RasterWeb!

RegExLib.com, the Internet’s first Regular Expression Library…

Like most people, I thought POOP was an acronym for People Order Our Patties, but it seems it’s really Perl Object-Oriented Persistence… Who knew?

LinuxQuestions.org has a poll to choose the 'Editor of the Year' so if you’re a fan of vi, emacs, or like myself, jEdit, go cast a vote. (You do have to register, but it’s a quick and easy process.)

We recently went to out to eat, which is something we don’t do much of, and in the old days, when you had to wait, you would give the hostess-type person your name, and they’d call it out when a table was ready. Not anymore! They handed us this big blue coaster with an LED inside of it. Oh, it had a lot of LED’s but only one was lit up. You hold onto this coaster and when it’s your turn the thing lights up like a christmas tree and starts to vibrate. Yes, it’s the Coaster Call from the folks at LRS.

I was actually surprised they didn’t take it a step further, and sell advertising space on the coaster call, because the first thing I thought when I saw “COOL BLUE” was that it was some kind of alchoholic berverage. Those guys at Long Range Systems might be missing out on a goldmine…

What Microsoft says:

We haven’t talked to a single user who’s said they’re using [open source] because it’s better.

What Microsoft means:

We’ve never talked to a user who does not worship Microsoft.

I’m sure if I ask around I can find people who use open-source because it’s better. Apache? Perl? MySQL? Mozilla? jEdit? I use these things because they are better than what Microsoft has. Now, “better” is surely a relative term, and Microsoft seems to think that:

…it is more a case of sheer frustration with licensing and Microsoft’s poor relationship with its customers over the last few years – or simply the perceived cost benefits of open source – driving users to migrate.

Well, one part of “better” is that I don’t have to deal with Microsoft’s poor relationship with customers, or
frustration with licensing. That’s all a part of the “better” you get with open-source. I do tend to think that the applications I use are often better than Microsoft’s offerings, but besides all that, I do think that Microsoft makes some good software, and if it fits into your needs (close-source, Windows platform, etc.) then by all means use it.

Just don’t complain to me the next time some virus or spyware decides to ch0wn you…