There are way too many news stories about the Microsoft/Google PR debacle for me to even deal with. I’m a little puzzled what exactly Google would gain from this other than some twisted outright buy scenario. I think MS has the whole branding thing mixed up again. You cannot buy something that people like because it works and switch it around to suit your agenda and hope that the muddled mediocrity will hold up for a couple of months until you ride the corpse into the ground. Alta Vista anyone?

The other option is that Microsoft actually knows that any cross pollination is doomed from the start and is hoping to bury Google by partnering with them. Since the world is accustomed to the “nearly functional is good enough for them all” philosophy of Microsoft and they have a virtually unlimited supply of cash to burn on anything but actual software development Redmond sees itself coming out ahead in the deal. Bad bad bad idea. Then again it’s about time for something new to unseat the current king of the hill. Too bad it has to happen in such an ugly and calculated way. Please leave your tinfoil hats in the basket on your way out the door.

As annoying as it often is, the Ditherati mailing list occasionally produces the odd gem and today’s link to the Mercury story about Palm’s (oh, I’m sorry. I guess that’s PalmOne these days…) dumbass-licious split for licensing revenue is one of them.

PalmOne (and I really do feel like I’m talking about a masturbation addicted train bomber every single time I type that name) has been set on annoying the shit out of everyone for quite some time. At least they fixed the Handspring site to allow you to download software without entering a serial number. Yeesh. It’s even worse when the download server refuses to accept a valid number.

I’m sure that this old news to folks actively involved in things library related but tonight was the first I’ve heard of Koha free catalog, circulation, and acquisition software for libraries. This is good news especially given the relatively (weigh the actual services rendered versus fee paid before you get all pissy and obnoxious about this classification) pricey fee required to use the standard library organizational system (or to dare even refer to it) and the ass clowns who own it being a litigious bunch.

Unfortunately at the moment (and this is being attacked like zombies on warm flesh) Koha can only import a single record in MARC format at a time. This is like the litmus for its usefulness to librarians so I imagine adoption will mushroom when full support is added to both database and front end. They deal with paid support the same way that Debian does: a list of consultants.

It’s funny because I know very little about the actual software that most libraries use and what I do know comes from knowing slightly more about the standards but I’m fairly sure that most (strictly) commercial applications are not cheap and have much steeper requirements. The timing of this is fantastic for libraries not in places like New Zealand since institutions that traditionally depend on government funding in the U.S are getting their throats cuts to give corporations tax breaks. The library you’ll find me at most often is pretty much fucked with the cuts they’ve endured on both state and federal level reducing not only spending on new books but their actual hours of operation on a fucking college campus no less.

OK. I’m going to admit that I have a day job working with the software of hate and terror and pose a question to the void (which probably means that Kenneth Hunt will show up in two hours and answer my question in that infuriatingly knowledgeable and calm fashion people who know what the hell they’re doing often exhibit).

The problem is this: A person using Windows 2000 has a file in their profile from some heinous sports site. It is a javascript file (why this ended up in a temp folder is immaterial) that is named it’s contents. This means that the file name is somewhere around 500 words. I’ll refrain from criticism of javascript now and not even ponder how this bad egg even got into the basket but I still haven’t figured out how to send this file back to the source. Windows will display the file but will not allow me to rename or delete it. From the (emulated) DOS shell I cannot even see it. This is by no means crucial because it’s a machine that I left up and running with a new image of the OS on it yesterday afternoon. The lack of real solution to that problem is still bothering me though. I googled a bit for an answer but found only disappointment and failure. Any clues?

Update:
I really hope that this is not the only answer.

I’m not yet sure what to make of all the Nvu hype quite yet. I expected a fork in the Mozilla Composer project at some point but my confidence in Lindows to deliver anything but fluff is limited. Go look at the screenshots and then open up Mozilla composer. It’s the same thing. I’m hoping to see something in the future that isn’t just a vehicle for gratuitous logo display. Suspicious? Me? Never…

I know that this poor bastard has already received more than his fair share of attention from the monster than eats bandwidth but the whole story is really irritating. I was kinda hoping for some extra explanation from Scoble but I forgot that all of the flying monkeys are busy with the hypefest.

I’m really trying hard to be sympathetic about this in terms of contracts and whatnot but it simply isn’t working.Michael was unfortunately a temp so in realistic terms doesn’t have have ground to stand on. If you scrutinize the actual post that MS is firing over it doesn’t contain much information. He even offered to take the offensive page down. The funny part about the whole arrangement is that Gates and company have really done more damage than possible good by canning the guy instead of working with him. If they were concerned with simple security I’d say that actually working with the alleged breach would be a much wiser option than having it listed on Slashdot. Duh.

I’m hoping that the publicity with work out and the guy will actually get a better job as a result. Apple could probably profit immensely in terms of public relations by picking this guy up. I can’t really take sides here since I think both MS and Apple are pretty much evil but that scenario would probably be beneficial. He does have a page for donations if you’re so equipped.

All of you nervous nellies can go ahead and step up to the plate. Jay Allen released the stable version of MT Blacklist so you too can eradicate comment spam. This piece of software should be the textbook example for how community driven software development really works. Jay deserves a halo.

OK. I ordered a new power supply today. Thanks for all the concern and grief giving. I don’t like mucking with hardware but I can be shamed out of my apathy. Hardware is just so dusty…

I attended Max Brooks’ book whoring session for the Zombie Survival Guide which was very funny and included a demonstration of a katana as the ultimate zombie fighting weapon. The question and answer period afterwards was actually funnier than the talk and slideshow. Brooks is banking on his quick wits and it’s a pretty solid bet. The book isn’t within my budget but given that it is more zombie related than most books available on campus I’ll have to part with the cash eventually.

I tried once again to watch the trailers for the Dawn of the Dead remake but the versions of Quicktime and Windows Media Player (via CodeWeavers of course) are incapable of it. Guess I’ll hop on a Windows box at work tomorrow. Oh the shame…

Misbehaving is probably the best new site I’ve seen in a long while. It is a good start at filling the huge gap between the involvement of women in technology and the perception (oftentimes by those who really should know better) and portrayal of women in relation to technology. We really need about fifty more sites in a similar vein. It’s late so I’m going to leave it at that instead of launching into some longwinded babble about how great the site is. Just go there and start reading. There’s a lot there already and all of it is worth checking out. Yes, that not babbling thing. I’ll quit now. The ban on the cat sleeping with us has been temporarily lifted so I’m going to go snuggle up with my two favorite girls.

Ian Murdock made a pretty important announcement on one of the Debian developer mailing lists about an Anaconda installer port to Debian. This in itself is really good news because the lack of hardware detection during a Debian install is something that’s really marred the public perception of the distribution and arguably what gave rise to commercial Debian distributions like Libranet and some others. A pairing of this port with the new installer (and the Gtk frontend for it) under frantically active development could resolve a lot of this.

There’s been more than a fair amount of teeth gnashing about the necessity of python as part of the base install but IMHO it’s a pretty minimal compromise for getting around a lot of ugliness that’s involved in the present installer. Most people who say that their first Debian install was completely easy and painless are probably lying. Mine was nightmarish although as the cranks on IRC will be more than happy to tell you until your ears bleed and your brain turns to mush I did learn a lot about my hardware and how it actually works. I never had anything against the old boot floppies installer but it really is time to move forward here kids. Given the infinite configurability of a Debian install and the fanactical dedication to choice over simplicity in the development of Debian I cannot imagine an installer for dummies that simply made all of the choices for you and dumped you into a multi-gig installed base. If you read the lists which I have to say that I honestly rarely do you’ll see that this issue is being discussed nearly to death.

Either way I’m glad to see Progeny actively developing again. It’s unfortunate that PGI installer never took off but I’m glad to see that Progeny is still breaking new ground especially when it benefits the Debian project.

We have a show tonight (in a couple of hours) at a former shitty bar. I’m kinda sad to be part of bar gentrification but then again… I put some new photos up in case you want to look at pictures of my butt. It’s been that kind of weekend.

I just had one of those nearly vomiting in terror moments when I realized that my desktop machine (which is the only machine in the house with a decent processor, cd burner, etc, etc) was not running and wouldn’t power up. I think the power supply is blown but I don’t have any handy rule of thumb to confirm that. What is probably going to happen is that I’m going to pay someone local to replace it for a little too much money because I’m really, really hesitant to mess with power supplies. There is no way that it could’ve happened at a worse time since I am so pathetically broke that it’s laughable. I think the couple hundred that I spent on this wimpy old laptop was one of the best investments I’ve ever made. It’s certainly saving my neck and sanity in this situation albeit at the price of feeling like I’m running a machine filled with molasses.