Knowing .NET

Simon Phipps says that those who oppose Open Source are Luddites. So is Simon saying that Jonathan Schwartz is a Luddite when he says that Sun must maintain control of the Java compatibility tests?
5:56:02 PM    comment []   trackback []

So there are games for the tablet. The problem is that the majority of them have something to do with words and writing. Granted, since ink is the big thing, it makes sense, but how many Scrabble and crossword clones can you have? Let's see something innovative.

For example, Toshiba's M200 has the built-in accelerometers, right? So why not a version of Microsoft Plus! Labyrinth where you control the board by physically moving the tablet? How about strategy games that take advantage of pen and ink? Tablet users don't necessarily need something flashy that runs at 60 fps. Just a nice polished game that really makes use of tablet features. via [Tabula PC]

I agree that a first-person shooter isn't the route to go. You want something real-time, but with pen strokes about the screen controlling the level. I bet the guys at Pop Cap could dream up something.

5:43:24 PM    comment []   trackback []

"...a couple of grad students at USC's business school who hate their tablets...it's gotten so laptop-friendly there, that people with tablets never use the inking feature...." .... will the Tablet PC only succeed in a convertible form, sheepishly masquerading as a "laptop with benefits"?... via [Tabula PC]

According to Microsoft's Andrew Dixon, with whom I spoke on Tuesday, right now both slates and convertibles are selling equally well / poorly, but the slates are clearly going into vertical markets (medical, insurance) while the general market is going for the convertibles. As the general market outstrips the vertical early adopters, the majority of machines with Tablet technology will undoubtedly be convertibles. That's okay with me. My next Tablet will be a convertible but I bow to no one in my fanaticism for the technology.

There's very little compelling ink-based software today. Essentially, OneNote, MindManager (which we just gave a Jolt Award to), and ArtRage. Much, much more is needed. Some is already in the pipeline (xThink MathJournal, for instance, is no secret), some has hopefully been spurred closer to reality by the $100K contest, and much is waiting in the heads of entrepreneurial software developers watching the market develop. It only takes 2 programs to make a platform: one killer app and one killer game. Neither has shipped for the Tablet PC.

5:20:52 PM    comment []   trackback []

Oh man, where are my editors when I need them? I just sent an email that said that a polite conversation was "markedly gentile." Bwahahahahahaha... I blame Mobile, Alabama. (I once pronounced the word "sublime" as "suh-bleem" and was teased by a friend who said "Why in the world would you think it was pronounced that way?" It took me months to think of a common two-syllable word ending in -ime that is pronounced "-eem.")

3:27:04 PM    comment []   trackback []

Tim's Chemistry Exam : What I find so wonderful about this is that today I couldn't do any better even though once upon a time I kicked ass in chemistry lectures (I sucked in chemistry labs because I was too impatient to get the weights / volumes exactly right).
12:51:15 PM    comment []   trackback []

Could you make a blimp from an aerogel created with helium?
12:32:15 PM    comment []   trackback []

I just received a press release titled "Why Open Source Can't Meet Mass-Market Demands," from a group called the Institute for Policy Innovation which identifies itself as "a non-partisan, public-policy organization." (It's easy to determine that the IPI was founded by Dick Armey and is primarily a pro-free-trade group, I guess free trade can be argued to be non-partisan.) At first I was confused, because if you really believe in the free market, Open Source is a perfectly legitimate thing: people should be able to charge as much or as little for their work as they want. You have to make second- and third-order arguments to decry the economics of OS (perhaps OS implicitly drives down the perceived value of all programming, thus distorting the trade-offs associated with offshore programming, which in turn might suck the air out of high-value, entrepreneurial programming in the United States).

Then I realized that this was about government procurement: the IPI release is intended to introduce Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt into state and federal bureaucrats. Clearly, someone paid for this: I assume either Microsoft or the Software Publishing Association. I sent an email to IPI asking who paid for the initiative. I'll let you know what they say (if anything).

Correction: I misidentified the IPI as the "Institute for Policy Information" in an earlier post.

12:09:51 PM    comment []   trackback []

Did you know that if you have an 64-bit Athlon chip (or an Opteron server in your closet), you can download XP-64? It's a "customer preview program" but not a closed beta. You're going to want to do this in a dual-boot configuration with a 32-bit OS: although the Windows-on-Windows 64-32 emulation layer (WoW64) works in many cases, it doesn't work with .NET CLR's 1.0 or 1.1 or VS.NET 2003.
10:09:23 AM    comment []   trackback []

On ActiveX control install prompts:

there are a few things I love about the work we did here.  You can now say “Do not install this control and never ask me again.”

Yes! Now I never need to see a prompt for “Install Gator (click here for more information about this fantastic progra...” again. via [KC on Exchange and Outlook]

All my machines already have popup blockers, firewalls as appropriate, and antivirus software. But this "never ask again" feature will make me install XPSP2 on all my machines immediately. (Oh, I installed it on one of my laptops last weekend -- went fine.)

10:03:36 AM    comment []   trackback []

The Game Developer's Conference is, without a question, the best programmer's tradeshow going. There's no other show that touches it in terms of technical depth -- introductory-level lectures at the GDC are what other shows would label advanced, and advanced-level lectures are the GDC are generally only comprehensible by excellent programmers already working in that particular area. I've heard much more pragmatic and correct things about one of the few areas where I know a thing or two (AI) than I did at the last AAAI meeting I attended!

Some sartorial observations: although a cut above most programming trade shows most attendees are still wearing t-shirts and jeans (but, like me, a black t-shirt and clean jeans) but there's definitely more hair color and piercing than you get at, say, the PDC. There's one fellow sporting a shaved head and a black duster a la Neo; perhaps a fan-boy, perhaps one of the coders of the Burly Brawl. There are a few guys in full metrosexual bloom: I really enjoyed the contrast between one guy in a Euro-cut suit standing beside a more-than-usually shabby guy with a comb-over. I glanced at their badges -- the metrosexual had a show pass, the shlub was a speaker.

I was the founding Editor of Game Developer Magazine 11 years ago and we bought the GDC tradeshow almost immediately. It's a bittersweet memory for me, because the magazine was actually the idea of an intern, Sander Antoniades, who deserved better rewards: we couldn't give him a full-time editorial position right away, so he switched divisions, and then left the company.

9:37:44 AM    comment []   trackback []