Monthly Archives: August, 2003

Rockin’ on without Microsoft

[Original Link] I love this story. A company with just the right attitude to Microsoft.

And they make good guitar strings too…

Just over two years ago…

[Original Link] …we switched off the Trojan Room Coffee Pot.

Linux conspirators?

[Original Link]

Robert Cringely asks why Macs aren’t more popular in business, and in particular why people adopt Linux machines in place of Apple’s lovely XServe boxes. He thinks it’s a conspiracy – that sysadmins are concerned that Macs are so easy to use that they’ll be out of a job. I doubt it. I don’t think people deliberately make their lives harder to keep themselves employed; not often, anyway.

I suspect it’s just that Macs, for most, are an unknown quantity. You can try out Linux almost for free while to try out a Mac server costs a bit more. Apple should offer some ‘sale or return’ scheme.

And secondly, I think the traditional divide between Mac and Windows has been big enough that people don’t think of buying a Mac as a file/web/mail server for PCs, a task it ought to be able to perform just as well as a Linux box. I’m thinking of trying this soon…

Google Calculator

[Original Link]

I’ve just come across this (thanks to MaxOSXHints):

Type a mathematical expression into the search box in Safari (or any similar Google-enabled program) and you get the result. Works for simple stuff like ‘1.4 *2.2’ but also understands some quite fun stuff:

  36 * 17.5%
  2 * pi * radius of earth
  0x44 in decimal
  sqr(-16)

and even:

  e ^ (pi * i)

Update: more fun from Kuro5hin

Brevity is the Soul of Wit

[Original Link] Jakob Nielsen on ‘Information Pollution’. Message: Keep it brief.

Quote of the day from Wind in the Willows

One morning the girl was very thoughtful, and answered at random, and did not seem to Toad to be paying proper attention to his witty sayings and sparkling comments.

`Toad,’ she said presently, `just listen, please. I have an aunt who is a washerwoman.’

`There, there,’ said Toad, graciously and affably, `never mind; think no more about it. I have several aunts who OUGHT to be washerwomen.’

No, God would not have approved of gay bishops

[Original Link] A well-considered argument in favour of the church’s traditional stance from Matthew Parris, whom one might not expect to take this line.

© Copyright Quentin Stafford-Fraser