Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from August, 2004

The Reality of Sending Email These Days

Never, ever, use the word "sign up" in your emails if you are sending them to users who might be using Outlook 2003. Emails with those words are considered to be "spam" messages and are automatically forwarded into the Junk E-Mail folder in Outlook 2003.   That's a real shame for those companies who want to provide their customers with valuable information but the reality of is that just using those terms in your email suggests possible spam.

Longhorn Gutted: An example of regular software dev processes

Scoble explains a bit of at least his understanding as to why Longhorn was gutted. It makes sense in many ways. MS (and virtually every other tech company) is always big on "what's coming down the pipe". I remember getting a letter from BillG when Windows 3.1 was released, trying to get people to switch from DOS (and then again with Win95). In many cases, it's about providing a better solution to existing problems. (as an example, remember Apple's Navigator?) However, in the case of LongHorn, MS seemed to be going after one type of user (corporate dev) and fighting off another tech attack (from Linux users) instead of addressing the bigger issues. When Bill G originally became the "architect" for MS (instead of CEO), it was supposed to be because he was going to refocus the team on fixing the critical issues he saw in the product. Two years later, unfortunately, MS is more of a target than ever before from tech attacks and little security probl

Google to Bloggers: Get Your Ad Share

Now this makes sense. If you want to show ads, here's an opportunity to make some money doing it. If you don't, you won't have to show them. Since I run a number of different blogs from blogger, this strategy sounds like a sure winner for me. If they were pop-ups, no but I, for one, don't find Google's adsense a bad thing at all. Google to Bloggers: Get Your Ad Share

MSF Agile preview is now available!

The MSF team just released the beta version of MSF agile. I guess "version" is a strong word - it's more of a collection of processes and best practices but if you ever took a look at the original MSF (Microsoft Solutions Framework), it's a great way of describing vision, design, development and implementation for both large and small projects (if only it could be embraced by non-tech managers!) The Agile system is being integrated directly in the VS 2005 Team system, another exciting step in better software development. Looking forward to seeing what's changed in MSF Agile. Now I have some more reading to do... MSF Agile preview is now available!

First impressions of a newbie PocketPc user - Rick Strahl's WebLog

Rick writes about his first impressions of his new IPAQ and I guess I fall into the category of someone with "chronical disconnection anxiety" Unfortunately, my Ipaq 1940 screen got smashed and I have yet to fix it but when I had it running, I was using it for all those times I had to leave my office but still wanted to respond to other emails (yup chronic disconnection!) Actually the best use for it I found was with my AudioTron (an audio device used for playing MP3 and WMa on my network) - it came with a web server that was accessible via WiFi. I now had a remote control anywhere in the house for my music. First impressions of a newbie PocketPc user - Rick Strahl's WebLog

So Where's the Wi-Fi promise in Europe?

 Just got back from ten days in England. Many of the places I stayed at didn't offer WiFi connections (most Internet was only available in the office centres). At least that was a blessing but it certainly made me wish that hotels and areas would really become far more proactive in offering Wifi around. Granted I was in the North away from London but only the Hilton and Quality hotel where I was offered any kind of access and signing up for it proved to be a tiresome exercise and time-consuming, not good when you're off with family and want to get some internet time in.   I wish they had Bongo's WiFi service in those areas. Now I'm back and get to read up on the thousands of messages left waiting for me. If you're waiting for something from me, give me at least a day and I'll be on it.

A Dozen Things Outlook Doesn't Do�but Should

David Coursey makes some gripes about what he thinks Outlook should do. His first one is Address Correction. Obviously, he's never entered a foreign address into Outlook. Everytime I sent a Canadian address, Outlook's address correction goes nutty on me and tries to ensure that all my contacts are actually in the US. Why? Must be the US Regional settings I'm using. Anyways, some of this points are pretty good and he makes note of tools like NewsGator for RSS feeds (I was pretty sure MS would buy this company but now they have VC funding, maybe not). One of his more interesting ones was the removal of duplicate messages. I actually have this problem regularly and here's the program I wrote to get around it. The logic is such that if there are two identical messages, it will delete the unread one or the second one if both are unread. I use it regularly because I'm on multiple email lists (sales, support, dev) for some of my clients and therefore get LOTS of dup

FoxUnit being released on 8/10

Version 1.0 of FoxUnit, a new open source unit-testing module from Vision Data Solutions is becoming available on August 10th. As unit testing is getting more and more popular, this great initiative should be a real benefit to all FoxPro developers. They are having a webinar on the 10th. Sadly, I won't be there as I'm on holidays but check it out and see how you can integrate better testing into your Visual FoxPro development! FoxUnit > Home ( DNN 2.0.4 )

Garrett: Recent Changes to Copyright

Garrett pointed me to the following article that tells me I'm wrong about the campfires: "In 1996 the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) told the Girl Scouts of the USA that scout camps must start paying a licensing fee to sing any of the 4 million copyrighted songs that ASCAP controlled (Walker and Fagan). This included girl scout staples such as "Happy Birthday". Many camps went songless for months, until newspaper and talk show attention generated enough outrage that ASCAP was forced to say that they had no intention of prosecuting girl scout camps for violations of singing songs around the campfire. But in backing down, ASCAP still insisted that they still might prosecute camps for playing background music without a license. Though most citizens would bristle at ASCAP’s attempts to charge the girl scouts, as a copyright holder the law is on their side, and the girl scouts’ only defense would be fair use (but only as long as fair use

So I'll sue you because I like what you're doing...

From the strange but true stories, another one that proves no one wins with the lawyers. "In a recent radio interview, Woody Guthrie's son Arlo said he enjoyed the cartoon and even referred friends and relatives to the site. "I think my dad would have absolutely loved the humour in it," he said." But still the copyright holder wants $$ for a parody that was free. Wait til they find out people sing the song at campfires! Thanks, Todd, for pointing this one out. Globetechnology

Preemptive Testing

An interesting description on how to get people to test software a little better using pre-emptive testing. While not everyone has the benefit of a separate testing group, it helps to even get test scripts or suites written during the development phase instead of after. Preemptive Testing