Kim Bach . OrgAssorted bookmarks from my web-travels
I just received my FON social router, and you can now access my WLAN if you’re a FONero, pretty amazing since I yesterday received an E-mail telling me that it would arrive in 2-3 weeks.
I signed up as a so called “linus”, this means that I provide access for free, in return for free access to the entire FON network.
Ohloh is a directory of open source software projects, and it looks like a promising tool when navigating the fragmented jungle of OSS.
Here’s a quote from the Ohloh website:
We’re mapping the open source world by collecting objective information on open source software. Search our site for the most current software metrics and project information on open source software projects.
Welcome back Discovery. It’s amazing watching the landing procedure as seen from the cockpit, the descend is steep and quick.
It will be interesting to hear the post mission briefings, I hope that the Shuttle is finally considered safe again, so that the construction of the International Space Station can pick up pace.
Congratulations to NASA with a successful mission, but what’s with the constant need to reboot the computers?
Yesterday last.fm was down for maintenance, only stating that we should get ready for “depth charge”.
BOOM! last.fm has relaunched, with lots of improvements and a cool new personal page called the “Dashboard”, but the most impressive new feature is the new rich client, I guees the Last.fm developers got feed up with JavaScript, so now we have a full featured client for our enjoyment.
Here’s a screen shot of the new client:
The new client is a tremendous improvement over the previous client, now taking advantage of the community.
It’s getting more and more like iTunes, it will run on basically anything, is open source and uses it’s own streaming protocol making it independent of Apple and Microsoft. What’s not to like?
Last.fm is one of the coolest things on the planet, and I feel that they think exactly the same way I do.
Microsoft bends on OpenDocument | CNET News.com
Boy did I choke on this news. Once again I though that Microsoft had come to it’s senses and decided to embrace the OpenDocument Format. And this time it sounded really good, with the Danish Ministry of Research and Science praising Microsoft’s apparent 180.
But I suspected that it wasn’t that simple, to me it only sounded that a previously announced conversion tool, being developed by an ISV, who probably isn’t too true to the I (as in “Independent”), will be an open source project and released under a BSD license.
Instead of paying too much attention to the news reports, I turned to the excellent Groklaw, to hear what she had to say, and what an answer:
Is Microsoft clever, or what? Ditto with ODF. Here’s the choice it is trying to posit: You will have to download their ODF translator yourself and install it. Or, just stick with Microsoft’s one-stop competing solution that is built in to their software offering. Considering Microsoft’s monopoly position, and my mom’s and most governments’ typical technical skills, guess what Microsoft hopes moms and governments will choose? I see a plan in not building the ODF translator into Microsoft’s software. So truly clever. It looks open. But it’s marginalizing ODF. I think the press release might better have been titled, “Microsoft announces what it hopes will be its ODF killer.”
As Pamela Jones of Groklaw.net points out, the press-release by Microsoft, contains a lot of FUD:
Open XML and ODF were designed to meet very different customer requirements. By developing the bidirectional translation tools through an open source project, the technical decisions and tradeoffs necessary will be transparent to everyone — Open XML and ODF advocates alike. The Open XML formats are unique in their compatibility and fidelity to billions of Office documents, helping protect customers’ intellectual investments. Open XML formats are also distinguished by their approach to accessibility support for disabled workers, file performance and flexibility to empower organizations to access and integrate their own XML data with the documents they use every day. In contrast, ODF focuses on more limited requirements, is architected very differently and is now under review in OASIS subcommittees to fill key gaps such as spreadsheet formulas, macro support and support for accessibility options. As a result, certain compromises and customer disclosures will be a necessary part of translating between the two formats.
That might indeed be right, but why bother with translating, start moving to OpenOffice.org or the related project NeoOffice instead, that might also save you the huge investment in re-training, since Microsoft Office 2007 will be using a completely new user-interface, introducing the concept of “the ribbon”, a toolbar palette, that I find inspired by something I’ve seen in Mac OS X applications like GarageBand. When I confronted one of the leading members of the Microsoft Office team with that fact, her tounge-in-cheek response was “hush – don’t tell anyone” LOL!
I like innovation, but the UI in Microsoft Office 2007 is totally different from all previous releases, why?
OTOH who cares, since the introduction of Vista will require retraining as well.
If the companies are required to massively retrain their personnel, why not change platform?
Instead, I recommend that you take a look at the UNIX again. You’ll find that UNIX has put on a friendly face since XP was released, thanks to the work done by Apple and the KDE and GNOME projects, modern UNIX no longer is for geeks only, and guess what, KDE and GNOME running OpenOffice.org will look and feel more like plain-old Windows than Windows Vista, making you feel like “you’re still in Kansas”, that’s not the case if you follow Microsoft’s upgrade path.
“Hasta la Vista, Baby!”
Microsoft is releasing public betas by the dozen, it’s actually quite amazing, and they no longer require too much of a registration process or non-disclosure agreements, but I’m sure that it helps that I have a Windows Live user id, the thing that used to be called Microsoft Passport or .NET log-in services. So I registered and begun downloading betas from the Microsoft site. First in line was Internet Explorer 7.
So why did I, who publicly questioned the need for Internet Explorer, become a beta tester for IE7? Well it started with a post on macnyt.dk (surprise)…
macnyt.dk is a Mac related site, but yesterday an article on the availability of Internet Explorer 7 Beta 3 surfaced, and that started an in-fight. Did this article really belong on a Mac site? Probably not!
But then I remembered my poor old Windows box that was gathering dust, and the main reason I have it is to have a testbed, it’s running Windows Server 2003, with basically everything under the sun installed on it, and it still has lots of room for more stuff, and when somebody actually asked if anybody had tested Internet Explorer 7, I went ahead and downloaded it, and that was very easy to do.
Phew…The Shuttle has returned to space, and for the first time a Shuttle Launch on the 4th of July.
It’s always nervewrecking to watch a Shuttle launch, and it’s great to have live coverage by NASA TV that is streaming over the Internet from this address:
Congratulations to NASA with the fitting celebration of Independence Day.
The Shuttle program is nearing it’s end, it’s the end of an era and a too complex program, that so far (touch wood) has resulted in the loss of 2 orbiters and 14 lives.
NASA is now looking back to the Saturn V program for inspiration, and a couple of new launch vehicles will be introduced, ending with the return to the moon by the end of the next decade.
Everytime the Shuttle program seemed to be running smoothly, we encountered a major disaster, making for a rude awakening to the dangers of space exploration.
The space program is the greatest project humanity is currently involved in, and it’s a great inspiration, and space is finally opening up due to the X-Prize and SpaceShipOne.
We’re once again taking baby steps into the final frontier, following the lead of the Apollo pioneers. Earth is too dangerous a place to stay.
After responding to a post on macnyt.dk (surprise), I decided to become a FONero.
So what’s a FONero, well FON is a Wi-Fi community where the members, called FONeros, share their Internet connections by opening their WiFi Hotspots.
How does it work?
Well using special software installed on the router, people are presented with a log-in screen when they’re accessing your Hotspot, FON will handle the transaction.
FON operates with three levels of users:
Here’s a quote from the FON web-site:
FON is the largest WiFi community in the world, open to anyone who wishes to unite and connect to the Internet for free from any corner of the world without cables. It all started as a simple idea: enjoy WiFi technology everywhere across a WiFi infrastructure built by same members of the FON Community. Joining us is just as easy. All you need is to register for free, have broadband connection and to download our software onto your router. This converts your router into a FON Social Router. If you do not have a router that is compatible with FON’s software, you can purchase one of our subsidized FON Social Routers at our online store.
It turned out that my router wasn’t FON enabled, so I ordered one using the offer on the FON web-site, it cost me €5 plus shipping and VAT for a grand total of €17.40, not exactly breaking the bank. The catch, I’ll have to start sharing my connection within 30 days, or it’ll cost me €45 extra.
FON is a brilliant idea, and it’ll hopefully help the spread of affordable Internet access. What will the Internet providers think of this idea? Very good question, I suspect that they most likely will not like it very much.
WinFS heads for Microsoft database | CNET News.com
According to CNET NEWS.COM Microsoft is no longer pursuing delivery of WinFS, the new file-system for Windows.
The new strategy seems to be to develop the mature parts of WinFS for use in SQL Server and ADO.NET.
This sounds like the final demise of the Cairo project, the mythical project to deliver a distributed object oriented file-system, that has been touted by Microsoft since the early 90ies.
Could the long walk to Cairo be over?
Top 10 Web Developer Libraries – Cameron Olthuis
Well, I’m not really doing much webdevelopment these days, prefering to work with standard software like MediaWiki, Drupal and WordPress – hey I’m a “content type of guy”.
But this list of Web Developer Libraries by Cameron Olthuis, that was linked from CNET NEWS.COM, looks like a good place to check, if I should someday begin doing some rich Internet client development. There are actually some projects, that could fall into that category, on my project list.
