May 27 2006
This is a great list of tools for note taking of various kinds. If you find yourself wanting to waste a day you might like to work through them all and have a go. For the record I didn’t try them out as OneNote seems to meet my needs pretty well.
May 27 2006
Brian Madden provides some useful insights into the affect of Microsoft’s intention to acquire Softricity. I for one believe this is a really big deal as it will bring virtualization technologies into the mainstream. One of the things that has held virtualization back is the fact that every enterprise has had to package it’s own applications. With Microsoft behind Softricity it’s likely we will see a good proportion of enterprise desktops with the Softricity client installed and once that happens we can expect software developers to provide Softgrid packages as a matter of course and this will be a very big deal indeed. Mainstream use of virtualized applications will mean that applications will increasingly be seen as similar to data, ie we will be able to copy them from machine to machine as we upgrade or move offices, it also probably means that we will hopefully see some innovations around licensing, with more applications being linked to the individual than to the device.
I am really excited about the prospects because whilst Java and .NET also promise easy application provisioning/installation, minimise dependencies on the client operating system and don’t affect the integrity of the operating system we still have tens of thousands of legacy applications around which are crying out for Virtualization. Until this announcement by Microsoft virtualization was just not a big enough market for many of these legacy application suppliers to take notice of.
Softricity also brings some great management products to Microsoft, in particular their streaming and Internet facing software distribution and metering technologies. These will be great solutions for enterprises that need to deliver pre-configured applications to un-managed or partially managed desktops and we may well see software developers streaming their applications directly to users, and automatically maintaining them with the latest patches and upgrades, a sort of thick client version of the previously only web based Software as a Service trend.
Brian Madden doesn’t think this is too big an impact on Citrix as a company, but I do I think it will drive Citrix into an even smaller niche as enterprises see client side virtualization as meeting some of the needs that they currently use Citrix Presentation Server for and of course it disrupts or kills Citrix’s own virtualization product. The comments on Brian’s blog post provide an excellent discussion on the impact.
A few weeks ago I was raving about Altiris and their SVS product, now I see SVS having a very limited life.
One final point is that this is great news for Microsoft provided they aggressively drive adoption as widely as possible because it will greatly simplify the application compatibility issues that hold people back from deploying new operating system versions, it will also reduce the testing lead-times for Microsoft. This dual affect with probably increase adoption rates, re-invigorate windows as a platform and provide Microsoft with more time for innovation. It also probably means that Microsoft could provide many of its own applications (Office 2007 etc) as a service.
May 27 2006
Jon Udell is amongst an increasing number of bloggers who don’t have comments enabled. Whilst there may be good reasons, (comment spam), I think it’s a real shame. I for one find tremendous value in reading the comments associated with posts as they often provide a broader range of perspectives and sometimes additional information or useful links for further study. People like Jon write very interesting articles and I am sure that the comments would add a lot of value to his posts and whilst there may be alternative loosely commenting mechanisms, these are nowhere near as easy for consumers like me to use.
May 26 2006
When you live by the sea, it can be quite shocking to see just how green the English countryside is. This picture was taken in the grounds of Capernwray hall.
May 26 2006
Last Sunday we went to an open day at Capernwray bible college, the older girls were really keen on going for one of the week long holidays over the summer and we wanted to check it out. We had a great time and they are really fired up about the opportunity of attending, but now that we have reviewed all the other stuff they are doing this summer it looks like it will have to be next year.
May 25 2006
This afternoon – whilst on conference calls - I cloned my old 40GB disk onto a new 100GB one and installed Vista beta 2 on my TC1100. The experience seems significantly improved compared to my previous attempts. I had to install the XP versions of button driver and Q menu to get anything like a decent experience. In my first hour of playing around I have noticed the following issues:
I haven’t installed much software so far, but its been a good experience:
The nVidia drivers and network card drivers were updated using windows update
May 19 2006
Blackpool’s new promenade has a huge sea wall which is made up of hollow interlocking hexagonal concrete blocks – sounds horrible – but in fact these blocks make up a huge geometric pattern which looks quite good from the beach. Even better sea weed, barnicles and other sea creatures have attached themselves to the concrete and the hollows have filled with rocks and plants. Now that they are naturalised we find they are a great substitute for rock pools with lots of crabs and tiny fish and shrimps living in them and getting refreshed at high tide.
May 19 2006
About half of Blackpool’s promenade (about 2KM) has now been regenerated and although it’s dominated by concrete it still provides great views of the beach and the sea and also has a lovely smooth surface which is ideal for cycling. It also has some amazing art work all long its length. if you don’t like modern art then you might have a problem with it, but having watched all of the pieces being built and installed over the years I find that the work grows on you. We have recently had a variety of new lighting installed which really makes for a lovely summers walk and some new sound affects which can be a bit creepy on a dark night.
The first image is of a person swimming in the sea and has sound affects of kids playing on the beach. It looks really effective with the sun streaming through it. The next picture shows a rusting steel monstrosity in most peoples eyes, although when the light catches it right it casts a shadow of a broken heart. 
Finally we have this amazing – huge – glitter ball. At night 4 projects shine onto it and the resulting light show stretches for 20–30 metres on each side of the ball, walking past it you seem to be walking in a sea of swirling lights and it is a really great affect, although you feel a bit dizzy by the end of it.
If you want to find out more there is a web site with all the details here, with a bit of background from the site:
The Great Promenade Show originated from the major redevelopment undertaken by the then Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to replace and strengthen the 2km long South Promenade’s seawall flood defences. This £20 million project entailed removing the existing Victorian promenade and replacing it with a new well-designed concrete promenade on two levels. The upper level was to incorporate ’roundels’ every hundred metres, on which it was intended to site specially designed features, including wind shelters and visual displays possibly representative of the history of Blackpool.
A Millennium Lottery bid was made by the Council to this end, though a commitment to start building had to be made before the outcome of the bid was known. The bid was unsuccessful, but the sites for visual features along the new promenade remained, as did the Council’s commitment to occupying them. At this point, responsibility for managing the project shifted from the Council’s Technical Services Department to its Education, Leisure and Cultural Services Division.
