Busy making things: @mc, notes, tinycast, github, links, photos.
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.
David Mertz investigates polymorphism in Python with multimethods:
Object-oriented programming gains much of its versatility through polymorphism: objects of different kinds can behave in similar ways, given the right contexts. But most OOP programming is single dispatch; that is, just one designated object determines which code path is taken. Conceptually, a more general technique is to allow all the arguments to a function/method to determine its specialization. This article presents an implementation of multiple dispatch in Python, and shows examples where this makes for better programs.
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!>
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… 🙂
Richard Caento found out (by accident) how to turn off the SoapException stack trace.
Apple isn’t concerned that its Airport Extreme products might be rendered noncompliant by possible changes to the “g” protocol, however. Apple spokesperson Nathalie Welch is quoting as saying that the company is “very confident” that, if necessary, it will be able to update its Apple Extreme products via a software or firmware update “that will keep everything in sync with the ratified standard.”
Rick Klau notes that Cisco has purchased Linksys.
I really hope that they do well with Linksys. You’d have to try really hard to mess up what they’ve got going. Their wireless stuff is probably doing quite well.
I spent some time in front of the television this morning.
Instead of doing an overview of national weather, Al Roker gave us the current weather conditions in Iraq. This was followed up with the local weather forcast.
If I start seeing a 5 day extended forecast for Iraq, I think I might take a… better not finish that sentence.
[I’m doing my best to post as little as possible about the hmm hmm in mmhmm hmm, but because I live in the States, I’m immersed in it, no choice]
Thought on the JSP2.0 chapters:
If Wrox falls through completely and doesn’t move on the chapters (highly likely), can we point someone from O’Reilly to the authors of the JSP2.0 Wrox book? I’m sure that they could incorporate or adapt the material that these people have slaved over into something that kicks butt.
Just a thought.
The Danger Hiptop SDK is available. Boing Boing posted an inaccurate rant from AaronSw about it; you actually can run your own apps on your own Hiptop. But it’s still a problem that only T-Mobile-approved apps can be downloaded. It’s increasingly clear that the cellular industry needs to be vertically disintegrated just like wired telcos and ISPs. People also need to learn that “unlimited” plans are part of the problem since they incentivize carries to screw with their customers. I’d much prefer an uncensored pay-per-bit plan.
So far, Danger and T-Mobile have been nonresponsive to developers. They didn’t post any tech specs, and definately didn’t respond to the email that I sent them as a concerned developer. I’m glad that they have released the SDK, but it might be too little too late. Only time will tell, but Nokia and Motorola have been ten times more repsonsive to developers, giving out tech specs, SDKs and emulators to anyone that will take them.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ll definately look into the Danger SDK. I haven’t been able to find anyone locally with a working Hiptop on display for me to check a few crucial sites. If there had been one available, I’d probably have one right now. If the SDK was out at launch, I’d probably have one right now. If they had released any specs whatsoever about which subset of HTML or XHTML that their device supported, well, you get it.
I’ll bet that the color one rocks tho.
Today MontaVista announced that they’ll be powering the new Motorola A760:
CTIA Wireless, New Orleans, March 19, 2003 — MontaVista Software, Inc., the company powering the embedded revolution, today announced that MontaVista™ Linux® is the chosen operating system for the recently announced Motorola A760 mobile phone, the world’s first handset based on Linux and Java technology.
Yeah, I know. It’s just a press release. It’s a big thing though. Montavista is one of the biggest embedded Linux companies out there. They’ve got the ‘free-as-in-speech but not free-as-in-beer’ thing working for them.
If Montavista is going to be providing the power for the new Motorola phones, it will probably give the Symbian phones some good competition, and competition is good. I also like Montavista because while their toolchain and distro isn’t free, they do give away tons of programmer hours back to the community in the form of patches to the Linux kernel and other stuff.
I saw a presentation by someone at Montavista who claimed that they had many of their people working on the Linux kernel in order to bring the kernel up to their specs. Of course they’re also contributing the core kernel code back to the community. At least last summer, they also had several subsystem maintainers on payroll.
Like I said, this should be a good thing for the mobile phone market.
News.Com: “Apple Computer on Wednesday named former Vice President Al Gore to its board of directors.”
Well, I mean he did invent the Macintosh after all. (Badum-ching!)
Reuters via Google News:
The International Monetary Fund on Wednesday approved the latest payment under its Argentine loan program, paving the way for the release of $307 million in cash which the nation will use to repay earlier IMF loans.
Isn’t that like getting a Citibank credit card to pay off a Citibank credit card?
I see a lot of folks using various forms of dynamic code on their websites and have to wonder why?.
Dynamic content and gee-gaws are all well and good. Sometimes it can add to things, supplement a weblog entry, link to related stuff. Other times it detracts from the experience. It can easily get in the way and far too often it does.
For example, I had a googlebox in an early version of my weblog. It was ‘staticly dynamic’ though, it was generated on the fly every time I republished my blog. I removed it after a while because it cluttered things too much. I also ditched the more graphic intensive version of this weblog for a more back-to-basics one.
Now the focus is on the content, and not on the whizzbang stuff. I’ll add back anything dynamic or pseudodynamic if it makes sense, but it’ll have to be really good. Sometimes the dynamic content is just gratuitous. Every once in awhile though, it’s quite useful.
It’s interesting to see referrers and weblog stats. I yearn for trackbacks on my blog, but I’m currently doing without. Sam Ruby adds an excerpt of my blog entry if I point to one of his posts. For awhile, Mark was compiling a ‘related reading’ section based on referrers and such. Stuff like this seems to make sense to me and probably does not consume the resources that an every-page-on-the-fly weblog or site might.
The new Orange Alert aviation regs have created a no-fly-zone around Disneyland and Walt Disney World.
That’s okay by me.
Terra Soft Solutions Inc. has released Yellow Dog Linux 3.0, a new version of its PowerPC-optimized Linux environment. The company is also offering YDL.net Enhanced, a new version of its online community for Yellow Dog Linux users.
The last time that I used YDL was during the early 2.x days. It was stable but a little slow on an 8500/G4-400/256megs/10 gig system. Then again, the system itself is a little slow by today’s standards.