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In response to my penultipate post, reader “David” (the other David?) xClaims: “Um, I don’t get it - what’s this for again? Is it a microformat or something? I hereby claim xClaims are confusing.” My vote: Abstain + a Comment (below):

I hear you, David. And point taken. Note to Self: continue to refine messaging around Claimspace. Thanks for the feedback and keep it coming. As with any unreleased product and all true innovations (again, early June), it’s hard to predict how folks will use Claimspace. Usage will drive the messaging. But for whatever it’s worth, I *love* your first xClaim! And I point out that you just created the SECOND public xClaim, in history.

To your questions,

Question: “what’s this [an xClaim] for again?”
Answer: An xClaim is an author-defined, reader interactive rating/polling mechanism for the Web that enables a person to assert that, ‘I created this resource and I wish to be recognized personally or promote the recognition of my resource on these terms [my claim]. What do you think? Vote/Comment here.’

Question: “Is it a microformat or something?”
Answer: An xClaim is a control, not a microformat…yet. For my thoughts on the difference between a control and a microformat, see http://blogs.msdn.com/korbyp/archive/2007/04/12/microformats-are-like-rfid-tags-for-the-web.aspx. For any demonstration sites that we provide (more…)

Calling Load(AssemblyName) is not necessarily the same as calling Load(String). If the AssemblyName.CodeBase is not set, then they do do the same thing. So, if you’ve set the AssemblyName.Name, CultureInfo, public key token / public key and/or Version properties, it would be the same as if you had specified those properties in a String (as a display name ) and passed that to Load(String).

If the CodeBase is set, but the Name is not, however, then it’s the same as calling Assembly.LoadFrom() on that CodeBase.

When both the CodeBase and the Name are set, then the bind is tried with all the given binding information except the CodeBase (so, again, just like calling Load(String)). If that succeeds, we’re done. But, if that fails, then the bind is tried again with just the CodeBase (just like LoadFrom()). If it fails again, then, of course, the whole bind fails. But, if it succeeds, then we verify that the binding properties in the AssemblyName match the found assembly. If they don’t match, a FileLoadException will be thrown for hresult FUSION_E_REF_DEF_MISMATCH.

So, setting both the CodeBase and the Name is useful for when you want to both load an assembly at a given path into the LoadFrom context, and verify that it has the public key token, etc. that you expect. Of course, as described above (and due to binding context rules ), keep in mind that just because you call Load(AssemblyName) with a CodeBase, it does not mean th

at it will be loaded from that path.

http://blogs.msdn.com/suzcook/archive/2004/08/04/load-assemblyname.aspx

As a member of Microsoft’s VSIP
program, we have been creating source control plugins for the Visual Studio
line of products for eight years.  As I started my recent foray into the
Eclipse world, I was eager to explore the area of plugins over on this side of
the fence.  So far, I’m impressed.

Source Control and Bug Tracking

The first plugin I installed was our own.  SourceGear
Fortress includes an Eclipse plugin, but I had never even tried it.

My first reaction is that I really like the way Eclipse
handles installation of plugins.  The whole process is managed from within
Eclipse itself.  Under the Help menu is a submenu called Software Updates.  All
I have to do is provide the URL of our Eclipse update site:

http://download.sourcegear.com/Fortress/latest/update

The rest of the job is very simple, essentially automatic.

Once installed, I have several additional views:

src="http://software.ericsink.com/entries/1731_image001.jpg"/>

And some new stuff under the Team menu:

src="http://software.ericsink.com/entries/1731_image002.jpg"/>

And some new items under Preferences:

src="http://software.ericsink.com/entries/1731_image003.jpg"/>

All in all, I have found using source control under Eclipse
to be very pleasant and straightforward.  If this seems like I am bragging
about my own product, I suppose it is, except for two mitigating factors:

1. I personally had nothing to do with this plugin, so this
   is less of a boast and more of a compliment to the efforts of my
   coworkers.

2. In my experience, source control plugins are a lot like
   children.  To some extent, the behavior of a child (or plugin) reflects
   the quality of the structure and guidance provided by the parent (or
   IDE).  In saying that our source control plugin works very well, I am
   complimenting Eclipse.

(more…)

Ok, so I was pissed to see Coach Sampson bought out. I completely understand that the rules are the rules and he violated them. I can’t even argue that the punishment doesn’t fit the crime. Coach Sampson appears to be a repeat offender. What I have a problem with is the NCAA and this situation is emblematic of exactly what is wrong with the organization.

The NCAA is an organization that supposedly prides itself on making sure that athletes are students and attend college with the intent to be students. What the NCAA fails to understand, IMHO, is that often students attend college with a specific goal or dream in mind. It may be to graduate and become an acco

untant, a musician, an artist, a teacher and any number of other professions. Every student who goes to school, post high school is given every opportunity and encouraged to maximize their effort and optimize their resources to achieve their goals. Unless of course they happen to attend a school that is a member of the NCAA and their goal is to be a professional athlete. In those cases, the NCAA does everything it can to make sure that the athlete is not a typical or traditional student.

For these student athletes, rather than doing every thing possible to excel in their chosen field, they face rules and restrictions that are exceeded in quantity and complexity only by the US Tax Code.

One summer I visited Indiana and there were some players working out and playing on the Assembly Hall court. After watching a few minutes, I walked in the h (more…)

People want to be understood.  That’s why support groups are
so popular.

• The alcoholic wants to connect with somebody else who showed
  up drunk at a wedding and embarrassed the bride.

• The compulsive overeater wants to know that he’s not the
  only one who has stopped at the Dunkin Donuts drive-thru on the way home to
  eat a dozen before dinner.

• The out-of-control gambler wants to be in community with
  other people who have lost their car going “all in” with pocket sevens.

We all have problems, and we all want to know that we’re not
alone.

Wednesday evening I posted a comment on a friend’s blog.  Or rather, I tried
to post a comment.

True to my tendencies, it was really far too wordy to be
called a comment.  I actually spent about half an hour wordsmithing a
multiple-paragraph response.

But when I hit the submit button to post it, Wordpress gave
me a generic error page.  Presumably something timed out while I was crafting
my reply.

And when I hit the Back button, my comment was gone.  :-(

*&%$#@!

My mind raced.  What are my options here?

Maybe I should just re-type the whole thing?  It was only
300 words or so.

Nah.  The text I wrote was perfect.  I probably won’t be
able to remember it just the way it was.

And why should I have to?  Firefox and Wordpress screwed
this up, not me!

(more…)

I ordered a MacBook Air site unseen. That’s a first for me.

As I write this I’m about to go workout and it dawns on me that I’m on my 3rd generation of Apple IPod. I started with the original, switched to a bigger version (to back up all my pics and show off my kids to my friends) and then for the holidays, got myself and wife an ITouch.

Goodbye Ipod. With the new $20 dollar software that I downloaded yesterday, my ITouch gives me music, pictures and now email, calendar and a very cool basic GPS system that leverages the WiFi available. Touchtyping is still impossible for me on it, so it wont ever replace my phone for texting or primary mobile email, but its definitely encroaching on its territory. Solve the keyboard problem for fat fingered typists and I might even buy an IPhone.

I like the ITouch enough that I just sent an email to the Mavs IT head to see how we fans with ITouchs (and Wifi devices like Nokia among others) could leverage WiFi in the

American Airlines Center before , during and after Mavs games, HDNet Fights and other events…

After many PC years, I’ve crossed over. Me the fanboy.

Permalink  | Email this  | Linking Blogs  | Comments

http://www.blogmaverick.com/2008/01/22/i-cant-believe-im-becoming-an-apple-fanboy/

One thing about Jerry Yang that I always have admired is that he cares. He cares about his employees. He cares about his products. He cares about his shareholders. Most of all he cares about building a world class company that can be great at what it does.

If you look at Yahoo singularly, it is a great company. For he and David Filo to build a company with more than 6B in sales and more than 25B in market cap is an astounding feat. Unfortunately for Yahoo, it has had to weather both the Internet Bubble Bursting and the emergence of Google as a force in search and online advertising.

These are both issues because Wall Street has made them issues. The bubble speaks for itself. Google is a Wall Street issue for Yahoo because Wall Street wants Yahoo to keep up with the Googles.

That’s a problem for Jerry. Building a world class Yahoo to be the best company it possibly can be using the management skills that Jerry and company have is a far different challenge than optimizing the stock price. Particularly when Google is your stock comp.

Which is exactly why Jerry and David should sell to MSFT.

If there is one thing Microsoft does well , its ignore Wall Street and invest in its corporate strategies. It has so many huge lines of business, that Wall Street has learned to just let those that need to germinate do so. XBox. MSN. Online. Microsoft gets more leash from Wall Street to develop businesses than any company on the planet.

So the question isn’t whether Yahoo sho (more…)

Uniqueness Typing Simplified , by Edsko de Vries, Rinus Plasmeijer, and David M. Abrahamson.

We present a uniqueness type system that is simpler than both Clean’s uniqueness system and a system we proposed previously. The new type system is straightforward to implement and add to existing compilers, and can easily be extended with advanced features such as higher rank types and impredicativity. We describe our implementation in Morrow, an experimental functional language with both these features. Finally, we prove soundness of the core type system with respect to the call-by-need lambda calculus.

Uniqueness typing is related to linear typing, and their differences have been discussed here before. Linear types have many applications. This paper describes the difference between linear and unique types:

In linear logic, variables of a non-linear type can be coerced to a linear type (dereliction). Harrington phrases it well: in linear logic, “linear” means “will not be duplicated” whereas in uniqueness typing, “unique” means “has not been duplicated”.

In contrast to other papers on substructural typing, such as Fluet’s thesis Monadic and Substructural Type Systems for Region-Based Memory Management , this paper classifies uniqueness attributes by a kind system. This possibility was mentioned in Fluet’s thesis as well, Section 4.2, footnote 8, though the technique used here seems somewhat different.

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I know there are quite a few folks on there way to Vegas right now for Mix08…   I thought I’d thumb through the session list and give you my picks for some cool Mix 08 session.    Even you could not make it to Mix this year, we will be streaming EVERY SESSION ~24 hours after the session ends.    So you can join in the fun.

 

Silverlight Session

There are a TON of great Silverlight sessions… Here are just a couple that I pulled out as the core ones..

1. CT01 and CT02 Building Rich Internet Applications Using Microsoft Silverlight 2, Part 1 and 2 (wed 3p and 4:30)

Joe Stegman and Mike Harsh walk you end-to-end through building a Silverlight 2 based application.  You like’d ScottGu’s blog , you will love this session!

 

2. T20 Creating Rich, Dynamic User Interfaces with Silverlight 2 (Thursday 10:15)

Dive in a bit deeper into Silverlight 2 and learn how to use the rich set of built in controls as well as building your own custom controls!
Notice: this session does conflict with mine, but I will not be bitter if you decide to go check this one out, you can catch me on the video later!)

 

3. T31 Exploring Moonlight: Novell’s Implementation of Silverlight on Linux   (Thursday 4:15)

You have got to check this out… Miguel never disappoints!  Silverlight on Linux… you gotta see this!

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Virtual Server has been free for a while now; however, some folks prefer Virtual PC. Well, my friends, that too is free now. Come on down!

How did we ever live without virtualization software? 

http://weblogs.asp.net/jkey/archive/2006/07/12/Virtual-PC-free_2C00_-too.aspx