IT Conversations

Jonathan Taylor - Tropo

Mon, 6 Jul 2009 00:00:00 CDT

Jonathan Taylor's company, Voxeo, was started so that anyone could create applications for the phone. In this short program, Taylor introduces his company's new API, Tropo. With Tropo, developers will not be limited to XML based telephony but will be offered a core API that allows application developers to choose from five general purpose programming languages to write code in.

Daniel Goleman - Ecological Intelligence

Sun, 5 Jul 2009 00:00:00 CDT

Moira interviews Daniel Goleman about his new book, Ecological Intelligence: How Knowing the Hidden Impacts of What We Buy Can Change Everything. His book discusses the hidden environmental consequences of what we make and buy, and how with that knowledge we can drive the essential changes we all must make to save our planet and ourselves.

Tony Coles - One Drug Pharmaceutical Companies

Sun, 5 Jul 2009 00:00:00 CDT

Moira Gunn interviews Dr. Tony Coles, President and CEO of Onyx Pharmaceuticals, about the challenges to a company that depends on a single drug for business success.

David Helvarg - The U.S. Coast Guard

Thu, 2 Jul 2009 00:00:00 CDT

Moira talks to author David Helvarg about his book, Rescue Warriors: The U.S. Coast Guard, America's Forgotten Heroes. He tells the story of the Coast Guard and how their missions range from saving fishermen in the icy waters off Alaska to rescuing thousands in the wake of Katrina.

JJ Bienaime - Orphan Diseases

Thu, 2 Jul 2009 00:00:00 CDT

Dr. Moira Gunn talks to JJ Bienaime, President & CEO of BioMarin Pharmaceuticals about the problem of orphan diseases, diseases not yet under research by pharmaceutical companies because of a lack of financial incentive to market new medications for treatment.

Episode 60 - StackOverflow

Wed, 1 Jul 2009 00:00:00 CDT

Joel and Jeff discuss the value (or lack thereof) of meta-discussion, how much "big iron" popular websites need, and whether code forking is sometimes inevitable.

Sheeri K. Cabral - How to be a MySQL Community Superhero

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:00:00 CDT

Even without deep technical knowledge or a fat Rolodex, you can be a community superhero. In this talk from the 2009 MySQL Conference, Sheeri Cabral, the 2007-2008 MySQL Advocate of the Year, shares some pointers on things anyone can do to help the technology and community of your favorite open source project.

Paul Hastings - Cancer Stem Cells

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 00:00:00 CDT

Paul Hastings, president and CEO of Oncomed Pharmaceuticals, discusses the controversial topic of cancer stem cells, what he calls the root of the tumor. He also talks about how his company is working with other pharmaceutical companies who are helping with Oncomed's biotech work.

Geoff Nunberg - Talking Dangerously

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 00:00:00 CDT

Moira speaks with Fresh Air commentator and linguist Geoff Nunberg, who discusses his book The Years of Talking Dangerously and assesses the impact of words in a dynamic, changing world. In the book, he explains why grammar buffs are drawn to sarcasm, and deftly unpacks the telling phrases of our national conversation, from progressive to elite to change, as well as the national conversation itself.

Kevin Kelly - Believing in the Impossible

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 00:00:00 CDT

It's been approximately 6,500 days since Tim Berners-Lee created the first Web page. In such short a time, the Web has achieved far more than could be thought of at the time. What will the next 6,500 days bring us? Noted author, and former editor of the Wired magazine, Kevin Kelly, speculates on the future of the Web.

David Kessler - The End of Overeating

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 00:00:00 CDT

Moira speaks with former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner David Kessler about his book The End of Overeating, in which he discusses what has been invisibly added to the American supply, leaving some of us obese, and many of us, unexpectedly overweight. He tells us the science behind what happens to our brains when we eat food laden with salt, fat and sugar.

Matt Gardner - California Biotech Companies

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 00:00:00 CDT

Moira interviews Matt Gardner, President & CEO, BayBIO, the Northern California Life Sciences Organization, about the organization's the new free online Impact 2009 Report about all the biotech companies in California and everything they are working on.

Rory Cooper, Jim "Oz" Osborn - Quality of Life

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 00:00:00 CDT

Moira speaks with Rory Cooper and Oz Osborn about quality of life technology. The Quality of Life Technology (QoLT) Center is a National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center (ERC) who's mission is to transform lives in a large and growing segment of the population, people with reduced functional capabilities due to aging or disability.

Episode 59 - StackOverflow

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 00:00:00 CDT

Joel and Jeff sit down with Damien Katz to discuss non-conventional databases, non-conventional programming languages, and taking on non-conventional programming projects.

Dave Winer - Tweeting the News

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 00:00:00 CDT

Dave Winer discusses how Twitter and other social networking tools are changing the way that people read and react to the news. He talks about how the new ways to keep track of events have changed over the years and how these new methods are also likely to change. He also reviews his work in Twitter stats and what we can learn from them as well as where things may go next.

Keith Bergelt - Open Invention Network

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 00:00:00 CDT

The Open Invention Network is a collaborative enterprise formed to promote Linux, and protect the open source community from the threats of patent assertion and litigation. Keith Bergelt's job as the CEO is to ensure that the edges of this network are not intruded upon, and that the self-regulatory nature of open source has an opportunity to spread beyond Linux and the 300 plus programs that exist today.

David Heinemeier Hansson - Rails 3 and the Secret To High Productivity

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 00:00:00 CDT

Ruby on Rails has been around for five years and three major versions, and while many small things have changed, the major principles are still the same. In this talk from the 2009 RailsConf, David Heinemeier Hansson, the creator of Rails, lists some of the things that failed to "kill" Rails, the philosophy and details of the upcoming Rails 3 release, and the key to productivity in software development.

Steven Willmott - Online Data Access

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 00:00:00 CDT

There's growing awareness of the need to publish data online, and to support programmatic access to that data. In this conversation, host Jon Udell talks with Steven Willmott about how his company, 3Scale, helps businesses create and manage application programming interfaces to their data.

Episode 58 - StackOverflow

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 00:00:00 CDT

Joel and Jeff discuss HTML encoding, designing "safe by default", whether a question can be too simple, and the art of beta testing.

Sachin Agarwal, Garry Tan - Posting With Posterous

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 00:00:00 CDT

As more individuals have an online presence, developers continue to come up with new ways for people to post items. Sachin Agarwal and Garry Tan discuss Posterous, a rich microblogging platform. They talk about how the service was developed, the architecture of the process, and the security methods in place to protect people. They also review their business model and their product roadmap.

Peter Diedrich - Mobivox CRM Launch

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 00:00:00 CDT

Voice is the most natural, comfortable form of communication, but most customer interaction is done through text. In this presentation from the 2009 Emerging Communications Conference, Peter Diedrich of Mobivox describes their new voice CRM platform that improves customer satisfaction and retention by including sales messages into typical customer interactions.

Alexander Saint-Amand; Thomas A. Desmond - Social Networks and Financial Markets

Sat, 13 Jun 2009 00:00:00 CDT

Alexander Saint-Amand and Thomas A. Desmond describe how their firms use social networking techniques to meet the unique challenges of investment research and online trading. Saint-Amand explores how Gerson Lehrman Group qualifies & engages a global network of experts. Desmond details how TradeKing uses community features and user-generated content to change trading from a solitary experience to a social one.

Scott Ruthfield - Jiffy: Open Source Performance Measurement and Instrumentation

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 00:00:00 CDT

Scott Ruthfield describes Jiffy, a new open source performance measurement tool for measuring true client-side performance of web sites. Ruthfield identifies the components of website performance problems and the decision process that led WhitePages.com to develop their own solution. Jiffy's goals, components, and a sample implementation provide a thorough introduction to the toolkit.

Episode 57 - StackOverflow

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 00:00:00 CDT

Joel and Jeff discuss the relationship between speed and skill, iPhone development, and the value of programming fundamentals.

Jeremy Toeman - Protecting Your Digital Assets

Tue, 9 Jun 2009 00:00:00 CDT

What happens to your online assets when you die? How can you make sure that your family can gain access to your digital identity? Jeremy Toeman, founder and CEO of Legacy Locker, talks about how the company has developed a way to protect your online assets. He discusses the background of the service and the information Legacy Locker is meant to protect, as well as examples of the kind of options users have, as well as the security issues included.

Dirk Hohndel - Moblin, Linux for Next Generation Mobile Internet

Mon, 8 Jun 2009 00:00:00 CDT

If you're looking for a Linux initiative that is truly open source, where you can download the source, contribute without censorship, and drive the project, check out Moblin.org. The Moblin project was conceived in order to drive innovation on the new breed of Internet-enabled mobile devices, to foster community participation, and to avoid locking into a proprietary platform. Dirk Hohndel, the helmsman, woos open source developers to take this platform to its next level by participating in the community.

Vik Chaudhary, Abelardo Gonzalez - Keynote Internet Testing Environment

Sat, 6 Jun 2009 00:00:00 CDT

Today there are tools for testing web applications, but they are difficult to use, costly, and poorly integrated with web browsers. In response to these limitations, Vik Chaudhary and Abelardo Gonzalez of Keynote Systems announce their new web testing product, the Keynote Internet Testing Environment.

Mark Madsen - Using Open Source BI in the Real World

Fri, 5 Jun 2009 00:00:00 CDT

As Business Intelligence becomes more and more popular as a way for companies to achieve an advantage, some companies ahead of the curve are adopting open source BI software. Analysts have not been positive in their predictions of open source use, but they may be mistaken. Mark Madsen describes the results of his study showing who is using open source BI software, why they're using it, and what the benefits are. His results indicate that while open source BI is not widely accepted yet, its users are just ahead of the curve.

Episode 56 - StackOverflow

Wed, 3 Jun 2009 00:00:00 CDT

Joel and Jeff sit down with Jason Calacanis to discuss the business side of software, including Mahalo's "Skee-Ball" economy, when VC funding is appropriate, and whether SEO matters.

George Reese - Cloud Applications

Tue, 2 Jun 2009 00:00:00 CDT

Cloud computing has become the most discussed methods of infrastructure deployment. George Reese, author of Cloud Application Architectures, joins Phil and Scott to discuss the style. In addition to giving an overview, he reviews the specific issues related to it, including storage options, security and privacy, and how to deal with disaster recovery.