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During his provocative presentation at yesterday's IDC Directions 2011, Gens argued that the future will belong to those tech vendors who can successfully embrace the "third platform."

Computerworld bloggers did a great job at yesterday's Digital Azbee Awards. We placed in three out of three categories! Congratulations!!

Blog -- How-To/Tips/Service -- Gold
Defensive Computing by Michael Horowitz

I propose a new practice to fight spammers at Twitter: #BlockMonday.

SharePoint Saturday DC is collecting canned goods for donation to charities in the northern Virigina area. The organization is sponsoring an event on May 2 for developers, architects and anyone else who is interested in SharePoint.

The event itself is free, but the food drive is a competitive event.

Imagine, if you will, a person who has been laid off. I hope it's hard, but try. Just for a moment. Imagine this person is an agile developer. Imagine that this person has an interest in embedded systems. Imagine this person in Cambridge, MA this weekend. This person is in luck.

Robert Thomson, editor-in-chief of Dow Jones and managing editor of The Wall Street Journal, calls those who aggregate others' content "parasites or tech tapeworms in the intestines of the internet," according to a report in the Australian.

Congratulations to Seth Weintraub on his win of this year's Best blog at yesterday's Neal Awards. The judges mentioned the excellent use of video as reason for the honor. I bet they loved the video of Seth snowblogging from the Alps.

The social media world can be a fun place to play, but it can also be very, very nasty. Digg's Kevin Rose is trying to find the right balance.

What if you created a community and everyone came? What if you told them to create networks and they did? What if your community was so successful that it started to do as it pleased? Would you step in and ban those who were most successful at using the tools you put into their hands? That seems to be what Digg did.