Terence Tao is another remarkable figure who deserves a Nobel Prize. However, since there isn't a Nobel Prize for mathematics, the highest honor he can receive is the Fields Medal, which he has already won.

Amadeus #Mozart, go Bob Dylan!

Ever wanted to have your Windows desktop background look sharp? Like, Bing Gallery sharp? Let me help you.

Here's a little tool I'm releasing today that allows you to:

• Get daily Bing Image of the Day to your desktop
• Perform bulk downloads, multiple images at a time
• Add image title and description to your wallpaper [1]
• Run it as a service

It's all in one tool. Small, simple, efficient.

Here's the parameter model it supports:

BingDailyImage v1.0 - Download desktop wallpaper images from Bing
Copyright © 2021, Matevž Gačnik
www.request-response.com

Gets Bing Picture of the Day images for today and a specified number of days back.

Usage: BingDailyImage [-c] [-d [days]] [-f folder] [-t [top|bottom]] [-b]
-c Get current Bing image
-d [days] Specifies number of days to fetch.
If you omit this parameter the tool will download
last two weeks (14 days) of Bing wallpapers.
-f Set download folder
If you omit this parameter the folder will be
set to - '%USERPROFILE%\Pictures\Bing Wallpapers'.
-t Add text (image title and description) to images
You can specify text position [top, bottom]. Default is bottom.
-b Set last downloaded image as desktop background
-s install Installs BingDailyImage as a system service
Use -f to specify service download folder path
Use -t to let service add text to images
-s uninstall Uninstalls BingDailyImage as a system service
-s start Starts BingDailyImage service
-s stop Stops BingDailyImage service
-s query Queries BingDailyImage service state
-h Displays help

You can just do a BingDailyImage.exe -c to get the current daily image. By default, it will not tamper with background images, so you'll get the highest resolution available (1920x1200 or 1920x1080), like this:

BingDailyImage v1.0 - Download desktop wallpaper images from Bing
Copyright © 2021, Matevž Gačnik
www.request-response.com

Downloading Bing Image of the Day for 2021-12-16.
Image date: 2021-12-16
Image title: Old Town in Salzburg, Austria
Image description: When it's lit up like this with a cozy glow, we can admire… When there's a mountain in your city… We're looking at the Old Town portion
of this Baroque city…
Downloading background... Background for 1920x1200 found.
Saving background... Done for 2021-12-16.

Or do a BingDailyImage.exe -d 10 -t to get the last 10 and add a nice, transparent background text to them.

Hell, do a BingDailyImage.exe -s install and forget about it. It's going to download new images once they are published to Bing's servers. All you need to do now is set your Windows 10/11 desktop background to be fetched from the download folder. Done.

Here's the download.

Here's a sample of a downloaded image.

[ download original image ]

[1] You might be surprised about the fun facts you'll learn every day.

I am more active on Twitter lately, finding it amusing personally.

Handle: http://twitter.com/matevzg

DOW is down almost 700, again. And...

... I just have to post this. Especially when almost everything (besides devaluation of the safe currency) has already been done.

If you had bought $1,000.00 of Nortel stock one year ago, it would now be worth $49.00.

With Enron , you would have $16.50 of the original $1,000.00.

With MCI/Worldcom , you would have less than $5.00 left.

If you had bought $1,000.00 worth of Miller Genuine Draft (the beer, not the stock) one year ago, drunk all the beer then turned in the cans for the 10-cent deposit, you would have $214.00.

Based on the above, 401KegPlan.com's current investment advice is to take that $5.00 you have left over and drink lots and lots of beer and recycle.

Via: http://401kegplan.com/keg/

We are going over the edge. We as a world economy.

And yea, I opened a keg of Guinness.

One of our core products, Gama System eArchive was accredited last week.

This is the first accreditation of a domestic product and the first one covering long term electronic document storage in a SOA based system.

Every document stored inside the Gama System eArchive product is now legally legal. No questions asked.

Accreditation is done by a national body and represents the last step in a formal acknowledgement to holiness.

That means a lot to me, even more to our company.

The following blog entries were (in)directly inspired by the development of this product:

• Laws and Digital Signatures
• Reliable Messaging and Retry Timeouts
• Approaches to Document Style Parameter Models
• XmlSerializer, Ambient XML Namespaces and Digital Signatures
• Security Sessions and Service Throttling
• Reliable Message Delivery
• Reliable Message Delivery Continued
• Durable Reliable Messaging

We've made a lot of effort to get this thing developed and accredited. The certificate is here.

This, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this and those are direct approvals of our correct decisions.

Wow, Stephen.

This is one of the best ideas I've heard of hedging against the dollar in terms if IT outsourcing cost. And I mean it.

I'm not in a position of valueing the description made, but I am willing to take the pill, no matter what.

What everybody needs is only to get to one million sterling project, taking half a year.

That's it, hedging done or not.

Mr. Lawrence Lessig is a founder of Stanford Center for Internet and Society. He's also a chairman for the Creative Commons organization.

Lessig is one of the most effective speakers in the world, a professor at Stanford, who tries to make this world a better place from a standpoint of stupidity in terms of the copyright law.

The following is published on the CC's site:

We use private rights to create public goods: creative works set free for certain uses. ... We work to offer creators a best-of-both-worlds way to protect their works while encouraging certain uses of them — to declare “some rights reserved.”

Therefore Creative Commons stands for the mantra of some rights reserved and not all rights reserved in terms of meaningful usage of digital technology.

Being a libertarian myself, I cannot oppose these stands. Balance and compromise are good things for content and intellectual products, such as software.

Watch his masterpiece, delivered at TED.

Shame? Nokia?

Same sentence, as in Shame and Nokia?

There is just no pride in IT anymore. Backbones are long gone too.

This post puts shame to a new level.

There is no excuse for having Microsoft Access database serving any kind of content in an online banking solution.

The funny thing is, that even the comment excuses seem fragile. They obviously just don't get it. The bank should not defend their position, but focus on changing it immediately.

So, they should fix this ASAP, then fire PR, then apologize.

Well-done David, for exposing what should never reach a production environment.

Never. Ever.

This is why one should buy best of both worlds. Mac rules on a client. Dell is quite competitive on the (home) server market.

We don't care about cables around servers. Yet.

So? 'nuff said.

There is some serious pain going on when you need to add a simple custom document property into multiple Word 2007 text areas.

Say you have a version property that you would need to update using the document property mechanics. And say you use it in four different locations inside your document.

• There is no ribbon command for it. There was a menu option in Word 2003 days.
• There is no simple way of adding to The Ribbon. You have to customize the Quick Access Toolbar and stick with ugly, limited use icons forever or so.
• You need to choose All commands in Customize Quick Access Toolbar to find Insert Field option.
• This is not the only limiting option for a power user. The number of simplifications for the casual user is equal to the number of limitations for the power user. And yes, I know, casual users win the number battle.

So:

1. Right click The Ribbon and select Customize Quick Access Toolbar
2. Select All Commands and Insert Field
3. Add it to Custom Quick Access Toolbar
4. Click the new icon
5. In Field names select DocProperty
6. Select your value, in this example Version

Yes. Ease of use.

Please, give me an option to get my menus and keyboard shortcuts back.

Pretty please.

Having posted a disturbing post last year, I have a moral obligation to repost my current state of mind.

This year's NT conference was way better, especially regarding fun-activating activities. It's not my cup of tea, when things are being cut, but I was impressed by the plethora of activities that were not present this year.

Yeah, I know. When you've got activities that are not present, you're in it deep.

Clarifying it, here it goes.

I like it when things are not there (regarding fun during the NT conference).

• I like the fact that sponsors and partners were not given a carte blache.
• I like the fact that there were no naked ladies running around. Doh!
• I like the fact that I like the fact that there were no naked ladies running around.
• I like the fact that there was not enough free beer.
• I like the fact that parties were not too 'lomaniac.
• I like the fact that we, speakers, were pressured again.
• I like the fact that, above all, this was a step forward.

What I don't I like (in 2007 incarnation):

• I don't like keynotes that have (almost, sorry) no content.
• I don't like keynotes that have no cues, allowing people to leave with no impression.
• I especially don't like keynotes that, having a plethora of technology to show, don't make attendees drool their asses off.
• I don't like 30 minute breaks. Sorry, too long.
• I don't like that attendees have no free evenings. It's just to reflect on what they've heard.

And, as stated previously (and again) I don't like parties happening every evening on a technical conference. But that might just be the rule I have.

If NTK continues in this year's fashion, we all did a good job. If only next year, they would get some pre/post conference options (hint) for the technical savvy.

Luke, Kamenko, this is a major contribution to being on the right track again. Kudos.

[This post can and probably will, position me into the nerd crowd. It is not my intention. For you, who know me personally, you know what I'm talking about. At a certain point of fun, everybody has enough.]

Well, it took me awhile to figure out, but here's a way to bring back the dialog which allows you to resize image attachments you send in Outlook 2007.

It's hidden the behind right arrow of the Include box. Right here:

I knew it must be there somewhere. And it is, it's just a click away.

It must be me, but I was looking for this option for a couple of months. It was one of my beloved features in Outlook 2003, since sending snapshots of something allowed me to get them down from 5MB to 100kb by just clicking an option.

There is a special checkbox called 'Show when attaching files' there.

Turn it on. Now.

Who decided it's a good thing to leave this thing off by default?

Our gift came yesterday evening. Baby girl. Hana Re.

As perfect as possible, mom included.

0.003255 tons, 0.00052 kilometers

If you need a distraction free writing environment, grab a copy of Dark Room. I found it after a few years of using WriteRoom, the original, on a Mac.

I write most of my draft documents in it. Then I move them to Word and apply formatting. I write all blog entries - exclusively in Dark Room - every post.

It does what every text editor should be doing first. It makes you concentrate on the subject.

And, best of all - it's small footprint, single .exe app. Xcopy it to your path. Bam.

Well, my site was down a couple of times during the weekend. Had to buy a new server, since my old machine's power supply tanked and took the motherboard with it.

So, this week started on some serious hardware, a Dell PowerEdge 2900. The migration took a couple of tries, but it was mostly due to reconfiguration of RAID arrays. This beast has 10 SAS drive bays, so I opted for two RAID 5 arrays, mostly due to expandability.

Kudos go out to Alldea guys who suggested, tested, configured and helped me get the server in time (actually, I got it in 12 hours). Their service is flawless and if you are buying a Dell in Slovenia, give them a call.

We configured the machine with a quad core Xeon and left another processor slot empty. There are still two hard drive bays unattended and 8 RAM slots available. And since my old machine faulted because its power supply tanked, this one has two. Redundant ones.

It should give at least 5 years of service, me thinks.

I updated my BITS Download Manager yesterday, making it even more Vista compatible.

Well, the compatibility was there from 1.0.2. But now, it shouldn't make any unnecessary UAC prompts go off.

If not for large HTTP based file downloads, I use it to track podcast downloads RSSBandit makes when using the new feature set.

There were a couple of sunsets lying around on Rožnik yesterday.

Thought I would make them available, because they make quite a desktop wallpaper.

Download: Here [Nikon D200, Nikkor VR 18-200 DX]

This post has been cooking for quite some time, quietly sitting on my desktop. Since Miha started the debate, I'm letting it go...

I've had a pleasure to work with the Acer Ferrari 4005 machine for a while. It was a great machine: AMD Turion 2.0 GHz, 64 bit, 2 GB RAM workhorse. Until I left it on the roof of my car and drove off...

Since then, I've been hammering on IBM Lenovo ThinkPad T60p, same specs, although x86 architecture. This is, in all terms, a great machine.

Having said that, I was running Windows XP x64 SP2 + Windows Vista x64, and Ferrari is actually one of the best machines to be on, when running x64. They have flawless driver support.

Let me get straight to the point.

Current prevailing architecture is x86. It's not going to stay that way for long. In the beginning of next year 99% of machines sold will have x64 support. Core 2 Duo is going to sweep the x86's dusty history.

The problem is, the majority of consumer base will decide by comparison, as always. It's just the magic of numbers, again. Imagine all the talking going on inside different computer stores and online forums, speculating how much better x64 is. In reality, x64 is currently (and for at least a couple of years) not going to be substantially faster - in the consumer space - than x86.

Nevertheless, a lot of people, who will now own the x64 chip, will want to run a x64-based edition of the OS. And here the problem lies.

Consumer Windows drivers have not been known for their robustness in the x86 world. There are devices that have real trouble running on Windows XP x86. Even though Vista will require signed x64 drivers, their availability is subject to questioning.

So the situation is this:

• You get the latest and greatest hardware, including a Core 2 Duo
• You get the latest and greatest software, including Windows Vista x64
• There are numerous well known problems with running apps in WoW, on x64 machines
• Currently, general device support is, well, flawed
• The drivers that exist have not been tested - for the consumer market.

Enterprise x64 market is quite different. There are a lot of production systems running Windows Server x64 successfully.

People are going to be pissed. It's Vista x64 and it is not going to launch successfully to the customer base.

There was a sincere and simple remark on Carl Franklin's blog, posted yesterday by Jonathan Parker, a CS student from down under.

If one recaps what he wanted to push through, it was this:

Microsoft's general public perception sucks.

He writes:

Earlier this year I had the privelage of attending a lecture from a Google employee and also one from a Microsoft employee. They were both open to all CS students and staff. The Google lecture was packed! My estimate is over 300 people (I sat on the floor most of the time). The Microsoft lecture had about 15 people. :(

He is right. Microsoft is trying to keep up with the coolness factor, all to no avail. Microsoft is not cool. Apple is cool. Google is cool. Myspace is cool. Microsoft should stop trying to be cool, this charade should stop. They should be doing what they do best in the world - write platform software. Zune, anyone?

In Jonathan's analysis on why Google is nowadays more popular than Microsoft, he writes:

I think the whole Web 2.0 thing is in Google's favour because they know how to run a business that is free for the consumers of their software.

Also I think that Google's software is much more discoverable than Microsoft's. If you want to learn more about Google you just go to their site and click on more. If you want to find out more about Microsoft you just go to their site and click your way around in circles for hours finding nothing.

True. Google's site is so much simpler, more intuitive and easier to navigate. But then, they only ship like a dozen products. Microsoft ships dozen squared.

His thoughts continue:

Open source is good for end user software. That's why Google is seen to be on the open source side of the fence even though Google is not open source in any sense of the word. All their code is tucked nicely away behind their servers. Yet people associate google with freedom of information. This is because there is not much use in installing a google search engine on your PC at home.

A general misconception is that open source equals free. Open source is far from free, especially in the enterprise space. And, as Jonathan states - I hope - Google managed to inject itself into this line of thought in general public.

There are two things that are wrong with this (general public, that is) way of thinking:

• Google/Apple is not open source
  Google took a lot from open source, but returned little. Read carefully - they returned little to Open Source, but gave a mountain to the public and the internet as a whole. Remember? Google is a good company.
  
  There is a difference between Apple and Google in this sense. Cupertino also took a lot from Open Source, but didn't contribute to it, nor release anything free to the public.
  
• Google is not percieved as a good company because of it being open source - its public perception is good, because everything they do is free
  If anybody does something really useful and keeps doing it for free, you just can't criticize it, right? Right.

If only there would be a simple formula to get Microsoft's public perception to even being average. I hate to say it, but, returning it back to good, is not possible. They were not there yet.

For the record: I do not percieve Microsoft as a bad, nor cool company. Microsoft makes the best fat client software in the world, period. They have the best development platform for any software, full stop. You can't fool the market over 20 years.

There is Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) present in every Windows XP/2003/Vista setup. BITS manages Windows Updates downloads, but is also capable of transfering other files.

More on BITS can be found here.

Since the infrastructure is there, I wrote a lightweight application, which manages the user queue of the BITS service.

Here are some screenshots:

Main features:

• Download files in the background
• Fire and forget
• Handles dropped connections
• Handles system downtime
• Handles bandwidth usage
• Can start download from IE (IE right click integration)
• Can autolaunch at system boot
• System tray notifications
• Harmless, small footprint
• Windows Vista support

You can download the installer or a ZIP version. If you grab the ZIP, you should change the installation path inside the .html file for the IE integration to work properly.

Download (Version 1.1.0):

• Installer
• ZIP

Requirements:

• .NET Framework 2.0

BITS Download Manager will quitely sit in your system tray and wait for you to give it something to download. When you initiate the download, it will progress in the background only if there is enough bandwidth available.

I use it to download large files over HTTP, being from my own server of those damn Windows SDK 1GB downloads which seem to break every now and then.

Update: Version 1.0.2 available [2006-07-04]

Minor bugs fixed regarding appropriate single instancing when launching a download from IE. Context menus fixed when no downloads are in progress. You do not need to uninstall version 1.0.0 before installing this one.

Update: Version 1.1.0 available [2007-02-20]

Minor bugs fixes, Windows Vista support.

If you happen to run Windows XP SP2 on a machine with more than a GB of RAM, you may likely see the following notification appear on the system tray:

This happens after hibernation is attempted. The error is: "Insufficient system resources exist to complete the API."

The solution is Q909095. There is a hotfix available, but you have to call Microsoft PSS to get itdownload the patch. It includes a new OS kernel which works flawlessly on my ThinkPad T60p with 2GB.

Knock knock. 

[Update 10/17/2006, Download available]

There's a ton of hotpressstories going around today about Adobe not letting Microsoft implement the PDF export functionality in 2007 Office System.

While I can understand that Adobe is running scared by even the thought of everyone producing PDFs without a licensed Adobe Acrobat, I cannot understand the differentiation of source.

It's no secret that Apple uses PDF functionality in the base OS and its applications. You can export everything as a PDF in MacOS X. Hell, even the UI engine uses PDF technology to render those beautiful OS X windows.

See?

And this is not the only case. There are nearly 2000 products out there which can use PDF and this is a GoodThing^tm for a public specification.

WordPerfect Office has already implemented the same functionality Adobe is complaining to Microsoft about.

OpenOffice has already implemented the same functionality Adobe is complaining to Microsoft about.

While I am among the precious few, who condone IP ambivalence, this is not an IP issue, nor is it a licensing issue. Adobe can and will, as it seems, use their right to stop Microsoft in implementing their specification. And it is their specification, with all the rights the owner gets.

It seems that 'Save as...' functionality is indeed too much for Adobe to swallow when a 98% office productivity market share player gets real about it.

This year's NT conference has closed its doors. And it's a big event, this year around 2.150 attendees came. NTK is the biggest IT conference in Slovenia, hell; it's the biggest conference in Slovenia.

This is not without cause. Gathering 1 in 1000 from the complete country population is not simple - there has to be at least some additional fun present to pull this off.

As Dejan writes, some Microsoft partners went overboard this year. Having said that, one has to acknowledge that there are at least four profiles present at every conference:

1. Those who get there to have fun
2. Those who get there to have fun and learn a lot
3. The speakers
4. Other

Now, satisfying the first class of people is simple. Since NTK is a technical conference, one's expectation of a non-stop, 24 hour party is diminished by the fact that that is not appropriate for the conference of this caliber. These guys have fun with Nr. 2 and Nr. 3 guys during the conference evening events and make up their own things of interest between session hours.

Satisfying number 2 is harder. Anyone who wants to learn a lot and still have fun has some issues with the current agenda. There are fun things to visit during session hours and if you're a guy who wants to learn a lot, but still have fun, you have to decide what is more important. Now, why would someone want to make you, the paying customer, decision-ambiguous?

Number 3 can be satisfied by a couple of things. Technical readiness should be top-notch, and this year it was even better. The second thing speakers like is that their attendees are present and in good shape to follow the sessions. There should be no, or at least a minimum amount of distraction present during the session hours.

I am not discussing the 'Other' category, since its heterogeneous enough to make any relevant observations.

It is easy to see that a coupleofspeakers have some issues with the way things worked out. I am one of them.

Overall, NTK is one of the best Microsoft IT events in Europe. This year, it was just stunning - no major issues with the event organization, smooth transitions, and great evening events. If there is a solution to the problems raised, one would get the right quotient between pleasure and work.

Today, Google released Google Web Toolkit, which is an alternative to Microsoft's Atlas.

Indeed, Hell is freezing over.

Industry at large is competing for every piece of programming world. The idea of having ability to influence programmers into using your platform has become eligible for every vendor.

These situations are prevalent even on smaller markets. What we see is that companies are willing to offer their frameworks to big clients for a couple of reasons:

• They can, because they own them (frameworks, that is)
• They want to, because it is, remember, free to distribute (and hell to develop)
• They want to, because addiction is good^tm

There is a special case of positive addiction present in the development world. I call it tool addiction, because it's actually not bound to a specific framework and/or platform version.

No one wants to use notepad.exe during development of a serious solution, right? We do need that Intellisense after all. Although it's just a bunch of programmatic schema definitions, one gets addicted to it. Platform vendors know this. This is the main reason tools are becoming free. The addiction flu is spreading out of the platform world, into the tool space, and as it seems to specific framework space.

Anyone who is offering anything for free has a background plan. They are not that stupid. Vendors know that once you get hooked it's not easy to be abstinent.

I've always wanted an Aibo. There are two reasons:

• I wanted to play with it, and see what turns up
• I wanted my dog to play with it, and see what turns up

Now, Genibo is around the corner. I thing I should buy at least one robot dog, considering we have this sleeping besides us.

Compare this:

With this hunger-stricken dog:

What would happen?

I wonder what Lupus (with his ~150 pounds/70 kilos) would do with a plastic, whining and moving monster?

Having an option is always a good thing, right? But there comes a time when we all have to face the truth of the free (economic) world. There are things that just do not fit in common line-of-though agenda.

Like this one (Rob Enderle, link):

Windows is free to the OEMs. In fact, not only is it free, but Microsoft , in effect, pays them to take it. Regardless of the cost, Windows is a logical choice, and a straight pass. Dell (Nasdaq: DELL)  pays about $80 for it and typically charges about $80 for it. There is rarely much of a mark up. If Microsoft were to lower its price that lowered price would be reflected in virtually all desktop hardware immediately.

Microsoft provides a number of services which include development support, service support, marketing support, technicians, classes, databases and support materials, and it picks up a lot of the service load as well. In addition, it provides marketing co-op dollars, incentives for early adoption of new products, and ensures a somewhat level playing field (which could be good or bad) for the vendors.

This is the world we all live in. Market share is made by a conglomerate of superiorities. Not necessarily just technical ones. We do need to acknowledge that sometimes market can be gained by offering better business environment for the complete food chain. One needs to respect the box movers too, they need those extra dollars. They need the extra revenue.

Now, here's the question. What if RedHat/Apple/Ubuntu had Microsoft's position? What would happen then?

Short term? Lower prices - better quality of life.

Long term? The same thing.

If Apple had an opportunity to excell at Microsoft's position, I bet they would exercise it! Actually, they are doing it already.

That's why I (mostly) agree with the quoted article.

Do you believe that it can take 12 hours to get from Ljubljana to Cambridge, UK?

I didn't.

It took me around 12 hours and a half. But considering that I only had  (2) flights, that combined do not take more that 3 hours, I was emotionaly destabilized.

Now I'm on my crusade back home.

I left Cambridge at noon. It's 10h22 PM and I'm in a small subfrankfurter town called Mainz sitting in Atrium Hotel Mainz. The place is nice, but it's also a EUR 2.98 / hour internet joint.

My flight back from London Heathrow got delayed. That's why I missed my Frankfurt-Ljubljana flight and had to stay the night in Frankfurt. So now, if I calculate, it took me almost 12 hours to get from Cambridge to Frankfurt, but the crusade back home will eventually be more than 24 hours long.

Leaving tomorrow at noon, again.

Well, as morenews bubbles up, there's a couple of things the 'Origami consortium' should do:

• It should pull a Steve Jobs on Origami: "... and it's available today for $X99."
• It should NOT discuss the follow-up models. I just do not want to know that in 6 months a better Origami will surface. One with a keyboard and 12 hour uptime, for example.
• It should make sure that the Xbox 360 launch does not replay itself in terms of market congestion.

Tommorow at 9-12AM GMT a new Origami video will be available on Channel 9. I'm watching that space.

After several weeks of me following the Origami story, I'm now really dazzled.

Tried everything to find more details. RD/MVP channel is numb. The web is full of speculation. Nobody knows the details - it's being kept as a real secret.

Now, if Scoble says it's good, one has to concur. I'm so jazzed up, I'm thinking of buying one even if it sucks cat's eyeballs.

Is just can't suck that bad. It has to be something worth spending money on. I'm seeing it in person in Hannover, later this week.

A fantastic presenter, but an even better friend had a news year's day epiphany.

It came out as a resolution: 'I should start blogging'.

Dušan Zupančič, welcome to the blogosphere. Keep those <asp:*> tags flowing..

My old laptop died on me this past weekend. Even though it wasn't much of a machine lately, it was dependable to the very last moment, when it decided to stop working completely. Dell Inspiron,  RIP.

My new workhorse is a fabulous machine: Acer Ferrari 4005 WLMi

It's a 64-bit machine, based on AMD Turion 64 processor. It looks splendid, although I have to admit that if it would be possible, I would remove the Ferrari logo during my meetings - even though I am a Ferrari F1 fan.

I'm running Windows Vista December CTP x64 edition, including VS 2005 + .NET Frameword 2.0 x64, WinFX RTC December CTP x64, Windows SDK x64, etc.

Running Indigo in a 64-bit process is a breeze. :)

Anyone deciding between Pentium M and Turion 64 based machine should read: Clash of the Titans: Dothan vs. Turion

The article compares Intel Pentium M 760 (Dothan) and AMD Turion 64 ML-37. It's a great article considering the shift to 64-bit is currently underway.

If you are planning to install or have already done so, there's an issue with the automated install of December CTP of WinFX RC (Runtime Components).

The following link will install November 2005 WinFX RC:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=BD3BA2D5-6ADB-4FB2-A3AA-E16A9EA5603F&displaylang=en

And to make it even more complex, if you happen to install it in Windows Vista December CTP, there is no way to remove it and have a clean machine afterwards.

Use the complete download link, ie:

• x86: http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/4/9/949EEA41-364A-45DC-8F4E-47E7AC147D25/winfxrc.exe
• x64: http://download.microsoft.com/download/8/3/F/83F862AA-FF41-4D54-9567-1F37888A41DB/winfxrc_x64.exe

How do you know if this thing screwed you up? You will not be able to install a 1GB pack of Windows SDK (December 2005), which also includes WinFX docs and samples.

Another proof are filename timestamps of for example System.ServiceModel.dll and friends, which are 11/18/2005 - equaling to November 2005 CTP dates.

I've said it before - in the last two years I have become a huge Apple fan.

It all started with me being inquisitive and buying a peace of furniture - Apple iMac G5. It went on with iPod nano.

I love Apple hardware. I like Apple software. There are known limitations inside the Mac OS X platform for it not being able to compete with Microsoft in terms of development experience and development technology adoption. They are ages behind in some critical areas, but also a couple years ahead in terms of OS GUI experience. Things like search, metadata, clean user inteface or, in general, end-user things work perfecly in the current builds of Mac OS X 10.4.3.

Now, it seems that Apple is trying to push out new Intel based laptops in January. I am definitely reconsidering when it comes to having the best of both worlds.

There have been quite a few book requests in the last 14 days, while I was away.

If anyone who requested the latest book still didn't receive a copy, please write another email, because it is entirely possible that it got lost somewhere.

Thanks.

I was in Brussels on Wednesday the previous week, spending time at the European Parliament. We had meetings with our 7 MEPs (Member of the European Parliament). I can only agree with the general points Clemens made in his blog entry and with the fact that MEPs have a hard time deciding on this.

We did, however, manage to present our opinions on the CII directive successfully. There is still a strong pressure inside some of the EP groups not to support the directive. And there are still groups which are deciding on whether to only support it with certain amendments.

The problem is that, as it seems, this directive will not be voted by MEPs individually. All groups will decide internally and then go for a group vote. It is therefore of much importance that anybody with access to their MEPs voices his/her opinion. Anybody can do it. Here's the link.

CII should be supported in its current form, without any "force of nature" or "interoperability" amendments. They will make things much worse over time and help paralyzing the patent system in EU.

Our viewpoint on this is available in English on my download site: http://downloads.request-response.com/cii.zip (118KB).

I strongly believe that the majority of opponents seem to think this issue is one of large vs. small companies. It is not. It has nothing to do with an impact on the bureaucracy work too. The CII directive only helps - is a first step toward - harmonizing the patent system throughout 25 member states. And again, it does not allow software patents per se. It makes me quite sad to see that most of the arguments are strongly voiced having only a populistic stance over the CII directive. It is a good thing to have, a good thing to support innovation and a good thing to enforce ones rights over his/her invention.

I have also included the draft version of CII in the above ZIP file.

Oh my god.

Have to admit. We own this and this and she loves it.

Steve Jobs (Apple):

“Our goal is to provide our customers with the best personal computers in the world, and looking ahead Intel has the strongest processor roadmap by far. It’s been ten years since our transition to the PowerPC, and we think Intel’s technology will help us create the best personal computers for the next ten years.”

Roz Ho (Microsoft):

“We plan to create future versions of Microsoft Office for the Mac that support both PowerPC and Intel processors. We have a strong relationship with Apple and will work closely with them to continue our long tradition of making great applications for a great platform.”

Glad they agree. Join the teams. Passion and market penetration always resonates.

A bunch of you wrote emails to get my new book. And that's great. Love it.
If you missed it, you can do it again.

I also got some strange feedback:

• "Why do you distribute it for free?"
• "I'd love it, by why do you distribute it for free?"
• "I would buy it, if you are selling it."
• "I'm gonna make sure I buy it."
• "I'm gonna make sure we buy it."
• "I can't believe that you believe in open source."

<rant mode="on">
    I'm not doing it for the money. I'm doing it to distribute thought, knowledge and/or religion. This book is free, as long you are not making direct profit from it without making me a part of it. You can, though, contribute to local general religion awareness anytime.
</rant>

There's another line of thought happening:

• "I have a problem with chapter X.Y.Z. I can't believe you believe this is the right way to go. In any case, I would chose B over A anytime."
• "Second paragraph in chapter X is just too general. I can't relate to that."
• "Having spent the last two months on this technology, this just can't be the best way to go."
• "There's a specific problem with X in chapter Y if you want to do it in our environment."

Over these, I have no control whatsoever. I strongly believe that scenarios are different in everyones lives.

I have to stress again that English reading/speaking audience can NOT benefit from it, since it's written in Slovene.

Goran wrote a thumbs up review of my second book. I'm glad you find it interesting. Thank you.

Too bad your blog comments are disabled.

Having spent the last two weeks tweaking my diagrams and pictures with a book designer, I learned quite a lot about differences in a design and development environment. To get facts straight, they live in a DPI-based world, which is nasty. And since my designer uses MacOS X platform to do the design stuff, a lot of interesting issues arrised. Again.

What I wanted to convey is: The book is finally done.

Title (in Slovene): Arhitektura sodobnih rešitev Microsoft .NET - Načrtovalski vzorci

Its physical incarnation should be available to general developer/architect public in a few weeks, but most definitely here.

Everyone who managed to send me an email after my previous blog post, will be getting a copy in his/her mailbox today.

If you would like a copy (electronic one, that is), drop me an email using this link.

Here's the TOC, up to level 3, (in Slovene):

1    PREDGOVOR
2    UVOD
3    OZADJE
3.1    O PLATFORMI
3.2    O PROGRAMSKIH JEZIKIH
3.3    O NAČRTOVALSKIH VZORCIH
3.3.1    Začetniki koncepta načrtovalskih vzorcev
3.3.2    Načrtovalski vzorci v informacijski tehnologiji
3.3.3    Načrtovalski vzorec: Windows DNA
3.3.4    Porazdeljene transakcije
3.4    SPLOŠNO O PORAZDELJENIH STORITVAH
3.4.1    Strateški pomen Enterprise Services
3.4.2    Prihodnost Enterprise Services
3.4.3    Hitrost COM+
3.4.4    O .NET Enteprise Services
3.4.5    O porazdeljenem transakcijskem koordinatorju (MSDTC)
3.5    KJE SMO?
4    NAČRTOVALSKI VZORCI
4.1    NAČRTOVALSKI VZOREC PORAZDELJENE APLIKACIJE
4.1.1    Ideja
4.1.2    Porazdeljena aplikacija potrebuje nivo fasade
4.1.3    Porazdeljena aplikacija potrebuje nivo dostopa do podatkov
4.1.4    Objekti entitetnih storitev validirajo poslovna pravila
4.1.5    Ločeno upravljanje transakcij
4.1.6    Procesi
4.1.7    Kje smo?
4.2    NAČRTOVALSKI VZOREC SPLETNE APLIKACIJE
4.2.1    Namen
4.2.2    Struktura
4.2.3    Stran začasnih naročil
4.2.4    Objekt DataSet
4.2.5    DataSet <> DataTable <> DataAdapter
4.2.6    Kje smo?
4.3    NAČRTOVALSKI VZOREC PODATKOVNEGA DOSTOPA
4.3.1    Namen
4.3.2    Struktura
4.3.3    Razredi
4.3.4    Dodajanje novega naročila
4.3.5    Kaj pa transakcije?
4.3.6    Dostop do podatkov
4.3.7    Kje smo?
4.4    NAČRTOVALSKI VZOREC ENTITETNIH STORITEV
4.4.1    Namen
4.4.2    Struktura
4.4.3    Primer poslovnega pravila
4.4.4    Nivo dostopa do podatkov
4.4.5    Validacija poslovnih pravil
4.4.6    Naprednejši koncepti validacije poslovnih pravil
4.4.7    Kje smo?
4.5    NAČRTOVALSKI VZOREC POSLOVNE FASADE
4.5.1    Namen
4.5.2    Struktura
4.5.3    Kdaj uporabiti?
4.5.4    Razmislite o spletnih storitvah
4.5.5    Kje smo?
4.6    NAČRTOVALSKI VZOREC TRANSAKCIJSKIH STORITEV
4.6.1    Transakcije in .NET v splošnem
4.6.2    Namen
4.6.3    Struktura
4.6.4    Kako deluje?
4.6.5    Kdaj uporabiti?
4.6.6    Kako uporabiti?
4.6.7    Kje smo?
5    .NET ENTEPRISE SERVICES
5.1    KAKO UPORABLJATI .NET ENTERPRISE SERVICES?
5.1.1    Načrtovanje komponent
5.1.2    Razredni in članski atributi
5.2    NAMESTITEV KOMPONENT
5.3    KJE SMO?
6    UNIČEVANJE VIROV
6.1    METODA FINALIZE
6.1.1    Dedovanje iz System.Object
6.1.2    O finalizaciji
6.1.3    Kdaj uporabiti finalizacijo?
6.1.4    Oživljanje
6.2    METODA DISPOSE
6.2.1    Kdaj klicati metodo Dispose?
6.3    BREZ UPORABE .NET ENTERPRISE SERVICES
6.3.1    Podatkovni nivo – osnovna komponenta
6.3.2    Podatkovni nivo – ostale komponente
6.3.3    Komponente drugih nivojev
6.4    UPORABA V .NET ENTERPRISE SERVICES
6.4.1    Podatkovni nivo – osnovna komponenta
6.4.2    Podatkovni nivo – ostale komponente
6.4.3    Komponente drugih nivojev
6.5    KJE SMO?
7    VIRI

If you still don't have my previous book, Arhitektura spletnih storitev - Usmeritve za načrtovanje, you can write to me using this link.

Thanks again to all the reviewers and especially to Microsoft gals who had to read this technical, unreadable text during the proof reading process. Thanks to Mateja from Alten, for doing a fantastic design work.

Well, it's a well known fact that dog owners and their companions act similar in lots of situations.

It seems to be true for me too. I just took a quiz at http://gone2thedogs.com and I came out as a Great Dane.

This is the result:

Dog Name: Great Dane
Origins: Germany

Amongst the tallest of dog breeds, the Great Dane is known in its native Germany as the Deutsche Dogge (German Mastiff). Often referred to as the Apollo of the dog world, this statuesque dog has existed in Britain for many centuries and is said to be descended from the Molossus hounds of ancient time Rome. In the middle Ages it was used to hunt wild boar, fight bulls and event employed as a bodyguard.

Just take a look at this fella. He pulls unreasonable stunts on me. While he definitely wouldn't like to fight a bull, he's taking his bodyguard job pretty seriously.

I'm a little bit scared of this.

Not because of SuSE aquisition. It worries me because of Mono aquisition.