Thinkpad/Ubuntu status update

The honeymoon is over and now we are getting to know each others foibles and learning to get along just fine.
The most incredible experience so far has been running some very heavy lifting Jython-based XML processing pipelines in the background while still working away in Emacs, downloading e-mail and surfing the Web.
The Jython stuff goes noticeable faster than it did on my old Dell/Windows setup. More importantly, it does not cause the machine to break sweat. I can do other computationally intensive things in other shells at the same time.
Fantastic! How much of that is down to the fact that the Thinkpad T42P is one honkin' laptop and how much of it is down to Ubuntu/Linux I don't know.

I've got those Visio import blues

Over the last while I've been pleasantly surprised at the extent to which I can use OpenOffice on Linux to work with Word and Excel data. I've even created a few Word/Excel files and send to others without them being any the wiser that Word/Excel did not feature in there creation.

Visio however, is a tougher nut to crack. In IT Consulting the chances of not encountering Visio files is vanishingly small in my experience.

Everywhere I've looked suggests that Visio file format are just plain opaque and no tools out there can read/write 'em.

Can this be true? Say it isn't so.

The last line of the XSLT Tractatus

Truly I say onto you, that the last clause of the XSLT Tractatus shall read:

That which we cannot construct an xpath expression for, we must pass over in silence.

The worlds shortest geek poems

Two offerings based on some well known members of the non-geek short-poem oeurve:
This one I call Ode to a consistent and deterministic data model for event notification.
It goes like this:

Atom. Parse 'em.

This one I call "Alliterative idempotent incantation in suspension".
It goes like this:

Oh, wet GET.

From middleware to metroware

I wrote this article about 4 weeks ago. Reading it now, it appears that I was in a mildly mind-altered state...or something..at least for the first half :-/

The point (and there is one, I promise you) kicks in in the second half.
From middleware to metroware.