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Microsoft Open Source Software labs

by | Apr 6, 2006 | evilzenscientist, Uncategorized

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Open

Microsoft announced at Linux World this week that they would be ‘opening the doors’ of their Open Source Software Labs.

Early days – the site went live this afternoon and there is very little content (low signal:noise ratio – flames about Windows streaming video and Microsoft outnumber the useful information).

Overall I think this is probably a good idea – Novell has been using many forms of Open Source Software for years – most visibly with our use of Novell Linux Desktop and OpenOffice – but also with Bugzilla, various Wikis, development tools, test tools – even the software that runs these blogs.

Novell has certainly learned a lot about making software better; we’ve made our own proprietry offerings interoperate, we’ve adopted more open standards – and we’ve been active with many Open Source community projects.

(I’ll not forget that we also develop a broad portfolio of open source solutions – from OpenSUSE to iFolder – take a look on Novell Forge.)

Will Microsoft do the same? I hope so – even if it’s only about making their own proprietry offerings somewhat more interoperable.

Take a look at the Microsoft Open Source Software Labs here.

What do you think? Will this make Microsoft a better player? Are Microsoft running scared?

Written at: Provo, UT

Recycle Utah

by | Apr 3, 2006 | evilzenscientist, Gonetoutah, Uncategorized, Utah

We joined Recycle Utah a month or so ago – supporting recycling locally.

We’ve now started composting again (a three year gap since we were in England), seperating recyclable glass and generally trying to cut down on the general trash we throw out.

I also signed up for the Utah Power green energy program – to power our web server farm.

Every little helps.

There was a thought provoking article in the Salt Lake Tribune today about this.

Books

by | Apr 2, 2006 | Books, evilzenscientist, Uncategorized

I dug out a few old books that I want to re-read in the coming weeks:

253 – Geoff Ryman – here online.
Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow – Peter Høeg
The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks

I can’t find my copy of Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaardner – I’m trying to think who I lent it to..

Most of these books are from about ten years ago 🙂 I must be getting nostalgic.
The other thing I noticed – Amazon US has a very strange idea about books originally published in the UK. The dates and covers are all wrong!

ZENworks Asset Management – online demo

by | Mar 28, 2006 | Uncategorized, ZENworks

ZAM

Post BrainShare and it’s back to real work!

Today Novell released the online demonstration of ZENworks Asset Management. This runs in Firefox or Internet Explorer – and lets you see the power of ZENworks Asset Management live – without having to install a single piece of code.

Take a look – and let us know what you think. We will be posting a ‘walk through script’ in the next day or so – that will let you get the most from your time online.

Written at: Draper, UT

BrainShare 2006 wrap up – and Novell Open Audio at BrainShare

by | Mar 26, 2006 | Novell Open Audio, Uncategorized

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Microphone

It is the weekend after BrainShare – so I guess it’s going to be pretty slow for most of the Novell Cool Bloggers for a couple of days.

Personally – I had a great time this last week; running with some really entertaining and informative keynotes (Wednesday and Thursday), breakout sessions – as well as analyst and press events.

The highlight as always was meeting with customers and partners – you really are knowlegable, loyal – and remarkably well informed )

One final piece of BrainShare that I need to plug are the ‘from the show floor’ podcasts from Ted Haeger and Novell Open Audio. Take a look here at the list of current short podcasts – Ted and the team seemed to have got behind the scenes and talked to everyone at BrainShare.

Written at: Draper, UT