Teh Webolg

Microsoft has recently been going on a patent spree, trying to patent the likes of the FAT file system, through to patent 525484 - `Word processing document stored in a single XML file that may be manipulated by applications that understand XML`. What does this mean? It means he wants to stop any word processor being able to read, write, or update XML, and claim the idea as Microsoft`s.

This is absolutely crazy, yet worrying, knowing the types of ridiculous patents granted in the States. The man (and whoever thought up this bright idea) is nuts. Time to buy him a Darth Vader helmet and be done with it.

I would suggest that every company that has developed any kind of editor before Microsoft should then jump on the boat and try to patent `text document stored in a single text file that may be manipulated by applications that understand text`. That`ll be $2 for using vi, thank you very much; however you can use Notepad for $35 - decisions decisions.

Now bear in mind that MS Office supported XML (a typically bloated representation) in Office 2000, which was released in 1998. I don`t remember the XML specification being provided as part of this software (I don`t believe Microsoft own W3C just yet), even whilst I was developing XML based applications in 1998. Perhaps I`m confused and Microsoft invented XSL? Either way, they may as well try to patent web browsers, TCP/IP, black computer monitors, keyboards... and be done with it.

Essentially what has happened, is:
- Microsoft has tried to open its crappy proprietary Office formats, offering XML documents, possibly because they will at some point get a bollocking for anti-competitive behaviour
- This backfired, and open source and other commercial software vendors have used this to provide interoperability with Office, taking away revenue by giving users some choice
- Microsoft isn`t making the money it used to out of its operating systems and applications (who really needs any of the Office features post Office 95?) and wants yet more money

If this patent is approved, IT software developers had better start looking for new careers, because Microsoft will have the likes of W3C by the short and curlies. Next up they`ll have a patent for rendering XML in web browsers or storing XML in relational databases.

Curious indeed that Microsoft haven`t tried this stunt with SGML (XML`s slightly smelly father).

The best thing about server logs is that you can see who`s linking in. I plan to update this post with some of the stuff people have said about the site. Comments like these make it all worth while!

"On another note for some reason I accidently burnt your Beatles medley onto a cd recently.
I think it's the worst song ever and I've seen the Fall live!" - Jim`s Beatles medley

" There is something disturbing about that" - the Donkey Porn Flash movie

"what is even more disgusting is [.....] Pity they dont use their Flash skills for something useful and pleasant" - the Linda McCartney tribute

Big fan of Firestoat and its extensions (plugins), and found a nice extension that displays HTML warnings/errors, and can show how well the site conforms to W3C accessibility standards.

Run this sucker and it`ll scare you with how many little things need to be fixed on web sites; I`ll be using this and gradually patching up the site. Still, the site works on lynx so it can`t be all that bad!

Also available for Linux, which is always good news.

Read on some net articles (only two were in English at the time) that this would be a total disaster on the 4101LMI laptop.

Anyway, had a few problems getting it installed, mainly down to APIC*, and a second issue where the installer hung when detecting PCMCIA.

Just in case Google wants to trawl this snippet, here`s the installer config line I used:


linux hw-detect/start_pcmcia=false vga=771 noapic nolapic


I also had to remove the /etc/rc.d/pcmcia scripts after the install as the system hung during PCMCIA detection. Not fussed about this as I don`t use PCMCIA.

The processor stepping works nicely, and can be monitored with the Gnome toolbar applet thingie. I haven`t tried the wireless LAN yet, but ifconfig seems pretty happy. Top stuff, and brownie points to the Ubuntu crowd for making Hoary Hedgehog feel even nicer than Warty Warthog (which I love).

What I`m more cheesed off about is that the graphics card (Radeon X600) isn`t supported very well, so no 3D acceleration. Hopefully there`ll be a few updates in the coming weeks/months that may help things. Not looking to play games, but there are some cracking screensavers!

Oh yes - is it legal to call them laptops these days, what with the number of people burning their naughty bits? Time to buy some asbestos trousers.

_{* in layman`s terms, APIC helps the operating system determine what hardware gets which interrupts}

Well I`m still learning PHP. I quite like it.

So I decided to write a little bloggy thing - it would have been too easy to nip to blogger and use something there, but what do you learn? I think I`ll maybe put a RSS feed on the site too. Now to h4xx0r teh mainframe etc. Or maybe just put site updates in here instead.

At least it won`t be full of yet more "here`s what I had for dinner yesterday" or "oh I`m so depressed cos like she iz like so hot n she don`t wanna tlk 2 me like like OMG!!!" crap - there are plenty of weblogs with that stuff.

.. and no bloody smiley faces

For the really sad people, this is written using PHP and MySQL, with add/edit/delete pages. Still need to write some archive code, in case I manage to write more than 10 things for the site, and maybe a search.

Update: have just written code to retrieve 10 most recent entries and generate RSS; will add this to cron so the feed updates daily