Z Trek: The Alan Zeichick Weblog
Patch the big new Microsoft Word security vulnerability
Yesterday, Microsoft released a series of patches to Microsoft Office — for both Windows and Macintosh — that plugged a serious Remote Code Execution flaw in Word and Outlook.As detailed in Microsoft Security Bulletin MS08-026, which is…
United’s unfriendly short flights
Have you noticed that United Airlines doesn't use the "Friendly Skies" slogan any more? No wonder.The company does a lot of things now that aren't great for customers. For example, now you have to pay to get a seat with an extra couple of inches…
Nominations open for the Sourceforge Community Choice Awards
Just passing this message along from Sourceforge's publicist. I have no involvement in these awards, or with Sourceforge.net.Today (Wed., May 14), nominations are officially open for the 3rd annual Sourceforge.net Community Choice Awards.This…
The financial XML mandate: XBRL meets the SEC
XBRL is one of the most interesting XML schemas, and the use of the eXtensible Business Reporting Language is probably going to become required by publicly traded companies.The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is meeting today to discuss…
Time for EddieC’s News & Views!
My colleague Edward J. Correia — editor of Software Test & Performance Magazine, and conference chair of STPCon — has his own blog now.Cleverly named "EddieC's News & Views," you can read the blog here, and subscribe to the RSS feed here.Enjoy!Z…
The HP-EDS deal is obviously confirmed
As discussed yesterday ("HP may be buying EDS"), Hewlett-Packard has indeed entered into a definitive agreement to purchase Electronic Data Systems for $25/share, or $13.9 billion.To quote from the official release,HP intends to establish a…
Dawn of an era: Embedded Systems Programming and ESC
One day in late 1987, Computer Language magazine editor JD Hildebrand walked up and down the halls of the Miller Freeman publishing company with a gleam in his eye, saying that we needed to launch a newsletter on embedded programming. JD had…
HP may be buying EDS, aka, "HP Global Services"
Big Blue's biggest weapon has long been its services arm. As the saying goes, when you buy enterprise "solutions" from IBM, the bulk of the sale is the van full of services folks with packed suitcases, ready to move into your office for good.…
Not as modern/trendy as I thought
A friend was congratulating me via IM about having passed 500 blog posts. I replied that I felt very "Alan 2.0."He scoffed, saying that I was "maybe Alan 1.5." He said that to truly become Alan 2.0, I have to turn into Alan-as-a-Service.Dang!I…
A stellar example of journalistic values
Not.A friend found this posting on San Francisco's Craig's List. I wonder which publishing company is advertising for someone to turn press release chutney into faux journalism, at $30 per "story." I hope it's nobody I know.Headline: Re-writes…
Agitar is having a going-out-of-business sale
Agitar — makers of the AgitarOne family of Java unit testing products — is winding down, liquidating, going out of business.You won't read about this on their Web site (at least I can't find it), but the company has made a "general assignment…
The evolution of the Mac user interface
How many of you were early adopters of the Mac? I came in on the second wave, with my first being the Mac SE, which came out in 1987 – three years after the original Macintosh release. It’s fun to look back at how the graphical user interface,…
What’s with all the tornadoes?
This year has been a terrible one for tornadoes across the United States. Accounts very, but this weekend tornadoes killed at least 21 people in Missouri, Oklahoma and Georgia. It's simply terrible and tragic, and my heart goes out to the victims.I…
Check the expiry date, check it twice
My son, who adores everything Japanese, is particularly fond of the new flavor of A1 steak sauce, Kobe Sesame Teriyaki. When he emptied the bottle last week, my wife and I promised to get him another bottle.Easier said than done, if you'd like…
Sun’s Starfire Server named "Product of the Year" by Network Magazine
It's funny when you come across old stuff about yourself on the Internet. In today's episode, I was trying to find something that I'd written about the Macintosh Finder. After failing to find it on my hard drive, it was off to Google with the…
RFID chips in passports are dangerous, agrees Gosling
I like RFID. I don't like that the new passports issued by the United States, the European Union and other countries have radio-frequency identification chips.I first wrote about this in November 2006, and in "Passports in lead foil" recommended…
Opus 500
This is the 500th posting on the ZTrek blog.The first posting was on September 22, 2006, which according to my calculations was 595 days ago. That means:1. The posting rate is about 0.84 blog items per day.2. If the rate remains constant, the…
Beauty sells, whether it’s medicine or magazines
If you've been to the doctor recently, you've probably shared the waiting room with one or more pharmaceutical sales representatives. Almost without exception, they're beautiful young women and men, immaculately groomed and expensively dressed.
I…
Feeling sick of Java… or maybe it’s just JavaOne
I've been sick as a dog since Wednesday night, and I think I know why. This disturbing message came in today from the JavaOne conference folks:The JavaOne conference team has been notified by the San Francisco Department of Public Health about…
What’s the difference: Application Development and Strategic Development?
I'm scratching my head over this one. For the past few years, InfoWorld has put out a weekly newsletter called Application Development Report, filled with a mixture of development and general IT news. While the newsletter wanders a bit around…
Do you have a Chief Blogging Officer? Do you need one?
A lot of companies see the value of blogs to communicate with customers, with partners, with investors, with the media and with the world at large. At BZ Media, Ted Bahr and I both have blogs — his is on Folio, and of course, this is mine.The…
Embarcadero and CodeGear: Such a bargain!
The surprising aspect of Embarcadero's purchase of CodeGear from Borland is the low, low price tag: US$23 million. As Borland put it yesterday:Borland announced today a definitive agreement to sell the assets of its individual developer tools…
Amazing corporate candor from Adobe regarding Photoshop Express
Adobe's Photoshop Express service has been in beta for some time. I was surprised and delighted to see this email come in from Adobe yesterday afternoon, via its public relations agency, AR-Edelman. This type of candor is far too rare in our…
Embarcadero gobbles up CodeGear
Didn't see this one coming! To excerpt from the official release:Embarcadero Technologies® to Acquire CodeGear™ from Borland® SoftwareSAN FRANCISCO – May 7, 2008 – Embarcadero Technologies, a privately-held company of Thoma Cressey Bravo,…
JavaFX, for all the screens of your life
Over the past half-dozen years, the JavaOne conference has been slowly morphing into the Mobile Java Development conference, with an increased emphasis on writing Java ME apps for cell phones. This year, JavaOne is branching out to a broader…
Is Sun toast? The finances aren’t good
While Sun talks about its technology future here at the busy, bustling JavaOne, I'm thinking about its financial results.As reported in the San Jose Mercury News last week, Sun is planning to cut up to 2,500 jobs. Why? Because the company,…
The early renewal catches the worm, believes Network Solutions
Yes, yes, I'm sure that we're overpaying for domain registrations and DNS, but we have many of ours through Network Solutions.One of the downsides of Network Solutions is the price. An upside is that they have good online tools for managing…
I saw Neil Young at JavaOne, but he didn’t sing
The headliner of the JavaOne keynote was legendary rocker Neil Young. His connection with JavaOne is that his forthcoming Neil Young Archive will be released on Blu-ray discs. Blu-ray uses an embedded Java virtual machine to drive dynamic content.But…
Write-up in Media Business about Systems Management News
The May 2, 2008, edition of Media Business had a detailed story about our launch of Systems Management News, featuring quotes from Ted Bahr (the "B" of BZ Media).To excerpt from Matthew Schwartz, "New print titles key in on changing markets,…
Microsoft Google Yahoo irony
In SD Times' coverage of the latest in the Microsoft-Yahoo attempted takeover, David Worthington filed a story today about how Microsoft has withdrawn its $33/share offer.To help illustrate the story, "Microsoft walks away from Yahoo buyout,"…