Another milestone - the previous message was the 2500th posted to Duncan's Jotter!

David Davies' Radio Weblog

Starting to explore some educational collaborations with Raymond Yee and David Carter-Tod. We have several things in common but one of the strongest right now is our use of Userland technology such as Manila and Radio.

Will you join us? We're looking for individuals working in further or higher education who are using these tools who'd like to join a team that will develop Manila in particular but also Radio into an engaging suite of learning tools. Please get in touch. We'll use either an existing forum to discuss these issues or create a new one.

I've just found out about this and have expressed my keen interest in being involved in this initiative. I have met David at a workshop in Newcastle. He's a really good bloke who's done some amazing things with Manila. I'm looking forward to the collaboration. Hopefully, I'll be able to apply some of the lessons learnt, and tools developed, to Conversant.

David's been a busy wee bee. Not only that he documents his progress. I wish I were that productive but all sorts of other things are gettung in the way of a concerted effort from me. OTOH, it looks like I've been of a little help as David cites the performance enhancement I documented.

Which reminds me that I was quite chuffed when I came up with Code Trek ;-)

Hot Java Revives Mac Programming

After years of being infamously unfriendly to casual programmers, the Macintosh has suddenly become the machine of choice for out-of-the-box programmability with tools that not only generate great-looking Macintosh applications but that also generate them in Java so you can take them anywhere.

Scobleizer Radio Weblog:

Hailstorm is dead, Markoff says.

My analysis? Developers killed it.

Why did they kill it?...

You'll need to read the rest of Robert's article for his take on why Hailstorm was killed off.

via Scripting News - ZDNet: ... IBM, Microsoft plot Net takeover

IBM and Microsoft have been quietly busy behind the scenes for the last two years building a toll booth that could position the two companies to collect royalties on most if not all Internet traffic

DiveIntoOSX - Dive Into OS X

This site is a repository of information for Mac OS X and OS X Server administrators. It is not a discussion forum, a bulletin board, or a place for topical Mac news. It is a wiki, free to all and freely editable by all.

The Register | MS pulls the plugs on Hailstorm, pending rethink

Hailstorm, one of the cornerstones of Microsoft's .NET "bet the company" strategy, is no more - at least in the most ambitious of its advertised forms. As initially envisaged .NET was about Microsoft producing the systems that would allow delivery of services across to Internet to individuals, and Hailstorm, subsequently rechristened .NET My Services, was intended to allow consumers to access a range of services based on their own particular identity, anytime anywhere. But Microsoft has been unable to convince any of the providers of such services that it makes sense to do this via Microsoft...

The Register | Eight new IIS security holes exposed

There are eight new security stuff-ups affecting various editions of Microsoft IIS (Internet Information Server), the most serious of which will enable an attacker to take over the system, MS revealed today.

If you're wondering why you haven't heard about them before, chalk it up to Trustworthy Computing, a Redmond policy which leaves everyone exposed to attack until MS is satisfied with its patches and spills the beans. We prefer to know these things as soon as possible so we can look into temporary workarounds and shutter the window of opportunity straight away, but MS is clearly opposed to that approach. (One workaround we rather like is called Apache, but we digress....) ...

Hey! Google Search: duncan puts me at #1 ;-) Howzabout that then!? Sad, or what.

In fact, a colleague in my department - Prof Paddy Nixon - coined the term 'GLUM Metric' with the following definition:

I reckon the GLUM rating should defined as follows:

The 1 over the quotient of number_of_hits/position_in_hit_list for search of google of one's "familiar name"

So, now I have a GLUM rating of 1 / ( 2,610,000/1)
= .00000038314176245210

According to Paddy, the closer your GLUM rating is to zero the sadder you are ;-)

Paddy's GLUM rating is 1/(474000/28) = .00005907172995780590. Which means that I'm 154.17721518987632836708 times sadder than him B-)