Day: March 21, 2003

Here’s a hot tip from Freshmeat today:

1.1 RC2 is being released to get ready to release 1.1 in March. This release serves to get recent bugfixes and improvements out to the testing community so that 1.1 final can be as good as possible. Please bang on the APIs, kick the tires, and let the authors know about any problems you have.

Go grab it here.  I’ll try to play with it when I get a chance.

Update (so far so good):

<getVersionReturn xsi:type=”xsd:string”>
   Apache Axis version: 1.1RC2 Built on Mar 05, 2003 (02:08:42 EST)
</getVersionReturn>

Use Perl:

DC Perl Mongers Presents An Evening with Mark-Jason Dominus, April 8th, 2003 7:30 pm at the American Geophysical Union (AGU).

Cool.  I’ll try to attend, but I don’t know what’ll be going on then.

If Slashdot is correct that the new Wallace and Gromit game will only be available for PS2 or Xbox, I will buy one or the other.  It’s really sad, nothing so far has convinced me to sink money into either system.  Yeah, there are some great games, but nothing has spoken to me yet.

Cracking toast, Gromit.

Linux Journal via Stephen Kelley:

Roughly a year ago I reviewed a mail server for Linux that features integration with Microsoft’s Outlook and offers calendaring/scheduling options with shared busy/free information. However, it did not have many features that Outlook offers in corporate mode, including sending meeting requests to groups of users who can then reply and delegating rights so secretaries can manage their bosses agendas on-line. This current review shows a year’s time was enough for Linux solutions to arise that can compete with Microsoft Exchange and Outlook and offer a lower price, with all the important features included.

The article covers Bynari InsightServer and Kroupware, but leaves out OpenExchange by Suse.  Of the three, I’ve only seen OpenExchange in action, and it absolutely rocks.  If you’re looking for an Exchange alternative, take a look at OpenExchange too.

Brighthand via Erik:

There has been some concern expressed in the Pocket PC community that, by making Visual Studio .NET 2003 the only option for creating .NET Compact Framework applications, it is squeezing out small developers. The new version of Visual Studio .NET is expected to cost more than $1,000, out of the price range of most hobbyists.

I understand that Microsoft has to make money.  They can’t just give away their tools.  However, the J2ME community is buzzing with apps because there are several SDKs and toolchains that are available ABSOLUTELY FREE.

As a developer of anything that interests me, and mobile development currently interests me, I’d love to be developing for the .NET Compact Framework.  I just simply can’t afford it.

It was really cool that MS released eMbedded Visual Tools for free.  I miss that now for developing for the .NET CF.

Any chance of a stripped down eMbedded Visual Tools for .NET or Web Matrix-style app?  Or will someone step in with an app similar to SharpDevelop?  It would be great, but I’m not going to hold my breath.

You could probably convince me to buy a $99 .Net Compact Framework SDK, much like purchasing Visual Basic .NET or C# .NET ala carte.  I just think that $1000 as an entry level to develop for .NET Compact Framework is silly.  There are going to be fewer good apps for the platform because of it.

I’m not an MS hata.  Really, I’m not.  I may be an open source junkie, and sometimes that conflicts with the MS way, but I try to be objective as possible.  Some of the stuff that MS does makes complete sense from both a design and business sense.  This ain’t one of them though.

Needless to say, I’ve been experimenting with J2ME recently in addition to the WAP stuff, Python stuff, C# stuff, Java stuff, and all the other stuff that I play with in my copious free time.  I would so love to add .NET Compact Framework to this list.

Frank Cohen at IBM DeveloperWorks discusses the differences in SOAP encoding styles and performance.  It’s a really good article imho:

Software developers have many choices for building Web service systems. In a recent investigation, Frank Cohen discovered that a choice of SOAP encoding style in particular immediately affects system scalability and reliability. In this article, he describes the different encoding choices and shows the performance and reliability tradeoffs that come with each. He also delivers tools that you can use to stage tests in your own environment.

I’d be interested to hear Sam‘s reaction to the article.

CNet has a fairly same old article on RSS:

“It’s very, very easy now to create a Web page with the latest information…People are starting to use them inside their companies, and they produce RSS feeds,” said RSS author Hammersley. “It’s a no-brainer to tie them together.”

I also saw someone note that Ben Hammersly‘s Content Syndication with RSS, which is at the printers, has a sample chapter online.

Rael:

The O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference has TrackBacks (and their associated auto-discovery RDF) baked into every single keynote, tutorial, session, and BoF page. This means you can target your bloggings of the event, providing both us, the organizers, and your peers with live feedback on the goings on. <good on you, terrie!>

Joi Ito:

Adam Greefield is proposing to hold a conference about moblogging in Tokyo this summer. Sounds like a good idea. Especially the fact that it’s in Tokyo. 😉

If only money were no object, it would be a great conference to attend… 🙂