That is the fascinating last line of a short review of the use of programming languages based on the Freshmeat project rosta. The gist is that C, C++, Shell and Lisp remain solid, Perl and Tcl have stagnated, Ruby hasn’t matched its early promise but major growth is occurring in Python and Java. The factor keeping Perl alive is the significant legacy base. One notable omission from the review is PHP, a language that is much reviled but probably has similar characteristics to Perl.
Perl has become the COBOL of web design
1 Jun 2009 11:03 by Rick
Homegroups on Windows 7
14 May 2009 09:13 by Rick
I have been reading about the new features of Windows 7 and one that looks attractive is the concept of Homegroups. This is an extension of the home networking facility which consolidates the files of all participating machines and users into common libraries. So, for instance, if you have multiple PCs on your network, each with multiple users then all their music folders are consolidated into one music library while the files themselves remain on the owner’s account. This is an extension of the “My Music” and “Shared Music” across multiple machines and accounts in a more transparent way. This has been available for a long time in Windows Media Player but the mechanism has been moved back into the O/S and extended to other libraries such as videos and pictures. There are not a lot of details, but I presume that this is for read only and write always goes local. The libraries involved are Music, Pictures, Videos and Documents and the sharing also includes printers. What it fails to mention, of course, is that it only works when the relevant machines are switched on!
An article I was reading on Windows Secrets, which is a lot more informative, suggests that Documents are handled differently from others. It says that “Homegroup setup makes sharing the Documents Library optional” but I can’t see why that should be given special treatment. Surely your Gangsta Rap collection and the pictures from your naughty weekend in Brighton could be just as sensitive?
WAT no Advantage?
11 May 2009 09:39 by Rick
In the forthcoming Windows 7 the hated Windows Genuine Advantage changes it’s name to Windows Activation Technologies and it is supposed to be slightly less annoying.
But seriously, Windows 7 is getting a lot more critical support than Vista ever has. One of the best features is a built in virtual platform for running old XP applications, though this rather depends on your processor supporting it. It is intended for the huge number of business users who can’t or won’t switch and are costing MS a lot of sales. It is reported that many typical retail consumer PC’s won’t have the right processor chip.
Phishing Phone Call
9 May 2009 11:00 by Rick
This morning we had an automated phone call, one of those that is generated by computer, apparently from our credit card company. It knew the name on the account and asked us to ring back on a given number regarding the security of our card.
The first problem, as this was a call out of the blue, was that we had no pen to hand to write down the number even though it was repeated. We checked the source and it was an unknown (to us) 0845 number.
But secondly, how were we to know that the call came from the bank in the first place. The name of the account is on the card and the name of the bank can be deduced from the first few digits of the card number. Anyone who we had made a transaction with could have discovered those details.
As it happens it was from our bank—I discovered this by ringing our normal telephone banking number and getting put through to the fraud department. It was an out of the ordinary transaction they were worried about which, in fact, was legitimate. I am pleased with their dilligence in bringing it to our notice.
The right way to have worded the phone call was to ask us to ring the number printed on the back of the card or statement and either use a code for the automated routing system or tell us to ask for a particular department. That way we don’t have to find a pen to write anything down and we can be certain that we are really ringing the bank.
Why I don’t like the iPhone
8 May 2009 08:52 by Rick
RSS feed fixed
7 May 2009 18:03 by Rick
I have finally figured out why the RSS feed on this blog had died. I had been assuming that it was due to an illegal character in one of the post headings because that is what broke it last time; XML is very fussy about character set.
Today I had a look at the source of the XML that wouldn’t display and spotted that there were two blank lines on the front. Removing those (by hand) fixed it, I said XML was fussy!
Now where were they coming from. A search on Google for “wordpress xml blank lines” came up with a few suggestions and it looks like it is a common problem but everyone has to figure it out for themselves; there is no FAQ. The prime suggestion was blank lines on the end of the wp-config.php file but that wasn’t the case for me. The next was in functions.php in the theme; BINGO. I am always very verbal when writing code and put in lots of comments and white space. Normally that doesn’t matter but functions.php is loaded for every action (even for the admin panels) and PHP is a strange beast—everything that is not with us is against us; i.e. everything that is not a PHP statement is directly output to the stream so blank lines before the first < ?php and after the last ?> is output and you cannot separate the functions outside of the PHP structure either. Once I had fixed that then it was all ok.
I still can’t figure out the source of the two blank lines that cause the Comment feed to fail! [Update: that is fixed too. Same problem, just that I hadn’t properly cleared the browser cache.]
12 year sentence
08:47 by Rick
Judge: The jury have returned their verdict and you have been found not guilty of all charges. I therefore sentence you to twelve years of suspicion; twelve years of wondering if there might be a knock on the door if you happen to have been near a place where a crime was committed; twelve years of being an automatic suspect for every new crime investigated.
This is what the ruling to retain DNA samples of people not charged or later acquitted of crimes means. The Home Secretary said “We will ensure that the most serious offenders are added to the database no matter when or where they were convicted” but these people were NOT convicted; in many cases they were not even charged.
There is talk of them extending the 6/12 year limit to fingerprints as well, but we know that is a joke—everyone’s fingerprints will be on the National Identity Database anyway.
Spotify
13 Apr 2009 08:12 by Rick
Some friends are raving about Spotify which is a bit like Last.fm, a streaming music service, but with more choice and control at the expense of the occasional audio advertisement or a subscription.
It is rumours only at the moment but it looks like Sonos my provide a Spotify linkup. If that happens than I stand a better chance of using it as that is where all my music listening happens now days. Dave is even trying to persuade me to put one in the bathroom!
On the downside, the critics rightly say that we have seen it all before and a free music service is not viable business plan. We have seen Pandora come and went, Sirius/XM and Last.fm are struggling and Napster go subscription only. Perhaps Sonos should let it pass and concentrate on something more tangible.
A test for the Conficker Worm
3 Apr 2009 09:31 by Rick
All the hype about Conficker/Downadup on April 1st was no more than that. It wasn’t a day when you were going to get infected, it was, if you were already infected then that was the day it would become active in whatever it was going to do e.g. spam.
In practice, because of they way it was propagated, home users were less likely to be affected anyway as it used corporate networks, though there was some risk from USB memory sticks. Also, well over half of the worlds affected machines were in areas where they take little notice of licensing and were using cracked copies of Windows.
Anyway, there is quite a simple way to discover if you are affected. Visit this Conficker Eye Chart and follow the instructions, it is very easy. It is not 100% guaranteed because proxy servers can make things seem ok when they are not, but it is a good start. As a second test, go to your anti-virus supplier’s web site. If you can get there and read a sample of the pages then you are almost certainly NOT infected.
AVG 8.5 Free is here
30 Mar 2009 19:07 by Rick
This caught me a bit by surprise as we use the paid system on most of the machines I manage and, on there, the update is automatic. However, if you use the free version then you will soon be getting update suggestions. There doesn’t seem to be a time limit yet unlike last year’s debacle so there is no panic, but it will need to be done sometime. It looks quite stable and, as I said, has been on the paid version for a little while.
To get and install it, you need to navigate through their site. You don’t want the free trial versions, you need the real free version, the one they call Free Basic Protection. From then on the install is just like version 8 which I documented last year, except there may be a few fewer questions to trip you up. If you have disabled the link scanner in the browser, it doesn’t seem to get reset or maybe it is not used any more, I am not sure.
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