Sometime this "iPad Weekend", (turns out it was Friday) Firefox 3.6.3 was released with more security fixes that could have led to remove code execution. Standard stuff, but good to see it's still plugging these holes.
Because tomorrow is Good Friday, and that means a vacation day for the markets, I'm taking off early for the day to get home and help get things settled at the house in preparation for taking a few days (3) and visiting Kalahari Report in Wisconsin Dells, WI. The kids said they wanted to go this year, and while Liza's schedule didn't allow for a lot of time off, there is time to go get soaked, and that's just what we plan on doing.
It's always a lot of fun to ride the rides, get all wet, and see the kids laugh. Good fun. Can't wait.
Things are really heating up between some groups in Google and some groups in Apple. From what I've read, it seems like it's more of an Executive War, as opposed to a real "can't stand to look at you" war in the trenches. But hey, that's what makes the game of Executive Watching so darn much fun.
Well, this morning I was reading Slashdot and saw that Google announced that they would be working with Adobe on a new plugin API for browsers to support Flash, and including Flash in Chrome. This not only covers the initial install, but also any subsequent updates. This is a major slap in the face to Apple and it's push for HTML5 as the technology moving forward.
In a sense, I'm really happy that Google is doing this. I use Google's Visualization widgets daily at The Shop, and a better Flash in Chrome is going to do nothing but help me. That's fantastic. But in a larger sense, I think the better solution is to see the components I use ported to HTML5 Canvas or SVG graphics like some of the Visualization widgets.
My ultimate goal is to have a visualization platform that does what I need without crashing, or bringing the machine to it's knees. CUrrently, I have to do a lot of little "tweaks" to get a reasonably stable platform, and even that's a bit dodgey at times. Anything that Google does to make this better is a good move in my book.
That being said, if I saw that someone came out with an HTML5 Canvas-based graphing package like the Google Visualizations, I'd immediately check it out. If it had a better system of support and less problems in the deployment (I can't deploy on Firefox, and IE only with the Google Chrome Frame plugin), then I'd switch over and never look back.
I don't think Google is doing the right thing in the long-term, and that's what I've always thought they would do. Engineers giving into silly Executive battles is just silly. It's beneath them. Beneath us.
Stop it. Convert the AnnotatedTimeLine to HTML5 Canvas, and then stop messing with Flash. That's a winning strategy.
For the past several years, Sun's Solaris for SPARC (at least) was "free" - you had to pay for the media and shipping. In that time, I bought Solaris 7, 8, and 9 for my SPARCstation 20. It was a fantastic program as it made sure that people like me would still be running, using, and liking Solaris, long after the linux wagon came to town. Had Sun charged me full price for Solaris, I'd have been running linux on that same box all that time. It was a good move on Sun's part to have this program in place.
Then Oracle bought Sun... and every good thing must come to an end.
This morning I was reading Slashdot and saw that Oracle is suspending the free licenses of Solaris. That's sad.
The funny thing is - I doubt it'll generate much revenue for the company. But it's going to cost them a lot of potential adopters in the kids that get old machines to play with and now won't learn Solaris and thus keep Oracle out of the long-term business. It's just not smart.
But then again, I've never thought that "smart" was a good adjective for Oracle.
This morning I saw that both iPhoto '09 (8.1.2) and iTunes 9.1 were out on Software Updates. From what I've heard, iTunes 9.1 is about preparation for the iPad launch in a few days. I'm not sure what's up with the new iPhoto, but I'm guessing it has to do with supporting more cameras, or security and stability fixes. Good enough.
I use both of these a ton, so it's nice to see them updated.
This morning I noticed that OsiriX 3.7.1 was out with an impressive list of fixes and features. It's not like I'm a radiologist, but I do like being able to see the slides of the family. It's just kind kooky.
I noticed this morning that NetNewsWire 3.2.7 was out with a very short list of fixes - basically one. No matter, I know he's working on the next release, but it's still good to stay current.
This morning Apple updated iMovie '09 (8.0.6) to better handle video from Aperture. Now I'm not a big movie maker, but that seems a little on the edge, but what the heck - I'm glad they are making improvements. Who knows, maybe Marie will want to do this someday.
This morning I saw that Miro 3.0 has been released. It's the open source video access tool that can download content from a ton of places and update subscriptions, etc. similar to the iTunes Store for Open Source content. I first started looking at Miro when I wanted to be able to download episodes of House, M.D., but it turned out these were only available on Hulu.
Anyway, with this update, there are lots of interesting things but the question still remains: is it a better way to watch House? Don't know that's the case.
This morning I noticed that Perian 1.2.1 was out with several bug fixes and supporting a new encoding. It's a great add-on for Quicktime, and it makes it a lot easier to look at unusual content in Safari. Nice to see the addition.