EclipseWorld has secured special rates with the Hyatt Regency Reston.

Single occupancy: $239 per night
Double occupancy: $264 per night

To make your reservations online, use this link.

You can also call the hotel directly at +1-703-709-1234. Be sure to identify yourself as an EclipseWorld attendee to receive the group rate!

Note that this rate will expire when we use up our room block or on October 8 — whichever comes first. There aren’t many rooms left in the block, so book the room early so you don’t miss out.

Yesterday, Microsoft finally gave in, accepting the Unified Modeling Language and joining the Object Management Group.

Microsoft wasn’t the only tools company that avoided UML, but it became the highest profile one. The modeling tools that debuted a few years ago in Visual Studio Team System used Microsoft’s own modeling system, as the compan claimed that UML was simply too complicated.

Microsoft was not wrong. UML is large and cumbersome, and it’s often overkill for applications design and development, particularly in the smaller and mid-sized companies that make up the bulk of the Microsoft customer base.

By contrast, the highest-profile proponent of UML has been IBM Rational. Rational (before IBM bought it) not only was the original backer of UML, but its customers are huge financial and aerospace companies that take formal modeling very very very seriously. Microsoft’s “we’ll have it out way” approach was arguably the best for its developers.

Microsoft has finally jumped onto that large, slow-moving bandwagon. In its press release, the company said:

Microsoft Corp. today outlined its approach for taking modeling into mainstream industry use and announced its membership in the standards body Object Management Group. Modeling is a core focus of Microsoft’s Dynamic IT strategy, the company’s long-term approach to provide customers with technology, services and best practices to enable IT and development organizations to be more strategic to the business.

Modeling often has been heralded as a means to break down technology and role silos in application development to assist IT departments in delivering more effective business strategies. However, although the promise of modeling has existed for decades, it has failed to have a mainstream impact on the way organizations develop and manage their core applications. Microsoft believes that models must evolve to be more than static diagrams defining a software system; they are a core part of daily business discussions, from organizational charts to cash flow diagrams.

Implementing models as part of the design, deployment and management process would give organizations a deeper way to define and communicate across all participants and aspects involved in the application life cycle.

To make model-driven development a reality, Microsoft is focused on providing a model-driven platform and visual modeling tools that make it easy for all “mainstream” users, including information workers, developers, database architects, software architects, business analysts and IT professionals, to collaborate throughout the application development life cycle. By putting model-driven innovation directly into the Microsoft .NET platform, organizations will gain visibility and control over applications from end to end, ensuring that they are building systems based on the right requirements, simplifying iterative development and re-use, and resolving potential issues at a high level before they start committing resources.

“We’re building modeling in as a core part of the platform,” said Bob Muglia, senior vice president, Server and Tools Business at Microsoft. “This enables IT pros to specify their business needs and build applications that work directly from those specifications. It also brings together the different stages of the IT life cycle — connecting business analysts, who specify requirements, with system architects, who design the solution, with developers, who build the applications, and with operations experts, who deploy and maintain the applications. Ultimately, this means IT pros can innovate and respond faster to the needs of their business.”

OMG has been an international, open-membership, not-for-profit computer industry consortium since 1989. OMG’s modeling standards include the Unified Modeling Language (UML) and Business Process Management Notation (BPMN). In addition to joining the organization, Microsoft will take an active role in numerous OMG working groups to help contribute to the open industry dialogue and assist with evolution of the standards to meet mainstream customer needs. For example, Microsoft is already working with the finance working group on information models for insurance business functions related to the property and casualty industry, and will eventually look to expand those models so that they can be applied to P&C, life and reinsurance. Another early focus will be on developing specifications for converting messages across the various payments messaging standards.

“Microsoft has always been one of the driving forces in the development industry, helping to make innovation possible but also simplifying many of the most challenging aspects of the application development process,” said Dr. Richard Mark Soley, CEO at OMG. “In less than 10 years, OMG’s UML, a cornerstone of the Model Driven Architecture initiative, has been adopted by the majority of development organizations, making OMG the seminal modeling organization and supporting a broad array of vertical market standards efforts in healthcare, finance, manufacturing, government and other areas. Microsoft’s broad expertise and impact will make its membership in OMG beneficial to everyone involved.”

Developers can begin to implement model-driven approaches today through innovations such as Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML) — the declarative model that underlies Windows Presentation Foundation and Windows Workflow Foundation — and ASP.NET MVC, which deeply integrates model-driven development into the .NET Framework and makes it easy to implement the model-view-controller (MVC) pattern for Web applications. Both XAML and MVC are examples of models that drive the actual runtime behavior of .NET applications. These are part of Microsoft’s broader companywide efforts to deliver a connected platform modeling, which includes technologies being delivered across both “Oslo” and Visual Studio “Rosario” initiatives.

I’m not sure what Helen is looking for…. what do you think?

From: “helen kumba”
Date: September 9, 2008 6:41:47 AM PDT
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Subject: Hello,

Hello,

My name is Helen; I am 25 years in search of a man who understands love as trust and faith rather seeing it as a way of fun always but a matured man with scence of humor. So I derive special interest on you so contact me with this email address I believe we can start from here. Waiting to hear from you soon so I can send photo for more introductions.

Kisses

Helen

The case for commercial reusable software components is a strong one. Reusable components hit a real sweet spot: They solve genuine problems, whether it’s connectivity, GUI input or output controls, AJAX plumbing, reporting, data conversion, connectivity – tasks are that bread-and-butter necessities for modern applications.

Sure, developers can and do write one-off code to handle the drawing of a pie chart or the parsing of a file format – but that code take a long time to make and test. Even worse, you end up with something that’s brittle, hard to change, hard to maintain and nearly impossible to reuse.

Given how very inexpensive most software components are, there’s just no reason not to employ them. The question of whether to use or not use reusable components from commercial suppliers is easy, and the answer is, “yes.” But there’s nothing new there.

The hard question is, from which commercial suppliers should you obtain those components? Too few developers put enough thought into researching that question, using a simple heuristic (“the first I find that’ll do the job at a decent price”) vs. finding an optimal solution.

It’s not like buying a pair of tennis shoes, where buy whatever’s on sale, and if doesn’t work out, you’ll be buying another pair in a few months anyway. Unlike tools like IDES or compilers, software components actually end up being built into your application. They’re in the bits you push out to your server, discs you ship out to your customers. You’re not just using a component to solve today’s little problem to save a couple of your developers a few days’ labor. Instead, you’re outsourcing your software development.

Sadly, too many developers don’t realize this. They see an immediate need (“Dang! I need a 3D pie chart, stat!”), do a quick Google search, and download the first cheap component that touts the right buzzwords. Problem solved. Right?

Wrong. When a company chooses a component, it’s choosing a long-term partner in the component supplier, not a short-term fix — even if they don’t realize it. The component supplier is a company to whom you’ve outsourced part of your software development. What does that require? Trust. Stability. Credentials. References. A solid architecture. A solid business. Real support that you can count on next week, or next year.

Don’t choose components based on the number of bullets on a feature list, and don’t delegate the vendor-selection process to a coder. That’s not how your company should choose a long-term partner, someone whose code you’re going to insert into your own shipping products as if it is your own. Choose component suppliers based on a strategic partnership — that is, companies that you want to be in business with. That’s the way to leverage the value of component reuse within your organization.

Son Michael has been working with the beta of Google’s new Chrome browser for Windows. Sadly, his ancient father is waiting for the Mac version to come out (there’s a sign-up box for notifications).

Here’s what Offspring has to say about it:

Today is the first beta release for the all-new web browser, Google Chrome. Unfortunately the beta release is not available to Mac or Linux users.

Currently being run on my Windows Vista Premium machine, the new browser is much faster and smoother than Microsoft’s beta release of Internet Explorer 8.

Unlike Internet Explorer and Safari, Chrome doesn’t shove the maker’s name in your face. All it says is Google in small text by the minimize button. It’s not ‘Chrome: brought to you by Google.’

On startup it looks like almost any other Windows-based web browser, except it opens with a visual history of the pages you’ve visited most often and most recently. The trapezoid browsing tabs offer a more aesthetically pleasing browsing experience than the standard rectangular ones. It also doesn’t have a million toolbars cluttering up the URL address bar, just your bookmarks and a link to sites you might enjoy based on your browsing history (Google is smart).

All it takes is a little Flash Player plug-in, some preference tweaks and you are ready to go with one of the best web browsers available.

A public service announcement to my fellow computer scientists, techies and other interested parties, on behalf of the Association for Computing Machinery:

ACM Bulletin Service Today’s Topic: ACM Awards Call for Nominations September 4, 2008

Each year, ACM recognizes technical and professional achievements within the computing and information technology community through its celebrated Awards Program. And annually, ACM’s award committees evaluate the contributions of candidates for various awards that span a spectrum of professional and technological accomplishments.

You and your colleagues are invited to nominate candidates for ACM awards, including:

Awards with November 30, 2008 nomination deadlines

A.M. Turing Award
ACM – Infosys Foundation Award in the Computing Sciences
ACM/AAAI Allen Newell Award
Software System Award
Grace Murray Hopper Award
Paris Kanellakis Theory and Practice Award
Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award
Distinguished Service Award
ACM – IEEE CS Eckert-Mauchly Award
Outstanding Contribution to ACM Award

Awards with September 30, 2008 nomination deadlines

The SIAM/ACM Prize in Computational Science and Engineering
Doctoral Dissertation Award

Please take a moment to consider those individuals in your community who may be suitable for nomination, and feel free to share this information with your colleagues and peers.

Read a letter from ACM’s Award Co-chairs on the importance of ACM Award Nominations

Learn more about ACM Award Nominations

Visit the ACM Awards site

Microsoft today slashed the price of the Xbox 360 game console, which beginning on Friday will cost as little as $199. The system comes in three versions:

• Xbox 360 Arcade, $199.99 — includes the console and one wireless controller, and a tiny 256MB of of flash-based storage. No headset, no network cable, no HD audio/video cable, and no backwards compatibility with older Xbox games. Get this only if you’re super-cheap, or are buying a birthday present for someone you don’t like very much. Was $279.99.

• Xbox 360 “Plain,” $299.99 — includes the console and one wireless controller, headset and network cable. Also has a 60GB hard drive and an HD audio/video cable. It’s compatible with the older Xbox games, too. This is the one to get. Was $349.99.

• Xbox 360 Elite, $399.99 — has everything that the plain Xbox 360 has, but it has a 120GB hard drive, and includes an HDMI cable. If you’re a serious gamer, it’s probably worth the extra $100 for the storage and cable. Oh, it’s black instead of white, like the Xbox 360 plain and Arcade. Was $449.99.

With this price cut, Microsoft is trumpeting the sub-$200 price point, of course:

“We are thrilled to be the first next-generation console on the market to reach $199, a price that invites everyone to enjoy Xbox 360,” said Don Mattrick, senior vice president of the Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft. “Xbox 360 delivers amazing performance at an extraordinary value with the leading online service and best lineup of games, downloadable movies and TV shows available from a console. The majority of consumers make the decision to buy consoles once the price falls to this mark, making this an important milestone for consumers and the industry.”

However, with only 256MB of storage and no high drive, and no reverse compatibility, the Xbox 360 Arcade ain’t a good deal. Get the plain edition for $299.99.

It came from the original Battlestar Galactica television show in the 1970s, but “frak,” as a generic swear word, is all over the delightfully reimagined series, which debuted in 2003.

And according to this story on CNN, “The curse word ‘Battlestar Galactica’ created,” it’s all over everything else. As the story says,

“Dilbert” creator Scott Adams calls the word “pure genius.” “At first I thought ‘frak’ was too contrived and it bothered me to hear it,” Adams said. “Over time it merged in my mind with its coarser cousin and totally worked. The creators ingeniously found a way to make viewers curse in their own heads — you tend to translate the word — and yet the show is not profane.”

While I haven’t yet begun saying “frak” or “what the frak,” maybe I should. What the heck, eh?

If you haven’t been following the new BSG (as fans call it), the place to start is with the 2003 miniseries.

This blog doesn’t normally do political topics, or share political humor… but this story from The Onion is just too delicious to pass up.

I got Condoleezza [Rice] a beautiful blue blazer, and for my wife [Lynne] I bought a diamond necklace, a new winter coat, and this neat little motorized airplane ornament to hang on the 9/11 towers,” Cheney told reporters while perusing the windows of New York’s famed Park Avenue shops.

The story, “Cheney Waits Until Last Minute Again To Buy Sept. 11 Gifts,” came out today. The Onion’s new atlas is due out next month, can’t wait for it.

This week, the Daily Telegraph has been running a list of the 100 ugliest cars, according to a reader poll. Some of the cars may not be familiar to you, since they weren’t sold in the U.S. Those funny little European cars are really, well, funny.

Ninety-four of the cars on this list I agree are ugly, especially their #1 choice. I’ll leave it to you to read the article. But six others I don’t agree with at all, and so will protest here:

#94 Porche Boxster – I always thought they were cute.

#88 Aston Martin Bulldog (pictured) – with only one car actually made, it doesn’t really belong on the list. But I like the long, low lines.

#67 Lexus 430SC – What’s wrong with it?

#59 Ford Mustang “Fox Body” – thing of beauty, my friends, thing of beauty.

#28 Toyota Scion xB – The original “box on wheels” is one of my favorite cars. Too bad the 2008 redesign ruined it.

#14 Triumph TR7 – A great design, what’s not to like?

Okay. I’ve had my say. What do you think?

A story in the Daily Mail describes a 916-foot cruise ship, The Enchantment of the Seas — and how it was extended by 73 feet to add 151 more cabins, pool enhancements and another restaurant.

The story says,

Such measures may seem extreme, but the £30 million cost of the job is just a fraction of the £500 million – and years of labour – needed to launch a new ship.

The whole project only took six weeks. Astounding. Check out the pictures in the article. Wouldn’t it have have been neat to see in drydock?

My Glaswegian wife was delighted to find across a Scots version of the Wikipedia. Or, as they say,

Guid tae see ye at the Scots Wikipædia, the first encyclopædia in the Scots leid!

Started in June 2005, it’s up to 2,464 articles.

There are also versions of the Wikipedia in other languages spoken in the British Isles:

Gaeilge na hÉireann (Erse Gaelic)
Gàidhlig na h-Alba (Scots Gaelic)
Gaelg Vanninagh (Manx)
Cymraeg (Welsh)
Karnuack (Cornish)
Nouormand (Norman)

Talk about your Long Tail….

The quote marks in the headline make it particularly ironic.

I received this sad e-mail from a software development manager who lives and works outside the United States. He was writing about an upcoming technology conference:

Hi Alan,

We had planned to send two developers to the conference, but the recent changes in US Customs initiatives has caused a change in our company policy for Business travel to the United States.

We simply cannot risk the possibility of losing sensitive client data, confidential information or electronic equipment. We respect the National Security issues of the United States, but apparently the United States no longer respects the rights of business travelers.

What he’s referring to is an initiative where U.S. Customs officials can search the contents of travels’ laptops — and confiscate them, if they believe there are secrets there.

This issue was first discussed in media reports in February, such as “Clarity Sought on Electronic Searches,” in the Washington Post. In February, security expert Bruce Schneier also discussed anecdotal reports about U.S. Customs officials seizing laptops.

The July 11 edition of USA Today carried an op/ed piece by Michael Chertoff, secretary of the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security, insisting that these types of searches are legal and essential. He writes,

How often do we search laptops? Of the approximately 400 million travelers who entered the country last year, only a tiny percentage were referred to secondary baggage inspection for a more thorough examination. Of those, only a fraction had electronic devices that may have been checked.

We are, of course, mindful of travelers’ privacy. No devices are kept permanently unless there is probable cause. Likewise, any U.S. citizen’s information that is copied to facilitate a search is retained only if relevant to a lawful purpose such as a criminal or national security investigation, and otherwise is erased. Special privacy procedures govern the handling of commercial and attorney-client information.

An Aug. 11 statement by Jayson Ahern, deputy commissioner of U.S. Customs, says,

… And finally, to allay any concerns the business community or others may have that their personal or trade information might be put at risk by traveling with their laptops, I urge you to look at our track record. Every day, thousands of commercial entry documents, shipping manifests, container content lists, and detailed pieces of company information are transmitted to CBP so we can effectively process entries and screen cargo shipments bound for the United States. This information is closely guarded and governed by strict privacy procedures. Information from passenger laptops or other electronic devices is treated no differently.

Those official assurances may be small consolation to travelers whose computers contain confidential business data or sensitive trade secrets.

My advice to all travelers, but especially those traveling internationally: Leave your regular laptop at home. Instead, carry a “bare” laptop, with operating system and applications only. No data, no access codes or passwords. Instead, use Web-hosted applications and remote storage to get to your data once you’re at your destination.

Not only is that best for keeping your private data private against prying eyes, but it’ll also be best in case your laptop is otherwise lost or stolen.