...more recent posts
It is looking like you can, with a little bit of effort, run OS X 10.4.3 on standard x86 PC hardware. I don't think this is a problem for Apple. Perhaps just the opposite.
Google Talk can now interact with any Jabber server. This should be a good thing, and should seriously undermine the power of the closed IM networks. But as I've learned the hard way by getting excited about open standards in the past - including Jabber - it's really difficult to predict . Maybe AOL and MSN just have too much of a head start. Still, having Google Talk as part of the Jabber universe (the XMPP universe, to be technical) can only be a good thing.
I'm always changing the font size on web pages while I surf (command shift + to increase, and command - to decrease on OS X,) but why can't I save these settings in Safari for certain domains? That would be handy.
The first web server. I didn't know it was a NEXT Cube.
Ajax enabled PHP function reference.
Nikon to stop producing film cameras:
Following the success of our digital line-up over the last seven years, which has resulted in more than 95% of Nikon's UK business being within the digital area, Nikon Corporation has made the decision to focus management resources on digital cameras in place of film cameras. This decision will allow Nikon to continue to develop products that match the demands of an increasingly competitive market place....
[snip]
As a result of the new strategy Nikon will discontinue production of all lenses for large format cameras and enlarging lenses with sales of these products ceasing as soon as they run out of stock. This also applies to most of our film camera bodies, interchangeable manual focus lenses and related accessories. Although Nikon anticipates that the products will still be in retail distribution up to Summer 2006.
A couple of Mac things. Microsoft (bought and) released flip4mac as a quicktime plugin. This will let you play (most) .wmv files right in Quicktime. Previously I have suggested using VLC which still has advantages over Quicktime - full screen playback and no DVD region coding are the big ones - and I still recommend it, but it's nice to see this plugin. I'm guessing there will still be some issues with some wm3 encoded .wmv files but this should take care of most cases.
And Google finally released Google Earth for the Mac. Doesn't look like a Mac app, but it's so freaking cool who cares. Wow. It really wants more than an 867 mhz G4 though*.
* see next post
Wow. This is something I should have known: how google deals with underscores in URIs.
Another talk (.pdf here) about future unicode support in PHP. Nobody is making firm timeframe claims but this one says what I've heard before: maybe this year.
Unicode support will allow for PHP web apps to fully deal with non western characters. This seems pretty crucial if PHP is going to stay relevant. It's a hard problem though.