The two things that stop me ditching MS are office macros and kid’s games. Open Office is great, but there are still some issues between it and MS office. Our dependence on some spreadsheets means that we need to stick with Excel for a while. And the kids games are windows-only. I may be able to get them going with WINE, but haven’t tried yet.

Google have already proved they can take email from the desktop platform to the web platform. Personally I prefer Gmail to Outlook or Thunderbird. However, for a commercial user, one thing they have over Gmail is the scheduling/calendar functionality, although this is not yet at version 1.0 in Thunderbird. Also, I don’t know whether Google are working on this , but I suspect that someone there has the foresight to at least assess its value. We may even see it as part of a ‘Gmail Pro’ targeted at the serious, but not necesarily enterprise user.

However, there is the issue of privacy and security. Google would have to ensure that these were well sorted out before any commercial organisation would seriously consider using it.

Administration could be an interesting issue for an enterprise version. Although keeping it simple is best, I can hear the cries already of ‘but I need to change this to stop our users…’

Instead of filtering it with email headers, I just forward all mail sent to joe@kapiti.net.nz to my Gmail account, which has a filter that returns it to [secret-nonsense-phrase]@kapiti.net.nz and set thunderbird accordingly.

One disadvantage of this method is that mail sent directly to [secret-nonsense-phrase]@kapiti.net.nz would get through without being filtered. This is only a ‘security through obscurity’ type of thing, which is in general a bad idea.

I’m still working on saving for a new PC (I would love a Mac, but thay are just too expensive for what I need at home). Looks like I’ll have to save for a console too. Or should I just buy a better PC?

I haven’t researched thoroughly, but If I had to make a spot decision now I would go with the PC/XBox combo, rather than PC/PS2 or fast gaming PC, but I’ll do some more research.

Update: Well it’s not terminal! Woohoo! Nothing pulling apart and fiddling with the drive unit couldn’t fix. Still, I want your opinions: which is the best way to go for a computer/gaming setup?

Update2: It is terminal

I tried Bloglines over a year ago. I didn’t like it. Can’t remeber why not. I don’t know what’s changed but it is now my reader of choice.

What do you use? Why? What’s wrong with it?

Patent 525484, accepted by the office and now open for objections until the end of May, says Microsoft invented and owns the process whereby a word-processing document stored in a single XML file may be manipulated by applications that understand XML.

Of course this is a defensive strategy designed to prevent other programs from openning/reading/writing MS documents and try to force users to use MS products.

This is bad two ways: bad for MS and bad for users.

How is it bad for Microsoft? The history is well documented: look at betamax and DAT compared to VHS and CDs. The open standards are mainstream while the proprietary standards (despite arguably being ‘better’) lost and were relegated to niche markets. It’s bad for users because it tries to shoehorn them into MS products.

As a bit of a though experiment: Suppose a pen manufacturer required that all document written with their pens could only be editited using their pens. Would they be granted a patent for the writing process? Microsoft are not using magic ink, nor magic paper: it’s been done before.

I don’t know enough about patent law to lodge an objection to it. But a document is a document whether it is electronic or not. Using microsoft’s pen because of how it is written is not something that should be forced upon me.

I’ll put it on my new computer when I get it.

The reason I would seriously consider migrating is SimpleXML. After reading about Yahoo! Search Web Services and hunting for a nice simple PHP XML Parser I found this tutorial. Like its name suggests, its simple.

The one thing I think that is holding back wider uptake of PHP5 is that most hosts are not getting demand for it from their users. In a commercial environment where you run your own servers it can be much easier to change that to potentially upset 100 hosting customers on a shared box. Most people don’t need it. PHP4 just works.