IE7 Review at eWeek
Jim Rapoza at eWeek has provided one of the first reviews of IE7 beta that takes a hard look at IE7 compliance with Web standards. This is very important because with the exception of the CNET review, many reviewers have been ignoring or kid glove treating the lack of standards implementation in IE7 – a […]
Beeing Stung by a WaSP
We have been pretty hard lately on the WaSP people for their naive embracement of Microsofts promises to do better on IE7 standards compliance. But here is an issue, the US Copyright Office going with IE only applications on the Web where WaSP is stinging hard to the facts and merit of the case: IE […]
BI Driven Desktops
Dashboards and Data Mining – anticipating what Information should be at your fingertips. Thats the new point of attack on the desktop – and Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft are leading the charge. Well maybe Google and Yahoo are leading and as always Redmond is following, supremely confident that it will be able to beg, borrow, […]
Microsoft & Zotob
For the moment – forget the issue of IE vulnerability and consider how direct and responsive Microsoft has been in providing a solution for the Zotob worm. It is positively Open Source-like and welcome, especially at a couple of large ministries I have worked for in the past. The key – no denials, no delays […]
Java and Solaris Success
In making his decision of whether to release Visual Studio 2005 before its ready, Microsofts CSA should take a look at the recent success of new partner, Sun. Sun has endured a hammering in the high-end server marketplace as only IBM and some HP product lines have managed to survive the move to Linux/Windows and […]
Beholden to the IE Browser
Sun and WaSP are are both following the recent IE Browser-only machinations at the US Copright office. The basic problem is that the US Copyright Office is considering using updated software that will only run in IE 5.x or later software. To do business with a public agency you will need a Microsoft desktop and […]
Just Good Enough Software: Alive and Well ?
Just Good Enough Software may be very alive and well despite all Redmonds commitments to Trustworthy Computing. Take a look at what the rank and file are saying about Visual Studio 2005, its readiness (or more precisely lack of) and its many “postponed” bugs. This is very serious business because the problems with generics and […]
Complexity of Systems
I have been arguing in this Blog and its parent website that Management of Change is the number one problem in IT developement and operation. Standish Group seems to confirm that showing that of the top ten causes for project failures are management problems 2/3rds of the time not technical snafus(the other 1/3). And by […]
Jon Udell: Microsoft Wants Back In
In his recent Strategic Developer column, GreaseMonkey in Crisis, Jon Udell argues that Microsoft should be let back into the web community on questions of security and standards. “Open source software and the collaborative culture that surrounds it, have surely enhanced Firefoxs security. But also necessary is a disciplined approach to to reducing the attack […]
IE7 CSS Diversion: WaSP Reply
WaSP in the form of Steering Committe member Steven Champeon has replied to my letter to Dave Shea and to all the members of the WaSP steering committee which followed my IE7 Diversion Posting. My letter asked some tough questions: =============Letter to Dave Shea and WaSP Steering Committee========= Dave – Thanks for your direct reply […]
Another IE7 Review
Techwebs Internet Week has just reviewed IE7 beta1 here. The strong impression coming from this review is that although IE7 does not surpass FireFox, Opera, Safari and other competitors in its Web interface, it has improved – think tabs support, search toolbars and RSS processing plus security improvements. In the security space I was surprised […]
The IE7 CSS Debate
I have been following the IE7 reviews and I am amazed how they are centered on one of two topics. “This is a beta so all the features and functions are not yet baked” is the first train of thought. And the second from Microsoft and friends is “we are working overtime to get a […]
Open Source Java IDEs
It used to be that Microsoft could rest secure in the fact that Visual Studio lead all language development. True Cobol continues to have the innovations and strength of MicroFocus while Java has Borland and C/C++ has the cross platform polish of Trolltech. But VS-Visual Studio lead in language supported, Visual drag and drop development, […]
Intel Irony
The Intel Irony is this – just as the x86 architecture starts to dominate the two biggest marketplaces – desktop PCs (Apple converts to x86) and servers (PowerPC and Sparc are just glowing embers), AMD comes up with a superior design for the 64bit X86 architecture . So in its own CPU space Intel becomes […]
Open Office 2.0
Steven Vaughan-Williams tracking open source events at eWeek has good news to report – OpenOffice 2.0 is in prebeta with a feature complete edition. In January the new beta will be out with final release planned for the February to March time frame. Good news. The new edition of Open Office is chock full of […]
XML Include
W3C has just published the recommended XInclude or XML Include standard. Big deal… “includes”, whoopee cushion action here. Well maybe a little more than whoopee cushions. In fact, another reason to switch to XHTML because XIncludes can be used with XHTML. Yet another way for compenentizing Web page development without having to resort to ASP […]
Website Makeovers: The Importance of Graphic Design
I did a website makeover for www.maynetravel.com back in 2004. No big deal. Here is the proforma before and after shots. Yes, please do visit the after site to see the progression: Old Design First redesign And here is the latest design done by the Ensemble Group when Mayne joined it. What is important to […]
Longhorn Redux
Mary Jo Foley at Microsoft Watch has called the end of August cutbacks in Longhorn the “Gutting of Longhorn”. It does appear that two major changes are on tap. WinFS, the Yukon/SQLServer based filesystem will not be a part of either Longhorn 2006 or Longhorn Server 2007. Big opportunity loss here. Now there is really […]
Where to go for Web Development …
eWeeks Darryl Taft is the writer to go to for some of the best reporting and news on whats happening in the Web Development arena. Be it BEA or a swooning Sun, Microsoft middleware machinations or IBM on Demand – Darryl has both many and consistently informative reports and telling interviews with some of the […]
A New Life for the PC ???
Business Week Online has produced a special report on the Future of the PC. The report looks at the past and tries to fathom future directions and innovations and concludes: “The personal computer may have revolutionized the way people communicate, calculate, gather information, and run a business. But their shape and style has remained mind-numbingly […]
Good look at another Open Source Model
Some would have you beleive that if Open Source is not pure, free as in Freedom GPL-GNU Public License Open Source – then any other software does not deserve to be called Open Source. Jon Udell has been quietly advocating a much broader viewpoint – and he has added another installment to the possible Open […]
Lisa Vaas is right on
eWeeks Lisa Vaas has got it right – despite its interminable length, the latest twist in the Oracle-Peoplesoft case is very revealing. Microsoft not only considered buying SAP; but used Bill Clinton-like dissimilitude to swear to the DOJ that it would not be entering the ERP market – and there fore would not act as […]
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Peter Galli at eWeek, covering the new Windows Servers and some of its potential lock in inadvertently elicited an example of Microsoft prevarication. Communicating and interpreting Microsoft statements to the press and media is like one of Sergio Leone Spaghetti Westerns – its good, its bad, and its sometime downright ugly. Talking with Microsoft top […]
MS BI Freeway
Lisa Vaas posts this message in the eWeek Database update newsletter: Microsoft has put out yet more free business intelligence accelerators in what appears to be an ongoing campaign to starve big BI vendors to death. Unfortunately, the main web story story does not follow up on this point. For the past five years, Microsoft […]
Memory Creep
Running in Win 2000 with Service Pack 4 I have noticed the following phenomenon when doing development work. I run several development programs concurrently switching between Dreamweaver MX, Flash, Eclipse, and Netbeans. Usually Tomcat, Apache, JRun, Opera, Mozilla, and IE are available for testing purposes plus Paintshop Pro or Photoshop for quick visual touch ups. […]
Two Good Weblogs
Susan Kitchens 2020 Hindsight web log is a walk through points of interest by a good writer. In the link one gets an update on the Mars Rovers on display at JPL. But dont miss out on Susans gentle walks and pictures around her life lines. Poynteronline says its “everything you need to be a […]
Reviewers: The Ugly, David Emberton
David Emberton makes a fool of himself in a meandering diatribe against Web Standards in general and CSS in particular at the Aussie mag, APC . On the very webpage used to display his viewpoint, a Page Source reveals not just one or two uses of CSS but dozens. For readers interested in very good […]
Microsoft Goes Astray on Standards … Again
Microsoft is becoming increasingly less interoperable as details on Longhorn emerge. Effectively right now there is really no programming interoperability except through SOAP and Web Services – all of Redmonds programming languages are highly proprietary. Its refusal to update IEs JavaScript/DOM/CSS to W3C standards embraced by all other browser vendors is nothing less than a […]
Heck of a Good Review
Mike Heck and Infoworld deserve top marks for doing an old fashioned, comprehensive and good review of the Portal Software and 7 of the major players there: BEA Portal Server, IBM Webphere Portal, Microsoft SharePoint Portal, OracleAS Portal 10g, Plumtree Suite, Sun Java Portal, Vignette Application Portal are all covered in great depth. In fact […]