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Ted's Radio Weblog
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Friday, December 31, 2004 |
There are a few web sites I like to keep track of that don't yet have RSS feeds. Check out FeedFire.com, a web site and service that will generate an RSS feed from a web page for free. There are options to sponser the RSS feed and add in some editorial control, at pretty reasonable prices.
5:35:42 PM 
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May each of you have a happy, healthy and prosperous new year.
10:52:09 AM
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Tuesday, December 28, 2004 |
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Monday, December 20, 2004 |
2004: A year of high-tech changes. "The year 2004 defied predictions: IBM sold its PC arm to a Chinese competitor, Oracle managed to swallow PeopleSoft, and -- perhaps the most dramatic of all -- Microsoft and Sun Microsystems aligned to make their products interoperate." Source: InfoWorld: Top News. So begins the end of the year summaries, flashbacks and punditries. Brace yourself for two weeks of reviews.
9:00:51 PM
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Sunday, December 19, 2004 |
Why NOT to Upgrade Your Linux System. Nathan Willis writes, over on NewsForge, "I'm not upgrading my Fedora Core 2 machine to Core 3, even though the new version has been out for a couple of months. There's not anything wrong with FC3 itself, it's just that system upgrades are both a blessing and a curse." Link via OSNews
True of every operating system out there, machines tend to build up cruft over a period of time, and a clean wipe-and-reinstall are called for. However, the incremental difference between FC2 and FC3 can be addressed by careful upgrades of only those applications you need, rather than a haphazard upgrade from one distribution to another, I think
6:33:38 PM
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A Journalism Giant Retires.  Dan Gillmor's eJournal Notes "Bill Moyers has completed his last episode of NOW with Bill Moyers, a PBS program that looked in depth at critical issues... Moyers is a hero in journalism. He's not always right, but he's been asking the tough questions... He's been especially tough on the press, which in many ways has abdicated its public trust in recent years. We need more voices like his, not fewer."
6:29:21 PM
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Quick Review of OpenOffice 2.0 Preview Release. "The Sun-sponsored OpenOffice.org project based on open sourced StarOffice code has released a preview of the upcoming OpenOffice 2.0 product. This version touts better MS-Office loading and parsing, strict XML compliant output, a new database program that mimics Microsoft's Access, and much more. The Inquirer took it for a spin." Link via OSNews
The new version looks pretty sleek. Improved load times are welcomed. And I'll be interested in their OOBase, a database front end.
6:21:21 PM
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This is one of those stories that could go on for a long time, so I've posted the first draft to my essays section.
10:17:31 AM
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In one of his high-flying and far-ranging columns, Cringely offers his theory for the strategies and tactics of IBM's move to sell its PC business to Lenova, Microsoft's plans for xBox2 (is it true you need to develop the games on a G5-based Mac?), why Sun and Apple don't matter, and how Microsoft will take over the world:
With its continual need for more revenue, Microsoft will by then have already finished its destruction of the world software market, will have sucked all the profit out of the world hardware market, and will discard its hardware OEMs like HP and Dell and compete with them head-to-head.
Sometimes insightful, sometimes delusional, Cringely is always worth a quick read. And a large grain of salt.
9:52:07 AM
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Friday, December 17, 2004 |
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Thursday, December 16, 2004 |
Continuing his light-hearted and insightful series of essays, Joel reveals the deep dark secrets of software pricing, and why none of them work. Halfway through the essay: "That was the easy part. The hard part is that everything I just told you is sort of wrong." Three-quarters of the way: "There's no software priced between $1000 and $75,000. I'll tell you why." He does warn you, along the way, that you will end up learning nothing, but I think he undersells himself. Pricing is a fine art of balancing contradictory and opposing motivations, with insufficient information, and never knowing if you guessed right. Good reading!
10:02:31 AM
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Wednesday, December 15, 2004 |
Linux Looms Larger Than Thought. "The overall Linux market is far larger than previous estimates show, a new study says. In an analysis of the Linux market released late Tuesday, market research firm IDC estimated that the Linux market -- including servers, PCs and packaged software -- is expected to register a 26% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over five years, reaching a whopping $35.7 billion by 2008." Source: OSNews
3:16:30 PM
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The United States Bill of Rights celebrates its birthday today.
11:23:40 AM
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"Microsoft issues five bulletins on Windows flaws. Microsoft today released five Security Bulletins warning of several vulnerabilities that put computers running Windows at risk of attack. None are rated "critical," Microsoft's highest severity rating." Source: Computerworld News
The bulletins, MS04-41, MS04-42, MS04-43, MS04-44, MS04-45 are somehow listed as "important" rather than "critical despite the fact that the compromises can "allow remote code execution," "elevation of privileges" and denial of service. I'd hate to see what "really, really important" meant!
Also note that Microsoft "re-released" MS04-28, version 2, where a problem in GDI+ and JPEG processing can affect nearly every recent application, including Visual FoxPro 8.0. Shouldn't a three-month lag between release and update qualify the sequel of the original security announcement for its own number? Not in Microsoft twisted logic, apparently. Make sure your systems are patched up to date!
It's the 51st week of the year.
10:21:49 AM
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Tuesday, December 14, 2004 |
Steve Sawyer, the man when it comes to VFP RI, and an insightful developer, is off on his next career, but we can still catch a little wisdom from his blog, such as A Spoke in the Wheel: "The most carefully formulated business processes can be short-circuited, sidetracked, derailed or otherwise thwarted by the very people responsible for implementing or following the process." Source: Steve's Transitions Journal
4:40:50 PM
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Monday, December 13, 2004 |
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Sunday, December 12, 2004 |
On a weekly basis, I back up a bunch of stuff from the file server by burning CDs on one of the local workstations. Some of the stuff doesn't change a lot. Copying gigabytes, even over a high-speed network, takes time. Since I'm copying files from a Linux server, I found a quick solution that works regardless of the destination: Linux, Mac or Windows. The Mac is busy making its own backups Sunday morning, so I thought I'd find a way to do it on Windows. Using CygWin, the UNIX simulator and bash shell, I could use the rsync command to copy only the files that had changed, reducing a long copy to a few minutes.
rsync -vr tedroche@the.server.ip.address:/the/source/directory /cygdrive/c/destination
With 'v' for verbose and 'r' for recursive, copying all the subdirectories. Piece of cake. Doesn't interoperability rock? Working well with others is A Good Thing.
11:59:59 AM
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Saturday, December 11, 2004 |
Why Nerds Are Unpopular. "If you're too cool for school, you're probably not very smart. Some of us would rather build rockets than friendships." By Paul Graham from Wired magazine. Wired News
Paul is doing a great job of syndicating essays from his latest book, "Hackers and Painters."
6:58:44 PM
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In Jon Udell's December 9th weblog entry, he points to several interesting Internet Calendar exchange projects going on. It's surprising to realize that there is no single standard that lets us all exchange free/busy time, invite people to events, or synchronize meetings with clients/employees/vendors, etc. Such a standard is overdue.
6:07:49 PM
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Friday, December 10, 2004 |
CNET News.com reports This week in the wild, wild Web. "At Oracle OpenWorld, Sun CEO Scott McNealy inadvertently illustrates how easy it is to fall for a high-tech hoax." McNealy shoud be ashamed. Any good engineer ought to know better.
I got a real kick out of the picture, as it illustrates, in the background, a control center nearly identical to the on the submarine I served on from 1981-1986. It was a chilling flashback for me. At one time or another, I worked at all three of the consoles pictured, and can rattle off what each component is to this day, twenty years later.
Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure I worked on a DECWriter similar to the one in the foreground, in college in the 70's.
And, no, we didn't get to watch TV on the submarine.
4:05:29 PM
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Thursday, December 9, 2004 |
OSNews notes Mossberg: OS X "Rock Solid"; G5 iMac "Best" PC "Ever Reviewed". "Wall Street Journal technology columnist Walt Mossberg gave the highest praise possible to not one but two Apple Computer products in his Thursday Personal Technology column, calling Mac OS X "rock solid" and the G5 iMac "the single best desktop computer I have ever reviewed." Mr. Mossberg used his weekly column to discuss the plague of viruses, spyware and other security problems that primarily affect the Windows platform."
Mossberg is not the kind of zealot who trumpets every new machine as the greatest thing ever. Over the course of the last year, he has lost his affection for Microsoft, and begun recognizing the other alternatives out there. Having a voice as authoritative as that of the WSJ's technologist can only help bring more reason to the discussion.
10:21:23 PM
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Wednesday, December 8, 2004 |
With the release of Thunderbird, some folks complain that it isn't an Outlook-killer, as it doesn't have built in calendaring and task lists (it does have an address book). The Mozilla Foundation is building separate components for most of those features, whereas the Mozilla (nee' Netscape) browser had everything on one executable file. Jon Udell takes a look at the Sunbird calendar in Jon's Radio today and reports: Mozilla Calendar. "It's been a while since I looked at Mozilla Calendar, so this morning I installed the Firefox version and gave it another whirl. My first reaction was that this descendant of Netscape's calendar program must share a lot of DNA with the original -- it feels a tad clunky, UI-wise, in the same kinds of ways..."
1:53:31 PM
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InfoWorld: Top News reports that China's Lenovo to buy IBM's PC business. "TOKYO - China's Lenovo Group Ltd. signed a definitive agreement on Wednesday to acquire IBM Corp.'s personal computing division. Lenovo will pay US$1.25 billion in cash for the business, which is expected to transform it into the world's number three PC maker, the companies announced."
This is certainly a worry for those of us who depend on the reliability and ruggedness of our ThinkPads. While the manufacture of the machines has been outsourced for years, the responsibility has always fallen to the company with those three letters on the case: IBM. Expect a conservative IT market to shy away from the machines for a while. With luck, the spinoff can be as successful as the Lexmark deal.
Follow-up: A news.com editorial opines "Why Lenovo-IBM is a tough sell"
9:59:04 AM
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InfoWorld: Top News reports that China's Lenovo to buy IBM's PC business. "TOKYO - China's Lenovo Group Ltd. signed a definitive agreement on Wednesday to acquire IBM Corp.'s personal computing division. Lenovo will pay US$1.25 billion in cash for the business, which is expected to transform it into the world's number three PC maker, the companies announced."
This is certainly a worry for those of us who depend on the reliability and ruggedness of our ThinkPads. While the manufacture of the machines has been outsourced for years, the responsibility has always fallen to the company with those three letters on the case: IB/font>. Expect a conservative IT market to shy away from the machines for a while. With luck, the spinoff can be as successful as the Lexmark deal.
9:58:37 AM
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Tuesday, December 7, 2004 |
 The Mozilla organization announces the 1.0 version of their Thunderbird email client has shipped. I've been using Thunderbird for a few months on my Windows machines and have enjoyed the ease of use, spam filtering and security.
8:59:40 AM
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Monday, December 6, 2004 |
Red Hat responds to their competitor's claims with "Truth Happens:"
"First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win."
- Mohandas Gandhi
December 6, 2004. Just another day at Red Hat.
The open source software model continues to make better software faster, just as it has for years. New people figure this out every day.
Some wonder why Red Hat doesn't spend more time defending ourselves. Refuting their "facts" with our "facts." Fighting to see who can buzz loudest.
Our feeling? We'll continue to bring choice to our customers. We'll continue to make better software faster, that scales and is surrounded by a powerful ecosystem of hardware and applications. Software that is priced fairly, and backed by quality service you can trust.
The evidence speaks for itself.
Check out the site for lots of interesting facts.
11:19:31 AM
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Jeffrey Zeldman Presents: The Daily Report points out It takes a train to laugh."... check out Eric Meyer's Simple Standards-based Slide Show System, which lets you turn a single page into an unlimited number of virtual "slides," complete with Back and Next buttons and a self-generating navigational drop-down menu." What a slick deisgn! An entire slide show with navigation, CSS for design, display and print and cross-browser compatibility. Really cool!
9:13:15 AM
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Sunday, December 5, 2004 |
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Saturday, December 4, 2004 |
A marvelous rant from InfoWorld: Application development: Microsoft remains clueless about fixing IE. "Amazing. Article after blog after newsgroup message on why an increasing spike in the population graph is switching from Internet Explorer to Firefox or some other Web wanderer. All easily summarized like so (picture me shouting at the great Northwest): Because with Firefox we don't need to worry about some nameless virgin's virus experiment eating our hard disks like a pile of wet sushi. We just want to click on an icon and get a Web browser, not a menagerie of problems, exploits, downloadable patches, and reboots. For systems administrators, we can add user support calls at the end as well."
3:25:39 PM
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Wednesday, December 1, 2004 |
Sun: 1.9 million downloads of Java fix. InfoWorld: Top News reports "Sun Microsystems on Tuesday said there have been 1.9 million downloads of an upgraded version of J2SE to correct a possible security vulnerability in the JVM, although there have been no attacks reported based on the problem."
Get those boxes patched!
10:24:59 AM
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9:06:10 AM
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