True – a distinct likelihood when one starts a professional blog near the end (not necessarily planned) of one’s professional career Given the IT racket’s slow recovery, I figured this is as good a time as any to retire. And the allure of not having to (a) go to work or (b) worry about getting freelance/contract work done at home or on the road was too much to resist.
Not that I’m complaining – I started writing software professionally (assembly language and COBOL) in 1973. I’ve done it or taught it ever since. It’s time to call it a career and get on with the rest of my life. My only regret is that nobody is happy enough to see me go to give me a gold watch.
Am I closing down Kokomo Beach – the blog, not the municipal water park? No, I may still feel the occasional urge to shout something into the ether. I just won’t feel guilty about not doing it.
Microsoft wants to drop support for Windows XP. They have agreed to continue to allow downgrades from W7 (primarily for enterprise customers and netbook buyers) but they have discontinued support for XP SP2. Support for XP SP3 will continue into 2014. In an eWeek.com article, Don Reisinger offers ten reasons why Microsoft must offer long-term support for XP. (I had to read the story on my desktop, of course.)
According to a study Reisinger cites, of 278,498 corporate and public sector PCs analyzed, “almost half are still running Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2.” Analysis and marketing firm Net Applications reports that as of June 2010, XP is running on 62% of the world’s PCs.
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I’ve been using Microsoft Windows since I realized that my 8-bit Kaypro wasn’t the wave of the future. Not on phones, mind you – I could never see downgrading from Palm to one of Microsoft’s many mobile versions and I doubt I’ll see a compelling reason to downgrade from Android to the Windows Mobile 7 either. A downgrade to iPhone + AT&T is equally unlikely.
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Note: My thanks to the Droid Bugs blog for detailed instructions on capturing Droid screenshots on a PC via USB cable.
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While reading my email (Gmail) on my Motorola Droid this morning, I found several industry newsletters waiting for me. That last one caught my eye, so I opened it to find … |
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I’ve participated in the construction of web apps off and on for at least a dozen years. But now – assuming that app refers to a robust, non-trivial business application – I’m beginning to question whether the web is an appropriate platform for developing and deploying them.
In theory, building a server-based application without a dedicated fat client seems to be a Really Good Idea. About ten years ago, I wrote an unpublished paper extolling the virtues of the web browser as a ubiquitous generic client. A that time, Electronic Software Distribution (ESD) was a hot topic as enterprises struggled to ensure that employees were using the right versions of desktop software, especially dedicated clients; recent experience at a former employer indicates that ESD is still an issue. The ability to transform a generic client into the latest version of a particular client on the fly, simply by connecting it to a particular server-based app, had obvious appeal.
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It’s amazing how bloggers who use mobile devices extrapolate from that experience to the use of computers in general. They also infer from the simplicity of some mobile device apps (nearly always iProducts) that people who use them suffer from equivalent simplicity of mind – excluding the bloggers themselves, of course.
I recently commented on a premature obituary of the PC – done in by cell phones that can search Google. Now we learn from Dustin Curtis that not only are real computers dead, but the files stored on them are just as dead. For example, Curtis tells us that
Mere mortals don’t think of things on their computers as “files.” People think about digital representations of things the same way they think about real physical things: they think about photos, videos, text documents, articles, and people. A “file” on a computer is just a universal container for one of those things.
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Steve Jobs’ decision to bar Adobe Flash from his iProfit kingdom has triggered all kinds of silly commentary. Much of it centers around the standards-based Utopia that mostly Apple-centric pundits hope will be ushered in by HTML 5. Few of these commentators seem fazed by the fact that waiting for HTML5 to bring rich internet applications (RIAs) to the whole Web is like waiting for the Cubs to bring a World Series championship to Chicago. While north-siders were waiting for deliverance, the White Sox delivered.* The problem (summarized here) is that HTML 5 – as promising as it is – can’t deliver.
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