Interesting read. “Topix.net Weblog: The Secret Source of Google’s Power. This was well known to me, but probably not to everyone.” From Hack the Planet
Archive | 2004
Microsoft releases a little bit of open-source code
Remarkable. A wonderful first step. Microsoft Releases Source Code on SourceForge. The Redmond software giant is making its Windows installer technology under OSI’s Common Public License. [Microsoft Watch from Mary Jo Foley]
John Koziol:
John Koziol blogs: “Before Microsoft made the mistake of actually hiring me (heh), I worked as a vendor to the company for the VFP 6 certification tests. The test teams always debated what could reasonably be expected knowledge of a developer. You see, at that time the concept was to find the MQC – Minimally Qualifed Candidate. What magic set of knowledge indicates that someone should be certified in a tool?
I’ll never forget that Ted Roche, one of the team members, made a fascinating point…”
Usability is hard, redux
Finally finished reading the usability piece I linked to on Friday, and its links, on usability, and I was surprised and disappointed at how it turned out. While I agreed with John Gruber’s early assertions that silly interfaces like the CUPS disaster aren’t a problem for “Aunt Tilly” but rather a problem for each and every one of us, he stretched and stretched this point until he came to the conclusion that Open Source software was never going to be as usable as Windows or Mac. Nonsense. I think FOSS is coming out of the back room and off of the servers onto the desktop, and developing desktop UI is non-trivial, but that progress is being made. RedHat made huge leaps in versions 7, 8, and 9, Ximian is vastly better than what came before it, and even Walmart computers are likely to drive Sun to improve usability. It’s a matter of time and effort.
Slashdot picks it up with Still More on Open Source Usability
Dan Gillmor’s eJournal, on the other hand, must not have gotten the memo, as he reports Linux on Desktop Making Big Strides. “It looks like I’m going to have to reconsider something I’d been taking for granted — that Linux on the desktop, and especially the laptop, was a non-starter in the operating systems race. While I wasn’t paying sufficient attention, the proverbial tortoise has been playing some serious catch-up.”
Glad everyone’s talking…
MSBlast infection: 8 to 16 million computers!
CNET News.com reports that Microsoft has determined, using the Windows Update process, that the number of infected windows systems is orders of magnitude greater than the numbers previously estimated by security firms and academics. Chilling.
MSBlast epidemic far larger than believed. “Researchers previously estimated that the virus infected hundreds of thousands of computers. The latest information from Microsoft indicates that the worm compromised millions of systems.”
OSNews: Usability is hard
OSNews follows up on a response to esr’s recent CUPS rant. Making things easy is really hard. There are still areas that need to be addressed, on all platforms. *What it Really Takes to Get Good Usability on a Product*. John Gruber wrote a public response to Eric Raymond’s articles regarding bad usability/UIs on many open source applications. “Good user interfaces result from long, hard work, by talented developers and designers. The distributed, collaborative nature of open source software works for developer-level software, but works against user-level software. […] Technical documentation is also hard work, and requires talent to be done well. Writers need paychecks, too” says John. Short commentary follows….
BillG: Hardware will be almost free
Poor Bill has taken a hammering for a quote pulled out of context in a recent speech, where he was claiming that hardware costs will become insignificant, not that hardware will be “too cheap to meter.” (Bill, if you’ve got one of those nifty Bluetooth keyboard/mouse combinations sitting around, you’ve got my address…).
What is true is that the cost per CPU process (MIPS or gigaflops or whatever you like to measure) is going down, but software always seems to find a way to bloat and get more sluggish to keep up with it. On the hardware side, Bill Machrone had a PC Magazine column about once a year where he observed his dream machine still cost about $3,000. My dream notebook still costs $4,500, 10 years after it first cost that much.
But software is a different matter, and here are some ideas that should be worrying Bill. Hardware is likely to be a relatively constant cost, and software costs will always exist for development, installation, configuration, maintenance and customization. But some software, once written, ought not need to be written again.
Hard facts for software. “Bill Gates says hardware will be almost free. But CNET News.com’s Michael Kanellos says software is more likely to go that way.” Link from CNET News.com
Imagine that: innovation in the browser market!
Mac OS X hints reviews TrailBlazer – a new idea in presenting browser history. It’s about time someone took this one on. How many times have you recalled a web page you’d seen recently, but been unable to find it? Wouldn’t you like to have a Google on your own machine, for your own browser history? This is a move in that direction. Great idea!
TrailBlazer – The browser history file rethought. The macosxhints Rating:[Score: 10 out of 10]Developer: MacWarriors. Posted on macosxhints
Installation blues cured
Well, it took some struggle, but I got the Python project up and running on the Mac. Many of my struggles had to do with working in an unfamilar environment, although now I’m catching myself typing ls in DOS command shells :). A few of my struggles were just the rtfm kind, where I couldn’t understand why it wouldn’t work after I did step one and three… until the obvious answer, step two, hit me on the eighth or tenth read. doh.
One of the key ideas was to understand that you might install a couple of different “pythons” in a couple of different directory structures, but you only needed to specify the path to the one you wanted to work with, and they could each be used autonomously. Easy to say now, hard to grok when I was in the trenches. So, fink’s python is installed in /sw and works fine with other fink projects, MacPython is installed in /usr/bin and appears in the Application folder. Launch the first with “python” and the latter with “pythonw” or specify paths for it to be explicit.
MacWorld: OS X Secrets revealed
So much to learn, so little time. Some cool Panther Secrets Revealed in this article from MacWorld. It’s a pretty cool tool!