Weblog by month (August 2004)
Holiday reading
Yeah I know, it’s been quiet: ’bloggers have to have a holiday too! Anyway, just a quickie to recommend a book. As a general rule I don’t go for whodunnits and the like... but this one you really have to read: Sleepyhead by Mark Billingham. A top-notch thriller, all about a likeable bruised copper seeking to catch a looney with a penchant for rendering his victims vegetables rather than simply killing them. You will be on the edge of your sunbed with this one, oh yes!
Anyway, normal service will be resumed shortly, promise.
Woo hoo!
Good news for us Mac-heads keen on using Lotus Notes:
We are currently planning to provide a Notes 7 client for the Macintosh platform, complete with popular integrated Instant Messaging capabilities on par with those found in Notes for the Microsoft Windows platform.
» More. Thanks guys!
Uh-oh
OK, so maybe buying iLife 04 two weeks after buying the new Mac was a bad idea... I wonder whether I’ll ever ’blog again! Yes, there I was eBay-ing again. Tsk!
This software is insanely great. I’ve long had a hankering for a computer-based studio of sorts, with money being the prohibiting factor. Yet again, Apple make it easy to finally get going with this stuff. So, Garageband is clearly the jewel in this particular crown for me, but the iMovie / IDVD combo look very appealing also, especially as my family bought me a digital video camera for my birthday last year!
Right, I’m off now. Er... will probably post in a month or two...
Later: more Apple stuff has been released this evening: the expected OS X 10.3.5 update and an additional security patch. These downloads are so new, Apple has nothing about either on their site at the moment!
How to get Xcode 1.5
apple have made Xcode 1.5 available to all developers via their developer site. Unfortunately the download is painfully slow, if it kicks off at all, and Xcode ain’t a light install. Thankfully, someone has come up with a brilliantly simple solution: Xcode is available as a .torrent file right here.
Oh, and yes, Subversion support is there. The hunch was right.
Via Boing Boing.
A Brilliant day
Do you see what I did there?
Happy birthday Ed! (image courtesy of Bruce and The Turtle).
The final nail
For someone with a PhD, Sara Radicati comes across as one of the most stupid people in the (technology) world. Not content with marketing utter bollocks as a serious industry report, and then having one of her ANALysts spam various weblogs, she has now resorted to sending ludicrous emails to prominent people within the industry:
I think you have not understood a single thing I just wrote to you - again, everything I needed to say about this topic or our methodology, ethics, processes, etc. is already posted on my web site.
I really don’t have any more time for these endless discussions.
Dr. Radicati, you need to make time, believe me. Read more at Volker’s site.
Fancy a Domino weblog?
Basic hosting with Domino Developer Network is now free, so what are you waiting for??? Grab yourself a template, and get going!
Easy!
Notes 7 and the Mac
So what do you reckon? Ever going to happen? I suspect not. But the silence over this from Lotus is, frankly, maddening. Just say what’s going on guys, one way or the other... please!
Read more:
» Ken Porter on the client, Feb. 2004.
» Recent developerWorks Lotus thread.
Thunderbirds
Earlier this evening I took Thomas (six) and Jack (nearly four) to see the new Thunderbirds movie. I went with not a little trepidation: many of the reviews I’ve seen have been luke-warm at best.
Well, cobblers to the lot of ’em: it was thoroughly entertaining, and not at all “disrespectful” to Gerry Anderson’s original vision (I speak as a thirty-two year old geek: I could easily be an anorak about this if I so chose). The innocence and sheer joy of the original is present, and the effects are splendid. I particularly enjoyed the performances by Sophia Myles and Ron Cook (Lady Penelope and Parker respectively) — very good. Yes, there is a little schmaltz but that’s to be expected — especially when cheese-meister Paxton is in charge... Oh yes, the opening credits are very cool too.
Anyway, the boys loved it, and judging by the trailer, The Incredibles looks like it’s going to be another hit for Pixar too!
IBM donate Cloudscape to Apache
Some more good news for open-source software. IBM have apparently donated Cloudscape to the Apache Software Foundation. In case you didn’t know, Cloudscape is going to be the Java database used in the forthcoming Eclipse-based Rich Client Platform (RCP). Well, you didn’t want a local DB2 installation did you? Ooof!
Via Gus Mueller.
Radicati
And so it would appear that detective vowe has made progress: the recent spate of anonymous / pseudonymous weblog comments and pathetic emails* (“I’m going to tell your boss on you...”) could be ascribed to an individual tied to the Radicati group. Silly, silly, silly. If this individual had just let the furore die down over the report, instead of trolling and so on, this episode would have passed. As it is, I won’t be reading any Radicati material in the near future — will you?
In the meantime, if you need a central resource for all things Radicati Group-related, you could do far worse than read this Radicati Group wiki page.
Talking of wikis, we’re live. Just need some content now...
* - by the way, “Daniel Johnson” has appeared on Eric Mack’s site, as well as at The Corner Office and famously, at Bruce’s.
