tim ferro
ramblings of a code monkey, fanboy, and uber-geek

“The Creed is a simple one, but it absolutely must be obeyed. Three simple tenets: stay one’s blade from the flesh of the innocent; draw not attention to oneself whenever possible; and never compromise the brotherhood. These are the rules laid out to the members, the brothers, of the Assassin’s guild. A simple set of laws governing the mysterious group striving for “total peace.” But is it just that simple?” - Source

Main cast announced!

“As promised earlier this month, Microsoft announced today that both Visual Studio 2008 and the accompanying .NET Framework 3.5 have been released to manufacture (RTM).

Codenamed Orcas, Visual Studio 2008 (VS2008) comes two years after Visual Studio 2005. In total, there are more than 250 new features added with significant enhancements across every version ranging from Express Editions to Visual Studio Team Systems (VSTS). A key addition in VS2008 is support for the new Language Integrated Query (LINQ), which is positioned as a technology for rapid application development. LINQ is designed to let developers focus on what they need the data to do, rather than be mired in the complexities of data abstraction and casting. Also, LINQ makes it easier to tie C# or Visual Basic with SQL.” - Source

Coverage at Neowin.net
Coverage at RegDeveloper

“Open source products comprise the work of many collaborators — sometimes thousands of them, and often separated by oceans. Each person works on small portions of a project, and anyone is welcome to contribute. The finished product will be available freely for anyone to download and, in most cases, modify.

All very touchy-feely, carey-sharey, but why should you care about open source? You should care because the vast majority of common applications, even complex commercial stuff such as Adobe Photoshop, Windows Media Player and Microsoft Office, have free, open-source alternatives. And this point is worth reiterating: open-source software is free. No cost. Zero. Zilch.” - Source

“Then there’s the work Ubuntu computer, on which I do just about everything when I’m in the office. On Friday, I decided to update it from 7.04 to 7.10. That took a single click - no, honestly - in the system software manager, and about ten minutes downtime, most of which was me playing about. While most of the software was downloading and installing itself, I could carry on working.

And 7.10 is really rather nice; I find myself enjoying the various windows animation gimmicks more than I expected. I particularly enjoyed installing some new Firefox add-ins that needed a browser restart: as the old instance closed, the window shrank into the distance, and a second later the new instance sprang into life as if it was being thrown onto the screen from behind me. The tabs I had open were carried across the restart - stylish, fun and minimally invasive. Oh, and 7.10 found the ZDNet editorial printer on the network and installed the correct driver, without fuss. Superb.” - Source

Tonight, at “The Pit”, Everyone Gets Laid! Well that’s not true but I always wanted to say that. More importantly, one of the best local musicians is playing tonight at Bankok Blues. 9:00 - 9:30pm. John Ireland is a fantastic musician, and his last album Lonely Man is a great CD. More recently he was with a band called The Device; since their dissolution he is back playing solo again. Their CD should be out sometime in the next few months but until then you can get a copy of John’s last 3 solo CDs here:

Welcome to the New Millennium, Bloke!

Marble

Lonely Man

” Windows XP/2000 only: Software firewall ZoneAlarm is offering free downloads of its basic firewall package with a spyware scanner/cleaner and a year of free updates until 5 p.m. PST today (although you’ll get an email with a download link that’s valid for a week after that). Program maker Check Point Software claims the free offering is made to coincide with Microsoft’s monthly “Patch Tuesday” and the ensuing new vulnerabilities that hackers start working on. Regardless of the piggy-back marketing, ZoneAlarm is an easy-to-use port protector, and a little free spyware protection couldn’t hurt either. ZoneAlarm Anti-Spyware is a free download for Windows 2000 and XP only.” - Source

“Red Hat has released Enterprise Linux 5.1 with integrated virtualization. This release provides the most compelling platform for customers and software developers ever, with its industry-leading virtualization capabilities complementing Red Hat’s newly announced Linux Automation strategy. It offers the industry’s broadest deployment ecosystem, covering standalone systems, virtualized systems, appliances and web-scale “cloud” computing environments.” - Source

“Fedora 8, the newest version of Red Hat’s publicly-released Linux distribution, is available for download as a live or install CD or DVD in both the GNOME and KDE desktop flavors. New in this release, code-named “Werewolf,” are a Codec Buddy feature that helps users find and install support for MP3s and other media formats, improvements to laptop compatability—key function, power management and suspend modes in particular—better sound control through the PulseAudio server and other improvements. Fedora 8 is a free download and runs on Intel, AMD or PowerPC-based systems.” - Source

“Google today is announcing Android, the mobile OS and the Open Handset Alliance. Google will be releasing the first version of the software development kit for Android on November 12.” - Source