Adobe gives away Illustrator 10

Well, if I understood that correctly on the web, it's only the Windows version again.

At heise online news there's the original article.

Court prohibits SMS spam distribution

If I had a chance to find out who's actually sending me all this SMS spam, I could sue someone. But of course there's no way to get to the actual sender. But what was even crazier was today's call from a 01908 number that rang exactly once. After that it showed up in my call list, waiting for a callback. So folks, check your call lists carefully — with some numbers you really don't want to know who's on the other end ... Does the Schockwellenreiter now want to feed the mobile spambots with faked mobile numbers too?

I found the original article on heise online news.

Hunters threaten the last lynxes

Ok. That Norwegians have a problem has often been noticed with whaling. But what the hell is the point of this nonsense, allowing hunting of lynxes? That's just simply stupid.

I found the original article at Spiegel Online: Wissenschaft in the original article.

Installing OpenOffice.org on Mac OS X 10.2

Jutta has compiled a guide on how to get Open Office running on Mac with OS X and Apple X 11, after encountering some problems with the existing guides (and tools).

I found the original article at Hexentanz.

Zabel Second at Murcia Tour

Yeah, the eternal runner-up

At tagesschau im Internet you can find the original article.

Caffeine Software Suspends Operations

Too bad. Tiffany was a very interesting software that dated back to the NextStep era. It's really a shame when something like that disappears.

I found the original article on the Imaging Resource News Page.

The First Spring

Small graphical Linux workstation on old hardware

From the first real user of the Python Desktop Server outside http://muensterland.org/ comes a nice compilation of distributions and tools with which you can turn an old P75 with 16 MB RAM into a graphical workstation. And even though he contributes to the KDE project, KDE does not appear in the compilation. So go ahead, spruce up old hardware and put it back to use.

Here you can find the original article.

Möllemann entangled in 'Kirch affair'?

And I thought I would have to do without Möllemann scandals in the future. Thank you Mr. Kirch, thank you Mr. Möllemann, you make my day

At tagesschau im Internet I found the original article.

Olympus E System from the show floor

It seems to be slowly becoming something, the Olympus box. But what it will really be remains to be seen.

At Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com) there's the original article.

Post without title

Just found this on [[ t e c h n o c u l t u r e ]][0]. Bush doesn't believe in evolution? Well, when I look at Bush, I also doubt some basic principles of evolution (something about evolution not going backwards - the American presidents apparently didn't know about that)

Found at [[ t e c h n o c u l t u r e ]][1] .

And the first spring...

And the first spring ...

... unfortunately only a blurry crocus, as something went wrong with the focus

And again a moss tuft ...

And once again a moss tuft ...

... but this time with the new camera! Settings for rich colors. Hmm.

Protest

No comment

At gnurps you can find the original article.

Still setting up the new disk

Short and sweet: Hard drive wiped and freshly set up. And now I have to reinstall everything that was on it and isn't anymore. Oops. This could take a while (right now a backup of the system drive is running).

Somehow I'm not really in the mood for blogging

The only comment I can make: Safari rocks!

Glub Gola Feelings

Wow. I was actually hoping that Boing Boing (where I read about this) had fallen for a rumor. What a ridiculous idea to build an East German theme park right according to all the stereotypes...

At Industrial Technology & Witchcraft you can find the original article.

Minolta DiMAGE Xt

Minolta's doing it again, just like with the Dimage 7 (i and Hi). No sooner is the new model out than a newer model comes along a short time later - here the Dimage X, Xi and now Xt. Somehow, as a buyer, I'd feel a bit foolish if cameras weren't even current for half a year anymore.

At Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com) you'll find the original article.

OS X 10.2 upgrade - all software sucks

Crashing like Winblows. This is stupid. If I want crashing systems, I install something from Microsoft. Unix-based stuff is supposed to work. Yeah. This stinks.

OS X Upgrades are fun - Not!

Well. I know OS X 10.2 installs smoothly. And nobody has any problems with it. No. Only me. Of course.

Somehow my machine still crashes constantly, not quite as much as at the beginning after the 10.2 upgrade, but still often enough. Of course without any reasonable indication of the reasons, because then you could actually find and fix the problem.

Somehow I feel like I'm in front of a Windows computer right now. Did that really have to happen?

secret document

Every dirty trick is being used to wage a war that nobody really wants except for the Bush administration. Even the spying on UN delegations is a means to an end. When will there finally be a UN resolution against the USA?

I found the original article at owrede_log.

Development Environment

BBEdit 7.0, SSHPassKey, Python and CVS - that's what I use to build the Python Desktop Server when I'm sitting at my Mac (which I clearly prefer).

Since the CVS server isn't running locally but out on the net, ssh is set up as the transport (that's what SSHPassKey is for - it integrates SSH password prompts into Mac OS X's Keychain!).

On Linux I use VIM instead of BBEdit. Well...

Trade union dispute: Westerwelle follows up

Well. And what about the membership fees from FDP party members that Westerwelle embezzled for absurd election campaign actions?

At tagesschau im Internet there's the original article.

Is This Thing On?

Silly. Put's up a weblog without comment functionality, without email contacts and without any form of feedback. Even no managingEditor field in the RSS feed or any sort of hint how to contact him. One could contact him if there was a way to contact him and tell him about the HEAD request used by most useable news aggregators, to prevent the problem he is talking about. But since he doesn't leave a way to communicate, he might still sit there, unknowing ... Bei ongoing gibts den Originalartikel.

Leica with new old camera

Just read that Leica is coming out with a Leica MP, an M6 with better finish, better build quality and finally fixed rangefinder flare problem. Nice. Although I don't really want to know what this beast will cost.

Unfortunately, no information to be found on Leica's own site yet.

Microsoft: We Have No Plans To Remove Linux Support From Virtual PC For Mac

Yeah. If you read further, it says that "Microsoft has no current plans to remove Linux support within Virtual PC for Mac" - but what about future plans? If Microsoft integrates Virtual PC more closely in order to present their Windows software more integrated on the Mac (without having to port everything), then certainly some compatibility will be lost. Of course, at the moment they have no plans for that, after all the whole thing was just bought.

I wouldn't bet on Virtual PC as a long-term solution for Linux anyway. However, Mac-On-Linux running under Linux on the Mac (natively) is the nicer solution anyway, and Microsoft doesn't make a penny from that.

Here's the original article.

New Nisus Writer OS X Version on the Way

Just read the Nisus newsletter. What they're doing there already looks pretty good. Nisus has been with me since my first Mac, so it's almost like coming home when something like that comes out for OS X. And it definitely has more (and especially more sensible) features than AppleWorks. Here's the original article.

Shit Spring

Hay fever. Sneezing. Watery eyes. Yes, spring is knocking on the door. Please bring a snowstorm, a deluge, or anything else that makes these stupid pollen go away ...

Does anyone have any idea what the heck is blooming so heavily right now? Hazel?

Ari Fleischer Laughed Out of White House Press Briefing

Ok. I admit it. > But think about the implications of what you're saying. You're saying that the leaders of other nations are buyable. And that is not an acceptable proposition. I would have burst into roaring laughter at something like that.

At kuro5hin.org you can find the original article.

Bill Gates rages against open source in Japan

Billy Boy's Horror Scenario: Free Software Creates No Jobs and Brings No Tax Revenue to the State. In capitalism, it is customary to develop new software and use revenues from earlier sales to finance it. If software were freely available, programmers would perhaps have to do fieldwork during the day to earn their living - yeah, off to the fields with the blockhead, so he can finally learn what honest work is

At heise online news you can find the original article.

Alphabet Soup

Really things get messy though when you throw HTML into the mix. Because in HTML 4, apos is no longer defined as an entity. In XHTML (since it's based on XML), on the other hand, it's of course mandatory. And in RSS (which is also XML) technically as well. What a bloody mess, that w3c, not even bothering to look at what other, similar languages do in HTML and aligning with them.

What happens? The Python Desktop Server originally also encoded the simple ' as an entity (namely apos). Most browsers do this too, only iCab and Omniweb don't. Actually those two are doing it right, because apos isn't defined in HTML 4 anyway.

But in the Python Desktop Server I only have a quoteXML routine, which I've been using for both so far. Actually I should now introduce a quoteHTML, and depending on the application, use the appropriate one. What a pain.

At Der Schockwellenreiter there's the original article.

OpenOffice confuses the BSA

Well. Will someone ever manage to drive this nonsense organization's arrogant and brazen conduct out of them? Confusing OpenOffice with Microsoft Office and then harassing a university (and one right on my doorstep at that) over alleged pirated copies is certainly extraordinarily stupid. And searching for pirated copies using a robot that apparently responds to file names is ridiculously stupid.

At heise online news you can find the original article.

Amazon No!

Well, Lehmanns Online Bookshop is also a nice bookshop. And there are certainly others ... (that's just the one that comes to mind right now)

At Der Schockwellenreiter you can find the original article.

Library That Never Closes

Note. Might be worth poking around in there.

At netbib weblog you can find the original article.

Clean Now Available under LGPL License

Yeah! One of my favorite functional languages now under a usable free license. Once the Linux version progresses further, I can finally do something with it at work.

I found the original article at Lambda the Ultimate.

Discontinuation of NPD Ban Proceedings Expected

A dismissal would be a real embarrassment for the prosecution. Bungled preparation makes an effective action against the NPD impossible. What's the result? The browns will use the whole thing as justification and see themselves strengthened and confirmed in their position. Great. Super success

At tagesschau im Internet there's the original article.

Google Receives Patent for Ranking Technology

Great class. Another nail in the coffin of alternative search engines? Are new search engines no longer allowed to emerge in the land of the free because absurd patent grants are shackling freedom and innovation? Anyway, Americans aren't allowed to smoke pipes anymore either. They might as well enshrine Google usage in their constitution. But please without the word googlen, otherwise the lawyer will complain... At heise online news there's the original article.

Now there's a USB hot cup?

Well, if the USB toothbrush has already fascinated the Schockwellenreiter so much, what will he say about the USB teacup?

I found the original article at Gizmodo.

Pentax *ist D

Hmm. What does that bring? Well, at least it would be cool to put old, classic K lenses on the Digi :-)

At Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com) you can find the original article.

Building Bridges ...

Building bridges ...

... even if it's only across the Aasee in Münster.

He is still frozen.

Still frozen.

The last cold days? Hopefully also the last bare days, I finally want to see green plants that are not called rhododendron, juniper bush or arborvitae...

Baby animals ...

Baby animals ...

... I can't offer those, but a baby tin dinosaur is something too. By the way, it stands with its relatives in terms of species and material around the Natural History Museum.

Wild Forest

Wild Forest.

Between Aasee and the zoo is a small patch of forest. Trampled ground, well-worn paths, even stairs on the slopes. Well, it's the Sunday stroll area at Aasee, so you have to play around with the frame a bit to still get an impression of nature.

Bad times for future apprentices

And then employers complain that they can't find qualified employees anymore. Where are they supposed to come from if not from training — out of thin air? Training is still the most efficient way to develop qualified employees. When will employers finally understand that?

You can find the original article on tagesschau im Internet at this link.

US Justice Seizes Domain Name

Probably the terrorists are smoking a pipe before their attacks and planning the assaults on cracked X-Boxes. So it's all just part of the fight against terror

American law enforcement and the government really can't think of any measure that's too absurd at the moment. But if someone officially says something against, for example, Scientology here, we're accused of having no culture of freedom.

At heise online news there's the original article.

Space veteran "Pioneer 10" has gone silent

Too bad. Let us all give the old-timer one last wave up there.

At Spiegel Online: Wissenschaft there is the original article.

Addition to the Camera Collection

Well, soon a Kodak DC 4800 digital camera will probably be adding to my collection of unnecessary photo equipment.

Why that one in particular? Well, it has image quality that's generally considered quite good, relatively conventional operation (ok, only three selectable apertures, but still - and exposure compensation via its own dial instead of silly menus) and the zoom is a 28-84 instead of those silly 38-whatever lenses in other digis.

I mean, it's true: what's the point of a digital camera if its focal length only goes from normal focal length (ok, somewhat wider than normal, but the difference isn't really that big) to telephoto? I occasionally need wide angle, and constantly screwing on a converter is annoying.

My E-100RS will certainly still have its place, but especially for the stuff in my photo blog, the Kodak certainly isn't impractical.

Let's see what comes of it.

Ultranationalists in Israeli Government

Translation

Great, sounds like the Palestinian conflict has good chances of being resolved with such a government in Israel

(whoever finds sarcasm in this posting gets to keep it)

The original article can be found at tagesschau on the internet at this link.

Canon's new digital SLR

Hmm. Somehow that doesn't sound like what some might have been waiting for.

I found the original article at Gizmodo.

Union demands National Guard

What for? The National Guard is after all either the target of reckless mockery in the United States for its incompetence or in the spotlight of discussion because a few overzealous hardliners have made a stir again. But it's probably precisely what Mrs. Merkel has in mind following the U.S. model: dyed-in-the-wool incompetence.

Otherwise, I still believe that protecting the interior is a task for the police. I already think the existing police alongside the police (Federal Border Police for example) is wrong.

At tagesschau im Internet there's the original article.

Yahoo rewrites Lisp code in C++

They're stupid, especially when you read the reasons mentioned by Paul Graham (the author of the original Lisp code) for Yahoo's decision:

• the programmers didn't know Lisp and were afraid to learn it
• to implement it to any reasonable extent, they had to build something in C++ that was basically a Lisp interpreter
• and even then they had to drop a number of features

Typical shallow-minded decision-making. Unfortunately there's more and more of this in software development. Afraid to learn a programming language? Pathetic.

At lemonodor you can find the original article.