I am glad to see that there are better and better articles appearing on wikipedia - especially this description of nominative use - the defense against trademark infringement. This is extremely relevant in a world where companies trademark their product names then tell the world you can’t use that name in statements of compatibility. If there’s simply no other way to express compatibility then according to nominative use, you can use it in very specific way. (more…)
Yet another slam against Javascript - this time in Dan Morrill’s blog vs Javascript 2. Dan names AIR, Silverlight, and JavaFX as successors to Javascript because of his prediction that the browser based application of today is destined to be replaced by open standards apps of some other kind. (more…)
A new reason has come up to be swearing at MySQL rather than swearing by MySQL.
The MySQL Performance Blog reports that MySQL Community Edition has not been upgraded since November 2007, whereas it previously received twice-a-year updates. This product is the free and open source version of MySQL (The M in LAMP) that was MySQL’s source of success.
What is bothersome is that the MySQL Community Server page lists version 6.0, however if you follow that link, you are directed back to the 5.0.x version and also directed to their per server/per year license, which has an enticing per server/per year license starting at $595 but quickly stepping up to $4999 per year.
I’ve had a few folks point out to me that this is a better price than Valentina, until they figure out that Valentina initial pricing is for two years of updates, not one, bringing the price down to about the same or below MySQL pricing. That is intentional.
Nathan Gold and Claudio Sennhauser are together again at the Demo Coach. Nathan Gold was a tremendous force behind the success of U3, the secure mobile storage platform that was eventually acquired by San Disk. Nathan did a spectacular job preparing U3 for its first appearance at Demo - if you are going to show at Demo, Nathan and Claudio are the folks you should be talking to in order to put your best foot forward.
The Name Inspector in Seattle has posted an article entitled 10 company name types on TechCrunch: Pros and Cons, with a thoughtful analysis of categories the names fall into - he divides them into the following groups:
- Real Words - every day words like Apple
- Compounds - two or more real words together, like Firefox
- Phrases - combinations of clauses, such as StumbleUpon
- Blends - combinations of prefixes and suffixes, like Microsoft
- Tweaked Words - normal words with an odd addition, like iPhone
- Affixed Words - adding an odd ending, like -ster in Friendster
- Made Up or Obscure Origin - mostly meaningless inventions, like Meebo
- Puns - the names that annoy - such as Lickityship
- People Names - Using human names, such as the infamous Microsoft Bob
- Initials and Acronyms - Boring series of letters, like IBM
Debra Shinder wrote an article on the 10 Ways You May Be Breaking the Law with your Computer, which is a thoughtful recap of industry events that could have long term impact for computer users. Thoughtful because she doesn’t seem to pass judgment on each item she reports. On the other hand, its rare that you read responses other than from people who state their belief that any sort of federal penalty for intellectual property theft is wrong; that somehow its different than shoplifting.
I can accept that people have very little sympathy for very large corporations that derive exceptional, or obscene profits from intellectual property of all kinds (big pharmaceutical, large music labels), but that doesn’t jive with the photographer, musician or small content business that as a result of a lack of paying customers (but plenty of non-paying pirates) have to reduce or fire their creatives staff.
Easy Report Generation from the Makers of Valentina Database
Valentina Reports for Cross Platform Applications
Paradigma Software Inc develops the ultra-fast, cross-platform database system Valentina. Valentina Reports is a new client technology that lets you play back rich, formatted reports in your application.
Features for Initial Release
- Layout Visually Rich Reports in Valentina Studio Pro Beta (free during beta period)
- Drag Query Objects into Layouts
- Organize your data into Groups
- Add layout elements such as labels, lines, vector shapes, pictures
- Pull and display pictures from databases
- HTML/Web Object pulls pages from databases or live from URL
- Support for all major development environments on Windows and Mac OS X (Linux coming)
- Exports PDF and bitmap graphics of reports
- Royalty free application deployment
Examples of supported environments include Runtime Revolution, Adobe Director, Apple xCode, .net and more. (more…)
Barcamp is referred to as an unconference - put on by the tech community for the tech community - where you can suggest any relevant topic, reserve a space, then offer up a topic of discussion. I attended BarCamp Portland (Saturday and Sunday) after hearing about it from Harvey Matthews, president of Software Association of Oregon.
What fascinated me about BarCamp is that its an ongoing, social learning conversation. While someone may present an idea or a budding technology, the expectation is that its a participatory event - groups are small enough that its possible to do just that. This wasn’t just a geekfest for the twenty something set; there was an even mix of ages and experience. I truly felt I left the unconference carrying with me more useful new relationships and technology information than I had from the last few conventions I have attended.
There were quite a few who were happy to learn about Valentina and that we even offer a free version of Valentina Server on Linux to tinker with or utilize in academic settings. I didn’t go to this event with sales in mind; it wasn’t that type of event anyway. Yet in the course of the sessions, some products (of the free and open source variety and others of the proprietary type) naturally suggested themselves as solutions or stepping stones towards achieving some goal.
Paradigma Software and Mirye Software Publishing are celebrating 10 years of Valentina by giving away developer licenses to Valentina 2.5.8 ADK Standard Edition - between February 14 - February 18, 2008. It is our Valentine’s Day gift to cross-platform developers who need to deploy database applications on all three major operating systems: Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.
You can get your free license by visiting the registration gift site.
It wasn’t very long after Valentina 1.0 that I first met Ruslan Zasukhin, founder, co-investor and VP of Engineering at Paradigma Software. Valentina 1.0 was strictly a C++ development kit at the time. Proactive International approached Ruslan to create a version of Valentina for REAL Software’s REALbasic development environment. Valentina has progressed - with server versions - including Valentina Office Server and Valentina Embedded Server, and support for many more development systems and two web languages: PHP and Ruby/Ruby on Rails.
While I have to remain candid about forthcoming developments, there are new products on their way in 2008 that will enable developers greater freedom to interact with, organize and display their millions of records. Watch for it!
There is a growing number of Macintosh oriented software reseller sites that offer extreme discounts for short periods of time. MacZot is one of them and one I’m most familiar with and I have worked with vendors who have had excellent results in building their user bases.
I clicked through a promo to MacUpdate Promo today on an offer for Pixelmator, an image editing product. An offer on the page concerns me if anyone at MacUpdate perceives ethical issues with bribing for comments. (more…)
