mac apps. Search for what you want or browse by category. AppDonkey makes it easy to download several apps at once by selecting all of the apps you want, and getting them onto your computer at the click of a button.

FreeMacApps

FreeMacApps features over 400 Mac freeware applications, with a very easy to navigate and clean appearance. Links on the site lead to the original sites, so you can’t download directly from FreeMacApps. Browse apps by category or perform a search to find exactly what you’re looking for.

FreeMacWare

FreeMacWare can seem a little unwieldy at first glance, but there’s a wealth of great Mac resources to be found in the site. The site is updated on a daily basis, with brief reviews accompanying a link to the software’s originating site and a download link. They also have a dashboard widget displaying the 10 latest additions to the site.

Bodega

Bodega is an app store of sorts for Mac software. Download the app to gain access to a world of great Mac apps, but if you’re looking only for free software, you’re going to have to filter through paid apps as well to find what you’re looking for. They do have a list of the top free apps, as well as the latest Mac software related posts on Mac blogs.

Download Free Mac Games

Download Free Mac Games is a great site to do just that – download free Mac games. Browse the list of games by category or simply take a look at everything that’s on offer.

Wikipedia

Wikipedia is usually a great source of lists of all kinds of software. And of course, Mac software is no exception. The list, divided into categories, is not limited to free apps only, so you’ll have to go through them one by one to find the free ones which is less than ideal, but the list is a greet way of finding software you never knew you needed.

Free Download a Day

Free Download a Day is not exclusively a Mac software site, featuring freeware for Windows and Linux as well. That said, it’s updated on a daily basis with great in-depth reviews, so it’s always good to keep an eye on it for new Mac apps.

Free Mac App a Day

Free Mac App a Day has undergone some changes and is now known as AppExhibit. The latest reviews on the site are of paid apps, but you can still access the entire archive of free app reviews that were posted before the revamp.

Open Source Mac

If you’re looking for Open Source software, the best place for Mac users is Open Source Mac. It may not be a very long list, but all of the applications listed are as free as they get. The apps are listed by category.

Macintosh Garden

Macintosh Garden is a unique Mac software repository. All of the applications listed have been abandoned. Don’t expect any updated software but rather, find some of your favorite classic games as well as a list of abandoned applications.

mac freeware

Where do you download free Mac apps? Let us know in the comments.

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Monitor Your Computer Better With Process Hacker

By Matt Smith, MakeUseOf – September 24, 2010 at 11:31AM

monitor your computerWindows Task Manager has evolved into a reasonably good utility. It offers a lot of information about what your computer is doing at any particular moment; the programs running, the load on the processor, and network activity are displayed.

There are limits to what Windows Task Manager can do for you however. If you’re interested in the real nitty-gritty details of your computer’s inner workings you’ll need something better, stronger, faster – something like Process Hacker.

Monitoring Processes

When you install and open Process Hacker you’ll be presented with a window that has three tabs. They are – from left to right – Processes, Services and Network.

Processes is the tab that will be open first by default. Like the Windows Task Manager, this tab of Process Hacker shows all of the programs and applications that are currently running on your computer. This includes programs that are running in the foreground and those that are running in the background.

monitor your computer

There are a couple of features here that make Process Hacker more useful than Windows Task Manager. The information that appears in Process Hacker is organized into trees (you have to enable Show All Processes for this to display) that show which currently open processes rely on each other.

For example, closing explorer.exe in Windows typically causes a number of other programs to also shut down and restart. These programs are listed under explorer.exe in Process Hacker, so you know at a glance that shutting down explorer.exe would probably cause these programs to terminate.

Process Hacker also color-codes processes. The color-code chart can be found by going to Hacker –> Options –> Highlighting. This lets you quickly determine if a program is a system process, a prioritized program, etc. That information can be useful when hunting down background programs that aren’t essential.

Good Service

computer processes

The Service tab in Process Hacker shows you all of the different Windows services (most of them are drivers) that are on your computer. It is extremely detailed and picks up on information that Windows Task Manager will not show. Process Hacker also provides useful information about the current state of the service. The information to the right details the type of service (driver or process) current state of the service (running or stopped) and how the service is set to start (boot, demand or automatic).

There is so much service information in Process Hacker that, to be frank, it can be bewildering even for a generally tech-savvy computer user. I suggest sorting the Service tab by Running/Stopped before delving into it deeply, as the services that are running are usually the most important.

Networking Details

Perhaps the clearest advantage Process Hacker has over Windows Task Manager can be found in the Network tab. Windows Task Manager has a Network tab as well, of course, but it only shows overall network utilization.

computer processes

Process Hacker goes far deeper. Instead of showing overall network utilization it provides in-depth information about the network connections your computer currently has opened, the IP addresses involved, and the protocol being used. The tab – like all tabs – updates in real-time, and Process Hacker highlights connections that are brand new or recently terminated.

The functionality here is advanced, but can be useful for troubleshooting network problems or searching for a program that you suspect is accessing the Internet without your permission.

Other Useful Features

One of my favorite features in Process Hacker is the ability to search for a process by its name. Let’s say, for example, that for some reason I want to find eveything on my computer related to running Dropbox. I can do this by going to Hacker –> Find Handles and DLLs and then typing in Dropbox. All the processes related to it will pop up!

monitor your computer

Process Hacker can also find and terminate processes that are trying to hide on your computer, such as Trojans or Rootkit software. You can access this utility by clickng on Tools –> Hidden Processes. Any hidden processes active are highlighted in red, and you can then select them and attempt to terminate them. This isn’t exactly a security suite, and I don’t recommend it as your sole means of combating malware, but it can be handy.

Finally, Process Hacker includes graphs like Windows Task Manager. They can be accessed by clicking on View —> System Information. This is one area where Windows Task Manager is actually better, because the graphs are larger and clearer.

Conclusion

Process Hacker is a great program, and far more capable than Windows Task Manager. It can be confusing to use because of the level of detail it provides, so be prepared to deal with a learning curve if you’re not already well versed on what “processes” and “services” do. Once you get the hang of things however, you’ll find that Process Hacker is better than Windows Task Manager in almost every way.

 

 

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Titanium foam bone replacements on the way

By (author unknown), Gizmag Emerging Technology Magazine – September 23, 2010 at 11:19PM

A piece of the TiFoam titanium bone replacement material

Back in June, those brainy folks over at Germany’s Fraunhofer research group announced the development of Resobone, a material designed to replace the titanium plates used to patch holes in peoples’ skulls. Now, perhaps a little ironically, they’ve announced the creation of TiFoam – a titanium foam to be used for replacing injured bone. Unlike Resobone, TiFoam is intended for load-bearing areas, where a balance of strength and flexibility are essential. Like Resobone, however, it’s designed to encourage surrounding bone to grow into the implant…
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Smart Eyes CCTV system ‘works just like the human eye’

By (author unknown), Gizmag Emerging Technology Magazine – September 23, 2010 at 05:19PM

The Smart Eyes system surveys the stands at a soccer match

Watching live CCTV footage of thousands of people, trying to pick out any sort of noteworthy activity… it sounds like a very tedious, difficult job for a human being. That’s why researchers from Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology are working on an electronic system that uses the principles of human motion vision to do the same job. It is part of the EU’s SEARISE project, which stands for Smart Eyes: Attending and Recognizing Instances of Salient Events. ..
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Convert RSS Feeds Into Any Format With xFruits

By Ryan Dube, MakeUseOf – September 23, 2010 at 02:31PM

add rss feeds to a web pageAnyone that knows me well knows that I love RSS feeds. RSS is one of the driving forces behind the connectivity of the web. It is the fastest and easiest way to get your information into the online world. Aibek previously covered 14 cool ways you can make use of RSS feeds, and these really show how versatile and useful RSS can be.

Recently, I stumbled across an impressive new service called xFruits. xFruits has a series of tools called “bricks” which serve a specific information-conversion service. For example, in one case you can convert an RSS feed into a website, and in another you can use data from a feed to create a PDF file. xFruits was briefly mentioned in the directory, but there are so many amazing uses for these online tools that a full review is in order.

Let RSS Information Feed Everything Else

When you first sign up for your free xFruits account, you’ll discover a toolbox of 11 awesome tools that you can use to either distribute your own content throughout the Internet, or organize other peoples’ content into a format that you like the most.

add rss feeds to a web page

The combinations and possibilities are exciting. Organizing and converting information streams from throughout the web into a format that you prefer is a really useful feature, but I’d also like to show you how xFruits can help you to syndicate your own websites and blogs across the web.

Turning Your RSS Feed Into a Multi-Format Syndication Tool

Your RSS feed is a stream of your latest titles, linked back to your site, and with a synopsis of the content.  There are people out there that really have no interest in reading blogs, but they may prefer e-books or mobile sites.

One of the simplest ways you can share your content with people is with a simple HTML site that highlights your latest content – sort of a web-based feed reader that displays your feed. You can set this up using xFruits’ very simple RSS to HTML tool.

how do rss feeds work

Once you click “Publish” – the feed gets published to a URL on your public xFruit profile which displays all of the latest titles from your feed in the left navigation bar, and the content in the main panel. The site is extremely simple, but it’s also very efficient.

how do rss feeds work

xFruit also has a whole assortment of buttons when you click on “Add To” that lets you send your new data feed to various other syndication websites. For example your new simple website can go to Technorati, BlinkIt or MyYahoo.

Probably the most impressive tool on xFruits is the Aggregator to RSS. This tool seems simple, but it’s actually rather powerful when used in combination with the other tools. You can list a combination of RSS feeds and it will aggregate them into one, powerful RSS feed that you can use in a number of other xFruits tools.

Previously I reviewed WINKSite, a free service that will create a customized mobile website based off of your RSS feed. However, if you aren’t particular about the formatting or appearance of your mobile site, the xFruit RSS-to-Mobile tool gives you a mobile site in just one click. Here is the mobile website for one of my blogs.

how to use rss feeds

Of course, I think my favorite tool out of the entire xFruits toolset is the Post-to-RSS tool. Using this tool, you can enable as many email addresses as you like to post directly to an RSS feed. A whole team of mobile bloggers could post – all they have to do is send in the post to your unique Post-to-RSS email address (provided inside the tool).

how to use rss feeds

Each incoming email immediately updates the RSS feed with the title (email subject) and the content (email).

how do rss feeds work

This is one of the coolest ways to set up a fast and easy mobile blog to either collaborate real-time with several people, or as a mobile blog that people can follow with any RSS reader.

Another awesome tool if you have visitors that may prefer to read your latest updates in PDF format, is the RSS-to-PDF tool. You can even feature a “PDF” button on your site that let your visitors download the PDF file of your latest updates.

how to use rss feeds

I’ve saved the best for last. Most of the available online tools that “post” RSS updates only insert embedded Javascript somewhere on your page that displays the latest RSS titles. The Feed updates are not issued as actual posts to your blog.

Amazingly, this little site called xFruits has succeeded where so many others have failed. By filling out a simple form that includes the path to your xmlrpc.php file (make sure posting via xml is enabled on your blog!), you can instantly convert an RSS feed into actual blog posts on your blog.

add rss feeds to a web page

You could use this feature to stream in content from free article directories or syndicate your friend’s sites with auto-updates that link back to their site. The possibilities are limitless.

Browse through some of the useful tools at xFruits, test a few of them out and let us know what you think of the service in the comments section below.

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