- ZDNet Author Biography
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for nearly 25 years and has covered the online world professionally since 1985. He founded the Interactive Age Daily for CMP Media, and has written for the Chicago Tribune, Advertising Age's "NetMarketing" supplement, and dozens of other publications over the years.- more about Dana Blankenhorn »
ZDNet Resources
- Is Microsoft the answer to Africa's health woes?
- In my story earlier today I pointed out how African researchers see mobile data networks as the key to improving health outcomes on the world's poorest continent. The French group formerly known as Fone+, now combined under Craig Mundie into Microsoft's Unlimited Potential Group, is pushing precisely...
- Tags: Mobile, Health Care, Microsoft Corp., Vertical Industries, Benefits, Smart Phones, Healthcare, Advertising & Promotion, Enterprise Software, Software, Human Resources, Consumer Electronics, Personal Technology, Marketing, Dana Blankenhorn
- Blog posts 2008-05-09
- Africans tie mobile data to health care improvements
- Bridging the digital divide is the key to improving Africa's health, according to organizers of a conference in Namibia this week. And the fastest way to do it is through mobile links. Speakers at the IST-Africa conference in Windhoek said e-health services are key...
- Tags: Mobile, Health Care, E-health, Advertising & Promotion, Vertical Industries, Healthcare, Benefits, Marketing, Enterprise Software, Software, Human Resources, Dana Blankenhorn
- Blog posts 2008-05-09
- The Obama Party and the Googlization of politics
- Barack Obama is the Google of modern American politics. MyBarackObama and Google share strengths and, perhaps, weaknesses. I just described Google's problem with the ASP loophole. By supporting the loophole Google maintains its proprietary advantage but risks losing friends in the open source community....
- Tags: Movement, Google Inc., Barack Obama, Stoller, Open Source, Blogging, Internet, Dana Blankenhorn
- Blog posts 2008-05-09
- Google's open source problem is Affero
- The best open source protection for "the cloud," as Gordon Haff notes today, is the Affero GPL license. (Picture from our Tech Republic's GeekEnd blog, written by Jay Garmon.) Affero closes the "ASP loophole" described by Fabrizio Capobianco here in March. It defines what SaaS delivers as...
- Tags: Google Inc., ClipperZ, Open Source, Dana Blankenhorn
- Blog posts 2008-05-09
- Health care debate is a neverending story
- The longer I cover the health care beat, the more I realize it's the one market where no one is happy. This should not surprise. Supply is naturally limited, demand virtually unlimited. There seems no way to balance the two. Julie...
- Tags: Health Care, Vertical Industries, Benefits, Healthcare, Enterprise Software, Software, Human Resources, Dana Blankenhorn
- Blog posts 2008-05-08
- Sun xVM Virtualbox puts Mac on x86
- The newest version of Sun's xVM Virtualbox adds support for Apple's OSX. (Mac ad satire from Jazebski.Pl in Poland.) The new version is dubbed Version 2.6 and was released during last week's CommunityDays event. This is the first open source virtualization to support the...
- Tags: Apple Macintosh, Sun Microsystems Inc., Intel X86, Sun xVM Virtualbox, Virtualization, Desktops, Server Virtualization, Hardware, Servers, Dana Blankenhorn
- Blog posts 2008-05-08
- Are we all just cognitive surplus?
- Clay Shirky, and his truly handsome hairline, is not into the ragehol like I am. That is, he does not anger easily. But he admits to nearly losing it recently, when after describing a Wikipedia skirmish to a TV producer, he got the question ...
- Tags: Surplus, Shirky, TVs, Tv & Home Theater, Wiki, Personal Technology, Home Entertainment, Online Communications, Dana Blankenhorn
- Blog posts 2008-05-08
- Delaying a PC revolution in cell diagnosis
- What if we could revolutionize medical testing, a platform as basic as a PC? Then what if every application, and every input, had to be separately inspected and approved by the FDA? That's life. Iknoisys of New Haven says it has just such a...
- Tags: FDA, PC, Test, Clearance, Party Solution, Federal Government, Government, Dana Blankenhorn
- Blog posts 2008-05-08
- Always-on boosted by British government study
- Five years ago, on a Corante blog, I began touting something I called the World of Always-On. (Picture from Ofcom.) Sometimes I was made to feel crazy, but I remained convinced that sensors and motes, linked to WiFi networks, could create applications living in the air for...
- Tags: Government, Sensor, Health Care, Vertical Industries, Benefits, Healthcare, Enterprise Software, Software, Human Resources, Dana Blankenhorn
- Blog posts 2008-05-07
- Competing with your own channel
- Matt Asay has a truly fine piece out today about open source vendors competing with their own channels. What he's talking about are companies that sell support for "community" versions of your product. (I have no idea if John Wingert's sales techniques work, but his picture encapsulates the...
- Tags: Matt Asay, Sales Strategy, Sales Force Management, Open Source, Sales, Dana Blankenhorn
- Blog posts 2008-05-07
- Sun's continuing open source problem
- Despite its best efforts Sun Microsystems still has a big open source problem. Commitment. (Affordable Wedding Bands sells rings in both gold and platinum.) Any salesman is expecting a commitment from a buyer. But an open source salesman is expecting a deeper commitment. A...
- Tags: Commitment, Sun Microsystems Inc., Open Source, Dana Blankenhorn
- Blog posts 2008-05-07
- Statin era over?
- The era of statins, drugs like Zocor and Lipitor which lower cholesterol levels, may be ending. The FDA's decisions over the last week to reject Merck's Cordaptive and Isis' Mipomersen, coupled with a demand that the makers prove the drugs improve heart outcomes, looks like a turning...
- Tags: Gram, Blood Pressure, Merck & Co. Inc., Lipitor, Healthcare, Federal Government, Government, Dana Blankenhorn
- Blog posts 2008-05-07
- Nanny state resentment is universal
- As much as health professions seek to warn people away from smoking, drinking, over-eating, and sedentary lifestyles, pushback against such "nanny state" antics seems to be universal. For proof consider Gonzo's great line from the original Muppet Movie. "I'm going to Bombay, India to become a movie star."...
- Tags: Health Care, Bachchan, Pushback, Vertical Industries, Benefits, Healthcare, Enterprise Software, Software, Human Resources, Dana Blankenhorn
- Blog posts 2008-05-06
- Can health care make voice interfaces viable?
- One of the big surprises in my career, watching technology develop, has been the failure of voice interfaces. (Image from Paramount.) Chalk it up to accents and the complexity of English. Listen to a Southerner or a Scotsman and the problem becomes obvious. Better yet try listening...
- Tags: Medicine, Voice, Health Care, Clinician, Professional Development, Vertical Industries, Career, Enterprise Software, Software, Dana Blankenhorn
- Blog posts 2008-05-06
- Do we need another CERT?
- Yes. Google's backing of oCERT is a major milestone in the history of open source. It's not that I have anything against the Computer Emergency Response TeamCERT at Carnegie-Mellon. They do important work, not only in identifying risks but in educating people on them. ...
- Tags: Vulnerability, CERT, Windows Machine, Dana, Security, Open Source, Dana Blankenhorn
- Blog posts 2008-05-06
- Open source as the villain in its own story
- Maybe because of JavaOne and Sun's well-known concerns about open source profit the idea of proprietary hooks which make people pay for open source software is big again. After all, if the code is free and visible why should an enterprise customer write a check to its...
- Tags: Asset, Open Source, Asset Management, Operational Planning, Business Operations, Dana Blankenhorn
- Blog posts 2008-05-06
- How dangerous is computing to your health?
- Recently I have seen a spate of articles suggesting the computing lifestyle is hazardous to your health: Laser toner consists of tiny particles which can be inhaled. In fact indoor air is often worse than outdoor air. As buildings are tightened-up to save energy the need for...
- Tags: Health Care, Computing, Keyboards, Hardware, Peripherals, Dana Blankenhorn
- Blog posts 2008-05-05
- How elastic is health care demand?
- A New York Times feature on the difficulty insured patients are having with health care costs begs an obvious question. How elastic is health care demand? (Comedian Soupy Sales, born Milton Supman, turned 82 in January.) The idea of price elasticity is essential to making...
- Tags: Health Care, Emergency Medicine, Vertical Industries, Benefits, Healthcare, Enterprise Software, Software, Human Resources, Dana Blankenhorn
- Blog posts 2008-05-05
- OpenSolaris released, aimed at storage market
- Sun is officially launching OpenSolaris at its Community One developer conference this morning today in San Francisco. A version for x86 machines, 686 MBytes in size, is already available for download from here. Technically only pre-release versions were available before now. The Solaris code...
- Tags: OpenSolaris, Storage, Dana Blankenhorn
- Blog posts 2008-05-05
- CoreAVC for Linux project coming back to Google
- CoreAVC for Linux, which was removed from Google after a DMCA takedown notice from CoreCodec, will be coming back. The project provides patches enabling open source media players to use CoreAVC software under Linux. A CoreCodec worker using the screen name BetaBoy told an...
- Tags: Google Inc., DMCA, CoreAVC, BetaBoy, Linux, Digital Media, UNIX, Open Source, Operating Systems, Software, Consumer Electronics, Personal Technology, Dana Blankenhorn
- Blog posts 2008-05-05
White Papers and Webcasts
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In this Super Techies interview, larger-than-life techie Marc Canter talks with ZDNet's Editor in Chief Dan Farber about his career as a multimedia pioneer.
Designed specifically to address the concerns of senior IT managers at organizations with more than 100 employees, the Intel Premier IT Professional Program provides best practices via local and e-Seminars and a members-only Web site.
