I would have posted this three weeks and 2100 (yes, 2100) miles ago, but it has been an incredibly busy month. The Saturn VUE, so far, has been an excellent car and I am very pleased with it. It is my second Saturn (my first was a 2000 SL1 which gave me no problems at all). Here are some pictures:

In front of my 2003 Saturn VUE

Another view of my VUE

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The struggle over intellectual property looks to become, in my estimation, even more heated as more and more of it is acquired by universities and corporate entities from individuals.

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SimCity is probably one of my favorite games. This is an interview with the game’s creator, Will Wright. Long, but well worth the read.

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“Initially, the decree has been remarkably well followed,” the mayor said.

My newest program, Passpro is now available for download! Passpro is a powerful and versatile random generator. It is especially good at generating passwords but is designed to be used for a wide variety of applications including selecting lottery numbers, simulating dice roles, and more. Different configurations can be saved and loaded. Output can be customized and then saved or copied to the clipboard for use in other applications. If you try it out please let me know what you think. Soon it will be listed on major software distributing sites including Tucows and Download.com. A positive vote there is always helpful.

Passpro was written in C++ using MFC and STL. It took a few weeks to create. The ‘post-production’ work such as the website and documentation went smoothly thanks to the experience I gained when producing Blackspace 2.

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Advances like this one are what drive leaps in the computer hardware industry.

“We can’t fix what we can’t see.”

From Adrian:

If any of you have ever played any of the Microsoft flight sim games you would no that your plane crashes allot.

How likely that microsoft made the game.

Remember im the cool one.

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Yet another example of a botched technology article. According to the third paragraph, “Microsoft said it plans to disclose 385 bits of computer code.” For those unfamiliar with computer terms, 385 bits is about equal to 48 characters. The code for Windows contains billions of characters. Hopefully the author was referring to a larger amount of code, not actual bits. This is vernacular being used in the absolute worst possible way. The excessive use of words in quotes indicates that the author does not have a grasp of the terms and is relaying them without enough investigation.

The article is extremely vague in what will actually be released to developers. What comprises a ‘piece’ of code or a ‘protocol’? Did Microsoft choose what they would release? Windows undoubtedly has thousands of functions, how compliant is only releasing a select few hundred of them? From the article and Microsoft’s comments it seems that the main reason for this was so Microsoft’s clients can integrate their products even more with the operating system, making them more dependant, and that complying with the U. S. Department of Justice settlement is just a bonus.

Uniform term for Windows (meaning that the cost of buying Windows should be the same to every manufacturer, big or large) will only be offered to the top twenty computer manufacturers and a few others. Why can’t all manufacturers pay the same price? Who chose to limit this to the top twenty manufacturers? Who determines the top twenty manufacturers?

I do certainly buy many Microsoft products and develop programs to run on Microsoft platforms. I find Visual Studio to be very robust and useful, certainly worth the cost of the license. Still, I do not like deception or halfway measures like the ones Microsoft is using. In an article that would interest developers far more than consumers it is critical that the author, the one who relays news as fact to millions, is on top of things. Despite the best intentions, miscommunication in the media is damaging to society. A discussion on the Yahoo! message boards exemplifies this. One person mentioned how 385 bits was less than a single line of code. One response was “I’m not big on coding but perhaps it is that one line of coding that would open doors to open the whole OS.” Perhaps it’s time to make basic computer science a required class for all students, like biology, chemistry, and English. There are certainly many who would benefit.

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Let’s hear it for compact employees!

“Being one of the most well-known advertising product providers in China?CMayron, founded in 1998 shares great reputation with her high quality service. The screen printing advertising and digital image posters made by Mayron cover the main cities in China. However, in the other two fields: Internet advertising and display stuff supplying and exhibition engineering, it is a pity to say “not good enough”, the reason may be we concentrate too much in screen pringting business.

Mayron owns three of the largest factories with advanced machines and compact employees located in Guangzhou, Shanghai and Chengdu which are now performing delicate screen printing manufacturing to hundreds of well-known corporations.Moreover,Mayron has established an efficient network with a few agents over China main cities.

MAYRON DEVELOPS HER BUSINESS ALL OVER CHINA AND SURMOUNTS MORE AND MORE COUTERPARTS TO BE AN ADVERTISING AGENT PROVIDING FULL-RANGED SERVICE.”