the Forty-Second Parallel

A week ago, in my on again, off again tango with Python, I declared that Python web frameworks suck. This week, I've decided they don't suck - they just lack adequate documentation.

Gary Burd has compiled a list of information clients - apps which let you define and discover connections and views between your information.

Michael Fraase: Even though the arms race continues, the war is over. The spammers won. Email, for anything other than communicating with individuals you already know, is useless.

Sad, but probably true. And one gap RSS can't fill here is the ability to push information to people who haven't explicitly requested it - whether that's a bad thing or not is debatable ...

The Register: Apple has begun shipping Power Mac G5s ...

Cool! I'm anxious to try one out, or at least read a review of how they perform in real life use.

That the MSBlaster worm would "encourage" Microsoft to release a new service pack for Windows XP sometime in the near future.

InfoWorld: Microsoft won't release a second service pack for Windows XP until the second half of next year, giving users more responsibility for applying individual patches and updates.

Hmm ... then again, maybe not.

CNET: Prices for Microsoft Office 2003, together with a range of other upcoming products from the company, have been released on online retailer Amazon.com's U.K. Web site.

eWeek: Computer users were scrambling Wednesday for alternate fixes for the havoc wreaked by the Blaster worm as many people were unable to reach Microsoft Corp.?s main patch download site.

I, for one, sure am glad Microsoft is so committed to security ...

MSDN: Creating an RSS News Aggregator with ASP.NET.

CNN, Part 1: Survey finds widespread dissatisfaction with tech support.

CNN, Part 2: The general public doesn't have a clue what techs go through.

Wired: 101 Uses for Apple's IChat AV.

Microsoft says that .Net usage passes Java ... as impressive as .Net is, I find their claim dubious at best.

Interesting article up on Mac DevCenter about information mapping software for OS X. Some of the apps they mention are your basic Sticky Note apps, while others are full blown databases complete with search engines and metadata. Information mapping is a really nifty concept ... if only it didn't take so much effort ;-)

CNET has done a fairly good job of summarizing the issues surrounding the RSS (Winer/Userland) vs. Everybody Else (Sam Ruby, et. al.) battle. And it must've gotten something right, b/c Dave calls the article "extremely incendiary."

Information Week: In an effort to better understand its main source of competition, Microsoft has deployed Linux and other open-source software in a test center ... with an initial goal of determining the effort involved in building the kind of open-source platform that might be found in a typical business environment.

This is suprising - not that they're doing it, but that they hadn't already done this 3+ years ago. Course, it took them a while to catch on the whole Internet thing too.

CNET: The protocol that has defined e-mail for more than two decades may have a fatal flaw: It trusts you.

There's been a lot of discussion around here recently about the best way to stop spam (mostly centering on whether or not SBL is better than sliced bread), while this article suggests that the best solution maybe just to start over from scratch. Interesting.