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Paul Thurrott has revealed that there will be seven Windows Vista editions:

• Starter
• Home Basic
• Home Premium
• Ultimate
• Small Business
• Professional
• Enterprise

Justin French asks the question, “How would the average home user possibly choose…”.

Well, Justin. I can answer that question easily: They’ll “choose” the edition that ships with the PC they buy. The “average home user” is not going to buy an upgrade for their existing PC. Why would they? They barely use XP’s capabilities, let alone whatever they’ll get with Vista.

9/12/2005 10:03:45 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)      Comments [0]  general

At the PDC

It’s Sunday, and I’m at the first pre-conference PDC session. Actually, it’s lunch time and I’m sitting at a table outside of the session room. My first session is on C# 2.0. So far, just one real surprise: Thanks to Generics, foreach has gone from the iterating loop of choice to “not so great”. Because, as when templates were added to C++, it’s much faster/cheaper to just add iteration directly to your generic collection classes than deal with the inefficiencies of Enumerators. It turns out that there are still reasons to use Enumerators in C# 2.0, but it’s a whole lot less clear, and frankly, much more esoteric. Unless something changes, look to see foreach getting deprecated as a general looping mechanism in C#.

A word on what I’m doing and where I’m at: This is being brought to you via wireless access at the LA Convention Center, thanks to our host, Microsoft. They even have facilities here for the “great unwashed” that don’t have WiFi capability: wires for direct connects and even Internet Terminals for those who really travelled light.

This as been my first real opportunity to post to the blog. PDX advertises WiFi at the airport, but I couldn’t connect via my laptop. I would’ve suspected the machinations of my IT department, but the WiFi connection at my home worked like a charm. I don’t know what the problem at PDX was, especially since my Palm LifeDrive had no trouble hooking up (note to self: investigate blogging sw for the Palm). My next opportunity was my hotel room at the Radisson Midtown LA. It turns out that this is the weekend that they’re switching over from wired access (piggy backing on USC’s connection) to their own WiFi solution. So, while there’s no connection this weekend, I should have WiFi capability tomorrow (Monday) morning. We’ll see…

As a result of no Internet prior to the conference, I had to scoot here when I got up this morning, since I’d forgotten to print out my pre-conference itinerary. The good news was that my session didn’t start for 2 hours. The bad news was that I hadn’t eaten breakfast yet, and there are no real breakfast facilities near the Convention Center. However, I did have 2 hours, and I saw a Holiday Inn at the outskirts of the downtown LA area, so I hoofed it over there and had a nice, if expensive (hotel prices) breakfast there before hoofing it back to the Convention Center. I still ended up back with an hour to spare .

Today’s the short day. It doesn’t look like anything after the pre-conference session, so I can just head back to my room for the evening. Tomorrow I can take my time getting to the Convention Center.

9/11/2005 12:39:10 PM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)      Comments [0]  development | general | PDC 05

Next Week
Next week, I’m off to the Microsoft PDC for some “geek time”. I’ll either have a lot to say or no time to say anything . Ideally, the conference will have WiFi, and I’ll be able to do some “live blogging”. We’ll see…
9/9/2005 4:45:50 PM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)      Comments [0]  general

A Hit and a Miss

The new Fall TV season has started (sort of), and now I’ve seen the first two new shows on my list (also sort of).

First out of the box was Prison Break, on Fox. Now, I find prisons depressing, so I wasn’t looking forward to this show. But, Diane Holloway from TV Blog and Laurel Krahn from TVPics.com seemed to like it, so I checked it out. Also, it has Dominic Purcell in it, and I loved him in John Doe. As it turns out, the show is very good. It’s episodic, which I like, and the writing is also good. So far, the plot’s been pretty predictable, but the show’s definitely been entertaining.

Not so much with my second experience, Reunion. The show has a quirky twist: it cuts back and forth between the present and 20 years ago, when a group of six friends graduated from high school (20 year reunion, get it?). Apparently, one of the friends has murdered another one of them. So, we get a mix of nostalgia show with murder mystery. The second quirk of the show is that each episode will deal with a different past year, as the show moves up to the present, revealing more of what’s going on. In the first episode, we even don’t know who the victim is yet. One of the friends is interviewed by the police, so is off the list. I suspect that this will be the trend for the next 4 episodes until, by the process elimination, we know who the victim is. Which leads to my biggest complaint about this show: It’s sooo cliche. Here’s an example:

Two friends get into a car. They’ve been drinking a bit. They’re talking and goofing off while driving. Surprise, surprise, they run a stop sign and are in an accident. Of course, this means trouble. It turns out that the driver is the “rich” friend and the passenger is the “poor” friend. Can we guess who’s had more to drink? Yup. So the “rich” friend convinces the “poor” friend to cop to driving, because he’s had less to drink (Warning, Will Robinson, warning!). He does. Then, the other shoe drops. The guy in the other car dies, and the “poor” friend is arrested for vehicular manslaughter. Everybody tells him not to worry, he has a clean record and will only get probation (Hah!). His attorney cuts a deal with the prosecutor, life is good (double Hah!). The judge throws out the deal and sentences him to 12 months in prison instead (it has to be 12 months so he can just be getting out for the next episode!). So, he gets just enough jail time to completely ruin his “full ride” athletic scholarship. Goodness gracious, where do they come up with this clever plot twists?

This is just a piece of the pie. The good news (for me) is that the show is on a high traffic night (Thursdays), and so, even with 3 DVRs going, I don’t have the recording bandwidth to include this show when the season is in full swing. Thank heaven for small miracles!

And, I have to add, they could’ve redeemed this show somewhat by focusing more on the music. Each flashback uses music of the year as background, but they don’t emphasize it enough. They really should be pushing that, a la Big Chill.

9/9/2005 11:46:35 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)      Comments [0]  TV

What I'm Reading

A couple of weeks ago, when I had dinner with Kurt and his wife, Patricia, we got talking about books. It turns out that Patricia is a fan of science fiction. Who’d have thought! I’m always surprised by just who reads sci fi and fantasy among bibliophiles.

Anyway, this reminded me that one of the things I wanted to do in this here blog was share the books I’m reading. So, here’s the first installment.

I’m currently reading Shadowfall, by James Clemens. This is the first book by Clemens that I’ve read. Apparently, he has a few other books under his belt. It’s the start of a Fantasy series. I haven’t finished it yet (I’m at the climax), but so far, its been a good read. It has a unique take on gods and god-magic. I always enjoy a twist in that area. The story concerns a fallen “Shadowknight” who witnesses the assassination of a god and is promptly blamed for the crime. The ensuing plot twists are fairly predictable, but still, that whole god-magic thing has me hooked. Get this: the gods’ power is tied to their bodily secretions! In fact, there’s a whole economy built around these secretions.

So, for those who enjoy a good book about god wars and divine magic, I’d recommend this book.

 

9/8/2005 7:17:39 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)      Comments [0]  books | general

Blame Game

Well, the news is (finally) starting to report good things out of New Orleans. It’s about time.

I was fascinated by the negative comments heaped on FEMA, the President, and (by inference) the Republicans. After all, both the Governor of Louisiana and the Mayor of New Orleans are Democrats. Interesting.

Even more interesting is the fact that the Mayor, prior to running for that post, had been a long time Republican. In fact, he’d even supported President Bush prior to his “epiphany”. While I don’t doubt that the feds have a lot of ‘splainin’ to do (thank you Ricky Ricardo), I think the local and state leaders better put on their dancing shoes too. Of course, the media may just ignore their contributions to the debacle in the name of “news”.

On the other hand (and there is another hand), the lack of funding for the levees around New Orleans and Dennis Hastert’s comments about the rebuilding the city, smack of hardball politics: Louisiana is run by the Dems, they get no money. New Orleans is headed up by an ex-Republican turncoat, they REALLY get no money. If the Dems are smart (and they’ve shown little sign recently that they might be), they’ll use this to their advantage during the mid-term elections next year. They should stay away from the President, and blast the Republican Congressional leadership instead.

9/6/2005 9:07:58 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)      Comments [0]  politics

Some of the fog is clearing

It looks like some of the hype fog around Linux, and specifically desktop Linux, is clearing. ComputerWorld reporter Sharon Machlis recently published a series of articles on her experiences with various desktop Linux distributions, and let’s just say that she was less than complimentary.

It’s about time that there were more clear headed discussion of the Linux vs. Windows issue. Evangelizing (from both camps) is all well and good, but at some time, the guys that are supposed to be keeping us honest need to speak up. Frankly, in the past, there was way too much MS bashing and Linux rah rah-ing for my taste.

Way to go, Sharon, and whomever at ComputerWorld assigned this to you.

9/1/2005 10:44:12 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)      Comments [0]  development | general

Where the money is going

Last night over dessert, Kurt brought up an interesting question: Just where is all the money allocated for the war in Iraq going? This surprised me, mainly because it’s been a sore spot with me for a long while. Well, I’ve found a (partial) answer, or at least a way to get at the answer. The U.S. Central Command, who’s running the show in both Iraq and Afghanistan, publish two newsletters, a CentCom newsletter and a Coalition Bulletin, just chock full of information on what’s going on in these two theaters. Frankly, I think that the administration has done a piss-poor job of sharing this kind of information.

Those interested in keeping track of the real progress in the  mid-east can subscribe to the newsletters here.

On a more personal note, it was great having dinner with Kurt and Patricia last night. We always have some terrific conversation, something I sorely miss since moving on to a new job.

8/25/2005 9:52:56 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)      Comments [0]  general | politics | world affairs

A Chilling Thought
Here’s a chilling thought, from The Huffington Post:  Freshmen entering college this fall were born in 1987. 1987! That was almost yesterday! It gives me chills…
8/24/2005 4:49:28 PM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)      Comments [0]  general

Make one person responsible...

On Signal vs. Noise, Jason Fried talks about making one person responsible for a single task. Amen to that. I’d never really considered just how important this is, until I was put in the same sort of situation recently. My first impression of this was to appreciate how empowering it felt.However, I think the more important point is the one that Jason makes: when you assign a single person to a task, it gets done.

By the way, 37 Signals has some products that look pretty compelling. Anyone in need of decent project management software (MS Project, ) should give theirs a try. As it is, I’m going to give their Ta-da list a ride around the block…

8/24/2005 9:07:08 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)      Comments [0]  development

What are they up to?
It’s official. Google Talk is up and running (in beta at least). For the life of me, I don’t know why we need yet another IM system. At least, this one is Jabber compatible (for what that’s worth). The boys at Google have previously said that they don’t get into new markets unless they had something significantly different / superior to offer. So far, I don’t see anything that meets that criterion in Google Talk.
8/24/2005 8:45:58 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)      Comments [0]  general