Gene Smith: Six tips for better RSS feeds. Link via Scripting News
Archive | February, 2004
Slashdot reviews ‘MySQL: Building User Interfaces’
Slashdot features a book review of MySQL: Building User Interfaces“If you are a Windows programmer looking to create or move your stand-alone database applications away from Microsoft-specific tools such as Visual Basic, Visual C++, Access or SQL Server, MySQL: Building User Interfaces is written just for you.”
TedRoche.com back up and running
Some find it hard to believe, but folks actually read that stuff. TedRoche.com is back up and running, with DSL restored from the ISP. While they were out, I took advantage of the downtime to reconfigure the cabling, running the DSL POTS wire downstairs to the “server room” (basement) and putting the DSL modem and firewall router downstairs, clearing a bit of desk space (although losing the pretty lights) and giving me some more options in the wiring down there. Unfortunately, it took a while to get it working. Did you know the Ethernet cable coming out of a ZyZel DSL modem shouldn’t be more than six feet long? Me, neither…
Mary Jo lambasts yet another Microsoft ‘study’
Microsoft Watch from Mary Jo Foley reports Microsoft Funds More ‘Facts’. “Microsoft is touting a new “independent” study aimed at helping users make fact-based choices between operating systems. This time, the study was performed by Jupiter Research and commissioned by Microsoft.”
Yet another suspicious “study,” although the devil’s in the details more than the farcical “a mainframe costs more than a bunch of server” study. In this case, there is no “study” really, but a survey of the opinions of people (presumably IS Managers) about what they know about interoperability. That’s surely not the same as evaluating what sort of interoperability is out there. I’ve automated OpenOffice.org from VFP, and you can do so from Perl, Python, Java or C++. I run my SourceSafe files from a Samba share on a Linux box. I can read and write MySQL tables (on any platform) via ODBC or JDBC or Perl libraries or other interfaces. Now, that’s interoperable!
TedRoche.com down
Sorry for the inconvenience. My DSL ISP (TDS Internet) has apparently lost a whole lot of New Hampshire somehow and is trying to get us back on-line. Apologies to those who depend on the RSS feeds. Hope to be back soon.
Open Source Software makes a better router.
Slashdot links to a fascinating report, Creating A Super-Router (For Free), once again highlighting the power of Open Source Software. Linksys uses the Linux OS as the basis for many of their routers, and therefore they must publish the source code for their software. A number of clever programmers have added modifications, enhancements and improvements to the software, giving it additional capabilities or fixing performance nits that might not have been economically feasible for LinkSys to fix and support.
Why Python?
Eric S. Raymond tells the tale of when he first, reluctantly, tried Python, and his surprising discoveries.
Central NH Linux Users Group meeting tonight.
Off to the Central NH Linux Users Group (a chapter of the Greater New Hampshire Linux Users Group) tonight for a demo of Ruby and Mepis.
The Register: Going cold turkey with Windows, well, thinking about it, maybe
The problem with linking to anything from The Register is that their reliability and impartiality is up there with the pulp tabloids you see in the supermarket with badly pasted up pictures of the president shaking hands with an alien. Unfortunately, to me, it’s kind of like roadkill – you want to look away, but at the same time you’re fascinated. In this story, Small firms fighting Microsoft addiction. “Going cold turkey with Windows,” The Reg seems to be pulling material from this Yankee Group press release, entitled “Microsoft Dominance Keeps Small Businesses Awake at Night, Says the Yankee Group” – a document Yankee Group released to promote their upcoming SMB Forum, I suspect. Quite a bit of hyperbole in both documents, but the idea that a large percentage of Microsoft shops are concerned and looking elsewhere is a good thing, I think. Competition and interoperability are necessary for a healthy computing environment.