Entries for William Kempf

Google Chrome OS [Google Chrome OS]

William Kempf — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:13:16 GMT

There's a big announcement about this today. http://investor.shareholder.com/googpr/eventdetail.cfm?eventid=75092

I doubt this is the "Windows killer" the echo chamber is claiming it will be. I even doubt it will do as well as OS X. However, it's likely to be the first comerrcially successful Linux desktop. Guess we might really finally have that "year of the Linux desktop".

in reply to Google Chrome OS

More Open Source News [More Open Source News]

William Kempf — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 16:13:06 GMT

From a tweet by @HumanCompiler, http://codeplex.org, an Open Source Foundation with a mission "to enable the exchange of code and understanding among software companies and open source communities". I know Microsoft has gotten a lot of flack over their stance on Open Source in the past, but it truly does look like they're getting into the game in a big way now. I see this as a very good thing, and it will be interesting to watch what comes out of this.

BTW, cue Ubuntu's rants on this topic.

in reply to More Open Source News

Jamie get's his wish: Microsoft Store [Jamie get's his wish: Microsoft Store]

William Kempf — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 20:06:47 GMT

http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=3358

Didn't think it would happen.

in reply to Jamie get's his wish: Microsoft Store

I know security is hard, but... [I know security is hard, but...]

William Kempf — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 12:48:14 GMT

Wow. Who thought this was a good idea?

http://weblogs.asp.net/fbouma/archive/2009/07/09/the-firefox-3-5-fiasco.aspx

Too many mistakes like that, and you'll see FireFox start to lose users faster than they gained them.

in reply to I know security is hard, but...

Two IE8 Complaints [Two IE8 Complaints]

William Kempf — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 18:09:24 GMT

The first I'd classify as a bug. Occasionaly, for whatever reason (probably network related), a site being navigated to in a "new tab" (middle click, or because of the behavior of "popup windows" being configured to open in a tab), will take a long time. In these cases, the "tab" will suddenly become a new browser window. Annoying as sin. I wanted a new tab, not a new browser window.

Which leads to the second complaint. Why can't I move my tabs from one browser window to another, as can be done in Chrome? Such obvious functionality that really shouldn't have been missed.

in reply to Two IE8 Complaints

50% of C9 is Spam [50% of C9 is Spam]

William Kempf — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 13:54:17 GMT

Obviously, I'm not talking historically, but in recent days that figure is accurate. Today there were 8 new posts in the C9 RSS feed. Of those, 4 were spam posts about stealing DVD content. 50% spam. That figure is WAY too high. Seriously, guys, you WILL lose readership if you can't get this under control. The tough times with trolls have nothing on this new C9 era.

in reply to 50% of C9 is Spam

DVD Nonesense [DVD Nonesense]

William Kempf — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 13:40:59 GMT

OK, it's getting out of hand. I don't care what you have to do to solve the problem, but if the DVD thievery posts aren't curtailed soon, you're going to start losing your audience. Nearly 25% of all posts seem to be spam these days.

And just so I'm not a whiner with no input... I'd be happy with a Captcha system, since I'm sure these posts are coming from bots.

in reply to DVD Nonesense

Google doesn't like IE8 [Google doesn't like IE8]

William Kempf — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 19:11:49 GMT

Just something I find humorous, that I thought I'd share.

Seems Google doesn't like IE8. For the longest time I've been fighting GMail inside IE8. Periodically, it will just log you off, with no appearant reason. Interestingly, sometimes it goes into a neat little cycle of logging off, auto-logging back on (presumably due to the cookie), logging off, and repeating this whole thing for a few cycles before "sticking" at either logged off or on.

Reader, on the other hand, has worked like a champ in IE8 the entire time. That is, until today. Google updated reader with a "fresh new look" (which, while I suppose a tad faster, which is what they say the reason was for the change, the new look is less pleasing on the eyes). Unfortunately, IE8 hates the new look. The "chrome" displays with the "Loading" display, but the Ajax fails to complete the load and display the feeds. I had to switch to compatibility mode to continue using Reader. I'm guessing Google's done this on purpose ;).

in reply to Google doesn't like IE8

Channel 9 RSS Feed [Channel 9 RSS Feed]

William Kempf — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 13:06:50 GMT

I've been out of action for a while. Extended vacation with no internet access, and then extremely busy at work catching up. So maybe I'm being stupid. Maybe there was some announcement I missed. I don't know.

But what the heck happened to the RSS feed?

Since getting back from that extended vacation, the feed has been EXTREMELY quite. I didn't have time to investigate until this morning. Now, when checking out the feed directly, there's simply hardly anything in it. Most significantly, the Coffee House and other forums are NOT included in the feed at all. So my first thought was maybe the feed was broken up. However, the "Subscribe" icon on the Cofeehouse page leads to the same main feed, and I can find no otehr obvious links to different feeds.

What am I missing?

in reply to Channel 9 RSS Feed

Microsoft playing nice with Open Source [Microsoft playing nice with Open Source]

William Kempf — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 19:31:28 GMT

http://zonker.opensuse.org/2008/04/30/bringing-microsoft-to-the-table-can-ms-become-an-open-source-contributor/

http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/systems_management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=207402971&subSection=Integration

This is the first time Microsoft has directly contributed to an Open Source project started "externally". Quite an interesting step to take.

in reply to Microsoft playing nice with Open Source

No Carbon-64 [No Carbon-64]

William Kempf — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 20:13:25 GMT

Adobe's announced that the upcoming Photoshop will be available in 64 bit, but only on Windows. Why? Because Apple surprised them by dropping Carbon for the 64 bit OS. http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2008/04/photoshop_lr_64.html

I really don't get this move by Apple. I've never developed for the Mac, but if I understand things correctly, Cocoa is an Objective-C API and not accessible from more traditional languages such as C and C++. This means Apple is effectively locking out cross platform GUI applications, correct? Does that make sense to anyone else?

Another interesting angle to this whole thing comes from a response by John Gruber: http://daringfireball.net/2008/04/64000_question. The response is mostly fair, which if you read Daring Fireball you probably understand why this surprised me. The guy is opinionated and his typical posts consist of calling people with different opinions names that wouldn't get by the C9 filters.

So why is that post interesting? Because he takes a swipe at Microsoft, and shows his own ignorance while doing so.

John Gruber wrote:
It’s also the case that unlike Leopard, which is a single OS that can simultaneously run both 32- and 64-bit apps natively, Windows Vista comes in wholly separate 32- and 64-bit versions.

in reply to No Carbon-64

"Microsoft Could Pose Patent Threat to GPL-licensed Software" ["Microsoft Could Pose Patent Threat to GPL-licensed Software"]

William Kempf — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 15:08:05 GMT

The title was taken from the Digg post. The actual article had a less controversial title, though it's content was still FUD. Basically, they're making to claims.

1. The OSP only covers current versions of the specified standards, which means that Microsoft could potentially decline to provide similar guarantees for future versions.

Response: That's ALWAYS true. Any standard can be "extended" by any party, and those extensions don't have to be submitted back to the standard. I understand that the OSS folks have issue with the "embrace and extend" tactics (I'd tend to agree), but logic doesn't lead from that to concluding that extending is evil. Extensions are the only true way to lead to evolution in standards. It would be wrong for there to be no way for Microsoft to extend this, or any other, standard. Just as wrong as it is for Microsoft, or any other company, to try and use extensions as a way to force lock-in.

2. The second issue is that the promise does not apply to works beyond the scope of the covered specifications.

Response: No, really? I don't like patents, but come on. This is another no brainer, to me. I can certainly see this as an argument to be made by the standards committee, if they are concerned about this. Then Microsoft would have to decide whether or not to abandon the patents all together. But it wouldn't make much sense for a company to give away more rights than they have to in a situation like this. In fact, I'm willing to bet there are a lot of situations just like this in several standards today. Rail against the patent mess, but it's FUD to attack any individual companies over issues like this.

in reply to "Microsoft Could Pose Patent Threat to GPL-licensed Software"

"Vista Capable" mess ["Vista Capable" mess]

William Kempf — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 19:01:50 GMT

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080211-vista-capable-scheme-was-panned-at-microsoft.html

I am NOT attempting to bash Microsoft here. Sounds to me like a mistake was made, and an attempt was made to correct it, with proper levels of concern from management. Maybe the corrections didn't happen fast enough, or go far enough, and it's certainly too bad for those who bought machines based on the logo who later found the capabilities wanting. Maybe Microsoft should even lose the lawsuit. But, I don't see anything here worth painting Microsoft as the "evil empire", as you know certain folk that frequent here will respond with in this thread.

No, I'm posting this for two reasons. One, it's news worthy and some of you may not have seen it. Two, there's an interesting quote in the article worth discussing, IMO.

article wrote:
One thing is certain: the choice to have many editions of Vista differentiated sometimes by key features is causing Microsoft quite a bit of trouble. Had Microsoft enabled or disabled features like Aero Glass based on a machine's capabilities rather than the version of the OS in use, this suit would have likely been avoided.

Yet one more reason to dislike the numerous versions. I wouldn't mind if we got rid of all but one version, though I can live with a "consumer" and "business" version. But the umpteen different Vista version is just ridiculous, and does lead to problems. And not just for Microsoft. Having to test your software to ensure it works on all versions can be a pain. I really do hope this, or something else, convinces Microsoft to rethink this strategy with Windows 7.

in reply to "Vista Capable" mess

Stallman is looking for love... [Stallman is looking for love...]

William Kempf — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 21:31:17 GMT

on Craig's List.

http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/bos/533096562.html

More than likely a fake, but still humorous.

in reply to Stallman is looking for love...

VS 2008 Troubles [VS 2008 Troubles]

William Kempf — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 12:31:02 GMT

Huh. Not a good start. I installed the trial version of VS 2008 (waiting on the powers that be to acquire the MSDN download). First thing, it failed initially, unable to install the latest msvcrt. OK, after it rolled back, I rebooted and tried again. Successful install. Open a large project and did a rebuild... I was impressed with the performance. Then I opened a XAML file. An exception is thrown. I do like that we now get to see what was thrown. Here's what we have:

Remoting cannot find field 'originalFontName' on type 'System.Drawing.Font'.

at System.Object.GetFieldInfo(String typeName, String fieldName) at System.Object.FieldGetter(String typeName, String fieldName, Object& val) at System.Object.FieldGetter(String typeName, String fieldName, Object& val) at System.Drawing.Font..ctor(Font prototype, FontStyle newStyle) at MS.Internal.Designer.VSColorService.GetVsFont() at MS.Internal.Designer.VSDesigner.VSDesignerClientImpl.SetAdornerFontInfo(VSColorService colorSrvc) at MS.Internal.Designer.VSDesigner.VSDesignerClientImpl..ctor(VSDesigner designer, DesignerContext designerContext) at MS.Internal.Designer.VSDesigner..ctor(VSDesignerHost host, DesignerContext designerContext) at MS.Internal.Designer.VSIsolatedDesigner.VSIsolatedDesignerFactory.CreateDesigner(DesignerContext context) at MS.Internal.Host.Isolation.IsolatedDesigner.BootstrapProxy.CreateDesigner(IsolatedDesignerFactory factory, IDesignerContextProtocol contextProtocol) at MS.Internal.Host.Isolation.IsolatedDesigner.BootstrapProxy.CreateDesigner(IsolatedDesignerFactory factory, IDesignerContextProtocol contextProtocol) at MS.Internal.Host.Isolation.IsolatedDesigner.Load() at MS.Internal.Designer.DesignerPane.LoadDesignerView()

Worse, in the Output pane there's this little gem:

The version of the .NET Framework that is installed is not the correct version for this version of Visual Studio. Some features of the XAML designer may not be available. Repair Visual Studio to correct this problem.

WTF? OK, I do a repair. Then just in case there's a problem with this older solution, I create a new WPF project. As soon as the XAML file loads, the IDE crashes. After the IDE restarts and tries to load the XAML file, we're right back to the same exception and complaints that the wrong .NET Framework is installed.

I haven't done too much diagnosing yet, but it appears the following versions of the Framework are installed.

V1.0.3705, v1.1.4322, v2.0.50727, v3.0, v3.5, v3.5.20404. Hmm... two v3.5, maybe thats the problem? Which would be the correct version?

in reply to VS 2008 Troubles

Zune Ideas [Zune Ideas]

William Kempf — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 15:06:06 GMT

I was reading press release about Kindle (http://www.news.com/2100-1025_3-6218828.html) and it got me to thinking about what I'd like to see in a hand held media device. Some of these ideas would be interesting to see in a Zune (and some, obviously, already exist).

1. High quality audio for music, audio books, etc.
2. Decent quality video for movies, shows, etc.
3. Ports to enable you to connect the device to TV sets.
4. A screen and interface conducive to reading eBooks.
5. Good software for acquiring media (purchasing audio, video and eBooks, as well as podcasting and other forms of media sharing).
6. WIFI support, including the ability to sync wirelessly (and with out a dock).
7. Simple PDA capabilities. This isn't a business device, but access to contact information and personal calendars would be useful.
8. E-mail and web support.

Things I don't want.

1. Phone. I'd personally prefer a separate device for that, because I'm going to carry a phone with me everywhere and thus need it to be very compact. A media device doesn't need to be as compact, nor will it be with a usable screen.
2. Games. This one is a little more questionable... I can see the desire to have this. However, I'd prefer to do without the extra size required to include decent controls for game usage.

What does everyone else think? What would be an ideal "portable media player" for you?

in reply to Zune Ideas

Re: How to convert DVD, video, audio, iTunes, youtube, limewire to Zune? [Re: How to convert DVD, video, audio, iTunes, youtube, limewire to Zune?]

William Kempf — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 09:42:25 GMT

Charles,

It's obviously the same idiot spamming this stuff each time. Can't we get him blocked somehow?

in reply to Re: How to convert DVD, video, audio, iTunes, youtube, limewire to Zune?

re: Microsoft Out in the Open [re: Microsoft Out in the Open]

William Kempf — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 01:00:13 GMT

http://port25.technet.com/archive/2007/10/16/microsoft-out-in-the-open.aspx

Despite the FUD storm and controversy, two licenses from Microsoft have been accepted as Open Source licenses by OSI. Way to go Microsoft and OSI!

Unfortunately, in the linked announcement, these were called "Shared Source" licenses, which will definately bring a lot of flack from the OS crowd (maybe legitimately).

in reply to re: Microsoft Out in the Open

SyncLINQ [SyncLINQ]

William Kempf — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 15:16:22 GMT

Cool library coming soon: http://www.paulstovell.net/blog/index.php/introducing-synclinq/. This allows you to bridge LINQ queries with data binding. Watch the video for details, because I'll never do justice to this in this description, especially since I have no actual experience with the library. However, it appears the library will add the functionality I always thought should have been baked into LINQ. Microsoft would do well to incorporate something like this in the next release!

in reply to SyncLINQ

Java in Standards [Java in Standards]

William Kempf — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 13:08:58 GMT

http://zbowling.com/blog/2007/10/08/including-java-in-standards/

Interesting blog post, and for me it raises some even more interesting questions. How can any of these be "standards" if they rely on something that's not standardized? If the CableCard "standard" requires Java, to me it's simply not a standard. If Blueray requires Java, it's not a standard.

Further, if the whole reason these standards require Java is because of serialized java bytecode, why in the heck aren't they using the simpler XML standard?

I have zero experience with any of these standards, so I'm not arguing authoritatively. Rather, I'm asking questions that seem obvious.

in reply to Java in Standards

gcc/cli [gcc/cli]

William Kempf — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 14:09:59 GMT

http://gcc.gnu.org/projects/cli.html

Interesting bit of news. The gcc compiler is being fitted to support generation of cli bytecode.

in reply to gcc/cli

And now... LINQ for Ruby [And now... LINQ for Ruby]

William Kempf — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 20:45:10 GMT

Seems Microsoft has certainly started something ;).

http://errtheblog.com/post/11998

in reply to And now... LINQ for Ruby

LINQ for Java - This time for real [LINQ for Java - This time for real]

William Kempf — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 13:56:36 GMT

It's called Quaere (no idea what the name means), and it looks to be extremely similar in design to LINQ. However, it doesn't have the built in language syntactic sugar. What I find funny, is a response to this blog post suggests there's a "similar" library here: http://josql.sourceforge.net/. Yeah, that's similar all right. It parses strings, so doesn't have any of the type safety or intellisense support. So, once again, there are way too many developers out there who don't "get" LINQ.

in reply to LINQ for Java - This time for real

Moonlight is the official Silverlight implementation for Linux! [Moonlight is the official Silverlight implementation for Linux!]

William Kempf — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 14:59:38 GMT

http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2007/Sep-05.html

All I have to say is wow! I know there's a lot of people out there who are going to attack this ferociously from every angle. After all, it's Microsoft, Novell and Mono, three entities that the OSS zealots love to attack. But still, I'm impressed by Microsoft's move. Instead of creating their own implementation that would compete with Moonlight, they actually endorse Moonlight as the OSS solution, and provide the needed collaboration to ensure compatibility. Bold move, and I think the people in charge of all of this deserve some kudos!

in reply to Moonlight is the official Silverlight implementation for Linux!

Philosophical INotifyPropertyChanged question [Philosophical INotifyPropertyChanged question]

William Kempf — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 19:05:20 GMT

Imagine you have an object that implements INotifyPropertyChanged. One of the properties, say Foo, can be modified which will in turn modify another property, say Bar. In what order should the property change events fire (Foo followed by Bar or Bar followed by Foo), and why?

Somewhat related, let's imagine we're writing a ViewModel for our WPF application. We have a Widgets property and a SelectedWidget property. If we reassign the Widgets property, the WPF databinding will indirectly cause our SelectedWidget property to be set to null. Should be rely on this fact, or explicitly set the SelectedWidget to null in our Widget setter (which might (will?) cause a harmless redundant call)?

in reply to Philosophical INotifyPropertyChanged question