Fractals - The Colors Of Infinity (By Arthur Clarke)

M.C. Escher would have been all over Mandelbrot sets.

Google's DocVerse links Office with Google Docs | Relevant Results - CNET News

This will be very a very interesting development. The web wars rage on.

Google's DocVerse links Office with Google Docs | Relevant Results - CNET News

Gmail Import Feature Mysteriously Disappears From Facebook

Gmail Import Feature Mysteriously Disappears From Facebook

Bad move Facebook! Data wants to live free!

Novell Vibe Launches, Shrugging Off Google Wave Ghost - Messaging and Collaboration - News & Reviews

If Google Wave is dead then why is it still listed on the Google Apps page and presented as a part of the overall Apps strategy?

It seems that other software companies see the value in Wave:

Novell Vibe Launches, Shrugging Off Google Wave Ghost - Messaging and Collaboration - News & Reviews

Wave had one major flaw: it was too far ahead of it's time for most people. But then again time moves on and people finally are ready to move forward.

Q u i x o r * L a b s

Recently a the addition of simple meta tag to help track usage of my web site with Google analytics triggered a recompile of the the code behind the web site and while this should not have been a problem when posted to my hosting service I got a nasty message that my application did not have the correct the full trust credentials required to execute on the server. And for unknown reasons my host tells me I will have to move the site to a new Windows 2008 server to correct this. OK but they also tell me that the FrontPage server extensions needed to upload by Visual Studio 2008 is not available on this system. So as far as I can tell they have provided no solution.

The Chinese tell us that every crisis also presents a new opportunity. Since I am being forced to move my site and/or upgrade my tool set all bets are off and I might as well look into other hosting options as well. The leader in the contest so far is my registrar Go Daddy.With so many options to consider it might take a few days to make up my mind on which way to go.   For the time being my Google based test site {Quixor Labs} will be open for business.

Google Sites & JavaScript Problem - Google Sites Help

Well this answers a lot about the limits of Google Sites:

"It won't work as I don't think Google Sites will ever offer JavaScript.

 

What you have to remember is that your Google Site is always at a google.com address and, therefore, many people, firewalls and virus checkers automatically trust everything at a google.com address: Javacript can deliver malicious code, so it's never going to happen."

So it appears while Google sites can provide huge functionality right out of the box using all the power of Google Apps, you can't really script the pages with JavaScript.  As long as you are using the site for fairly standard functions this should not be a problem.  However if you need to custom code something, you will have to find an alternative platform.  So it appears for now it is best to straddle the .Net and Google  worlds when it comes to web sites.

Converting to Web Email

About six months ago I switched from Outlook to Gmail's web client for all my email. About the only hitch I have encountered so far is the five email account limit. As a computer geek I maintain several accounts for various reasons one of which is that it is a way to foil spammers.

But one thing that until recently bothered me was the fact that I could not just click on a link from a web site and pop up a new email window. When you encounter a generic problem like this there is a pretty good chance that someone has produced a extension that overcomes the limitation and sure enough programmers at Google have already created something called Send from Gmail which pops up a new window with the email address filled in and ready to go.  Doing the same thing from a windows app still requires an external app but one is available in windows Vista.  I wouldn't be surprised if this changes soon and even desktop apps will show up in the browser.

Signs of the Great Recession

This summer it has been impossible to ignore the signs of recession especially at highway on/off ramps. Every expressway light now has someone standing there with a sign telling a tale of woe and asking for help.  Some people claim that this is just a new scam and these guys are working people's sympathy as a career but I tend to doubt it.  On one occasion a car zipped by and someone made some sort of comment to the guy looking for the handout. He became angry and shouted some four letter words and demanded that the car come back presumably ready for a fight.  If this guy was truly making big bucks and not humiliated by his  situation I don't think this would have been his reaction.   Panhandling at the intersection has been going on for years but what is new is the number of people out there.  They are the most visible and dramatic sign of our economic hard times. The stock market may have made a strong come back but don't expect any high fives from the guy standing on the corner.

Ipad

Will be checking out the reader this weekend, I was won over when someone showed me the Ipad's interface. This is the first version of something that will undoubtedly become the newspaper of the future.

RSS and Atom Readers

Even when you understand the idea behind a technology it takes time to incorporate it into the way you live. RSS Readers let you sit on top of a huge amount of information and scan the titles very quickly to pluck out the nuggets that are worth your time. The more I use Google's reader the more I appreciate it. I still have a Blockbuster account (yes I know they are going under) but I can see what has been recently released through a RSS subscription. Local news, comments made by friends on a meetup site, magazines, all kinds of information can be managed via a reader.

This is cool:
class DataAsEnumerable: BaseSQL
{
public DataAsEnumerable()
: base()
{ }

public DataAsEnumerable(string MyConn)
: base(MyConn)
{ }

Don't ask why.

Codepage Web Meeting

If anyone has a question that they would like to review in tomorrows CodgePage Web Meeting just make a post here or email the question along with any related sample code to Support@quixor.com

See you at the meeting!

Office 2010

Office 2010 is scheduled for release in June and I've just begun to play around with the Access module. No conclusion has yet been reached, but my one request would be designer integration with SQL Server 2008. Unfortunately Microsoft seems to be pushing Sharepoint for distributed & web applications but this is definitely not an migration path to move a small project into the big leagues.

Web is the Word

Since social media is such an excellent way to burn through a day, it is high time to make these sites work for me instead of against me. Twitter, LinkedIn and CrossLoop have been added to the QFS contact page in an attempt to make time spent in online chat pay off. Well it may or may not work but at least now I can tell the wife "I'm working" whenever she asks me what I'm doing mid-tweet.

Google to China: Don't be evil
After thwarting an attack by Chinese hackers, the company declares it will no longer self-censor its search results

Now I'm even more enthusiastic about Google. This sort of stand is all too rare in business. I hope more companies take the high road in the future.