Well, that's easy to answer but, more important what is he doing? And why? Well, here is a not so quick update.
Where is Phil Hughes? (Tue, 01 May 2007 15:54:51 +0100)
Well, that's easy to answer but, more important what is he doing? And why? Well, here is a not so quick update.
Functional Languages seem to be pushing for the title of the next cool thing. Talks and tutorials about them are starting to show up in conferences and conventions, books about them are hitting the shelves, people are even asking about talking about them in blogs and mailing lists devoted to some of the current hot languages.
It's a relaxed entry this time, an update on some recent happenings in the Linux audio world. Without further preamble, let's take a look at some of the good things going on there.
If you have followed my articles on LDAP, you know we began looking at objectClasses in the last installment back in March. Since that time, I haven't written much more about directory servers. I began contemplating whether or not to continue the LDAP series because things have changed. Let me explain:
Once you are comfortable with inputting functions and formulas, the next step is to learn how to automate the processes. Calc includes over half a dozen tools to help you manipulate functions and formulas, ranging from features for copying and reusing data to creating subtotals automatically to ones for varying information to help you find the answers that you need. These tools are divided between the Tools and Data menus, according to no apparent logic.
As I've noted before, I am something of a connoisseur of Microsoft's FUD against open source, in part because I believe each successive FUD-flavour of the month gives important hints about the evolution of the thinking and strategy within the company. The latest development in this area, which revolves around patents, is no exception ? not least because I think people are drawing the wrong conclusions from it.
A formula is a spreadsheet function entered in a cell, complete with its arguments. They're one of the two or three major applications that first spearheaded the acceptance of the personal computer in the 1980s, and the main tools of advanced spreadsheet use.
In my first SuitWatch Newsletter, on September 5, 2002, I wrote this: "A funny thing happened to Linux on the way to World Domination: it succeeded. That's the good news; the bad news is its success has hit a few hitches, and it's unclear how long those hitches will last."
The biggest hitch — dominating PCs the way Linux has dominated servers and embedded devices — is still around, almost five years later. And it will remain a hitch as long as hardware OEMs continue to follow Microsoft rather than lead the marketplace.
That's the gauntlet I threw down last Wednesday, in my last SuitWatch. And now I'm throwing it down here. I want to challenge the big hardware OEMs — Dell, HP, Lenovo, Sony and the rest of them — to break free of the only form factors Microsoft will let them make, and start leading the marketplace by making make cool, interesting, fun and useful stuff that isn't limited by any one company's catalog of possibilities. Stop making generic stuff. Grow greener grass beyond the Windows fences. Stop thinking of Linux as "generic" and "a commodity". Start looking at how building only Windows PCs forces you to make generic, commodity products.
Last fall, Berkeley Data Systems ran a "Programmer Deathmatch", offering a $10,000 prize to the one programmer who successfully navigated 3 timed rounds of programming competition. (You can read my write up of the event here and here.)
In my apparently never-ending quest to revive and refresh my aging 32-bit box I decided to try installing the JAD (JackLab Audio Distribution) system. To recapitulate the source of woe with this particular machine, I'll remind readers that its PS2 ports are physically damaged, forcing me to switch my mouse and keyboard to the USB ports. Under normal circumstances this switch wouldn't be a problem, but many contemporary distros and live discs cause the keyboard to vanish from recognition by the system, leaving me with an unusable machine (the problem has something to do with the HID module). Regular readers of this blog may recall that I've been using the excellent Dynebolic on this hardware, and that it's worked wonderfully well. However, I thought I'd take a chance with the JAD distribution, and I must say that I've been very pleased with it. The installation and configuration went smoothly, the system is happy with my USB keyboard, and the old box now has a new lease on life, with a shiny new 2.6.19 Linux kernel optimized for realtime performance.
Sure, most of us are tired of the buzzword AJAX. For those of you who work with AJAX, this issue will revitalize your enthusiasm with articles on MochiKit, combining web services with AJAX, four cool WordPress plug-ins, and more. For those of you who don't do AJAX, this issue will show you what the excitement is all about, and we'll even walk you through simple code to show you how AJAX works. As always, there's much, much more. We've got the dope on parallel NFS, Reuven Lerner explores the feature-rich PostgreSQL, and you won't want to miss part 2 of our series on Single Packet Authorization. Not a subscriber? Check out this post to read abstracts of the current issue's articles and to read for "free" this month's Bonus Article: MochiKit by Example by Ryan Wilcox. |
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One of the core problems for open source has always been that as a radical force outside the mainstream it is hard for its supporters to influence conventional players there. In part, this was what made Dell's Ideastorm so important: it gave a voice to those hitherto unable to communicate usefully with the company. The effects have been dramatic, with Dell now promising to sell systems with pre-installed GNU/Linux. The question then must be, how can we build on that success to achieve maximum impact?
As I delete spam from my Gmail spam folder, I notice the volumes increasing. A year ago, I would see about five to ten emails a day in that folder. This morning, I woke up to 56 items. The volume of spam has grown, no doubt.
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