jeremy

In 2006, I took Google and Yahoo to task for not open-sourcing more of the code that makes them tick, given that much of it derives from open-source software that these Web companies modify.

Jeremy Zawodny, then at Yahoo and now at Craigslist, riposted that there are all sorts of legitimate reasons for not contributing back code, but the arguments largely centered on two primary themes: it would be hard, and it might not actually help anyone outside Yahoo to contribute code back.

This was a valid response, but as I said then, those same arguments apply to any company … Read more

For anyone interested in seeing just how different and game-changing open source can be, there's really no need to look beyond MySQL, the open-source database leader. Jeremy Zawodny, formerly of Yahoo, and now of Craigslist, takes a hard look at the changing face of MySQL, reaching some surprising conclusions about MySQL in the process:

Nowadays MySQL has a much slower release cycle than it used to. It's still available in "commercial" and free ("community") releases. There's still a company behind it--a much larger one in fact. But one that also has a vested … Read more

Updated September 12 at 11:12 a.m. with comment from Adobe.

Certain URLs can cause Adobe Acrobat 9 to suffer a denial of service or crash, says a researcher.

According to an alert from the SecuriTeam mailing list, "a vulnerability in Adobe Acrobat 9 allow attackers to cause the program to crash by providing it with a malformed URL."

The alert cites a blog by researcher Jeremy Brown, who provides working exploit code. In one example, Brown uses the string "acroie:///DoS" to cause a DoS in Adobe Acrobat 9 running on Windows Vista.

A … Read more

CNET interns Jeff and Jeremy give the Webcam a premature Fourth of July fireworks show and fuzzify the viewers, but we'll forgive them this time. In other news, we also take apart the Great Firewall of China, beg for Rush Limbaugh's scraps, voraciously consume watermelon with a vengeance, hack a few ATMs across the country, and question Wilson's stubborn refusal to see GOOD MOVIES.

Jeremy Kipnis' $6 million home theater caused quite a stir back in February; so much so that he's now proposing guidelines for others to build a dream home theater for a mere 1 percent of his original price. Kipnis didn't recommend much in the way of specific brands or models of equipment, just the design goals for a $60,000 ultimate home theater.

Here's a brief rundown of what you would need to get close to the performance of Kipnis Studio Standard:

All of the speakers must be identical.

The six or seven-channel layout must be completely … Read more

I once took Jeremy Zawodny, technical director at Yahoo!, to task for not contributing enough back to open source. Today, Zawodny made it clear that openness and open source are in Yahoo!'s DNA. It is a trend that started long ago, Zawodny writes, and will only accelerate over time:

We've been on the openness road for a long, long time at Yahoo. And we take it rather seriously. Some times it hasn't been as visible as others, but believe me, the trend is quite clear when you look at all the data. The Open Source adoption and work. The APIs. The way we communicate with users and partners. The Blogs. The RSS feeds....… Read more

Steve Guttenberg joins us, although not the police academy one, the better audiophiliac one. Monster cables suck, David Lynch is cool, Jeremy Piven is a sellout on the cover of "Heeb," all on today's episode of The 404.

Listen now: Download today's podcast

q&a Last week, business reviews site Yelp (famous for its wild parties and opinionated members) announced that it had raked in $15 million in Series D venture funding--and that the San Francisco-based company would be opening a new office in New York. I caught up with Yelp co-founder and CEO Jeremy Stoppelman over the weekend to talk about a few numbers other than the five-star rating.

Yelp New York, in Manhattan's West Village, opens Monday. But according to Stoppelman, they won't be celebrating with one of the bashes that made his site a bit notorious.

You … Read more

If your typical high-end home theater with rows of plush seats, velvet wallpaper, and popcorn machines offers Cadillac levels of performance and luxury, then Jeremy Kipnis' $6 million ultimate home theater is more like a fire-breathing Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano, the fastest production Ferrari ever built.

This home theater is all about aggressively advancing the state of the art of picture and sound presentation. Yes, it's comfortable and beautiful, but its prime directive is a quest for the very best. Nothing, and I mean nothing, is overlooked. Kipnis won't settle for second best. … Read more