Notes from the field: The expert and watchful eyes of Robert X. Cringely were on Google founders Larry Page's wedding on a private island owned by Richard Branson. "The more interesting marriage, to my mind, is the one between Page and Branson -- and I don't mean that in a pass-the-baby-oil kind of way," Cringe writes in Google's Virgin marriage. "Neither man has met an industry he didn't want to disrupt -- music, airlines, wireless communications, space travel, advertising, media ... Imagine a world where the two great forces merged. Branson builds it, Google slaps ads on it, we buy it. A new cartel for the new century. Or something like that."

App dev: While Paris on Rails conference organizers apparently missed the news, a new version, Ruby on Rails 2.0 was released Friday. In response to that, Martin Heller looks at Installing Rails 2.0 on Windows XP. "Nothing is ever easy," he concludes.

The news beat: Intel laces vPro with encryption to add a new layer of hard drive protection and ease the use of commercial encryption tools. Following in Google's footsteps, NetSuite kicks off an auction-style IPO, hoping to bring in between $13 to $16 per share. Iona upgrades SOA technologies, both proprietary and open source, including Artix and Fuse product lines. And LinkedIn opens its site to developers amid a home page redesign.

Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 10, 2007 10:43 AM