"I’ve already heard from a top-tier developer this morning who, in response to this story, is dropping an idea for a very cool iPhone app out of fear that the work to create it would be for naught as Apple might reject it." Yeah, I wouldn't develop anything for the iPhone at this point. Non-existent debugging tools and lack of objective App Store publishing policies are just some of the reasons why it's a terrible platform to develop for.

"I think there’s an interesting point here: To create change, you need to reach out to those who don’t already agree with you. If you’re just having agreeable conversations with likeminded people, you’re probably not actually accomplishing much in the way of fostering change." Amen, brother.

"Emphasing frequent releases and gutsy release policies makes it actually seem like someone is supporting developers instead of treating them like their software carries the plague. Data centers are often treated like quarantine stations and developers are treated like asymptomatic carriers of some unknown virulent disease. To be safe nothing should ever change, but that's not an attitude that makes things better. Nice to see that recognized."

If you've ever tried to run Lawson software A) I'm sorry and B) you'll realize that they can't do it as SaaS because it's so bloated and horrible. Ugh.

RoboTask is pretty cool and free today. Windows only, but there's a lot of Windows admins out there. :-)

Go Maitri! And screw Gustav!

Another device I should get. Has both red and white LEDs.

“She asked the library how she could go about banning books,” he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. “The librarian was aghast.” Teenage pregnancy, book banning, she's the whole package.

Might have to check this out for my trip to the Great Smoky Mountains in October.

This is a great presentation. It's worth it if only for the slide with the domo-kuns: "Every time you deploy a security virtual appliance God kills a kitten."

Apologizing when you aren't sure what you did wrong… hehe.

Might have to give this a shot. I'm looking for cheap storage options lately.

"On is a flash-based barebones Linux install that gets you up and running, on the Net, and with much of what you need to run the computer in instantly. " That's pretty cool, have your whole OS in flash.

Holy crap, Dell has a high capacity battery and is advertising 19 hours of life on their new Latitude E6400s. Might have to find a way to get a new laptop a few years before the normal replacement cycle.

"A failed system or application has known, documented consequences. It is not a game of probability or chance. An unpatched security vulnerability is a game of chance where in most cases the odds against you are not known. " Amen.

On Red Hat Enterprise Linux the passwd command has a flag, –stdin, that lets you echo text into it. Great for scripts.

"…all you need to remember is this: never use a fancy word when a simple one will do."

"A job well done deserves a proper reward, right? But in collaborative efforts such as agile development, can you single out individual efforts without killing the team’s morale and productivity?"

"Great design is intuitive. Great design eliminates confusion. But not for everyone, not all the time." Been saying this a lot lately. Eliminating confusion definitely follows the 80/20 rule.

Mentioned this interview with Jim Gray yesterday.

This is pretty interesting… even the cops say not to talk to the cops, even if you think you're innocent.

"A job well done deserves a proper reward, right? But in collaborative efforts such as agile development, can you single out individual efforts without killing the team’s morale and productivity?"

"Great design is intuitive. Great design eliminates confusion. But not for everyone, not all the time." Been saying this a lot lately. Eliminating confusion definitely follows the 80/20 rule.

Mentioned this interview with Jim Gray yesterday.

This is pretty interesting… even the cops say not to talk to the cops, even if you think you're innocent.

In years past the Minnesota State Fair has had a dirt pit where you could drive Bobcats, small excavators, etc.

"Marketing got wind of it, and nobody at Apple is ever allowed to speak publicly about anything without marketing approval" First rule of Apple is you don't talk about Apple, unless you are praising it.

"To get serious about energy policy, America needs to abandon, once and for all, the false promise of the hydrogen age." Interesting stuff.

Great, another one. I wish they'd hurry up with the movies. Emma Watson and Daniel Radcliffe are getting old.

"Save power – disable Windows Aero at will" Going to try this on my laptop tonight.

This is pretty cool — they’re going to post Orwell’s diary entries day by day exactly 70 years after he wrote them.

Charles Miller being a lot nicer than I would have been in addressing the FSF vs. Apple debate. Good points & links, too.

“A woman who lives at Walendowski’s house reported the incident. She said he was intoxicated.” From the state that just figured out it is illegal to have sex with a corpse because the corpse didn’t give consent. Apparently we have nothing better to do.

UW-Madison’s CS department representing itself with a graduate project porting ext2 to MS Singularity. Cool.

I would buy a Mac if it were price-competitive with PC hardware.