The beta-experience is over, Microsoft has finished Visual Studio 2005, SQL Server 2005 and the .NET Framework 2.0. Both Visual Studio and SQL Server are available already to MSDN subscribers. The .NET Framework can be downloaded here.
I already signed up for the Vista and Office12 beta experiences.
Thanks Pete, for pointing to this brilliant article by Marcus Ranum.
My compliments to DirectNIC (my domain registrar). Only because of Bind for Windows not cleaning up its cache it took about a day before my domains were reachable again. After I discovered that, it took only about an hour for everything to propagate. Very nice. If you need an international domain (not country specific) I highly recommend them.
I have moved from Enschede to Schiedam, so I went back to the west. The house is still full of boxes, but the PC’s, the tv and the stereo are connected 😉
Still in the transitioning phase of the rare-it domains, so perhaps it will take some time before anyone can read this.
My first impressions of Opera:
– it’s fast, especially the back-button is lightningfast.
– tabbed-browsing: closing the last tab you opened will return you to the previous tab, and not (like Firefox) to the most right tab.
– tabbed-browsing: when a non-active tab has new content, the title changes color.
– no getting-used-to time needed. It just works like it should.
– compatibilty (certificates, etc.) is okay.
– not sure if I like the panel-bar
Update 23-09-2005: Opera does not work correctly with postbank.nl.
Last month Opera gave away registration codes for free, now they’re removing the adds AND THE LICENSING FEE! Check it out here. Premium support is still something you pay for.
I like that they use the Bittorrent technology to distribute Opera (as an alternative to regular downloads!).
One feature I particularly like about Opera is the ability to take notes. You don’t need a seperate program, just select text from a webpage, and tell Opera to create a note of it. You will have the text in the note, and Opera will remember from what URL you got the text from.
Read the article. This is more threatening than it sounds. Why are these gadgets/devices invented? People like their privacy. But the law is not behind them, not in the way they would like. So there is a market for devices or gadget that go further than what the law will give them. It’s sick. It will only give these people a false sense of safety, since there are other (worse) things that invade their privacy, with further reaching consequences. Think of all the goods you pay for electronically. Think of cellulars with GPS. Or regular cellulars. How about insurance companies asking you questions they are not allowed to asked? You won’t get the insurance if you don’t answer all of their questions!
Give the amateur photographer a break. A lot of software has a LTU for home-users (as opposed to commercial users) that allows them to use the software for free or at a reduced price. Apply the same in photography. Commercially used images should comply to stricter rules than the pictures of an amateur. Who cares if I take a lucky shot of some celebrity sunbathing half naked? I can brag about it with my friends, but other than that it gives me nothing. And it does not harm the celebrity. If I was a tabloid-photog and shot the same picture, that’s a whole different ballgame. And other rules should apply.
Oracle released version 3 of JDeveloper 10g – as an Early Access version. This means: no UIX integration and it still contains bugs. DUH! Read more here, or go to the new features directly.
Finally Gallery 2.0 has been released. The software that many people run to show their pictures has been rewritten and enhanced. If for some reason you find my gallery offline, than I’m probably in the middle of upgrading the thing!
Oracle buys Siebel (CRM software) for big bucks. I remember Larry Ellison saying: “when a company starts buying other companies instead of innovating by itselves, it marks the end of that company”. Anyone like to comment on the recent developments?