Bevan Rudge JavaScript and web technologist

The NZ SSC has rejected Microsoft's offers for a new licensing contract. This is a big loss for Microsoft (Though I'm sure MS would have you believe otherwise and try to paint the picture back to front) and big win for NZ Government and NZ's IT industry.

A helicopter was flying around above Seattle when an electrical malfunction disabled all of the aircraft's electronic navigation and communications equipment.

Due to the clouds and haze, the pilot could not determine the helicopter's position. The pilot saw a tall building, flew toward it, circled, and held up a handwritten sign that said "WHERE AM I?" in large letters. People in the tall building quickly responded to the aircraft, drew a large sign, and held it in a building window. Their sign said "YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER."

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mar 17, 2008 9:49 AM
Subject: Microsoft Student Partners 2008
To: all@cosc.canterbury.ac.nz

Hey everyone,

My name is Janina Voigt and I am one of the three Microsoft Student
Partners for 2008. The other Student Partners are Yugan Yugaraja and
Mayur Sampat.
Our role is to bridge the gap between students and academics at
Canterbury, and Microsoft.

We will be carrying out presentations and/or workshops throughout the
year on a variety of topics such as .NET Framework, C#, Popfly,

A List Apart's Issue 253 continues discussing and debating the controversial IE version targeting that ALA announced a month ago. CivicActions blogged about this topic then too.

Jeremy Keith and Jeffrey Zeldman provide very realistic and down-to-earth points of view and arguments both for and against version targeting. Although they each reach different conclusions, neither tries to persuade the reader one way or the other. Rather they leave you more enlightened so that you can make your own decision.

'They Shoot Browsers' by Jeremy Keith was better written in my opinion and has more convincing arguments, including this gem;

"The proposed default behavior for version targeting in Internet Explorer solves the problem of “breaking the web” in much the same way that decapitation solves the problem of headaches."

I'm still not 100% decided, but I'm pretty heavily swaying to the side against version targeting. Having said that, I can understand how and why Microsoft, even with mostly good intentions, came to this solution. I can see and appreciate the short term benefits, however I don't believe that Microsoft can pull this off in the long term. As web developers, we have no reason to believe that Microsoft is capable or even intends to follow through with it's promises

Gabor blogged about how IEs4OSX saved drupal.hu. I was impressed with his review so I tried it out myself. Now I don't have to boot up greedy 'ol parallels everyday just to update my hours in Quickbooks (It even runs activeX controls)! :)

I definitely recommend IEs4OSX.

Dean at M$ reckons IE8 passes the ACID2 face 'test'. I'm dubious. The screen shot is convincing, but I'll believe when I've seen it with my own eyes.

Xero is another accounting application that competes with the likes of Quicken and MYOB. It isn't the first application-as-a-service in this market, but it is, IMO the best.

This is why patents are ridiculous;