Weblog by month (February 2008)
DominoWiki: A DISCLAIMER
As keen-eyed observers may have seen, IBM have decided to re-brand the old Best Practices “wiki” and they are now calling it “Domino Wiki”. Hmm.
Well, I want to be absolutely clear on two things here: (1) this IBM site has nothing to do with the long-established OpenNTF DominoWiki project and (2) the IBM site, whilst being about Domino, is not a wiki, nor does it use the DominoWiki template.
Thanks.
No accounting for taste
Caution:This is an unashamed shout-out to the blogosphere (as some call it) for help. It contains exclamation marks. Here goes…
For the love of God, will someone please code a sensible accounts application for the Mac? I have tried so many, and they’re all shit. This is the best general accounts app I’ve tried, and it’s still annoying beyond belief:
I get this every time I try any transaction (and before you ask, yes I’m familiar with the concepts of double-entry book-keeping). All I want to do is throw my sales invoices, receipts and bank details into a big black box of an app and sort stuff as and when. I don’t feel the need to “balance” my books every three seconds, I’m not that anal. I want to do this willy nilly, in any old order. I don’t mind setting up general accounts and so forth in advance (e.g. Expenses - travel, Sales - Client 1, Expenses - Software, and so on), but then, then please just let me throw my transactions into the system, any old how. I’ll provide dates, amounts and references, but I want you, oh lowly accounts system, to order everything, give me reports, and so forth. Is that so much to ask? Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do, accounting software?!?
Sorry for coming across all rant-y. I appreciate that there are accounting packages out there for Windoze too, but I’m only running Windoze for Notes and Domino… don’t need it for anything else. Frankly I’m buggered if I’m going to throw something as basic as my accounts in to Gates-land when everything else happens on the Mac. A native accounts application shouldn’t be too much to ask, surely? Just a nice wee accounts app on t’Mac? Someone must make one? Pretty please? (Maybe I need to learn Cocoa quick-smart and clean up).
* sob *
How not to log a bug report
Received in my email today:
Hi, I’m one of two persons who has submitted a bug report for v1.1 - "Unknown Command Exception", when will you be investigating them?
- The two reports referred-to are for entirely different things in DominoWiki
- I investigate stuff when I’m good and ready
- The bug report in question was created just ten days ago, and contains scant information as to how to re-create the issue (although in this case I was already aware of the problem, so all good)
- OpenNTF has a perfectly good project management interface. I use it to log my progress on bug reports and feature requests: if the status hasn’t changed, then chances are I’ve not looked at it yet. Sorry.
Open source is fun
As an aside, I know many of you are champing at the bit for 1.2, and I can only apologise. If it’s any consolation, I’m pretty much done, with several point releases to follow, quickly.
Hmm, maybe LS09 isn’t such a shoo-in
Take the horrendous nightmare that is the typical British airport, add the high cost and hassle that comprise the typical British passport application, and then add a pinch of more American government lunacy. Matters may proceed from bad to worse when it comes to flying to the States in this post-9/11 world. The Guardian has the scoop, which has also been picked up by boingboing:
The demand to put armed air marshals on to the flights is part of a travel clampdown by the Bush administration that officials in Brussels described as “blackmail” and “troublesome”, and could see west Europeans and Britons required to have US visas if their governments balk at Washington’s requirements.
According to a US document being circulated for signature in European capitals, EU states would also need to supply personal data on all air passengers overflying but not landing in the US in order to gain or retain visa-free travel to America, senior EU officials said.
And within months the US department of homeland security is to impose a new permit system for Europeans flying to the US, compelling all travellers to apply online for permission to enter the country before booking or buying a ticket, a procedure that will take several days.
It’s not all sweetness and light in Europe either. Reuters reports that some EU states are considering US-style fingerprinting too:
“It’s boys with toys. They want to have the toys the Americans have,” said Gus Hosein of the Privacy International watchdog, referring to the U.S. practice of scanning the fingerprints and picture of foreigners entering the United States, adopted by Washington after the September11, 2001 attacks.
Read more (with onward links) at boingboing.net.
Well I never!
I had no idea that these three had ever played together:
Eddie Van Halen, Jan Hammer and Tony Levin do their thing for a Les Paul tribute show, some twenty years ago. I’m not sure who the drummer is—looks like Mike Portnoy? But I guess this is too long ago. Oh I need Bruce or John Head to check I think!
Album cover
I gave in; spotted the meme on Pete Lyons’ site, then saw others like Matt had done it too… So, here’s my album cover:
Band name from Wikipedia random page, the album title is the last four words from the final quote on the random quotes page and the art should be the third image from the Flickr Interestingness / Last 7 days page.
Update I did a new one. Original photo of a Banksy mural, © 2008 ITSAWONDERFUL-WORLD.COM.
