New York Times: NYT HomePage reports Edwards to Be Replaced as NPR Host. “National Public Radio has bounced Bob Edwards, host of “Morning Edition” since its inception in 1979, out of his job.” By The Associated Press.
How sad, six months short of his 25th year on the show. I’ve enjoyed Edwards a lot. Replacing him for no apparent reason than “refreshing” the show seems pretty weak. Glad they didn’t treat Cronkite like that.
There’s some interesting follow-up to Dan Gillmor’s post I mentioned yesterday, where Dan is pointing to Jon Udell’s recent column on the new Mozilla FireFox browser in comparison to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Dan took it as a complaint on the monopoly power of IE supressing development of great tools on other (better?) platforms; Jon replied that that wasn’t his intent. Both the comments on Dan’s site and Jon’s original article are worth a read.
Boston Fox UG, Wednesday, March 24, A Whirlwind Tour of Microsoft SQL Server. A Whirlwind Tour of Microsoft SQL Server – From Newbie to VLDB Design (Very Large Databases) by Steven Lundahl, Senior Developer, Brickmill Marketing Services, Nashua, NH. Steve is the system architect and DBA of a 500 GB fundraising database system using SQL Server and Visual FoxPro with some VB (and soon .NET). Steve presents a general orientation on SQL Server tools including: Enterprise Manager, Query Analyzer, Data Transformation Services and SQL Profiler. He then moves on to discuss database design, programming techniques and hardware considerations for scalability and performance. Emphasis is on planning for Very Large Databases. Programming examples are in T-SQL, Visual FoxPro, VB6 and C#/.NET Windows Forms. 7:00pm, Microsoft offices, 210 Jones Rd., Waltham, MA. Bonus: 2 Microsoft-supplied doorprizes. For more UG information and directions, tune into http://www.bostonusergroups.com/vfpboston By Boston Area FoxPro User Group. [FoxCentral News]
Firefox May be Better, But Internet Explorer is Entrenched. Jon Udell says Firefox fills the IE void by being a better browser than Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, which has stagnated since Microsoft destroyed serious competition in the browser business. I use it, too,but unfortunately it doesn’t fill the void at all.
[Dan Gillmor’s eJournal]
Slashdot asks Can Your ATM Play Beethoven? Hard as it is to believe, Diebold, the manufacturers of electronic voting machines raising a great controversy, have a diversified product line that includes ATMs running Windows XP. Why is it we need Windows XP in order to read a magnetic stripe, verify a PIN, and disgorge bills? Scary stuff. (Picture courtesy of unworkable.org)
I don’t think even a ThinkPad stands a chance against a Powerbook.
However, I’ve intalled Fedora Core 1 on a second hard drive in my THinkPad (A31p) and have been delighted with the capabilities and compatibility. Hope to document some more of what I’ve done soon…
In the meantime, Doc blogs… ThinkPad vs. PowerBook, Round 1.
Driving to Laptopia is my latest SuitWatch at Linux Journal. Comments welcome (at the bottom of the piece, not here).
[The Doc Searls Weblog]
Microsoft: Better security means delayed product releases. By allocating more resources to security, Microsoft concedes that future product ship dates will slip further. On the bright side, this means most of us won’t have to play the upgrade game so soon. [Ars Technica]
Is it time for the OSS movement to move on Capitol Hill?. The OSS movement is often accused of being fast and easy with copyrights and intellectual property. Stanford Law School professor Lawrence Lessig argues that it’s time for OSS to change that perception. [Ars Technica]
Microsoft Apologizes For Previous Anticompetitive Acts. [OSNews]
Questioning Free Trade Mathematics. Some economists have begun to rethink the costs of exporting jobs. By Jeff Madrick. [New York Times: Business]