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I highly recommend:

http://technetcast.ddj.com/

Although it hasn't been updated for a while now, they've got a large archive of talks, lectures, interviews, etc. on various computer-related topics. Featured speakers include Bill Joy, Rob Pike, Marvin Minsky, Knuth, Larry Wall, Linus, Eric Raymond, and many others.

I really wish they'd update.

DDJ's dotcom era technetcast;
dated - recently 2002 ...
but still perhaps of interest

7 years? That's nothing, try same app for 30 years. In this case, companies will simply not upgrade to XP, for example I know a large organization that is running Windows NT servers (not desktops). Why? Besideds the cost, they don't have the time/resources to test all their stuff. Hope this is a good lesson to companies that Microsoft is not a safe investment, there is not good return on their investment as they continually cut the plug on technologies.

What happens when Microsoft Abandons Dot NET

Highly doubtful. That was one of the arguments Richard Grimes in his last article on .NET. Not a very good argument against .NET, there are certainly better ones. Especially when many apps are still written in C.

VB.Net is not just C# with different syntax. C# is more pure OO and has features that VB does not (VB.NET is still 4GL). The CLS just enforces some type standards and such.

However I am not a .NET expert (I primarliy do Java/J2EE, C, Perl, etc), but I do think that the price of using VB (quick turnaround, really a sortof RAD tool) is that some day it will be obsolete. All code runs that risk, but any language (especially 4GL) that is only provided by one vendor is in that position. That is just one of the tradeoffs of that type of language.

VB (from what I know) was originally developed so non-technical people could write Windows Apps (quickly) without too much knowledge of CS theory. Of course there is a tradeoff and this is part of it. While it is unfortunate that all of those old apps will have to continue with no support, they should never have been used that long. Part of Software Engineering is considering maintenance costs. Considering how old VB 6 is, this was inevitable.

VB.NET certainly seems redundant (at least according to Mr Grimes -> http://www.ddj.com/documents/s=9204/ddj050201dnn/) .
At any rate, VB is dead, do get over it. As for learning new languages: learn to keep your knowledge current or you will be a dinosaur, that is the way it works. If Sun quit supporting Java, I'd still find work. I know enough other languages and theory so it's not a problem. VB isn't even a language as much as it is a tool (just like it's evil twin Powerbuilder). We aren't even talking apples to apples. C/C++/Java have numerous IDE's and don't depend on one company to keep them afloat.

Well, if you read "Things A Computer Scientist Rarely Talks About" or listened to the lecture, you'd know why.

Knuth explains that in the future, there won't be people who solely specialize in one area. You're going to have people who specialize in two areas, so that you have a network of information. Being a computer scientist, when I want to learn about something I know nothing about,say auto repair, I want to talk to someone who's an expert in auto repair AND computer science. Then they can hopefully give me some background on auto repair from a computer science perspective.

This is why listening to Knuth about religion is a great idea. His passion is Computer Science. He also has dedicated a lot of time in studying religion, so he can give you an explaination that you'd understand, using a computer scientist's mindset, as to what he believes.

It's basically taking language a step further. If you only speak English, even though you're an expert in said field, you're not going to seek out information from someone who only speaks Chinese. Taking that thought just a little further, being a mathematically minded computer scientist, you prolly wouldn't want to have to get an artistic explaination of what somebody believed.

http://technetcast.ddj.com/tnc_catalog.html?item_i d=421

or by searching the eDonkey/eMule network for "donald knuth" or "god and computers"

RealPlayer files are played in linux http://www.real.com/linux/?rppr=rnwk&src=040%20104 freeplayer just fine. I think torrent would be overkill. I'd expect mpeg files to start floating around soon, Hell, even Knuth's lectures on his Christianity are online http://technetcast.ddj.com/tnc_program.html?progra m_id=50

I don't think the parent did enough to sell this article to the masses reading through, although it is an excellent reference.

The article linked to by the parent ("The Free Lunch Is Over: A Fundamental Turn Toward Concurrency in Software") should be read, and is of particular interest to developers.

The article draws a very good picture of how the trend towards mutli-core systems will require developers to rethink the way they design their applications if they want to continue taking advantage of future increases in processing power.

I was referred to this article yesterday, and it is so good and motivating that I imagine it will be the feature of or featured in future Slashdot articles.

It will be appearing in Dr. Dobb's Journal later this month.

There's a really good description of the AARD code on Dr Dobb's Journal.

http://www.ddj.com/documents/s=1030/ddj9309d/

Basically, the code was encrypted, and took steps that effectively defeated debuggers. According to the DDJ article, the code actually ran a few tests to determine if it was MS DOS or DR DOS. These tests basically crawled a few internal MS DOS data structures to determine what version of DOS was running. It was a fairly artificial test--it didn't check anything that would actually make a difference WRT compatibility.

Because of the fact they disabled debugging, encrypted the code, and used a fairly convoluted, non-obvious way of testing compatibility, it's pretty clear what Microsoft was up to.

Here's an article from Doctor Dobb's Journal. Definitely limited to the beta release, and not the retail versions.

Take a look at the last Richard Grimes article on .Net. Very very interesting stuff.

This reminds me of Richard Grimes' farewell to .NET. http://www.ddj.com/documents/s=9205/ddj050201dnn/

It may be a while before MS starts coding their own stuff in .NET.

In comparison, right from the outset, open source desktop platforms and applications have relied almost wholly on closing the infectable vectors, the exploited vulnerabilities used by malware, as quickly as possible.

Read the following Usenet thread from 2000 that covers the argument in detail [google.com]. David Harley and Robert Moir are two Anitvirus industry leaders. It also includes the prediction that Microsoft would eventually get into the antivirus industry.

If you have a spare hour, listen to Dr Dobbs' technetcast [ddj.com]:

Dr. Blaine Burnham, Director, Georgia Tech Information Security Center (GTISC) and previously with the National Security Agency (NSA), gives an overview of current encryption and security technologies and outlines possible strategies for future defense. 9th USENIX Security Symposium, Keynote MP3 [2000-10-09] (57min) [ddj.com]

In comparison, right from the outset, open source desktop platforms and applications have relied almost wholly on closing the infectable vectors, the exploited vulnerabilities used by malware, as quickly as possible.

Read the following Usenet thread from 2000 that covers the argument in detail [google.com]. David Harley and Robert Moir are two Anitvirus industry leaders. It also includes the prediction that Microsoft would eventually get into the antivirus industry.

If you have a spare hour, listen to Dr Dobbs' technetcast [ddj.com]:

Dr. Blaine Burnham, Director, Georgia Tech Information Security Center (GTISC) and previously with the National Security Agency (NSA), gives an overview of current encryption and security technologies and outlines possible strategies for future defense. 9th USENIX Security Symposium, Keynote MP3 [2000-10-09] (57min) [ddj.com]

In comparison, right from the outset, open source desktop platforms and applications have relied almost wholly on closing the infectable vectors, the exploited vulnerabilities used by malware, as quickly as possible.

Read the following Usenet thread from 2000 that covers the argument in detail. David Harley and Robert Moir are two Anitvirus industry leaders. It also includes the prediction that Microsoft would eventually get into the antivirus industry.

If you have a spare hour, listen to Dr Dobbs' technetcast:

Dr. Blaine Burnham, Director, Georgia Tech Information Security Center (GTISC) and previously with the National Security Agency (NSA), gives an overview of current encryption and security technologies and outlines possible strategies for future defense. 9th USENIX Security Symposium, Keynote MP3 [2000-10-09] (57min)

In comparison, right from the outset, open source desktop platforms and applications have relied almost wholly on closing the infectable vectors, the exploited vulnerabilities used by malware, as quickly as possible.

Read the following Usenet thread from 2000 that covers the argument in detail. David Harley and Robert Moir are two Anitvirus industry leaders. It also includes the prediction that Microsoft would eventually get into the antivirus industry.

If you have a spare hour, listen to Dr Dobbs' technetcast:

Dr. Blaine Burnham, Director, Georgia Tech Information Security Center (GTISC) and previously with the National Security Agency (NSA), gives an overview of current encryption and security technologies and outlines possible strategies for future defense. 9th USENIX Security Symposium, Keynote MP3 [2000-10-09] (57min)

Oh and I thought they had just got the byline wrong and it was really Verity Stob, thanks for clearing that up

hgh

Ah, SCO, SCO, SCO. This latest prank... Where to begin to unravel the latest brainstorm, the claim that ELF belongs to them, that Linux is using it illegally, and that it's the mortar holding the entire kernel together? I am smiling just typing this.

Here is what the ELF story is about, according to a Linuxworld article by Maureen O'Gara:

"In 1995, the year Novell sold Unix to the Santa Cruz Operation, an industry group calling itself the Tool Interface Standard Committee (TISC) came up with a ELF 1.2 standard and to popularize it and streamline PC software development granted users a 'non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license' to the stuff, effectively putting it in the public domain, SCO says.

"SCOsource chief Chris Sontag, the SCO VP in charge of the company's hate-inducing IP push, claims TISC, which folded immediately after the spec was published, exceeded its rights even though both Novell and the old SCO - as well as Microsoft, IBM and Intel - were on the committee."

OK. ELF. Here we go. After all the research we have done, here are the conclusions I reach. First, ELF isn't mortar. It's not even in the kernel. It's interface stuff. It's not the only interface one might use, and in fact it replaced a prior interface, so it isn't essential for Linux to keep breathing and life to go on. It'd be annoying but not at all impossible to replace it.

Second, if TISC overstepped its authority, that is between SCO and SCO, because oldSCO was involved, oldSCO being a member of TISC.

Third, I don't believe they own it.

Fourth, Linux is not unique in using ELF.

Fifth, this is getting silly.

Let me explain, please, how I reached those conclusions.

Here's what the TISC document [PDF], regarding ELF version 1.2, told the world they were intending and what the world could do with ELF:

"This Executable and Linking Format Specification, Version 1.2, is the result of the work of the Tool Interface Standards (TIS) Committee--an association of members of the microcomputer industry formed to work toward standardization of the software interfaces visible to development tools for 32-bit Intel Architecture operating environments.

"Such interfaces include object module formats, executable file formats, and debug record information and formats. The goal of the committee is to help streamline the software development process throughout the microcomputer industry, currently concentrating on 32-bit operating environments. To that end, the committee has developed specifications--some for file formats that are portable across leading industry operating systems, and others describing formats for 32-bit Windows * operating systems. Originally distributed collectively as the TIS Portable Formats Specifications Version 1.1, these specifications are now separated and distributed individually.

"TIS Committee members include representatives from Absoft, Autodesk, Borland International Corporation, IBM Corporation, Intel Corporation, Lahey, Lotus Corporation, MetaWare Corporation, Microtec Research, Microsoft Corporation, Novell Corporation, The Santa Cruz Operation, and WATCOM International Corporation. PharLap Software Incorporated and Symantec Corporation also participated in the specification definition efforts. This specification like the others in the TIS collection of specifications is based on existing, proven formats in keeping with the TIS Committee's goal to adopt, and when necessary, extend existing standards rather than invent new ones.

"About ELF: Executable and Linking Format The Executable and Linking Format was originally developed and published by UNIX System Laboratories (USL) as part of the Application Binary Interface (ABI). The Tool Interface Standards committee (TIS) has selected the evolving ELF standard as a portable ob

The ELF Standard says:

"The TIS Committee grants you a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to use the information disclosed in this Specification to make your software TIS-compliant; no other license, express or implied, is granted or intended hereby."

Now that's pretty damn clear indication that anyone is allowed to use this license.

So how does SCO own this again? Oh, right, unlike IBM, Microsoft, Intel and the other members of the TIS committee, their business model is to sue! Ok, sorry, my fault.

Atlantic Monthly They regularly link to past stories in order to give better historical reference to current news items. I think the earliest story they have that mentions Saddam Hussein is from the late 1950's.

Harpers Yet another independantly owned journal that's not afraid to piss off thier advertisers.

The New Yorker Not independant, but has a long tradition of actually checking their facts. Great comics (understated, yet twisted, humor).

I also read my hometown newspaper every day, plus the New York Times on Sundays, and I scan BBC News, Google News, and The Guardian world news online daily. Plastic is good for getting an idea of what (somewhat educated) people think of the goings on in the world, and B3TA is a somewhat effective cure fore too much awareness of world events.

I also get The National Security Archive newsletter in my email about once a week or so.

For tech, I mostly read Linux Journal, SysAdmin, and occasionally Doctor Dobbs Journal.

Of course I always read The Debian Weekly News and /..

Dr. Dobbs - trends in software development
Tape Op - recording for the rest of us, although biased against digital tech

For music, I like:
CMJ New Music Monthly - only for the included CD
Revolver - heavy music, sometimes misogynistic though
Bandoppler - for reviews of other music

I also like British magazines like Future Music and Sound On Sound. But they're too expensive for subscriptions in the USA. When I'm at the bookstore, I like to flip through Artforum and I.D.

Unhinged? Psychotic? A maniac killer threatening to kill his colleagues? Do read Verity Stob's beautiful analysis.

The article says he used GCC to compile the C++ versions, but GCC produces code that isn't nearly as good as the Intel compiler for example. (Here, but no good if you don't subscribe)
A lot of the test results are close, and I think a different compiler would change the outcome.

Lots of good stuff there - interviews, speeches, conference presentations... good times.

This is just NOT true. It's revisionist history. However, the nice thing about the web, is that the original article written by the first person outside MS to discover the code is still online.

This is what's known by historians as a primary source.

there's an older but great mp3 of how google is set up at ddj's technetcast website. The speaker is Jim Reese, Chief Operations Engineer at google.

Link

PS. On that website, I think the link to the mp3 doesn't work, but if you manully ftp into the server and get the file manually, it's fine.

This issue of Dr. Dobbs gives some answers. Compares a bunch of compiliers.

Just to lighten up a little, check out a little story by Verity Stob on Life in the Google Farm.

Just to lighten up a little, check out a little story by Verity Stob on Life in the Google Farm.

I can. Other browsers do infringe, but were/are safe from litigation due to the single minded hatred of MS by the nice people over at Eolas. Funny, too, because when they first published the method (Dr. Dobbs Journal First article on this page, sorry you'll have to pay to see it) they stated that the only reason for the having the patent issued was to stop someone else from doing it first and squeezing the competetion.

The non-executable bit on memory pages is not supported by the x86 architecture

Wrong. Get your facts straight.

Bit 43 of the x86 segment descriptor table specifies whether a memory segment is executable.

Attempting to assign CS to a nonexecutable (read/write data) segment, i.e. attempting to execute code in a segment not specifically marked as executable, generates an exception. (See also this presentation for an overview of this and many other x86 security features, most of which are, admittedly, ignored by both Windows and Linux.)

And, by the way, this feature has been around since protected mode was introduced on the 80386. That was in 1985, almost 20 years ago.

The non-executable bit on memory pages is not supported by the x86 architecture

Wrong. Get your facts straight.

Bit 43 of the x86 segment descriptor table specifies whether a memory segment is executable.

Attempting to assign CS to a nonexecutable (read/write data) segment, i.e. attempting to execute code in a segment not specifically marked as executable, generates an exception. (See also this presentation for an overview of this and many other x86 security features, most of which are, admittedly, ignored by both Windows and Linux.)

And, by the way, this feature has been around since protected mode was introduced on the 80386. That was in 1985, almost 20 years ago.

Dr. Dobbs.

It mostly focuses on semi to non-trivial topics that would be found useful by those working in industry. At the same time the articles are usually well written and easier to digest than the academic papers on the same topics.

It's not exactly web-centric though.

When you rely on proprietary products you often get the shaft, especially if you cannot audit and compile the code yourself. See:

• AARD
• NSA key in Lotus
• NSA key in MS-Windows

Yeah, the same guy who did Chaos Manor for Byte,

He's writing it now for Dr. Dobbs.

Well spoken. It's nice to see some clear examples instead of "AMD sucks".

But, being the AMD fan I am, I must say that perhaps your problems are more due to bad luck than anything, since RMA rates for motherboards are significantly higher than other components.

And so this brings me to a question... is there a site that gives statistics on RMA rates?

- - - - - - - - - -

P.S. - The following riposte is a cut and paste of a previous slashdot post:

Pentium Floating-point division bug [ku.edu] (it's close enough, isn't it?)
Invalid Operand Instruction crashes original Pentiums [iss.net] Pentium crash codes
Pentium Pro/II still having problems with floats [ddj.com] Unable to convert to int
Pentium III can't even start up [bbc.co.uk] You went faster with an 8088
SSE is great for when you want your PIII to crash [zdnet.co.uk] Pretty blue screens abound.
PIII Xeon, quality you can count on, except at high CPU usage [macworld.com] Watch the task manager, Phil.
Yay, PIII MTH crashes! [com.com] Does MTH stand for Meth?
Total Recall 2: PIII@1.13GHz [com.com] Fastest crashes ever.
Total Recall 3: PIII Xeons@800/900Mhz [com.com] More Xeon quality in a box.
Total Recall 4: CC820 [techweb.com] How many defects? Can't recall...
Pentium 4 overwriting data [zdnet.co.uk] Hope it wasn't something important.
Pentium 4 chipset bug [com.com] Fast video performance? Naaa.
P4 Oracle/Sun problems [indiana.edu] More workarounds than work
Itanium shipments halted [theinquirer.net] That's an expensive oops.

Just so nobody gets any ideas that Intel is perfect...

• FDIV error: yes, it was division, not addition. However, conditions ware far less specific as Intel would have liked us to believe...
• CISC vs RISC: you correctly pointed out that Pentiums still are CISC (even though they nowadays have a RISC core)

• CAFEBABE: that's java's magic number. The code that used to lock up Pentium II's was F00FC7C8
• Hyperthreading and the OS's job: no, hyperthreading does not do sth which the OS normally would do. It just pretends that there is a second processor. The OS is still responsible to assign threads to both virtual processors, just like it would do with two real processors!

Note to moderators: mod grand-parent down. It is obviously a troll (albeit a rather well written troll!). If you absolutely must mod it up, at least use Funny rather than Interesting

My compiles are faster on a 2.4Ghz than a 600Mhz, just try to compile the linux kernel, my question is what are you doing that your compiles are slower? -O256 optimization??? (c;
Just my $.02

I haven't seen The Hulk, but I completely agree with your comments on DVD "extras", most of the time they are just full of boring, self-promoting crap. Being a programmer, I found this DDJ Verity Stob article entertaining: http://www.ddj.com/documents/s=7927/ddj0305m/0305m .htm. Basically, it's what you would get if programmers started putting "extras" into software applications!

Kermit is an extensible file transfer protocol first developed at Columbia University in New York City in 1981 for transferring text and binary files without errors between diverse types of computers over potentially hostile communication links, and it is a suite of communications software programs from the Kermit Project at Columbia University. The Kermit protocol and software are named after Kermit the Frog, star of the television series, The Muppet Show; the name Kermit is used by permission of Henson Associates, Inc.

Over the years, the Kermit Project has grown into a worldwide cooperative nonprofit software development effort, headquartered at and coordinated from Columbia University. The Kermit Project is dedicated to production of cross-platform, long-lasting, standards-conformant, interoperable communications software, and is actively engaged in the standards process.

Since its inception in 1981, the Kermit protocol has developed into a sophisticated and powerful transport-independent tool for file transfer and management, incorporating, among other things:

KERMIT PROTOCOL

The feature that distinguishes Kermit protocol from most others is its wide range of settings to allow adaptation to any kind of connection between any two kinds of computers. Most other protocols are designed to work only on certain kinds or qualities of connections, and/or between certain kinds of computers, and therefore work poorly (or not at all) elsewhere and offer few if any methods to adapt to unplanned-for situations. Kermit, on the other hand, allows you to achieve successful file transfer and the highest possible performance on any given connection.

Unlike FTP or X-, Y-, and ZMODEM (the other protocols with which Kermit is most often compared) Kermit protocol does not assume or require:

• a connection that is transparent to control characters;
• an 8-bit connection;
• a clean connection;
• big buffers all along the communication path;
• physical-link-layer flow control.

(although Kermit does not require any of these conditions, it can take advantage of them when they are available). A feature article on Kermit protocol by Tim Kientzle in the February 1996 issue of Dr. Dobb's Journal noted that "Kermit's windowing approach is faster than protocols such as XModem and YModem . . . What many people don't realize is that under less-than-ideal conditions, Kermit's windowing approach is significantly faster than ZModem, a protocol with a well-deserved reputation for fast transfers over good-quality lines."

Thus Kermit transfers work "out of the box" almost every time.

James Kalbach's article points out how poorly understood the "7 +/- 2" "rule" is in general, but he seems to ignore that since its publication in 1956 psychologists have learned quite a bit about this "limitation" on information processing abilities. His suggestions are old news on this front and, instead of debunking 7 +/- 2, confirm its importance.

Let's start off with an example from where the research was perhaps first applied -- telephone numbers (George Miller, the researcher who "discovered" this number, worked for Bell Labs). US telephone numbers, since 1947, have followed the 3-3-4 format: 3 numbers for the area code, 3 for the exchange and 4 for the line number. Add the 1 in front of any number for dialing long distance and you've got an 11-number sequence. Does this violate the 7 +/- 2 "rule"? Not really, for a number of reasons:

1. First and foremost, this "rule" is a description of a limitation of our short term memory's (STM) ability to hold data. What constitutes a datum, however, can be quite flexible.
2. Forget about the 1 for long distance. We all know it needs to be there. It's a true rule -- to the point that most (if not all) cell phones do not even require you to punch it in, they'll dial it for you when needed. So, in some cases, procedures related to the information you are trying to remember can reduce the demands on STM's processing, and in others the demands can be off-loaded onto technology devices that can assist our processing of the information.
3. Area codes reduce the load of 3 digits to 1. You've probably got quite a few area codes stored in your long term memory (LTM). Even if you can't recall them all off the top of your head, you can recognize familiar ones amd may even place them geographically without much trouble once you see them again. These familiar area codes allow you to "store" these 3 digits in STM as 1 datum.
4. Exchanges, before faxes and cell phones and modems created the explosion in demand on phone numbers, used to mean a lot more than they do now. They were originally linked to telephone switching equipment and had names identifying them. Growing up, my home phone number wasn't 582-xxxx but LUzon 2-xxxx. The first two letters of the exchange name corresponded with the digits. So, like area codes, exchanges reduced the demand from 3 digits to 2 and possibly even one -- back when I was 10, there was a LU 1 and LU 2 in my area, but nothing else.

Given these factors, a local phone number can have a demand on your STM as little a 5 "bits" of data for a local call. Still, you might think that with auto-dial features of phones these days, does this format really matter anymore? Well, maybe not to the technology in our phones that stores the information for us, or to the telephone switching technology that accepts and routes and connects our calls, but if someone gives you a phone number to remember you'll have a much easier time of it if you at least recognize the area code, even if all you need to do is walk to the phone and dial (as opposed to memorizing it). That 3-3-4 pattern helps us cluster the data and retain it in STM longer than if we'd try to hold a ten-digit sequence without any clustering or recognizable pattern.

The point being that 7 +/- 2 is not a design "rule" that has anything to do with the underlying technology but, rather, how human brains work. Kalbach and others either have forgotten or never knew that the "7 +/- 2" pieces of info have nothing to do with what the technology can handle and everything to do with what one person can juggle in STM while trying to do something meaningful with that info.

Chunking or clustering data is something we do naturally, without conscious effort, to reduce demands on our information processing. Use of cultural conventions (like requiring the 1 for long distance) that everyone familiar with a task can learn can also reduce these demands. By reducing these demands, you can help people

Periodically, we hear about the rule of 7 +/- 2 from inexperienced interaction designers: Users can't handle more than 7 bullets on a page, seven items in a form list, or more than seven links in a menu. This has no evidence in reality - on the contrary. The psychologist George Miller's conclusions apply to what we can memorize - not what we can perceive.

Current research strongly supports that broad structures perform better than deep structures. Users can more easily cope with broad structures, they have a greater chance of getting lost in deep hierarchical structures, and new visitors are able to get a better overview of sites offerings from a broader structure.

read more: The Myth of "Seven, Plus or Minus 2"

Examining the Windows AARD Detection Code and historical behavior shows that the motivation and goal of Microsoft is to move consumers from other choices to theirs. Having the "keys to the kingdom" and that motivation results in the historical behavior mentioned.

Your scenario would last for about 2 days, before someone hacked Mozilla so that it appeared to be IE6.

What if the web site relies on an ActiveX plug-in that does all sorts of lock-in checks analogous to the Windows 3 AARD code? Last time I checked, Mozilla didn't grok ActiveX.

What if the web site relies on Microsoft IE 7 Palladium Edition?

Rather than representing a "blow to interactivity on the Internet," the University of California patent will be used to encourage the acceptance of a standard API for Web-based interactive applications, preventing the development of a VHS/ Beta-style "API war" between Microsoft, Netscape, Sun, and the like. We are not asking browser companies to pay royalties for developing browsers that can run applets. Rather, we are only requiring that they adhere to a standard "Web-API" that will be defined by a consortium of Eolas licensees...
[your] comments go on to imply that since I went to graduate school at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and since Mosaic was developed there, that I must have "lucked" into some special knowledge of Web technologies through an alleged "tangential association" with NCSA. This is untrue and misleading. Although I did receive my PhD from UIUC, I had no connection with NCSA at the time. My attendance on campus was from 1984-1989, long before the NCSA folks began work on a Web browser. Furthermore, my degree was from the department of Cell and Structural Biology, for studying the effects of aging on the microvascular system of the heart.

Flaws in Visual BASIC are documented right here

I Think Hers Did

Oops, a slash fell off at the end of that url. Try http://www.ddj.com/documents/s=7896/ddj0309m/ instead.