Month: June 2006

WinFS is no more

Post ImageWell this news sucks. The WinFS team at Microsoft has posted a new blog entry that sounds so positive, but really can’t hide the fact that WinFS is basically dead. Too bad they felt the need to spin this. For those of you that don’t know, WinFS was technology meant to bring the advantages of a database to your desktop.

Today I have an update about how we are delivering some of the WinFS technologies. It represents a change to our original delivery strategy, but it’s a change that we think that you’ll like based on the feedback that we’ve received.

With most of our effort now working towards productizing mature aspects of the WinFS project into SQL and ADO.NET, we do not need to deliver a separate WinFS offering.

As one commenter noted:

It sounds so positive. But it’s like giving a speech in front of the coffin. You just keep remembering the guy inside, and the more you do, the more you remember he’s dead.

What does this mean? Well, SQL Server will get some cool new technology built into it. Which is fine, except that the original promise of WinFS was to bring a database layer between your file system and you (basically a relational file system), meaning you could do cool things when looking for pictures or contacts or any file for that matter. It looks as though that kind of functionality will now remain a dream.

So WinFS is dead – for now. Similar technology was originally planned for the version of Windows code-named “Cairo”, which eventually became Windows NT 4.0. That operating system was released about ten years ago. It was in 2003 that plans for WinFS really started to heat up. Maybe they’ll try again in another seven years?

I am also wondering how much Windows Live factored into this decision. If Microsoft has decided that people are going to use services on the web to organize and store their data instead of their desktops, then it would make sense to focus on SQL Server and not bringing a database to Windows. I find it hard to believe that Microsoft would so completely abandon the idea of the computer being the central hub for you data, however. I guess time will tell.

Read: WinFS Team Blog

Funny Tokyo Drift Movie Review

Post ImageDespite a completely rotten rating, it seems there are at least a few people who have enjoyed The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. I have friends who have said it’s alright, and maybe even enjoyable. I don’t plan on seeing the movie, because I just can’t imagine it would be worth it, even with a cameo by Vin Diesel. However, a commenter on IMDB named wooptydoo certainly thinks it is worth the experience:

You must see this movie just for the cameo appearance by Vin Diesel. It’s going to give you a weird feeling that you will never experience again. It’s like you’re excited but ashamed that you are excited. However, you are somehow angry that he’s in the movie, but content, because you knew you would be angry anyway by the sheer stupidity of the movie. Then when he starts talking you just gaze at the movie screen. It’s like watching a car crash into an orphanage, catch fire and witness kids jumping out the window and landing on a masturbating squirrel. Now, I don’t know what a masturbating squirrel looks like, but I assume it would be like watching the last part of that scene. It was an emotional roller-coaster.

Somehow that kind of comment is so much more interesting than the usual “trashy, but fun” kind of thing, don’t you think?

I guess the good news with Tokyo Drift is that there haven’t been any news reports of teenagers destroying theatres by attempting to drift in the parking lot. At least, none that I have seen!

Quick Update

I’ve been so busy this week I haven’t posted much. So I am going to be lazy (or efficient!) instead. Here are a few recent things that I found interesting enough to share:

  • Happy Birthday Sharon 🙂 For your birthday, I’m going to create you a blog and make you start writing it! Haha!
  • Pronger wants out of Edmonton? Say it ain’t so. Pronger was definitely the MVP this season for the Oilers, and was totally shafted by not being considered for the Norris. The report cites “personal reasons” and throws the idea of a Pronger for Luongo trade out there. I’ll be following this one closely.
  • I don’t think government (except maybe the UN) should have any regulation over the Internet, but I also think we need net neutrality. This very well done cartoon (via Larry Borsato) argues against net neutrality. The argument in the cartoon is fundamentally flawed however, as it assumes that unless VOIP or movies have their own pipes that quality will suffer, and there will be “traffic jams”. If you believe that, you obviously don’t know much about the Internet and its history. I’ll probably write more on this later.
  • Hey teachers, if you think cheating is bad here in Canada, check out what happens in China.
  • My parents have been in town for the last couple days – they leave tomorrow. It has been good to see them!

More later!

Who pays – you or your credit card?

Post ImageI was reading some older posts at Signal vs. Noise, the 37signals blog about all sorts of things, and I came across a post on number portability and the idea that credit cards should be the same:

Maybe one day your card number will be portable like your phone number. Theres no reason for it to change unless fraud has been committed. If you need the number changed then you can change it, but otherwise it remains the same no matter the issuer or card type.

The reasoning behind this is that there are so many recurring monthly services now that changing your credit card number (which happens if you change account types, or in some cases, when your card is renewed, etc) causes huge problems with missed payments and the need to update information manually.

I see three problems with this. The first is that lots of people have multiple cards. This is more of a problem with credit cards than it is with cell phone numbers (where the majority of users have only one). I don’t think MasterCard and Visa, for example, would like the idea of combining your two cards into one number. So you’ve still got to worry about which card to use, when each one expires, etc. The second problem is fraud. Somehow I see more problems related to fraud occurring if you have the same number all the time. Maybe I’m wrong here, but that’s the gut feeling.

The larger problem is long term – when you pay for something, are you paying, or is your credit card? You are obviously. The solution to the problems described in the SVN post is not the ability to keep one credit card number, it’s the ability to not worry about how you’re paying, just that you are paying. As a business, I don’t care if you’re paying cash, Visa, or debit card. All I care about is that you’ve paid, either right now, or on a recurring basis. If transactions were as simple as “Mack has paid Paramagnus for this” then a lot of these problems would go away. Did Mack use his old credit card or a new one? Maybe cash? Who cares, he’s paid! The scenario today is explained very well in the SVN post:

Our customers swear their cards are in good standing, but it turns out that they just switched cards and didnt realize their card number changed. Even though they have the money, and their credit is pristine, the number they had in the system is no longer a valid number and the transaction is declined.

The ability to keep a credit card number consistent might solve this in the short term, but the larger problem still exists. At some point, I hope we can move from validating a piece of plastic, to validating a person’s actual credit and financial standing.

Read: Signal vs. Noise

Edmonton Oilers Tribute

Post ImageToday during the lunch hour was the Oilers Community Appreciation event downtown at city hall. There were thousands of people packed into Churchill Square to catch a glimpse of the Oilers. After losing out in the Stanley Cup Finals, I can totally understand why the Oilers would want a low key event, with only a select few present:

Attending the rally will be Oilers Captain Jason Smith, Assistant Captain’s Ryan Smyth and Ethan Moreau, Georges Laraque, and hometown hero Fernando Pisani. Also present will be Oilers General Manager Kevin Lowe, President & CEO Patrick LaForge, and Chairman Cal Nichols.

The event kicked off with Paul Lorieau singing the national anthem (and yes, he sang the whole thing). Various dignitaries and Oilers organization bigwigs made speeches, after which the palyers answered some questions from Sportsnet’s Gene Principe. During his speech, Kevin Lowe said the team considers losing the Stanley Cup a failure, to which he received a quiet boo that quickly turned into a “we’re number one” chant. He’s right though, they set out to do something and didn’t quite accomplish it. That said, I’m really glad the Oilers organization took the time come out and allow the fans one more hurrah.

I took about 70 pictures at the event, most of which turned out okay. It was one of the rare opportunities I’ve had to use my zoom lens! Anyway, I’ve added the photos to my Edmonton Oilers Playoffs 2006 photo set. This one is my favorite.

Read: Edmonton Oilers

Commercial Free CBC?

Post ImageVia iloveradio.org, I came across a post on the Canadian Journalist blog which explains that a recent senate report on Canadian media is recommending an ad-free CBC:

A Senate report on Canadian media recommends that CBC-TV become a commercial-free broadcaster. The report also recommends measures to prevent private media conglomerates from dominating newspaper, radio and television audiences in a single market.

The CBC proposal would mean the federal government would have to boost the corporation’s almost $1-billion annual budget to make up for the loss of advertising revenue.

First of all, have these people not heard of the Internet? There’s your solution to one media conglomerate dominating a single market. And then more importantly – more money for the CBC?! I don’t think so.

The post also mentions that the senate committee spent more than three years travelling the country, hearing from witnesses. I find it hard to believe these people gave them the idea that CBC needs more money. Maybe more money to produce something worth watching, but certainly not to have more of the crap we currently find on CBC. Seriously, there’s sports, crappy CBC shows, and decent BBC shows.

Here’s my recommendation: keep the radio and Internet properties, and get rid of CBC television. I’ve been thinking about this for a while actually, especially since CBC lost the contract for curling (there, even a cbc.ca link!). Here is my reasoning:

  • I don’t think a publicly-funded organization should be allowed to compete with private companies for contracts such as curling or the NHL broadcast rights.
  • I don’t agree with a publicly-funded organization running a for-profit entity, like Country Canada.
  • There is no compelling reason for CBC Television to exist. CTV, Global, City, and the other stations are all quite capable, and often cover news and events far better than CBC does anyway.
  • We could probably do far more with the budget currently spent on CBC.
  • We could get rid of Don Cherry and those other idiots, and Ron MacLean could move to TSN!

Okay that last one isn’t really a serious reason, but it would be awesome! The only time I ever watch CBC is for the hockey, and I don’t think I’m alone.

My only other suggestion would be to make CBC Television an entirely, 100%, Canadian-content channel that is not allowed to bid on sporting broadcast rights, play Hollywood movies, etc. No budget increases either. Then we could relax the requirement that Canadian broadcasters make sure at least 30% of their content is Canadian-created, and we might actually have some competition for American networks.

However, with our media becoming increasingly global, I wonder if we need television stations like CBC. I’m of the opinion that private enterprise will do a far better job of providing local and national content in the long run anyway.

Read: Canadian Journalist

Microsoft Robotics Studio

Post ImageIf you’ve been reading my blog for the last year or so, you probably know that I quite like robotics. Actually, it was almost exactly a year ago (June 24th) that the Podbot was launched. Basically the Podbot was a podcasting robot – we could control it wirelessly with a laptop, and it had an onboard microphone and webcam. Very cool stuff, but unfortuntely, now out of commission. Andrew, Ashish, Dickson and I all had a blast with the project, though it was quite a bit of work.

Looks like the next robot we build might be a little easier! Earlier today at the RoboBusiness Conference and Exposition 2006, Microsoft introduced a community technology preview of Robotics Studio:

“Microsoft sees great potential in robotics, and we are excited to deliver our first CTP of Robotics Studio, making it easier to create robotic applications across a wide variety of hardware, users and scenarios”, said Tandy Trower, general manager of the Microsoft Robotics Group at Microsoft. “We’ve reached out to a broad range of leading robotics companies and academics early on in the development process and are thrilled with the positive response from the community.”

Microsoft also featured a bunch of third party demos at the event. This is pretty exciting stuff for a hobbyist like myself! I’m going to install the CTP and check it out. You find out more on the project at MSDN, and at the official team blog.

Read: Microsoft PressPass

Hurricanes win the cup

Man I didn’t get any of my predictions right tonight, except for Bob Cole being an idiot still. Even Don Cherry was wearing something sort of normal! Chris Pronger only played just over 26 minutes, and there isn’t much rejoicing in the streets (though there are a few people still, cheering the Oilers).

Pisani scored, but it obviously wasn’t the game winner. Hemsky did a whole lot of nothing, just like most of the team. Staios had a particularly trying game. Our top line didn’t show up tonight, they were each -2, and only had 3 of our 23 shots. Markkanen kept it close for us – he played well again.

The officials actually called a decent game. They made two mistakes as far as I am concerned. The first was the missed call against Carolina right before they gave us a penalty (which the Hurricanes scored their second goal on). The second was Smyth’s penalty to negate our two man advantage.

Full credit to the Hurricanes, they played a great game. They certainly brought more to the table tonite than the Oilers did. Thanks Oilers for a great run, it was fun while it lasted. I certainly enjoyed watching hockey in June! And as proud as I am that they made it game seven of the finals, I’m even more disappointed they lost because they made it to game seven of the finals. Let’s hope they sign all of the important free agents (bye Dvorak!) and have a great start to next year.

Go Oilers Go!

My Game 7 Prediction

Despite the best efforts of the referees, the Oilers are gonna take the cup tonight. Hemsky will have another key goal, and Pisani will score the winner. Carolina will not be able to match the physical play and intensity of Edmonton. It won’t be a blowout like Game 6, but it won’t be close either.

Of course, I can also predict the obvious stuff – Bob Cole will prove he’s still an idiot, Chris Pronger will play over 30 minutes, Don Cherry will wear something horrendous, and there will be much rejoicing in the streets of Edmonton.

Go Oilers Go!

Oh, and please, please, please, do not put Weight in the lineup Carolina! No sense in injuring Doug so bad that he’s out for good. He wouldn’t be able to make a difference tonight anyway.

Notes for 6/18/2006

Here are my weekly notes:

  • Today was Father’s Day, so Happy Father’s Day to my Dad, and to all Dads out there!
  • I don’t know for sure, but I think my recent .NET Wizards post is the longest I have ever written on this blog. I’ll try to be more succinct in the future 😉
  • Anyone hear Oakenfold’s new track “Faster Kill Pussycat”? It features Brittany Murphy – yes that Brittany Murphy. It’s a pretty good song actually!
  • There have been a lot of “looking back on Bill” posts since Gates made the big announcement. I particularly like this one.
  • I noticed today that Gnomedex has managed to get Senator John Edwards to keynote this year’s edition of the conference. Unfortunately I won’t be going this time, but I’ll be eagerly watching online for posts/pictures/podcasts to trickle out.
  • Game 7 is tomorrow night. According to Epcor (our city’s water/power utility) water usage in Edmonton increases by millions of litres in between periods, and drops to abnormally low levels when the puck is in play. GO OILERS GO!!