Be the signal

links for 2008-03-22

March 23, 2008 – 05:22

Jim Melton responds to Rick Jelliffe’s SQL/OOXML comparison

“[T]he standardizers of SQL weren’t so arrogant that we thought we could rush […] 6,000 pages in one go, without it [being] visible to the vast, vast majority of the world until it started its FINAL ballot.” — Summarised here, do read the whole thing.

(tags: ooxml microsoft sql jimmelton rickjelliffe standards)

By Jeff Waugh | Posted in del.icio.us | Comments (0)

Somewhat belated celebration of our latest release, but hey, I just wanted to see the release love continue to roll by on all the Planets. Check out Dave’s release linkage for some bricks and whole bunch of bouquets.

Definitely great to see Cheese (of which I am quite the fan) so prominently featured in the release notes and on the front page. Rock on, Daniel!

Amazingly, something even more exciting in the GNOME galaxy has just concluded… the (by all reports) Ã¼ber-successful GTK+ Hackfest.

Congratulations to all involved… The future looks bright — burning magnesium bright!

By Jeff Waugh | Posted in FLOSS | Tagged desktop, gnome, gnome222, gtk+, hackfest, platform, release | Comments (0)

links for 2008-03-16

March 17, 2008 – 05:19

When standards ain’t standards

“OOXML works well, but things would have been much better had Microsoft adopted ODF. Microsoft now seems to have been too clever by half, to its own detriment and that of consumers.” — Mainstream opinion piece on OOXML by Graeme Philipson

(tags: ooxml odf microsoft office graemephilipson)
European Commission to increase its use of Open Source

“For all new development, where deployment and usage is foreseen by parties outside of the Commission Infrastructure, Open Source Software will be the preferred development and deployment platform.” — EC snuggles up closer to FLOSS

(tags: europe opensource floss policy eu ec)
Navy to focus only on open systems

â€œThe days of proprietary technology must come to an end. We will no longer accept systems that couple hardware, software and data.â€ — The US Navy warmly embraces Open Standards (a natural talent for Open Source), for all the right reasons

(tags: openstandards opensource navy policy)

By Jeff Waugh | Posted in del.icio.us | Comments (0)

links for 2008-03-08

March 9, 2008 – 05:21

Lucky 7: you’re number isn’t up yet, Brendan

“An adult Australian, selected at random, is now statistically more likely to be an asthma sufferer than a Brendan Nelson supporter.” — Annabel Crabb is back! Yay!

(tags: australia politics annabelcrabb brendannelson liberal)
Firefox tip: delete an autocomplete entry

“Now this is cool. Select the autocomplete entry with the up/down arrows on your keyboard. Press the ‘Delete’ key. The erroneous autocomplete entry is gone forever.” — Best Firefox tip EVER.

(tags: firefox shortcut autocomplete tip)
OLPC searching for a new CEO, reorganizing departments

“The need for a CEO and improved efficiency stem from OLPC operating ‘almost like a terrorist group, doing almost impossible things,’ and the need to be managed ‘more like Microsoft,’ Chairman Nicholas Negroponte said.” — Serious PR malfunction.

(tags: olpc nicholasnegroponte marketing message publicrelations)
On the OLPC Movement…

“Every element is impregnated with these aspirations of sociality, play, creation, freedom. As a project and as a device, it’s beautiful and revolutionary.” — Great article from Tom Coates about OLPC.

(tags: olpc education innovation collaboration laptop tomcoates review)
After the Summer, the Code Lives On

“Here I am now, working for Google! […] I have chosen to work on GNOME as my ‘20%’ project.” — Manu Cornet, now at Google, recalls his adventures in GNOME during GSoC and GUADEC.

(tags: manucornet gnome guadec google summerofcode)
Scared or oblivious: Australia’s SMEs on Linux

“Australian SMEs aren’t paying nearly enough attention to Linux […] but despite the prevailing attitude, it won’t take much for open source to have a far greater impact in the near future.” — Local research from IDC.

(tags: linux opensource research idc australia smallbusiness)

By Jeff Waugh | Posted in del.icio.us | Comments (1)

QoTD: Bill Clinton

March 2, 2008 – 20:44

“Now one of Clinton’s laws of politics is this: If one candidate’s trying to scare you and the other one’s trying to get you to think, if one candidate’s appealing to your fears and the other one’s appealing to your hopes, you better vote for the person who wants you to think and hope.” — Bill Clinton, supporting John Kerry during the 2004 presidential campaign

By Jeff Waugh | Posted in Issues, Quote of the Day | Tagged barackobama, billclinton, campaign, fear, hillaryclinton, hope, president, think | Comments (3)

QoTD: Justice Kirby

February 22, 2008 – 18:16

“We are moving to a point in the world where more and more law will be expressed in its effective way, not in terms of statutes solidly enacted by the parliament â€¦ but in the technology itself: code.” — Australian High Court Judge, Justice Kirby, Tech makes lawmakers impotent, says Judge

Great to hear this understood and so clearly stated by a highly influential Australian judge.

By Jeff Waugh | Posted in FLOSS, Quote of the Day | Tagged australia, code, kirby, law, technology | Comments (5)

links for 2008-01-25

January 26, 2008 – 05:18

US comedian Will Ferrell wins James Joyce award

“I will also continue to drive on the left-hand side of the road. Will it be dangerous? Yes. Is it illegal? Highly. But that’s just how committed I am [to my Irish roots].” — Will Ferrell receives the James Joyce award while goofing around in Ireland.

(tags: willferrell jamesjoyce ireland guinness comedian)

By Jeff Waugh | Posted in del.icio.us | Comments (0)

links for 2008-01-24

January 25, 2008 – 05:18

Ubuntu 7.10 on the XPS M1330

“Starting today, customers in Germany, United Kingdom, France and now Spain can purchase Ubuntu 7.10 with built-in DVD playback on the XPS 1330n” — Good move by Dell, shipping Ubuntu on highly desirable hardware… Not yet in Australia though.

(tags: dell ubuntu xps m1330 laptop)

By Jeff Waugh | Posted in del.icio.us | Comments (4)

links for 2008-01-18

January 19, 2008 – 05:18

Transactional Debian Upgrades with ZFS on Nexenta

“Meet apt-clone(8). The tool which integrates with the Nexenta system, keeps track of upgrade checkpoints and allows to create/destroy/edit checkpoints by request.” — Where Solaris could be today, if Indiana had built upon existing FLOSS infrastructure.

(tags: sun solaris nexenta debian apt zfs upgrade rollback via:gman)
AOL adopting XMPP aka Jabber

“You can […] log in to ICQ with the username icqnumber@aol.com on server xmpp.oscar.aol.com on port 5222. TLS is required.” — Works for me. XMPP and OpenID are truly on the march. Outstanding!

(tags: jabber xmpp aol icq)

By Jeff Waugh | Posted in del.icio.us | Comments (1)

links for 2008-01-17

January 18, 2008 – 05:18

WPhone, WordPress Plugin

“Looking to manage your WordPress install via your phone? Then the award winning WPhone plugin is exactly what you need.” — Extraordinarly tasty (and tasteful!) WordPress admin interface plugin for mobile bloggers. Very sweet.

(tags: wordpress plugin mobile iphone phone interface)

By Jeff Waugh | Posted in del.icio.us | Comments (0)

Be the signal

links for 2008-03-22

GNOME 2.22 and other awesome

links for 2008-03-16

links for 2008-03-08

QoTD: Bill Clinton

QoTD: Justice Kirby

links for 2008-01-25

links for 2008-01-24

links for 2008-01-18

links for 2008-01-17

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