Off to Toledo for a weekend conference. My first encounter with the TSA since last fall. I’m dreading to find out what happens this time. The last time, incompetence and delays by the airline forced me to take my baggage as carry-on, and I had to surrender an heirloom pocketknife or miss the flight. Hope this time goes better!
Archive | February, 2003
Visual FoxPro 8.0 Released to Manufacturing
Visual FoxPro 8.0 Released to Manufacturing. Here’s [bad link removed] the press release from Ken Levy, PM for Visual FoxPro. While it mainly reads like a standard Microsoft press release, no doubt created from boilerplate, there are a few clumsy and heavy-handed phrases where Ken obviously went off script. (psst, Ken: F7 will check spelling and grammar.) Ken’s no english major, so changes in tense and number often slip by.
“Microsoft currently has no plans to create a service pack” is really meant as good news: the message is that this release is *SOLID*, not that we shouldn’t expect support from Microsoft. (VFP developers tend to be a dour lot, always looking for the down side — I think it’s an effect of having been orphaned by various xBase products in the past.) How about “we’re confident that this version can be rolled out into production systems, and are not aware of any ‘showstopper’ bugs which would cause problems. Should those be found, Microsoft will respond promptly.” I dunno, the legal beagles probably wouldn’t let him say that, either.
Overall, this is good news, as VFP 8 really does contain some great updates. It’s certainly better than those products left behind at the 6.x and 7.x version…
Opera 7.01 available for download from ftp.opera.com
Way to go… 48 hours or less from public disclosure to fix. That’s…. trustworthy computing! Opera 7.0 Security Holes … Fixed [Slashdot]
Competition and Innovation.
Microsoft: Open source could harm us. The software giant warns that the success of the open-source movement could hurt its sales, potentially forcing the company to cut prices and sacrifice both revenue and profits. By Ian Fried, Staff Writer [CNET News.com]
Dave visits Beantown
If you’re in Boston, please mark your calendar for Tuesday evening, February 11, 6PM. We’re going to do a live version of this weblog in a classroom at Harvard Law School (details to follow). It’s open to anyone who has a weblog, not just people from Harvard. I’ll start with a few comments, basically the kind of stuff you read here, probably something about how cold it is, and how thin my blood is. Let’s figure some things out. How should we do weblogs at Harvard? Will the Red Sox ever win the World Series? How to use the technology in law, medicine, education, government, business. These sessions are always fun, they last about 1.5 hours or so, sometimes not so long, sometimes longer. No one falls asleep. [Scripting News]
"Embrace file-sharing, or die" By John Snyder and Ben Snyder
Salon.com has this interesting piece by John Snyder, president of Artist House Records and board member of the National Association of Recording Arts and Sciences. Perhaps this is a better organization to be listening to than the RIAA…
Gregg Easterbrook:
A strong opinion piece from Gregg Easterbrook in the print version of Time due out next week. I couldn’t disagree more. The Shuttles are costly and unweildy, but they need to keep running until they can be replaced. There have been competing proposals for almost 30 years, and it’s time that Congress took the initiative to fund a program to make the U.S. a premiere space-borne nation. The EU, with their Ariane rocket, despite problems, are moving ahead, and the Chinese will soon have an active (and new!) program. We need to be out there. Shut down the shuttle and retire the magnificent and dangerous craft as soon as they are no longer needed.
The Civil War Inside Sony
Interesting article at Wired on the two competing sides of Sony: hardware vs. entertainment.
The C=64 Returns!
Heros
Lost during the effort to lift mankind from the Earth. Rest in peace.
Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds…and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of…wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew.
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
‘High Flight’ by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.
“If we die, we want people to accept it. We’re in a risky business, and we hope that if anything happens to us it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life.”
– Gus Grissom, responding to a reporter, at a press conference for the first manned Apollo mission.