From feedreader to bottomfeeder to Syndirella

First I used feedreader but every now and then it just did totally weird things and consumed vast amounts of memory. Then I used bottomfeeder for a short while. It did not grow on me. Now I'm using Syndirella and so far so good. It does the embed IE thing which works well and its UI keeps you informed of what the heck its doing which is very useful.

Great Futurama line

Futurama, last night on Sky. Fry is dating a robot. "Your cute", says Fry. "Your cute", says the robot. "Your cute", says Fry. "Your cute", says the robot. "Your cute", says Fry. "Your cute", says the robot.
Professor sizes up the situation - "She's in an endless loop and he's an idiot".
Priceless.

Gnumed

Everywhere I look these days, I'm tripping over Python apps - the latest I've stumbled on is gnumed.
I'm also playing with Boa Constructor. Don't be fooled by the low version number, it is a very respectible IDE in the Borland Delphi genre.

Paintshop Pro and Python

So there I was minding my own business. I used the script recorder in the most excellent Paintshop Pro 8 and eyeballed the result.

from JascApp import *

def ScriptProperties():
return {
'Author': '',
'Copyright': '',
'Description': '',
'Host': 'Paint Shop Pro',
'Host Version': '8.00 Beta 20030414.05'
}

def Do(Environment):
App.Do( Environment, 'Flip', {
'Flip All Layers': App.Constants.Boolean.false,
'GeneralSettings': {
'ExecutionMode': App.Constants.ExecutionMode.Default,
'AutoActionMode': App.Constants.AutoActionMode.Match
}
})


I've seen that syntax somewhere before... :-)

Currently reading

Small Pieces Loosely Joined: A Unified Theory of the Web.

The future of EAI - XML, Asynchronous Messaging, Service Oriented Architectures, Pipeline Transformations etc.

A PDF of a presentation I gave recently on the subject of the future of integration technology.
Seriously though. The future is simple to predict - loooooooooooooose coupling. Asynchronous choreographies, XML bits-on-the-wire, messaging. A 180 degree turn towards dataflow oriented design and trasformation oriented integration. Away, away (finally!) from the object-oriented-onanism, distributed-algorithm-think that has plagued this industry for decades. Yup, I'm my usual non-opinionated self today :-)

WordML is to XML way RTF was to ASCII.

Read this: At Microsoft's Mercy. WordML is to XML way RTF was to ASCII.

[Mike Champion]
"I honestly don't see why they bother with WordML; what is the point of storing data in XML if the schema is so hideous and proprietary than no one can use it without proprietary API support?"

Amen. Its a lemon. Don't fall for it.