Nick Bradbury

NewsGator CTO Greg Reinacker writes: "We’ve now implemented a persistent APML endpoint in our online platform. What this means is, if you’re using sync with NewsGator Online, there is a well-known URL that represents your APML attention data." At first glance, this may strike you as something that only hard-core geeks would be interested in. After all, it's not as... [read more]

I've been in the coding dungeon lately, which explains why I haven't posted for a while. One of the things I'm working on is moving some of FeedDemon's data out of XML and into SQLite, which I didn't think would be a big deal since I spent a few years working with SQL before I entered the world of indie... [read more]

Back in Skinny Jeans: The real reason I left my career in tech. [read more]

Last year I tried out Twitter while attending SXSW, but I stopped using it when the conference was over. Twitter was fun at SXSW, but it seemed kind of pointless afterwards. It was too much useless information for me to handle. A few weeks ago I decided to try Twitter again, and this time I changed how I used it.... [read more]

...is this one, which I took inside an elevator at the Marriott hotel near the conference center. The elevator was fitted with a display screen which usually showed advertisements and news headlines, but for several hours it showed a Windows application error dialog instead. Needless to say, Macworld attendees got a big kick out of this. [read more]

Last week I attended my first Macworld, but it won't be my last. I had a great time, in large part due to the hospitality of Brent F. Simmons and a host of his fellow Mac developers (see you at Denny's next year, folks!). The announcements from Macworld this year paled in comparison to last year's iPhone announcement, but the... [read more]

That's right, despite being a Windows developer since the early 1990's, I'm headed to Macworld. No, I'm not dropping Windows (at least not yet), but I do want to shake myself up a bit by hanging out with "the other side" for a while. If you're also at Macworld, you should be able to spot me without much trouble -... [read more]

Just over two years ago, Brent Simmons - creator of NetNewsWire for the Mac - joined NewsGator, and since then I've noticed shiny new Apple computers slowly but surely infiltrating our office. Like a virus, Brent has secretly spread his Apple cult within our formerly Windows-only company. And to top it off, our founder now shows all the signs of... [read more]

In a recent blog comment, Paul M. Watson asked: "I'd be interested in more detail on how you compute the scores [which determine a feed's attention]. Nothing that gives away your competitive edge of course but just some generalizations of what you are tracking that amounts to attention." FeedDemon's algorithm for determining a feed's attention rank has changed since I... [read more]

One of the more annoying trends in "Web 2.0" apps is the (mis)use of humor in error pages. Many of my readers know what I'm talking about - you logon to your favorite social web app, feed search engine, photo site, etc., only to see an upside-down bird or some other goofy picture alongside a "funny" error message. I hate... [read more]

Dave Winer writes about how he'd like a way to exclude specific items in his RSS feed from appearing on TechMeme, and suggests a TechMeme namespace for RSS as one possibility. Rather than create a TechMeme-specific namespace, I'd prefer to see the existing noindex meta tag adapted for use on a per-item basis. For example, right now you can add... [read more]

This week my Comcast cable has been flaky, leaving me with limited or no Internet connectivity for several days. I couldn't check my email, chat on IM, read my feeds, or even use my VOIP office phone - and my productivity has soared as a result. It's amazing how much I was able to get done without any Net-related distractions... [read more]

I had the good fortune to lose my outdated cell phone recently, which gave me the perfect excuse to splurge on a new iPhone (I waited until Sept 5 to order it, of course). I have to admit that I love my iPhone, despite not being able to "officially" develop native apps for it. It's the mobile device I've been... [read more]

Wow - I feel like I'm the one of the few techies who didn't blog about Apple yesterday. I did, however, just order an iPhone :) [read more]

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you probably know NewsGator as an RSS aggregator company, so you may not have heard about NewsGator Widgets yet. Our widgets have been used by sites such as Discovery.com, MacWorld and CBS News - and now they're being used by USATODAY.com as well. According to this articles on Forbes.com, this makes USA... [read more]

Those of us in the technology sector see it all the time: co-workers who put in incredible hours coding away as though they have nothing else in their lives. And quite often, they don't. I used to be one of those people. When I was working on HomeSite over a decade ago, I rarely left my desk. If I wasn't... [read more]

If you're planning to attend SXSW 2008, please consider voting for my "Simplicity Ain't So Simple" session proposal. The proposed panel is to be a roundtable discussion between a Windows developer (myself), a Mac developer (Brent Simmons), and a Web developer (TBA) about the challenges of designing software that's simple to use. [read more]

I've been writing about attention for quite a while now, ever since Steve Gillmor introduced me to the concept at Gnomedex 2004. Since then I've experimented with various ways to improve RSS aggregation by examining what you're paying attention to, but I've rarely been satisfied with what I've come up with. The basic problem with RSS aggregators is that once... [read more]

Niall Kennedy has the news about Apple's new My iTunes, which enables sharing your iTunes purchases, favorites and reviews as Flash-based widgets. This is a great move by Apple, although I do wish I could customize which purchases appear in the widget (for example, I'd like to exclude music I purchased for my wife, since her tastes are quite different... [read more]

Looks like the Nashville tech community is finding its voice! My friend Marcus Whitney is one of the organizers of BarCamp Nashville, which will be held on August 18 at the Exit/In. If you're in the Nashville area, you won't want to miss it (especially since registration is free). [read more]

Arghh. For the second year in a row I've registered for Gnomedex, but later found that I can't be there. This year my kids start at a new school the Monday right after Gnomedex, and I really need to be at home with them that weekend. I'm really bummed about this, because Gnomedex is one of my favorite conferences -... [read more]

Back in 2004, I asked: "What are we actually building here? A lot of people in my profession wear rose-colored glasses and believe we're helping to make information free to the world, but some of the early proponents of television believed the same thing. Are we really just building the next version of TV, one even more powerful because it... [read more]

My presentation last week about software simplicity reminded me of how far we are from simplifying our world through technology. I'm constantly turned off by technology because it serves to complicate rather than simplify our lives. I can't count the number of times I've wanted to assault the gadgets I use because they're such a hassle to manage - and... [read more]

NewsGator Online has been selected as one of the finalists in the Webware 100. If you have a minute, please vote for us! [read more]

Just noticed that my MicroISV Show interview is online. I spent about 30 minutes talking with Bob Walsh and Michael Lehman about a variety of topics, including independent software development and RSS-related stuff. [read more]

Once again my co-workers at NewsGator are blazing forward with a slew of announcements, including a flurry of new beta versions. Just this month we've announced: A new beta of NewsGator Online that's a massive improvement over the old version. The slow page loads are gone thanks to a healthy dose of AJAX, and the UI is much cleaner and... [read more]

I'll be at SXSW for the next few days, and I'm giving Twitter a try while I'm here to keep up with other attendees. If you want to keep tabs on me, my Twitter name is "nbradbury" (and here's my Twitter RSS feed). Note to the Twitter devs: When using IE, mousing over someone's avatar shows the name of the... [read more]

I used to rely on email, but it's almost useless to me now. Funny thing is, if it weren't for spam, I might not have created FeedDemon... [read more]

My friend Rex Hammock wants to know what Yahoo! Pipes is all about, so I whipped up a simple example "pipe" which links to YouTube videos of the top 10 songs on iTunes... [read more]

Given that Yahoo! Pipes has been clogged much of the day, chances are you haven't had a chance to play with it yet. So I'll take a few minutes to expand upon my brief previous post... [read more]

I'm not easily impressed, but this impressed the hell out of me. It's geekier than it should be, but it's still a big step forward. [read more]

Just noticed that there's a Wikipedia entry for FeedDemon. Right now it's just a stub, though, so it needs to be edited - and I can't do it, since I'm biased. So...is there a FeedDemon user out there who would like to update the entry? PS: The entry for HomeSite is great - I'm really pleased to see that the... [read more]

The new Tailrank looks great! Kudos to Kevin Burton for the excellent upgrade. [read more]

Now that Google has acquired YouTube, is it safer to link to copyrighted content on YouTube? For example, if I link to this excellent performance by The Who, does Google's purchase of YouTube make it more or less likely that this link will still exist a year from now? [read more]

I admit it: despite being a geek myself, I tend to ignore anything that geeks are suddenly going crazy over. So when I kept hearing great things about The Show with zefrank, I did my usual contrarian thing and ignored it. Wow, what a mistake that was. Last night I gave in and watched a bunch of episodes, and holy... [read more]

Just noticed that Rhino Software is celebrating their 10th year of business. Congrats to Mark, Jane and the rest of the rhinos for 10 years of great software! [read more]

Remember that WinINet bug I blogged about last month? Microsoft's David Pow left a comment stating that it's fixed, and the fix should be included in the final IE7 release, and most likely in Vista RC1 as well. This bug was causing a lot of problems for FeedDemon customers, so I'll be very glad to see it fixed. Now, given... [read more]

OK, I'm not actually at Gnomedex (here's why), but I still want to send my greetings to everyone there. I've attended Gnomedex several times, and I learned a lot each time (it's where I first heard about podcasting and attention, for starters). And if you're there and happen to see a guy named Jack Brewster, stop and say hello. He... [read more]

This week NewsGator founder and CTO Greg Reinacker posted a two-part overview of our company's roadmap. Part I provides the necessary background for part II, which talks about where we're going in the near future. It's an ambitious roadmap - but so was the one he posted in 2005, and our company has met every one of the stated goals... [read more]

I haven't focused too much on digital identity, but I've been paying more attention to it lately. I don't know enough yet to post an opinion on the subject, but here are some recent posts about identity that I've enjoyed: Phil Becker and Eric Norlin: Top 5 Identity Fallacies: #5 Net 2.0 Can Happen Without Solving Identity, The return of... [read more]

Given that I've been blogging since 2002, you'd think I would've written about software development many times. As it stands, though, I've written very few posts about programming. I think a big reason for this is because when I'm coding away like a madman, I don't blog (or do much of anything else!) - and when I'm not coding, I... [read more]

Later this month I'll be attending BloggerCon IV, but unfortunately I have to skip Gnomedex this year since it starts the same day as my soon-to-be-seven-year-old son's birthday. I'm bummed about missing Gnomedex - it's my favorite conference of the year - so I'm glad to see that Chris Pirillo is leading a "Users in Charge" session at BloggerCon. [read more]

Yesterday I got cranky with Microsoft about a long-standing bug in a Microsoft library that was causing problems for some FeedDemon customers. As you can imagine, I was frustrated that my work was being compromised by a known bug in code I had no control over, so I was feeling a little punchy when I posted yesterday. Of course, I... [read more]

Just read that Mark Fletcher is leaving Bloglines, and wanted to wish him good luck. I'll be on the lookout for his next venture! [read more]

We're running a short, confidential marketing survey for customers using any of NewsGator's RSS readers. If you have a minute, please stop by and fill it out. Thanks! [read more]

I was planning to write about this topic myself, but Steve Gillmor says it far better than I would've in his memo to Bill Gates and Ray Ozzie. And he nails it on why attention is even more important these days: "In a world where we recoil from attempts by spamsters, spyware, and identity thieves to steal our most personal... [read more]

Tantek Çelik just announced the technology preview of Technorati Microformats Search. This has a lot of potential - very nice work, Tantek. [read more]

New "Web 2.0" companies are springing up like weeds these days, and many of them sound interesting enough to pay attention to - but who has time to really try them all? I certainly don't, so I've come up with a simple filter to figure out which ones to pay attention to: Any new Web 2.0 company that hasn't considered... [read more]

In his post about Microsoft adCenter, Robert Scoble mentions the growth potential of "advertising-backed software." I'm assuming he's referring to web-based software, but I do wonder how long it will be before Microsoft enables embedding ads in desktop software as well. Switching software to an ad-supported model is something that Microsoft has considered for their own products, so it wouldn't... [read more]

Over the weekend I replaced my wife's aging computer with a new Dell system. I continue to be impressed with Dell's online store, and delivery was even sooner than expected. But when I booted up the computer, I was stunned by the amount of unnecessary crap on it. I had to spend quite a while getting rid of all the... [read more]

Yesterday NewsGator suffered an outage which lasted several hours, and as frustrating as this was for us, I know it was even more frustrating for customers who rely on our service to keep up with their feeds. A service interruption is never a good thing, but I was pleased to see how NewsGator CTO Greg Reinacker handled the situation. I've... [read more]

As Marc Orchant points out, Monday was a big day for NewsGator. Not only was FeedDemon 2.0 released, but we also: Released a new version of NewsGator Inbox (our aggregator for Microsoft Outlook) Launched a significant overhaul of NewsGator Online (our free web-based aggregator) Fulfilled our promise to get rid of our subscription model Pushed out a re-design of our... [read more]

I'm at MIX06 this week, and I've left behind a full inbox which I'll tackle when I return (so apologies if you're waiting for an email from me). The conference is in Las Vegas, which means I'm far too sleep-deprived for a coherent post, so I'll just toss out some random comments: I have to be honest and say that... [read more]

Just noticed that we've officially announced our NewsGator Hosted Solution (NGHS), which enables publishers to quickly and easily create web-based RSS solutions. I got a sneak peak at NGHS several weeks ago, and I was impressed with it. Techie that I am, I especially liked the tag-based language which enables defining the layout of various RSS components (it sort of... [read more]

As most readers probably know by now, the second beta of Internet Explorer 7 is out, and it offers some nice improvements such as tabbed browsing and feed reading. I'm far too biased to comment on the actual feed reading experience in IE7, but I would like to make some unrelated comments for the IE7 team. First off, I'm sure... [read more]

Last week Alex Barnett discussed attention with Kevin Burton and myself, and the conversation is available as a podcast from this post on Alex's blog. Tip: You can drag-and-drop the MP3 link from Alex's blog onto FeedStation to have it automatically synced to your iPod or other media device. [read more]

A couple of months ago I dropped Technorati in favor of Google Blog Search for uncovering links to my blog. I wasn't happy with Technorati's performance, and I figured Google would do a better job finding new links given their resources. Well, I was wrong. Truth is, I've been disappointed in Google's blog search - Technorati does a better job... [read more]

A year ago the subject of attention wasn't getting much, well, attention. But that has been gradually changing, due in part to the efforts of AttentionTrust.org (disclosure: I'm on the AttentionTrust board, although I write this post as an individual), and also due to the growing realization that big players such as Google are benefiting from data that you generate... [read more]

Hi! I'm Brent Simmons -- NetNewsWire developer and Nick's co-worker at NewsGator. Just the other day, in private conversation with a few Mac developers, I called FeedDemon an honorary Mac application. I didn't have to spell it out, they knew what I meant: that it's not just usable and aesthetically pleasing, it's fun to use. I have a little experience... [read more]

A couple of weeks ago I got an email from Chris Pirillo letting me know about a new metasearch service he devised called Gada.be. I wasn't able to try it out because I was recuperating from surgery at the time, but today I took it for a test spin and I was immediately won over by its OPML support. Why?... [read more]

Nick Hodges suggests that Delphi programmers thank those responsible for creating such a great development tool, and I'll certainly join in. Although I dabble in other languages, Delphi remains my tool of choice for building desktop apps. I used Delphi to create HomeSite, TopStyle and FeedDemon, and I owe a great deal of thanks to the folks who developed the... [read more]

If you want to get some great software and help out a good cause at the same time, be sure to check out the PMC Software auctions. The auctions include over $11,000 worth of software, including several copies of TopStyle and FeedDemon (and if you're on a Mac, the software list includes such gems as NetNewsWire and BBEdit). [read more]

Oh good - yet another format battle brewing in the geekosphere. And now that I'm feeling better, I can't help but jump in :) While Scoble is right that users shouldn't have to care about formats, the truth is that when a format is underspecified, it becomes a problem for users. Case in point: during the first year of FeedDemon's... [read more]

Just wanted to congratulate Charlie Wood for the launch of Spanning Salesforce 2.0. BTW, in his announcement, Charlie mentions a reeaalllly annoying duet between William Shatner and (no joke) Henry Rollins that he uploaded to help me resolve an issue with FeedStation. This "song," of course, stuck in my head like spaghetti on a wall. So, I'd like to pay... [read more]

Last week saw the launch of AttentionTrust.org, a non-profit hatched by Seth Goldstein, Steve Gillmor and Hank Barry which is "dedicated to promoting the basic rights of attention owners." I'm honored to be serving on the initial board of AttentionTrust.org, along with Dick Costolo and Clay Shirky. I've written about attention before, but I realize it remains a nebulous concept... [read more]

Wow - has anyone else been watching the list of attendees at this year's Gnomedex? It's like a "who's who" of the blogging world. Here are just a few of the people who are planning to be there: Dave Winer Adam Curry Steve Rubel Steve Gillmor Dan Gillmor Julie Leung Robert Scoble Eric Rice Denise Howell Marc Canter John Batelle... [read more]

As I mentioned in my previous post, I'm a firm believer in using blogs and RSS for distributed conversation. So, I'd like to start a conversation about the threat that spam and spyware pose to our little syndicated world. I brought this topic up with several companies who were at the Syndicate Conference, and I was disturbed to discover how... [read more]

Wow - Digital Web Magazine celebrated their ninth birthday yesterday! Kudos to Nick Finck and everyone else involved for nine years of first-rate articles. [read more]

Given that not too long ago I posted about the auto-link feature in Google's toolbar, it seems like I should at least speak up about the new Google Web Accelerator as well. Before I do, though, I want to make it clear that right now I trust Google. I haven't seen them do anything that would cause me to not... [read more]

I just returned from an appointment with a doctor whose office had upgraded to Tablet PCs since my last visit, and it was pretty cool to see non-techies benefit from these gadgets. The office had several docking stations which held the tablets, and my doctor undocked one as he walked in to see me. Geek that I am, we talked... [read more]

Hmmm...I wonder what will happen to HomeSite once Adobe owns it? [read more]

In his post about the MGM v. Grokster case, Christopher Baus asks "Where's Nick Bradbury?" It's a fair question given my stance on software piracy, but as I've written before, I believe it's a mistake to hold developers of P2P products liable for the copyright infringement of their users. As you can imagine, that's not an easy position for me... [read more]

Robert Scoble wants Microsoft to be perceived as a "we" company. I've taken a few jabs at Microsoft here in the past, but you know what? I'll give them credit for already making big steps towards becoming "we" instead of "us." The most obvious example is how Microsoft has embraced blogging in a much larger - and much more honest... [read more]

People have been hinting it at for quite a while, but now it's official: Yahoo has acquired Flickr and Ludicorp. [read more]

NetCaptor's Adam Stiles has been on a phishing trip. [read more]

The Netscape 8.0 beta is out, and it includes at least one interesting feature: the ability to choose either IE's or Netscape's rendering engine. I'm not convinced this feature makes sense for mainstream browser users, but it's a great help to web authors (which is why TopStyle offers a similar feature). [read more]

Looks like I missed a lot of interesting news while I was away last week. In no particular order: The new AutoLink feature in Google's toolbar has caused an uproar of sorts, and I agree with Dave Winer on this one. On the surface the feature seems innocent enough - perhaps even useful - but this isn't some small toolbar... [read more]

Kudos to supreme geek Chris Pirillo for launching his first live broadcast today. Be sure to add his feed with MP3 enclosures to the new "Podcasters" group in FeedDemon 1.5. [read more]

I've been playing around with my new iPod lately trying to figure out what all the fuss is about, and I have to admit that the hype is justified. I've been attached to Windows Media Player for quite a while and it wasn't easy to give it up, but the combination of iTunes + iPod is very slick and the... [read more]

In yesterday's link dump, I inexplicitly buried a link to the big news about Google's plan to index the books at The Libraries of Harvard, Stanford, the University of Michigan, the University of Oxford, and The New York Public Library. Wow! In the meantime, Microsoft released a toolbar suite. Uhmmm, wow? Note to Microsoft: I like your OS, but you're... [read more]

Adam Stiles does some tinkering and shows how Google Suggest works. [read more]

IT Conversations - one of my favorite sites - is accepting donations. If you haven't visited IT Conversations before, it features audio archives of events such BloggerCon III and Pop!Tech 2004, and interviews with IT luminaries including Tim O'Reilly, Steve Wozniak and Bruce Schneier. [read more]

Apparently the theme today is interviews with guys named Nick: here's an interview with Nick Finck of Digital Web Magazine fame. [read more]

Early Saturday morning, the baner ad service used by The Register became infected with the Bofra/Frame exploit. If you visited The Register Saturday using Internet Explorer, and you're not using XP SP2, it's possible that you were infected. More details on the exploit are available here and here. I'm posting about this since many people read The Register's feed in... [read more]

John Cleese now has a web site (via Kottke.org). [read more]

Here's a collection of links that have been in a FeedDemon news bin, waiting patiently for their turn to be blogged here: RSS MSNBC RSS feeds Local Traffic Reports via RSS (major U.S. cities) U.S. Department of State RSS feeds RSS: Beginning To See The Light Feedster Hacks Radek's FeedDemon "Timeline" styleWebDev/CSS View Page Structure W3C buttons without images Use... [read more]

The more I look at what Google is doing, the more convinced I am that we're witnessing the birth of the next Microsoft. Seems to me that Microsoft is more interested in defending itself against new ideas than actually coming up with them, and over the next few years Google will be the company that Microsoft will most need to... [read more]

Last week I set up domain mapping so that this blog could be visited as NickBradbury.com, but due to a mistake I made in the DNS configuration, I've had to remove the domain mapping and start over. This means that NickBradbury.com no longer redirects to this blog, so until I sort this out, please use nick.typepad.com. [read more]

Every now and then I'll receive an angry email from someone lambasting me for installing my software on their machine, which always surprises me since you have to download TopStyle and FeedDemon and then manually install them - so it's not like this is something I force people to do. I've talked with other shareware developers - none of whom... [read more]

Last night I used TypePad's domain mapping feature to point this blog to www.NickBradbury.com, which caused permalinks to change. Since permalinks are used to uniquely identity posts, your RSS reader may show duplicates of the last few posts. PS: St. Thomas was great :) [read more]

You might think that as a shareware developer, I'd be in favor of any bill that penalizes copyright infringement. After all, I've made my views on piracy quite clear. However, the induce act introduced by Orrin Hatch went waaaay too far by making developers of file-sharing software liable for "inducing" their users to commit copyright infringement. I'm no fan of... [read more]

Robert, you've got it exactly right. [read more]

Every few weeks I link to another shareware product here, and I only recommend software I've actually used. This time, I'm recommending ClipMate - and it's one I should've mentioned before, because it's so useful. ClipMate turns the limited one-item-at-a-time Windows clipboard into a powerful tool for keyboard freaks like myself who constantly type the same thing over and over... [read more]

While at Gnomedex I had the fortune of being on The Gillmor Gang along with Steve Gillmor, Dan Gillmor, Chris Pirillo, Jason Calacanis and Robert Scoble. I know I learned a lot by listening to my co-panelists, so I hope you'll listen to the show when you get a chance. [read more]

That's right, I bought a Mac. A cheap iBook, to be exact. I'm not planning to write software for the Mac, but I do want to keep up with the goings-on in the Mac world, and I could also learn a lot from the Mac UI. See, there's one thing that Apple consistently gets right that Microsoft consistently gets wrong:... [read more]

D. Keith Robinson shares his guidelines for linking. [read more]

Ben Hammersley built a tool which creates an RSS feed from the W3C's XHTML validation results. Nice work, Ben! [read more]

Amazon's A9.com search gets high marks in this Business 2.0 article by John Batelle. I played with A9 this morning, and it's certainly impressive. I do wonder, though, how Amazon plans to blend their advertisements into A9's search results without tainting them. (via Om Malik) [read more]

Interesting report on Eyetrack III research, which tested participants' eye movements while viewing several news homepage designs (via Dan Gillmor). [read more]

Dave Shea is building a list of resources for those new to web standards (via WebStandards.org) [read more]

The Firefox 1.0 Preview Release is available. Download it here, and read the release notes here. [read more]

Slashdot discusses how piracy is hurting shareware authors. The discussion links to an article from a Mac shareware author who fears that piracy will force him to shut down his business, and it mentions another developer who resorted to having his software delete the user's home directory when it detected a hacked serial number. [read more]

Scoble has been writing about RSS bandwidth concerns lately, so I thought I'd once again post on this topic. I've posted before about using conditional HTTP Get (If-Modified-Since) to decrease RSS bandwidth consumption, but here's a simple recap of how this works: Almost all aggregators store the date/time that a feed was last updated, and they pass this to the... [read more]

Brian Alvey just dropped me a note to let know about Happy Cog's redesign of Amnesty International, and I'm pleased to see that the new site offers RSS feeds. [read more]

Google is beta-testing Google Grants, which provides "in-kind advertising for non-profit organizations." [read more]

Slightly off-topic here, but I just ran across an interesting article on Microsoft's typography site about the science of word recognition. [read more]

Hot on the heels of the recent Microsoft redesign comes the redesign of Mozilla.org (via Photo Matt). [read more]

Eric Sink examines the world of one-person software companies in his latest MSDN "Business of Software" column. Thanks for including me in your list of examples, Eric! (via .NET Undocumented). [read more]