1. General purpose computing is not processor intensive (especially when you combine it with ASP style internet apps). We could fit it into a phone, easily. 2. This could drive more powerful and efficient processors for smaller devices. $100 is not improbable in a short time. 3. Cell phone penetration is good in developing world too (India/China). Its good to have a device with other uses too. 4. MS might have Windows Live! in mind. Ultimately this might be available world-wide, along with free subscription of Windows Live.
Overall, here is an interesting strategy: 1. Home Entertainment+ = XBox 360 2. Value+ = , Pocket PC, Windows CE 3. Servers = Windows on x64, IA64 4. Desktops and Laptops - Windows Vista The interesting this is, there is very little overlap between the target markets here. And they have got all the bases covered.
Is it just a .Net book?
on
Practical Mono
·
· Score: 5, Informative
From the review, it seems that the book deals with very few Mono specific stuff, like XSP and gtk#. Everything else is common to both MS.Net and Mono. Which makes me wonder, what is the real worth of buying this book. There are so many excellent books available for.Net (Microsoft Press has some excellent titles. Generally I have found MS Press books to be excellent on MS topics), which will take you through the basics and even to tricky details of the CLR and IL. The remaining Mono specific stuff can be gathered from the Internet.
So why buy this book? I would have bought one, if it talked more about Mono specific stuff. Like compatibility problems, challenges when building for.Net and Mono, more Linux specific stuff etc etc.
In spite of all the negative publicity, Itanium is quite far from dead. The recent corrections in path make a lot of sense. What really put Itanium out of orbit was Intel's decision to use Itanium in even the small and medium systems. This meant lost marketing focus, and some lame architectural decisions for x86 compatibility. Itanium has nothing in common with x86 except its made by Intel.
It seems the finally found the market: Last week Intel went back on x86 compatibility, only software emulation. Makes sense, the market for Itanium is big iron. It is way to expensive for anything less. And the users better run 64-bit Itanium optimized code to get their money's worth.
Microsoft trashed all Itanium plans for the small and mid segment. They will support Itanium only where it makes sense in their product line, just Windows Server,.Net Framework 64-bit and Sql Server 2005. (Not in Exchange Server, Biztalk Server etc. Earlier we even had Windows XP running on Itanium. Sigh!).
Intel's Motherboards supporting both Xeon and Itanium have now been postponed to 2009. This makes sense too, Itanium customers won't be interested in saving a few thousand bucks on commodity motherboards.
And finally 10 billion $ pumped in; good news. I'd think Itanium will be back, by 2008. Architecturally, it is nothing to laugh at atleast. It is just that it lacked everything else, platform-compiler-apps support.
Dumb Terminals 2.0
on
Web 3.0
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
The real problem with Web 2.0 is that it completely ignores the power of the client machines. Even if you have a screaming processor with a gigabyte of RAM, it is just the same as if you had a 3 year old machine. While its ok, even ideal for documents and general reading is that what we desire from Applications, which is what Web 2.0 is about? The Web has not really grown up from HTML Docs.
In my Web 3.0, I want applications to use my machine. I want applications to be sandboxed, I want to run them securely, and they need to be fast and capable. Java applets (although everyone hated it) is much closer to Web 2.0 than anything we have now. As much as the Slashdot crowd might hate it, the next version of the Web might come with Windows Vista, with Xaml (SVG like) applications, hardware accelerated 3d graphics, and running with limited permissions. I hope there are alternatives too.
Before you start flaming me, think about cycles wasted per second.
I like shooting in film, a lot more than using digital cameras. Because _TO ME_, theres a lot more to photography that clicking good pictures. The thrill and the hope that you carry back home, when you click on film simply isn't there with digital.
There are other reasons too: 1. Vibrance and Depth (I have always found good color slides to offer better vibrance/depth) 2. Resolution (Yes, digital is almost there these days at the higher end. But there is a difference.) n. Romantic!
On the downside for films, the biggest problem is that quality film are very expensive, compared to digital. But, the fact that the Fuji sells a lot of film to high-end professionals is testament that there is something about film.
I hope Canon has no plans to stop film SLRs. I am a exclusive Canon user. But, the scariest thing to come out of this could be that slides and film might get more expensive as demand decreases.
Comets Crashing into our small planet is one of our biggest long term threats. The samples will go a long way in being able to identify their composition and look at means to destroy them in future.
Although the likelyhood of asteroids hitting the earth are higher, comets are special in that they give very little warning before they hit. Maybe a few years, while asteroids can be predicted much earlier. A large comet hitting the earth, will likely be an ELE (Extinction Level Event), destroying most life and all humans.
To me, this is something that we doing for sustaining human life. I don't care about the money spent, or the small chance of bringing in viruses, which they may have already considered.
IBM reckons that the addition of native XML support will expand the $7.8bn relational database market by another $1.4bn. And IBM wants to get the bulk of that additional XML-related revenue for databases.
Sql support has been on the most wanted list for most companies for quite some time now. With Web Services being used everywhere, and most data formats going XML, representing all those in old-style tabular form and querying them is such a pain. Now, Sql Server 2005 and Oracle have excellent Xml support right now, not next year. Which means IBM, you are late. The deperate switchers are already switching (I know many who did to MSSQL 2005). And many for whom it is desirable have been playing around with it for atleast a year now. By the time Viper is done, they would already be running some database which supports Xml.
Which not only means that you would get very little of the Xml pie, but also that you will have to work real hard to make sure your existing customers don't move to Oracle or MS, because they want Xml support much earlier.
I had one such practice a few years back. However, in 2001-2003 there were fewer people looking for this kind of service. People were generally unwilling to take risks, and nothing much was happening in terms of application development. Atleast nothing like whats happening now, or back in '99.
Although many websites (like rentacoder.com) offer this functionality, it is difficult to guarantee the quality of people you will end up working with. The surprising limitation of these sites is that they have no mechanism to ensure quality of bidders or participants. Which is exactly why Arzoo.com (by the hotmail founder) failed. Bad quality. Add to that, people simply trying to outbid others. I have even seen $100 for a 1 month job!!! If you go to such sites, you are very likely to lose some time trying to filter out the not-so-good ones.
Since you will be working with people you know little about, there are however things that you could do, before making your final decision.
1. See if they have blogs. Look at their attitude, language, code quality, passion, whatever... 2. Talk to them. Check for conversational skills. These are very important! 3. See if they have done any open source work. (That will be a real bonus!) 4. Ask them to send source code.
I feel such a practice certainly has a place in modern IT. Agile, Quality-Concious and Inexpensive. Things are looking up again, and thats good news.
Googly: In cricket, a cricket ball bowled as if to break one way that actually breaks in the opposite way.
You simply gotta love it. The surprise. The unbelievable ideas coming out of nowhere. It makes me wonder whether computing community's obsession with technicalities, without imagination gives any good results.
Look at Sun's network computer. It was supposed to break MS Monopoly, and bring true computing power to the networks. Look at Linux, better than Windows and Free! Both has solid technology behind them, but Windows still runs on the vast majority of computers.
And then look at google. Excellent front end. Now excellent back end. They made the OS (middleware) irrelevent. Great technology. Even better imagination.
But finally, if google ever becomes a monopoly, MS would pale in any comparison.
Bill must really think videogames are super-important; they keep losing billions, but Microsoft just keeps on going back for more punishment.
So you think the XBox is about games? Hell no. It is about control of the living room. It plays movies, tranfers music from a PC/Mp3 player, plays them, you can send messages to people and maybe even more. It runs a custom Windows 2000 kernel too, for the Power architecture.
It seems so odd that they'd use their monopoly on desktop productivity software to try to build a videogame empire: history says that..... with their natural advantages in productivity software.
So what do you gauge from this? It means the real intent is to be the centre of our digital lifestyle. They make the hardware and the software. Like Apple. Does it get better than that??
The device is pretty cheap, compared to a computer yet more powerful than any out there. Someday MS might decide it can also be used to write emails, create Word documents, play games, and anything you might use a computer today. (And who knows, they might already have word running on it!)
Also, the article raises the question - now that RealNetworks has settled with Microsoft, will anyone bother to complain about this?
Complain about what?? Is Microsoft to be blamed for companies refusing the carry Windows XP-N? Sometimes I wonder why submissions are worded just to make it through the Slashdot Editors.
I have also wondered why a company should be penalized for including a web-browser and a multimedia player. Every modern OS has one built in. But then, it could be just my biased viewpoint.
Blogs are an example of Google's support for new content. It's excellent indexing of blogs supported the popularity of the concept. And as a consequence of the importance give to new content, many keywords (esp technical) list blogs right on top.
Supporting new content is essential for the growth of the web. A web NOT weaved around high profile websites, built by media monsters (CNN, BBC...). The new web is about independent content, free thought and free speech. Yours and mine.
C# - The C# Coding Style Guide, Mike Krueger(SharpDevelop). This is probably the most widely used one (Novell). It largely agrees with Microsoft's internal coding standards, with a few exceptions.
VB -.Net Coding Standards, part of the SDK. This is not comprehensive though, like the C# doc mentioned above.
Version Control -
Server: Subversion + Apache
Client: Tortoise SVN (Excellent) [We also use Perforce, CVS, VSS(Commercial apps)] Continuous Integration - Cruise Control.Net Intranet, Knowledge Management - DotNetNuke (www.dotnetnuke.com) Project Management - dotProject (PHP) (www.dotproject.com), MS Project Unit Testing - NUnit (www.nunit.org)
It seems that while we are debating various MS killer technologies, MS has itself identified the most likely cause of the weakening of its desktop dominance. Mobile Phones and devices. MS has been late in entering the sector (reminds me of the internet), but then the OS has caught up, or surpassed the others in most areas. The new Windows CE 5.0 is pretty solid.
If we analyze the submission, the main reasons why people would switch to solid state devices would be
1. Price 2. You don't need a PC to send mails and make documents 3. Compactness and looks better 4. Easier to use
But if these are the factors, wouldn't mobile devices be way way easier than these computing appliances? And guess what, MS has an even better chance at capturing the market than anything else with XBox 360, which is now a multimedia + entertainment + communication... yeah and gaming console.
The reasons why people would use PCs would be 1. Powerful machine (For games, multimedia, programming etc etc) 2. Developers, Power users 3. Upgradeability 4. and most importantly, they prefer a PC for some reason.
By the way, about the $220 Mobilis, I don't see it as any different from the Simputer (which was yet another Slashdot favorite, and also from India) but failed to make any waves. IAAI, and I have not seen a Simputer, except at a trade show.
No large IT implementation would trust an MSIL to Java byte code conversion. In most cases downtimes are simple un-acceptable. And if one pessimistic guy suggests data corruption they would not even think about it. They might even buy a source code conversion tool (like Microsoft Java to C# converter JLCA), but not converted byte-codes.
Again such large clients are most likely to want this tool too, a common case being new.Net projects failing to integrate into their predominantly Java-based applications.
Medium sized companies would most likely run it on.Net. itself.
For smaller companies, looking to save money on MS licensing, Mono will be a better alternative since they would not have the integration requirements of the larger companies, which only Java can provide. Mono has been tested more rigorously than this byte-code conversion magic.
Then there are software development companies, looking to port their.Net applications into Java. They wouldn't care about reliability as long as they make quick money. But then,.Net has been around for relatively short period and hence.Net-Java conversion would be less likely than a Java-.Net conversion.
So who would try this product, other than purely out of academic interest or curiosity? I have a totally pessimistic view about this product.
Windows Server 2003 has supported 64-bits (Enterprise Edition and Datacenter edition) since its launch on IA64(Itanium). Before that, they also had 64-bit versions of Windows 2000 Server.
Windows XP Professional also had a 64-bit version since 2003, again running on the Itanium. However, XP on Itanium was discontinued as no one was using it outside MS testing labs.
Whats gonna be launched are x64 editions of XP and 2003 Server.
Those of you who want to try out a fully featured IDE for.Net can try out SharpDevelop. This is GPL'ed and the project (including source code) can be found at ICSharpCode.
I had written a couple of plug-ins for #D, and it took me less that two days to understand the architecture. Parts of the application are hacks, mainly because it does not have an industry heavy weigth behind it, unlike Eclipse. The project runs on contributions.
SharpDevelop architecture includes pluggable language parsers, components, add-ins etc. I will definitely recommend this application to any.Net programmer.
Anyone who is following the IE/Windows road-maps will find that the article is fundamentally flawed, in analyzing the intentions of the Vole. They are not trying to fight Firefox with better HTML and CSS compliance (though that is what they want people to believe). It is all about turning web applications into rich clients. In Longhorn, web sites can present a fully rich client to browsers through Avalon.
Although, I am gonna get burnt for ignoring the benefits of cross platform capability, rich clients do have some significant advantages over web pages. This is especially true when it comes to businesses. For intranet applications, cross-browser compatibility will NEVER be the deciding factor. Security too will not be, since the application will be trusted. Features however will be.
Personally, I don't like the idea of hundreds of powerful PCs simply used for rendering web pages. They are not that incapable.
I know XUL is similar, but I doubt applications will be built on that. IE is standard in most organizations. And most of the Firefox acceptance is since HTML is supported on IE and Firefox. Building an application that will work only of Firefox (with XUL) might be a more difficult decision.
All of this is for Joe Sixpack. Not gamers and enthusiasts.
If you want to go 64-bit, pick up an Athlon64 2800 for about $100, or Athlon64 3000 for abt $130. AMD motherboards also work out cheaper, since they have been around for a year and a half.
The 64-bit market is just opening up, expect the pentium prices to come down significantly soon. By 2006, most processors will ship with 64-bit capability. There are not many 64-bit native applications available now. Games are still 32 bit. Windows XP 64 bit is just coming out next month. And Linux still does not support Joe.
If you are price concious, NEVER buy anything quite recent. Save the money, and buy dual-core 64-bit processors a couple of years from now.
The first thing that would come to mind would be a storm of lawsuits from publishers, worried about losing their core business. MP3 sharing and Music Companies come to mind.
It seems the publishing industry is behaving more sanely than the music industry. Technology is progressing, and change is inevitable. Its better that we accept it. But then again, sharing music could be more detrimental to CD sales, than viewing text on a computer screen would be to book sales.
$1.8 billion a year would be a big boost to free software if an EU agency were to funnel it into free software development. That would anger Microsoft more than increasing the fine would.
The governments and law should stand up to deliver and ensure Justice, not free software. What about other commercial projects competing with these free software products? Will it not be unfair?
If you funnel 1.8 BILLION dollars into the free software industry, it will be disastrous for many closed source commercial products which have a free and open source alternative. They will have to change their operational style, or close shop. And about operational style, insisting on a certain method of functioning (open source) is not really the kind of freedom that we are so keen to protect.
Sometimes I wish people will not be so blinded by the free and open way of doing things. It may be good, better or best. But the defenders of freedom should not themselves suppress freedom.
For Java at least the spec is open: anyone may make an alternative implementation. For.NET there is no open formal spec at all, and alternative implementations have an unclear legal status.
While I do not disagree with your argument on why Java needs to be protected, your statement that there is no formal spec for.Net is just ignorance. The specification for.Net and CLR is probably more formal (ECMA standards).
From the microsoft site: The Common Language Runtime (CLR) is Microsoft's commercial implementation of the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) specification. The CLI specification is an international standard (read ECMA) for creating development and execution environments in which languages & libraries work together seamlessly.
It really depends on whether the business model is supportable with advertising. And then again, its about being open to change. The web and email is free because the pioneers thought of a radically new way to make money out of it. And then it became the rule.
It did not happen with telephone. People were narrow minded then.
And finally, you said telephony is not free. But then if the net becomes free, VoIP enables free telephony. It also enables free web-casts, and internet radios. All supported by advertising.
The only part missing in SharpDevelop is the ability to add "Web References", or references to XML SOAP resources.
For most people, it would seem that the lack of an integrated debugger is the biggest problem with Sharp Develop. You will have to debug externally with GuiDebug, which is slightly time consuming while testing code.
They are planning to include debug in some future release.
Slashdot Mirror
Looking forward, this does make business sense.
1. General purpose computing is not processor intensive (especially when you combine it with ASP style internet apps). We could fit it into a phone, easily.
2. This could drive more powerful and efficient processors for smaller devices. $100 is not improbable in a short time.
3. Cell phone penetration is good in developing world too (India/China). Its good to have a device with other uses too.
4. MS might have Windows Live! in mind. Ultimately this might be available world-wide, along with free subscription of Windows Live.
Overall, here is an interesting strategy:
1. Home Entertainment+ = XBox 360
2. Value+ = , Pocket PC, Windows CE
3. Servers = Windows on x64, IA64
4. Desktops and Laptops - Windows Vista
The interesting this is, there is very little overlap between the target markets here. And they have got all the bases covered.
From the review, it seems that the book deals with very few Mono specific stuff, like XSP and gtk#. Everything else is common to both MS .Net and Mono. Which makes me wonder, what is the real worth of buying this book. There are so many excellent books available for .Net (Microsoft Press has some excellent titles. Generally I have found MS Press books to be excellent on MS topics), which will take you through the basics and even to tricky details of the CLR and IL. The remaining Mono specific stuff can be gathered from the Internet.
.Net and Mono, more Linux specific stuff etc etc.
So why buy this book? I would have bought one, if it talked more about Mono specific stuff. Like compatibility problems, challenges when building for
In spite of all the negative publicity, Itanium is quite far from dead. The recent corrections in path make a lot of sense. What really put Itanium out of orbit was Intel's decision to use Itanium in even the small and medium systems. This meant lost marketing focus, and some lame architectural decisions for x86 compatibility. Itanium has nothing in common with x86 except its made by Intel.
.Net Framework 64-bit and Sql Server 2005. (Not in Exchange Server, Biztalk Server etc. Earlier we even had Windows XP running on Itanium. Sigh!).
It seems the finally found the market:
Last week Intel went back on x86 compatibility, only software emulation. Makes sense, the market for Itanium is big iron. It is way to expensive for anything less. And the users better run 64-bit Itanium optimized code to get their money's worth.
Microsoft trashed all Itanium plans for the small and mid segment. They will support Itanium only where it makes sense in their product line, just Windows Server,
Intel's Motherboards supporting both Xeon and Itanium have now been postponed to 2009. This makes sense too, Itanium customers won't be interested in saving a few thousand bucks on commodity motherboards.
And finally 10 billion $ pumped in; good news. I'd think Itanium will be back, by 2008. Architecturally, it is nothing to laugh at atleast. It is just that it lacked everything else, platform-compiler-apps support.
The real problem with Web 2.0 is that it completely ignores the power of the client machines. Even if you have a screaming processor with a gigabyte of RAM, it is just the same as if you had a 3 year old machine. While its ok, even ideal for documents and general reading is that what we desire from Applications, which is what Web 2.0 is about? The Web has not really grown up from HTML Docs.
In my Web 3.0, I want applications to use my machine. I want applications to be sandboxed, I want to run them securely, and they need to be fast and capable. Java applets (although everyone hated it) is much closer to Web 2.0 than anything we have now. As much as the Slashdot crowd might hate it, the next version of the Web might come with Windows Vista, with Xaml (SVG like) applications, hardware accelerated 3d graphics, and running with limited permissions. I hope there are alternatives too.
Before you start flaming me, think about cycles wasted per second.
I like shooting in film, a lot more than using digital cameras. Because _TO ME_, theres a lot more to photography that clicking good pictures. The thrill and the hope that you carry back home, when you click on film simply isn't there with digital.
There are other reasons too:
1. Vibrance and Depth (I have always found good color slides to offer better vibrance/depth)
2. Resolution (Yes, digital is almost there these days at the higher end. But there is a difference.)
n. Romantic!
On the downside for films, the biggest problem is that quality film are very expensive, compared to digital. But, the fact that the Fuji sells a lot of film to high-end professionals is testament that there is something about film.
I hope Canon has no plans to stop film SLRs. I am a exclusive Canon user. But, the scariest thing to come out of this could be that slides and film might get more expensive as demand decreases.
Comets Crashing into our small planet is one of our biggest long term threats. The samples will go a long way in being able to identify their composition and look at means to destroy them in future.
Although the likelyhood of asteroids hitting the earth are higher, comets are special in that they give very little warning before they hit. Maybe a few years, while asteroids can be predicted much earlier. A large comet hitting the earth, will likely be an ELE (Extinction Level Event), destroying most life and all humans.
To me, this is something that we doing for sustaining human life. I don't care about the money spent, or the small chance of bringing in viruses, which they may have already considered.
IBM reckons that the addition of native XML support will expand the $7.8bn relational database market by another $1.4bn. And IBM wants to get the bulk of that additional XML-related revenue for databases.
Sql support has been on the most wanted list for most companies for quite some time now. With Web Services being used everywhere, and most data formats going XML, representing all those in old-style tabular form and querying them is such a pain. Now, Sql Server 2005 and Oracle have excellent Xml support right now, not next year. Which means IBM, you are late. The deperate switchers are already switching (I know many who did to MSSQL 2005). And many for whom it is desirable have been playing around with it for atleast a year now. By the time Viper is done, they would already be running some database which supports Xml.
Which not only means that you would get very little of the Xml pie, but also that you will have to work real hard to make sure your existing customers don't move to Oracle or MS, because they want Xml support much earlier.
I had one such practice a few years back. However, in 2001-2003 there were fewer people looking for this kind of service. People were generally unwilling to take risks, and nothing much was happening in terms of application development. Atleast nothing like whats happening now, or back in '99.
Although many websites (like rentacoder.com) offer this functionality, it is difficult to guarantee the quality of people you will end up working with. The surprising limitation of these sites is that they have no mechanism to ensure quality of bidders or participants. Which is exactly why Arzoo.com (by the hotmail founder) failed. Bad quality. Add to that, people simply trying to outbid others. I have even seen $100 for a 1 month job!!! If you go to such sites, you are very likely to lose some time trying to filter out the not-so-good ones.
Since you will be working with people you know little about, there are however things that you could do, before making your final decision.
1. See if they have blogs. Look at their attitude, language, code quality, passion, whatever...
2. Talk to them. Check for conversational skills. These are very important!
3. See if they have done any open source work. (That will be a real bonus!)
4. Ask them to send source code.
I feel such a practice certainly has a place in modern IT. Agile, Quality-Concious and Inexpensive.
Things are looking up again, and thats good news.
Good luck to you.
Googly: In cricket, a cricket ball bowled as if to break one way that actually breaks in the opposite way.
You simply gotta love it. The surprise. The unbelievable ideas coming out of nowhere. It makes me wonder whether computing community's obsession with technicalities, without imagination gives any good results.
Look at Sun's network computer. It was supposed to break MS Monopoly, and bring true computing power to the networks. Look at Linux, better than Windows and Free! Both has solid technology behind them, but Windows still runs on the vast majority of computers.
And then look at google. Excellent front end. Now excellent back end. They made the OS (middleware) irrelevent. Great technology. Even better imagination.
But finally, if google ever becomes a monopoly, MS would pale in any comparison.
Bill must really think videogames are super-important; they keep losing billions, but Microsoft just keeps on going back for more punishment.
..... with their natural advantages in productivity software.
So you think the XBox is about games? Hell no. It is about control of the living room. It plays movies, tranfers music from a PC/Mp3 player, plays them, you can send messages to people and maybe even more. It runs a custom Windows 2000 kernel too, for the Power architecture.
It seems so odd that they'd use their monopoly on desktop productivity software to try to build a videogame empire: history says that
So what do you gauge from this? It means the real intent is to be the centre of our digital lifestyle. They make the hardware and the software. Like Apple. Does it get better than that??
The device is pretty cheap, compared to a computer yet more powerful than any out there. Someday MS might decide it can also be used to write emails, create Word documents, play games, and anything you might use a computer today. (And who knows, they might already have word running on it!)
I dare you to disagree!
Also, the article raises the question - now that RealNetworks has settled with Microsoft, will anyone bother to complain about this?
Complain about what?? Is Microsoft to be blamed for companies refusing the carry Windows XP-N? Sometimes I wonder why submissions are worded just to make it through the Slashdot Editors.
I have also wondered why a company should be penalized for including a web-browser and a multimedia player. Every modern OS has one built in. But then, it could be just my biased viewpoint.
Blogs are an example of Google's support for new content. It's excellent indexing of blogs supported the popularity of the concept. And as a consequence of the importance give to new content, many keywords (esp technical) list blogs right on top.
Supporting new content is essential for the growth of the web. A web NOT weaved around high profile websites, built by media monsters (CNN, BBC...). The new web is about independent content, free thought and free speech. Yours and mine.
C# - The C# Coding Style Guide, Mike Krueger(SharpDevelop). This is probably the most widely used one (Novell). It largely agrees with Microsoft's internal coding standards, with a few exceptions. .Net Coding Standards, part of the SDK. This is not comprehensive though, like the C# doc mentioned above.
VB -
Version Control -
Server: Subversion + Apache
Client: Tortoise SVN (Excellent) [We also use Perforce, CVS, VSS(Commercial apps)]
Continuous Integration - Cruise Control.Net
Intranet, Knowledge Management - DotNetNuke (www.dotnetnuke.com)
Project Management - dotProject (PHP) (www.dotproject.com), MS Project
Unit Testing - NUnit (www.nunit.org)
It seems that while we are debating various MS killer technologies, MS has itself identified the most likely cause of the weakening of its desktop dominance. Mobile Phones and devices. MS has been late in entering the sector (reminds me of the internet), but then the OS has caught up, or surpassed the others in most areas. The new Windows CE 5.0 is pretty solid.
... yeah and gaming console.
If we analyze the submission, the main reasons why people would switch to solid state devices would be
1. Price
2. You don't need a PC to send mails and make documents
3. Compactness and looks better
4. Easier to use
But if these are the factors, wouldn't mobile devices be way way easier than these computing appliances? And guess what, MS has an even better chance at capturing the market than anything else with XBox 360, which is now a multimedia + entertainment + communication
The reasons why people would use PCs would be
1. Powerful machine (For games, multimedia, programming etc etc)
2. Developers, Power users
3. Upgradeability
4. and most importantly, they prefer a PC for some reason.
By the way, about the $220 Mobilis, I don't see it as any different from the Simputer (which was yet another Slashdot favorite, and also from India) but failed to make any waves. IAAI, and I have not seen a Simputer, except at a trade show.
No large IT implementation would trust an MSIL to Java byte code conversion. In most cases downtimes are simple un-acceptable. And if one pessimistic guy suggests data corruption they would not even think about it. They might even buy a source code conversion tool (like Microsoft Java to C# converter JLCA), but not converted byte-codes.
.Net projects failing to integrate into their predominantly Java-based applications.
.Net. itself.
.Net applications into Java. They wouldn't care about reliability as long as they make quick money. But then, .Net has been around for relatively short period and hence .Net-Java conversion would be less likely than a Java-.Net conversion.
Again such large clients are most likely to want this tool too, a common case being new
Medium sized companies would most likely run it on
For smaller companies, looking to save money on MS licensing, Mono will be a better alternative since they would not have the integration requirements of the larger companies, which only Java can provide. Mono has been tested more rigorously than this byte-code conversion magic.
Then there are software development companies, looking to port their
So who would try this product, other than purely out of academic interest or curiosity? I have a totally pessimistic view about this product.
I have been wondering about this for quite some time ....
Does this mean that Microsoft has the Windows Kernel running on a Power architecture? Isn't XBox based on DX10?
I am wondering why this isn't more significant than the XBox itself? Maybe I am wrong, please correct me!
The submission is absolutely misleading.
Windows Server 2003 has supported 64-bits (Enterprise Edition and Datacenter edition) since its launch on IA64(Itanium). Before that, they also had 64-bit versions of Windows 2000 Server.
Windows XP Professional also had a 64-bit version since 2003, again running on the Itanium. However, XP on Itanium was discontinued as no one was using it outside MS testing labs.
Whats gonna be launched are x64 editions of XP and 2003 Server.
Those of you who want to try out a fully featured IDE for .Net can try out SharpDevelop. This is GPL'ed and the project (including source code) can be found at ICSharpCode.
.Net programmer.
I had written a couple of plug-ins for #D, and it took me less that two days to understand the architecture. Parts of the application are hacks, mainly because it does not have an industry heavy weigth behind it, unlike Eclipse. The project runs on contributions.
SharpDevelop architecture includes pluggable language parsers, components, add-ins etc. I will definitely recommend this application to any
Anyone who is following the IE/Windows road-maps will find that the article is fundamentally flawed, in analyzing the intentions of the Vole. They are not trying to fight Firefox with better HTML and CSS compliance (though that is what they want people to believe). It is all about turning web applications into rich clients. In Longhorn, web sites can present a fully rich client to browsers through Avalon.
Although, I am gonna get burnt for ignoring the benefits of cross platform capability, rich clients do have some significant advantages over web pages. This is especially true when it comes to businesses. For intranet applications, cross-browser compatibility will NEVER be the deciding factor. Security too will not be, since the application will be trusted. Features however will be.
Personally, I don't like the idea of hundreds of powerful PCs simply used for rendering web pages. They are not that incapable.
I know XUL is similar, but I doubt applications will be built on that. IE is standard in most organizations. And most of the Firefox acceptance is since HTML is supported on IE and Firefox. Building an application that will work only of Firefox (with XUL) might be a more difficult decision.
All of this is for Joe Sixpack. Not gamers and enthusiasts.
If you want to go 64-bit, pick up an Athlon64 2800 for about $100, or Athlon64 3000 for abt $130. AMD motherboards also work out cheaper, since they have been around for a year and a half.
The 64-bit market is just opening up, expect the pentium prices to come down significantly soon. By 2006, most processors will ship with 64-bit capability. There are not many 64-bit native applications available now. Games are still 32 bit. Windows XP 64 bit is just coming out next month. And Linux still does not support Joe.
If you are price concious, NEVER buy anything quite recent. Save the money, and buy dual-core 64-bit processors a couple of years from now.
The first thing that would come to mind would be a storm of lawsuits from publishers, worried about losing their core business. MP3 sharing and Music Companies come to mind.
But then, this article is more re-assuring.
It seems the publishing industry is behaving more sanely than the music industry. Technology is progressing, and change is inevitable. Its better that we accept it. But then again, sharing music could be more detrimental to CD sales, than viewing text on a computer screen would be to book sales.
$1.8 billion a year would be a big boost to free software if an EU agency were to funnel it into free software development. That would anger Microsoft more than increasing the fine would.
The governments and law should stand up to deliver and ensure Justice, not free software. What about other commercial projects competing with these free software products? Will it not be unfair?
If you funnel 1.8 BILLION dollars into the free software industry, it will be disastrous for many closed source commercial products which have a free and open source alternative. They will have to change their operational style, or close shop. And about operational style, insisting on a certain method of functioning (open source) is not really the kind of freedom that we are so keen to protect.
Sometimes I wish people will not be so blinded by the free and open way of doing things. It may be good, better or best. But the defenders of freedom should not themselves suppress freedom.
For Java at least the spec is open: anyone may make an alternative implementation. For .NET there is no open formal spec at all, and alternative implementations have an unclear legal status.
.Net is just ignorance. The specification for .Net and CLR is probably more formal (ECMA standards).
While I do not disagree with your argument on why Java needs to be protected, your statement that there is no formal spec for
From the microsoft site:
The Common Language Runtime (CLR) is Microsoft's commercial implementation of the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) specification. The CLI specification is an international standard (read ECMA) for creating development and execution environments in which languages & libraries work together seamlessly.
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The C# language is also an ECMA formal spec.
For a serious alternative implementation, Go-Mono. As to its unclear legal status, we have our own Miguel De Icaza discussing these issues, Here.
I guess he is tired people are raising the same issues everytime. Its been done to death. And Miguel is quite liked inside Microsoft too.
FM/MW Radio is free.
FM Television is free.
It really depends on whether the business model is supportable with advertising. And then again, its about being open to change. The web and email is free because the pioneers thought of a radically new way to make money out of it. And then it became the rule.
It did not happen with telephone. People were narrow minded then.
And finally, you said telephony is not free. But then if the net becomes free, VoIP enables free telephony. It also enables free web-casts, and internet radios. All supported by advertising.
This might be a new beginning, who knows!
The only part missing in SharpDevelop is the ability to add "Web References", or references to XML SOAP resources.
For most people, it would seem that the lack of an integrated debugger is the biggest problem with Sharp Develop. You will have to debug externally with GuiDebug, which is slightly time consuming while testing code.
They are planning to include debug in some future release.