It's the Christmas season and this is our last blog of the year, which means it's our last chance to extend seasons greetings to our readers. In particular thanks to those of you who have contributed to the blog via your comments. It's always nice to know that some of you find the posts interesting enough to join in the discussion.
In the spirit of the season a little reminiscing is in order. Some of you may have already seen this but we got a real chuckle out of it and thought we'd pass it along. It is a 1960s (i.e., Mad Men era) impression of Google. Give it a test drive here. It's a lot of fun. When we fed in our own names some of the images of Susan were recognizable but Jon's--well, not so much. Jon's Google hits are always a bit odd anyway because a young rock and blues artist has the same name. For those of you too young to remember, it's a pretty darn good impression of what a '60s version of Google might have been like. Assuming there had been an Internet for Google to search, of course.
Our Naughty and Nice List Winners for 2012
Santa will shortly be on his way and we thought we'd just let him know via this blog who are our personal naughty and nice champions this year.
Naughty: Software companies that treat their existing customers badly. There's a certain purveyor of accounting software (you know who they are Santa) whose software we use on our Macs to do our bookkeeping. Every year they come out with a new release. And every year we get the same email.
"As a loyal customer ... we are pleased to offer you this special upgrade rate of only $..."
Only one problem. The "special rate" is invariably at least 20 percent higher than the cost of a brand new copy of the same software at any number of local computer retailers--and that is their normal price not a special sale offering. So for being a "loyal customer" we get to pay 20 percent more. Thanks but no thanks.
Nice: IBM Rational Software for removing the charges from Open Access. We were very critical of Rational's handling of Open Access so it only seems fair to offer kudos to them for making the right decision, reversing their position, removing the charges and incorporating it into the compiler.
Now that it has been liberated we are beginning to see more articles on the topic and people sharing their own ideas for handlers. Hopefully we'll see some collaborative open-source projects in the future and then, as Wallace (of Wallace and Gromit), the voice of our GPS, would say, "Let's see what this baby can do!"
We hope you all have a wonderful festive season--no matter how or where you celebrate it.
In the spirit of the season a little reminiscing is in order. Some of you may have already seen this but we got a real chuckle out of it and thought we'd pass it along. It is a 1960s (i.e., Mad Men era) impression of Google. Give it a test drive here. It's a lot of fun. When we fed in our own names some of the images of Susan were recognizable but Jon's--well, not so much. Jon's Google hits are always a bit odd anyway because a young rock and blues artist has the same name. For those of you too young to remember, it's a pretty darn good impression of what a '60s version of Google might have been like. Assuming there had been an Internet for Google to search, of course.
Our Naughty and Nice List Winners for 2012
Santa will shortly be on his way and we thought we'd just let him know via this blog who are our personal naughty and nice champions this year.
Naughty: Software companies that treat their existing customers badly. There's a certain purveyor of accounting software (you know who they are Santa) whose software we use on our Macs to do our bookkeeping. Every year they come out with a new release. And every year we get the same email.
"As a loyal customer ... we are pleased to offer you this special upgrade rate of only $..."
Only one problem. The "special rate" is invariably at least 20 percent higher than the cost of a brand new copy of the same software at any number of local computer retailers--and that is their normal price not a special sale offering. So for being a "loyal customer" we get to pay 20 percent more. Thanks but no thanks.
Nice: IBM Rational Software for removing the charges from Open Access. We were very critical of Rational's handling of Open Access so it only seems fair to offer kudos to them for making the right decision, reversing their position, removing the charges and incorporating it into the compiler.
Now that it has been liberated we are beginning to see more articles on the topic and people sharing their own ideas for handlers. Hopefully we'll see some collaborative open-source projects in the future and then, as Wallace (of Wallace and Gromit), the voice of our GPS, would say, "Let's see what this baby can do!"
We hope you all have a wonderful festive season--no matter how or where you celebrate it.
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