Weblog by month (September 2007)
I photograph so well...
I can’t believe Paul has published his piccies already! UKLUG was grand, and the turn-out excellent. Thank you to the splendiferous organisers, Warren, Kitty, Matt, Darren, Bill and Julian. Honourable nods too for Frank Docherty and Mike Smith!
UKLUG
In a few hours I shall be getting up at stupid o’clock to get to Hatfield for UK LUG. Hurrah! Will you be there? See you then!
DB2 on the Mac!
Crikey, I didn’t see this one coming at all! Antonio Cangiano, a software engineer and technical evangelist at IBM Canada, loves his code. Whilst his primary interests are in Ruby and Python, he’s done a lot of work with Objective-C (OS X’s language of choice), and things are afoot on the Mac front in the IBM labs:
I couldn’t talk about this for weeks, and it must be viewed as a rumor until IBM makes an official announcement, but we have been working on porting DB2 to Intel Mac. Not just the client, the whole package. This makes me a happy panda, no longer will a virtual machine be required to develop with DB2 on Rails on my Mac Book Pro. It’s a joy to see DB2 Express-C run on a Mac Pro (shown in picture) next to the other black boxes in the lab. Work is still in progress, but we should have a beta out there relatively soon (before winter kicks in).
Via James Governor.
IBM Redbooks for Lotus: what’s the story?
It would appear that Redbooks are going, at least as far as Lotus technologies are concerned. At a time when we’re looking at Notes 8, Connections, Quickr, Symphony et al that decision would be madness, surely? Here’s hoping there’s another reason for the Lotus centre closure.
… you can imagine my surprise yesterday when I heard that the Lotus Software Redbook center in Cambridge, Massachusetts is dismantling its lab and shutting its doors. While other members of the IBM Software family will, at least for now, continue to have dedicated Redbook centers, the IBM Lotus Software community is losing theirs. There are some fundamental questions surrounding this decision.
Chris Byrne: Does Losing Lotus Specific Redbooks Really Matter?
Update Ed has written a good post about this for those interested in continuing the discussion.
Thirty-five
Twenty years ago, on my fifteenth birthday, muso types (like what I am) were shocked to hear of the death of Jaco Pastorius, aged just thirty five. I hit the same age today, and cannot begin to comprehend what happened in his life to bring him to the stage he was at when he was brutally beaten by one Luc Havan. Not that his troubles in any way explain what that scum did to him. Rest in peace Jaco.
I guess it’s time to put 8:30 on, and quietly celebrate my birthday, count my blessings, and ruminate on a pleasant evening out with the UK Domino gang—thanks guys.
Update As soon as I wrote this, I discovered that Jaco’s big boss, the one and only Joe Zawinul, died ten days ago. I had no idea until today. It’s criminal that his death went unmarked in the mainstream media. Rest in peace too Mr. Zawinul. An extraordinary pair of musicians, each in his own way, the likes of which this world won’t see again.
Image courtesy of jacopastorius.com.
Dominoids of London take note!
If you’re a Domino loon, and you’re in London tomorrow, be sure to check in on the drinks after work!
P.S. if anyone has sent me a mail recently, my apologies. I have just discovered that my ISP is having issues. Google mail works though!
Java in Notes on the Mac... at last!
I just caught sight of Ed’s comment in his thread about the Collaboration University keynotes taking place in Kansas City. Short story: Java agents on the Mac will soon be a reality. At long last, the Mac Notes client really starts to get parity with its Windows counterpart. Thank you IBM.
In other Mac / Notes news, whilst we already knew that the first Notes 8 release for the Mac wouldn’t come until 8.01, apparently this is due to the fact that Notes 8 on the Mac requires Eclipse 3.4. I must go read up on the roadmap, find out what it is that’s causing the problem.
Update: well, I read the plan for 3.4 but I’m none the wiser: just some OS X-specific stuff around SWT accessibility and internationalisation.
I succumbed
And hey, it must have been worth it, because I am a cool nerd. Yeah baby!
LDD forums: are there any real Notes developers left?
This post popped up in my news reader just as I’d scrolled through the latest raft of posts, many of which were just lazy:
Randy Rhoades: Are there any real Notes developers left? - RANT!
(Great forum name by the way). Well I think one of the respondents has it down pat: observe the fifteen minute rule. If you can’t resolve your question with a gentle perusal of the Domino Designer help file, then post. but honestly, some of the questions on the LDD forums now are extraordinary.
First!
Amusing video time: how a business meeting would work if all the participants acted like commenters on the internet:
Warning: contains rude words.
Via Tom Coates.
My friends would think I was a nut...
A propos of nothing:
- Of late I have been very into vintage Genesis; I think The Carpet Crawlers and I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe) are the latest additions to my favourite songs list (this changes a lot). A few weeks ago I bought The Warm Up Tour Summer 2007 (Eden Project 20 June) double CD from Peter Gabriel. It’s great to hear tracks like Mother Of Violence and No Self Control recorded live this very summer
- On Wednesday night I was at BBC Centre for the filming of 8 Out Of 10 Cats, Big Brother Special. Absolutely hilarious. How they condensed that three hours of filming into one half hour show Thursday night I’ll never know. So funny (and the BB contestants… wow, you could get depressed about how stupid some people are)
- On Friday night I saw the master himself, Prince in concert at The O2 (what was the Millennium Dome). Utterly amazing. I still can’t believe he’s fifty next year. The gig report on his site is here
- Pup fares well! I’ve almost missed my train to work every day this week: puppies are a big time-sink
- People are still asking me what I’m going to do, now that I’m leaving my current employer (free man come October 5th) I’ll tell you: I’m going to enjoy life and embark on a whole new journey (time to listen to Solsbury Hill eh). How cool is that?
Done for now. The only thing I need to add is that if you haven’t already, you need to check out the idea exchange beta! The guys have done a great job on this.
