The Register: Imagine a world without Java

Microsoft's attempt to beat Java into extinction could take some time, as this wee anecdote shows....

The Register: WinXP: log on as admin if you want to play games, MP3s? <blockquoteHome users seem to be coming badly unstuck when tangling with the new security features of Windows XP. Now it's possible for them to set up one account on their machine with administrator rights, and lesser accounts for the kids, less significant other, cat and so forth - but setting things so that the right people get access to the right programs? Hmm, tricky...

Here's the obligatory xbox.com link. Looking forward to seeing the in-depth technical details of the system.

NYPL: Style Guide

This Style Guide for the Branch Libraries of the New York Public Library explains the markup and design requirements for all Branch Libraries web projects, along with various standards and best practices.

via hbwt - NewsForge | Microsoft's monopoly: Was the settlement rigged?

A really great article about the performance of the Pentium 4 vs (mainly) Athlons by Darek Mihocka. Darek really knows the ins and outs of the various processors and the article has lots of great insights. Recommended. His summary:

So it's deja vu all over again for Intel. Here we are in November 2001. Almost one full year since Intel launched the disaster known as Pentium 4. A year ago it was the Pentium 4 vs. the Athlon on Windows Millennium and Windows 2000. This year it's the Pentium 4 vs. the Athlon XP on Windows XP. In both cases, the same result: AMD produces a faster less expensive processor. And taking into account the year 1999, when the Athlon debuted and dethroned the Pentium III as fastest processor, this now marks the third Christmas buying season in a row that Athlon based PCs offer better value than Intel based machines. If someone were to buy me a computer this Christmas and it didn't have a AMD Athlon XP processor inside of it, I think I would throw it right back at the idiot who wasted his money on it.

How many times does he say CLOCK SPEED IS NOT EVERYTHING!?

>Ref: http://duncan.smeed.org/1779
>
>I have just ordered the version update of BBEdit 6.5 
>(http://www.barebones.com/products/bbedit.html):

Those great folks over at Bare Bones shipped the CD and manual on 7 November and it arrived on Tuesday 13 November.

It's now installed and I eagerly await having the time to explore its new capabilities.

One issue was that Frontier could no longer install the shared menu 'Site' that I use to marry BBEdit and Frontier together in terms of rendering pages, etc. This was a real bummer until it dawned on me that BBEdit's script menu allows a user to write their own scripts and have these incorporated into the menu bar. Since Frontier's UserTalk is an OSA-compliant scripting language it was a simple matter of exporting the relevant scripts from my Frontier BBSite guest database and copying these into a scripts sub-folder. Worked like a charm. I can now render pages, etc., by harnessing Frontier's page generation capabilities from within BBEdit. Awesome!!

via SiT[Re: Weblog Madness: Roll Your Own] - Daniel Schneider's Portals Pointers @ TECFA

"Portals" is used in a wide sense here. We focus specifically on collaborative information portals, but sometimes have pointers to any sort of portal software, e.g. enterprise application integration (EAI software), "smart" Forums and News Pages, Enterprise Information Portals, even a little bit of CSCW or Groupware systems. You can find more variety in this older page. We specifically do NOT mention educational platforms here.

A nice collection of links to resources. Again, no mention of Conversant so I'll drop him an e-mail suggesting that he add that to his list.

via HtP - Comdex: IBM to use Intel's Foster chip in servers

IBM is using six fans and water-cooled heat synchs (sic) that rise from each Xeon chip. The water is in a vacuum container that is aerated by the heat synch (sic) fins, cooling the chips.

You have to wonder at the technical competence of reporters that thynch synch is the correct spelling of s... ;-)

And get a load of how many times the word 'server' is hyperlynched to Infoworld's KnowledgeLynch database! Overkill or what!?

Hey, I've just realised that a cool term for someone commandeering a domain that expires and holding it to ransom by, for example, redirecting it to a porn site could be called a 'hyperlyncher'.