Tobler.SoftwareArchitecture()

First, go play flOw!

Microsoft, are you listening? Others may have had a different experience, but I have been totally unsuccessful at working with the SQL Server 2005 Express installer. I have wasted far too much time trying to get it to work.  I'm giving up.  The nicest word I can find for your defective installer is "blecherous."

Yes, I have tried everything including attempting to run your special uninstaller, which failed for me also. I have manually uninstalled everything on the lists in your readme file. After satisfying all of your stated conditions, I have been unable to make your stupid installer work.  Not only that, but the creators of this installer didn't even feel it was necessary to let me, the user, know specifically why the installer failed, what old components or registry entries are still  blocking it, or what, exactly, I can do to get it to work.  Come on!  At least give the poor user some clue.

I have successfully installed (and registered) each of the other Express Editions, but none of them were able to install SQL Server Express, either. This is the second machine upon which I have tried to get SQL Server 2005 Express to install. Neither has given me any joy, only pain.

Also, if and when you somehow make it possible for me to install SQL Server 2005 Express at all, will I really need to uninstall all of the other Express edition software again before I can install SQL Server on my machine using your current braindead installation strategy?

Frankly I don't think I'm likely to do that; I'm probably more likely to simply use an alternative database.  Perhaps your installer is telling me to forget SQL Server entirely and to do all of my Express-edition-targeted C#, Web, and C++ work against other databases, like the new IBM DB2 Universal Database Express Edition, MySQL, Firebird, Ingres, and VistaDB, all of which I have correctly installed on my systems? Perhaps I should recommend the same to customers and clients?  Is that what you want?  Oh, I get it, you have decided to leave database management to the real pros and your SQL Server 2005 Express Edition installer is really a sort of viral un-marketing strategy!  Hmmmm.  Brilliant!

• Microsoft UMPC Site
• The Origami Project
• The Origami Portal
• UMPCommunity
• http://del.icio.us/search/?all=UMPC
• http://del.icio.us/tag/origami
• http://digg.com/search?search=origami
• http://www.google.com/search?q=Microsoft+Origami

1. UMPC vendors must achieve the $500 price point.  This device class cannot really succeed without that.  The $500 should cover a fully functional device including everything promised in the Origami videos.  Please do not sell a stripped down model for $500 and then gouge a total of $1,500 to $2,000 out of the consumer for "optionals."  I have already seen vendor literature that talks about optional GPS, optional TV, optional DMB, and ... optional everything.  No!  No!  No!  Deliver on the promise, please!
2. Battery life has to be better!  The devices currently being shown have very limited battery life. "Go everywhere" does not mean everywhere within three hours of a battery charger.  Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt!  Game over!
3. Please don't short us on internal storage.  Personally, I can't even think about buying one of these for personal use unless it has at least 512 MB RAM and a 40 GB hard drive (or equivalent).
4. Aren't we going to need at least a DVD/CD-RW?  If it's an external drive, it had better be small and cheap.
5. The successful UMPC package should be about the size of a Monarch or Executive Franklin planner.  It can't get too much bigger than that; this needs to be one of those things you just want to carry with you everywhere.  I would sure like to have one of those padded binder cover cases with the keyboard, like the one shown with the Samsung model in the eWeek photos and as shown in the original leaked Origami video.  That's a great idea:  protect the UMPC and serve simultaneously as a extension base.  I'm a touch typist, so I'm not quite ready to completely abandon a keyboard.  I like to have my cake and eat it too.
6. Please don't forget to include an Ethernet connector.  I currently work at a location where wireless will most likely not be permitted within this century.  I'm sure almost every professional will need to plug into a wired network somewhere.
7. These things better be tough!
8. Vendors, I would love to help write the software for your devices.  How do we partner with you?
   

Should you get a little bored and need a nice DIY project, check out BonaFide OS Development!  In particular, see Bran's Kernel Development Tutorial.

Not for the technically timid!

Blender 3D: Noob to Pro is a great, free tutorial for the free, open source Blender 3D graphics modeling and rendering software. I still cannot believe how little press and attention Blender 3D gets.  To me, it's the coolest gift the open source community has yet made to those heroic independent graphic artists who strive to create great computer art without access to a huge corporate budget.  Well, the GIMP was another such gift, but Blender 3D rocks!  If this tutorial makes Blender 3D more accessible to CG artists who haven't tried it yet, that would be a huge win.

More Blender 3D Wikibooks!

An interesting post titled Thinking in Web 2.0: Sixteen Ways in Dion Hinchcliffe's Web 2.0 Blog somehow stood out in today's readings.  It seems to be keeping company with a number of other interesting articles on Web 2.0.  Worth checking out in greater depth, I think.

From the ancestral line of Lisp, we now have another new scripting language for .NET.  LSharp "uses a Lisp dialect similar to Arc."   LSharp is Open Source (GPL).  More information is available on Rob Blackwell's Web Log.

Descending from the heritage of Pascal, Modula-2, and Oberon, Zonnon is a new language for .NET.  According to the Zonnon website, "It retains an emphasis on simplicity, clear syntax and separation of concerns whilst focusing on concurrency and ease of composition and expression. Unification of abstractions is at the heart of its design and this is reflected in its conceptual model based on modules, objects, definitions and implementations. Zonnon offers a new computing model based on active objects with their interaction defined by syntax controlled dialogs. It also introduces new features including operator overloading and exception handling, and is specifically designed to be platform independent."