While I haven’t been posting as much, it’s not because of any trial! I just wanted to let everyone know I am not planning on being away for the next 7 years…

http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/michael-dolan-face-seven-years-jail

It’s a sad day for me. Ashlee’s already writing daily articles for the NY Times that are non-obnoxious and it’s like seeing that old college drinking buddy 5 yrs later when he has 3.25 kids, a white fence and gets excited about Bed, Bath and Beyond.

http://blog.wired.com/underwire/2008/03/south-park-to-o.html 

South Park fans will soon be able to watch any episode of the seminal animated show free online, thanks to a deal between show creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone and Comedy Central’s parent company, Viacom.

In an appropriately glib statement, Parker and Stone said they were inspired to start the site when they got “really sick of having to download our own show illegally all the time.  So we gave ourselves a legal alternative.”

http://www.king5.com/topstories/stories/NW_010108WAB_fireworks_glitch_SW.72e7457c.html#

This episode includes some (dare I say unsupported) speculation on Ubuntu and IBM from Mr. Asay. I guess there’s some evil plot to take over the world in there, but given my job at IBM… I’d probably know :-) I also found it odd that the 1.5 minute speculation bit also became the title (what do you expect from El Reg?). Anyway, listen if for no other reason than Open Season offers Ogg downloads (thanks!).

Anyway, you can listen for yourself here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/12/28/open_season_8/ 

http://tieguy.org/blog/2007/09/30/why-i-was-asking-for-tux-images-engraved-laser-tux/#comment-25183

http://www.theregister.com/2007/10/04/open_season_four_shuttleworth/ 

So I expect the community to do a couple things while I’m out. First, please end this OOXML nonsense and get ISO leadership to step up as a true standards org should. Second, I fully expect Sun and Microsoft to start contributing code and resources into the open Linux community (we welcome you with open arms). Finally, I expect IDC and Gartner to start tracking Linux on non-x86 platforms for once… your customers have no idea just how fast its growing…

So I’ll be back in a couple weeks and will review your progress on these three basic requests ;-)

Just after eWeek ran an article on the Top 25 Microsoft CodePlex projects, SVN takes a closer look at what these projects really are about. SVN finds out some interesting information as he “gets the facts” on Microsoft’s “open source” playground…

Number two is the Microsoft SQL Server Product Samples: Engine. This “program” is simple sample code for SQL Server. It was last updated on, get this, December 9, 2005. The primary example is, get this, how to do “Hello World” in SQL Server.

JAVA… hmmm… what does the word JAVA convey these days? I’m not sure I’d pick JAVA… but then again, I’m not the CEO of a public company.

As expected a number of people have overplayed the significance (flame wars abound I’m sure), but once the dust settles, things should be clearer. And also remember, this support is not entirely “new” (check out the date).

I’ll link to El Reg simply because Ashlee as usual made me laugh:

http://www.theregister.com/2007/08/16/sun_ibm_solarisx86/

Oh, and one last thing: Solaris is a binary operating system that comes with a commercial license so please remember that when some people misinterpret Solaris to be some open source activity.

Anyway, Bob Sutor emailed this to me and I thought it was funny enough to share:

Saw this quote and had to laugh – apparently the new rovers are powered by IBM Power chips. I didn’t know that all the Mars rovers were using Power chips until I read this – talk about low power, resilient, serviceable, and reliable.

There is a humorous line in the press release copied here:

Raj Desai, vice president IBM Global Engineering Solutions, “With Power-based processors in all three major game consoles, in fifty percent of automobile models worldwide, in sixty percent of the world’s fastest computers, and in one hundred percent of the systems on Mars, Power is truly the most versatile computing platform in the solar system.”

It sounds like the Power processor is the Panasonic Toughbook of processors:

Surviving windstorms with speeds of up to 80 miles per hour and temperatures of -199 degrees Fahrenheit, Power, once radiation hardened, has become the de facto standard for space qualified processors.

http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/corporate/microsoft_fud_watch_62707.html

As I’ve shown, in the rush to write a 6,000 page standard in less than a year, Ecma dropped the ball. OOXML’s spreadsheet formula is worse than missing. It has incorrect formulas that, if implemented according to this standard, would raise important health, safety and environmental concerns, aside from the obvious financial risks of a spreadsheet that calculates incorrect results. This standard is seriously messed up. Shame on all those who praised and continue to praise the OOXML formula specification without actually reading it.

BTW, I noticed that my Google Adwords has recently been bloated with “Windows vs Linux” Google ads. They’re from Microsoft – please do click on them proactively – click on them 10 times if you like. I could exclude microsoft.com but when I thought about it – why? Click away, ring up the bill. I’d love to see the invoice report at Microsoft showing detailed billing for the MichaelDolan.com Google Adwords clicks. I also found it funny that apparently someone at Microsoft uses Google to at least buy the Adwords :-).

http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2007/Jun/0528.html