"We must also work to change a number of customer perceptions,
including the views that older versions of Office and Windows
are good enough..."
- Steve Ballmer sets a target even Microsoft can meet
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104_2-5259001.html
>> HARD NEWS <<
visiting the zoos
Oh, so we'll probably continue our "holiday service" for
just a while longer (it's nice here), but Danny has been
biting his tongue all week about the Tiger MacOS X thing.
From his ink-sodden beach blanket, he writes: "Why have so
few people noticed the key element of Tiger? Dashboard
provides javascript access to some safe operating system
stuff, like drawing primitives on the window canvas. And
then, when you load the gadgets up *in Safari*, you get
the same access. Meanwhile, Apple made a deal with Opera and
Mozilla the same week to add enough to the browser plugin
API to provide the same javascript objects on other
platforms and browsers. And they all forked off from the W3C
last month to set their own standard committee, WHAT-WG. For
creating web applications. Just like Joel Spolsky was asking
them to do. So we have low-level (but not insecure)
javascript access to the desktop, an open (but non-W3C)
standard, and cross-platform plugins to support it. DON'T
YOU PEOPLE UNDERSTAND? It's BROWSER WARS II - ELECTRIC
BOOGALOO!". Now you see why we need these holidays so badly.
http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/hyatt/archives/2004_07.html#005928
- ooh, the SVG boys aren't going to be happy with "canvas"
http://www.whatwg.org/
- Committee For The Extension of The Blink Tag
http://ln.hixie.ch/?start=1088526392&count=1
- good backgrounder (and why it's not called WHAT-TF)
But where, you may be asking, do the "dohs" go while NTK is
on holiday? And, just as pertinently, is there not some more
convenient way of perusing their broken web page hilarity,
perhaps making use of these new-fangled "inline" <img src=>
tags? Fear not, the text-only purity of the newsletter will
remain sacrosanct against such modern abominations, but you
can now browse the highlights of the last few weeks over at
our new DOH, THE HUMANITY! spinoff site (and, who knows, maybe
upload a few of your own, with less fear of getting rejected
for sending in giant BMPs, horribly compressed JPGs, or losing
them completely as seems to happen with some Outlook OLE
attachments). Yes, the design and the RSS feed are a bit ropey
at the moment, but just be thankful we didn't pursue an
earlier concept whereby site contributors were dubbed
"Duncan's Doh-Nuts" and fictional host character "Duncan"
introduced the site with the words: If you're "nuts" about
"dohs", then we've got the "dohs" you'll go "nuts" for!
http://www.xcom2002.com/doh/index.php?s=04061517mis
- with all your favourites: missing decimals/millions...
http://www.xcom2002.com/doh/index.php?s=04051822oth
- ...miscellaneous (yet topical) typos
http://www.xcom2002.com/doh/index.php?s=04062323oth
- ...placeholder text tributes to professionalism
http://www.xcom2002.com/doh/index.php?s=04062121eco
- ...and "E-commerce e-diocy" (sorry)
>> ANTI-NEWS <<
berating the obvious
from our special "what *are* Orange up to at Glasto this
year?" correspondent: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/3841819.stm ,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/3843491.stm ... not securing their
site against Widdecombes, obviously: http://tinyurl.com/ytamh
... why you might not want to mirror Amazon's reader reviews:
http://www.web-design-is.us/FREEBIE/free2.php?&asin=0971339899
(scroll down)... near-sentient spamdexing - thanks for
clearing that up: http://www.mapsym.co.uk/debt+collector.htm
... and fewer dohs means all the more space for PUERILE GOOGLE
GOOFS: http://www.google.com/search?q=%22sale+of+gods%22 ,
"Christian Diety", "Jesus Christ Supertar", "Ivy Legue", "Golf
of Mexico", Gazza+Palestine, "Edios Interactive", "45 minuets"
Powerfuk, "Abode Photoshop", "Blackbum Rovers", "Bertie Ahem"
... University course uses "principles of design and analysis"
to guarantee "the highest standard" of "you work" [sic]:
http://www.gre.ac.uk/courses/under/sch/cms/webtech_bsc.html ...
>> EVENT QUEUE <<
GOTOs considered non-harmful
Thanks to everyone who helped out, came along, and was
generally very understanding about last month's NOTCON, an
event whose organisation has so far been described as
somewhere on the scale between "refreshingly haphazard" and
"boastfully shoddy" - notes, online reports and extensive (and
remarkably high quality) video are now on the site. Something
else we weren't expecting quite such an overwhelming response
to was NTK 2004-05-21's plea for some sort of UK TECH-RELATED
EVENTS AGGREGATOR, which so many people have written in about
that we're wondering whether it's worth getting them all
together with a view to either collaboration (or rival
elimination) - post a comment to SteveC's blog if you're
interested, and we'll see what we can "aggregate" out of that.
Sadly, it probably won't be ready in time to announce the
latest tour by NTK-tipped '80s throwback GARY LE STRANGE,
which begins this weekend at the Etcetera Theatre, Camden
(from 9pm, Fri-Sun 9/11-07-2004, above Oxford Arms, 265 Camden
High St, London NW1, UKP7.50, 6.50 concessions), tying in with
the release of his retro-futuristic new album, "Face Academy".
http://www.xcom2002.com/nc04/
- getting as much use out of that old domain as we can
http://www.fractalus.com/steve/blog/steve/archives/000850.html
- vs http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?b=02004-05-21&l=54#l
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/kate.darby/page9.html
- featuring the hits "Electric Dance" and "Heart of Tears"
>> TRACKING <<
sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering
LOOKOUT used to be the funny thing the fat and bearded ones
said when they were referring to MICROSOFT OUTLOOK. Now
it'll be the thing that fat and bearded ones *install* when
they're forced to use the thing. It is, at bloody last, a
search engine for Outlook folders, letting you find things
in the global cruft repository that is Outlook's .PST files
as fast as you can say "Gmail". Googlish syntax (you can do
+foo and -bar) and indexing of IMAP accounts and public
folders makes it useful. And the free preview period means
you can try it before you splash out the $29.95 for the final
edition.
http://www.lookoutsoft.com/Lookout/
- grepmail! Tiger spotlight! will be consumed by a future M'soft product!
>> MEMEPOOL <<
contains a source of http://snackspot.org/
US military's contest to get the most unusual name into a news
story continues, with early lead from Rear Admiral Stufflebeam
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/1618187.stm - now threatened by Lt
Commander Flex Plexico http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/3753967.stm ,
and of course Guantanamo Bay's very own "Lt Mike Kafka":
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/06/23/guantanamo_worster/ ...
thanks everyone, that ought to do it: http://www.novote.org.uk ,
http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?whedon&1 ,
http://www.petitiononline.com/googhtml/petition.html , and -
somewhat more realistically - http://www.reagangothic.com/
... unexpected Photoshop fetish of the month - those special
"Mission: Impossible" moments: http://www.closetmonster.net/
(via http://images.google.com/images?q=slim-fast&safe=off )
... quiz is a bit lame (duh), but just quite liked the design:
http://davidguy.brinkster.net/quiz/n3taquiz.html ...
>> GEEK MEDIA <<
get out less
TV>> still not too sure about the musical numbers, but heavy
rotation of THE MIGHTY BOOSH (8pm, weeknights from Fri, BBC3)
offers another chance to catch the cheese-headed "Jungle"
episode on Monday... watch out for http://tv.cream.org/
staffers largely escaping the blame in WHO KILLED SATURDAY
NIGHT TV? (9.50pm, Sat, C4), a clearly rhetorical inquiry
considering that very evening's entertainment also offers
cheery charity-athon BBC SPORT RELIEF 2004 (from 7pm, Sat,
BBC1) and Woody Allen's favourite Nazi occu-docu THE SORROW
AND THE PITY (7pm, Sat, BBC4)... while TIME MACHINE (8pm, Sun,
BBC1) showcases the very latest in timelapse CGI... Suzi Perry
continues her bid to be the Pam Ayres of tech television as
the remarkably low-budget THE GADGET SHOW (7.30pm, Mon, C5)
looks at wi-fi... "Science fiction Oliver" has his moments
but, let's face it, he's no "Geoff" in this new series of
COUPLING (9pm, Mon, BBC2)... Thursday is sexual subtext night
with both demented Renny Harlin F1 romp DRIVEN (8pm, Thu, C5)
http://dir.salon.com/ent/movies/review/2001/04/27/driven/ and
- presumably the non-Director's Cut of? - ALIEN (10.15pm, Thu,
C5)... and we're enjoying these re-runs of THE PRISONER
(11.25pm, Fridays, BBC4) as much as anyone, though the word
among fans suggests that some of them are taking it a bit too
seriously: http://www.sixofone-info.co.uk/pointsofview.htm ...
>> SMALL PRINT <<
Need to Know is a useful and interesting UK digest of things that
happened last week or might happen next week. You can read it
on Friday afternoon or print it out then take it home if you have
nothing better to do. It is compiled by NTK from stuff they get sent.
Registered at the Post Office as
"too much NTK will get you - in the end"
http://mjr.towers.org.uk/blog/2004-5.html#notcon04@2004-5.mjr.dsl.pipex.com
NEED TO KNOW
THEY STOLE OUR REVOLUTION. NOW WE'RE STEALING IT BACK.
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