It looks like Apple will run out of iMacs this month, and it won't be able to replenish supplies until September. That's three full months without a mid-range desktop computer to sell.

(This reminds me of one of the main problems with the Communist system -- someone in the Central Command orders too many shoes and not enough shoe laces. And the following year, there would be too many shoe laces and not enough shoes. It's very, very difficult to get it right.)

Allow me to say, this could never happen in the PC world. If Dell runs out of desktops, I just call Gateway instead who would be happy to serve me. If Gateway is out, I would call the independent computer maker down the street from me. As a last resort, I could buy the parts and make it myself. The hardware sources are endless -- there are literally thousands of PC makers.

Something is not right here... Instead of granting these prisoners access to a lawyer, the Pentagon will instead release the ones that do not pose a danger. If they weren't a danger, why were they being held in the first place? If Saddam Hussein can be put on trial, why can't some unknown Taliban? I agree with those people who say that United States should treat prisoners like it would like its soldiers to be treated by others.

BBC NEWS - US hints at Guantanamo releases

The US may try to head off legal challenges to the detention of terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay by releasing some prisoners, the Pentagon has said.

This has bugged me for years. In cleaning up my Internet Explorer favorites list, I always delete the Links folder as it is pretty much useless and just takes up space. Of course, every now and again IE recreates it. It has been a hand-fought battle between myself and IE to see who would give up first.

I win.

The way to get ride of the Links folder is to Hide it using folder properties. Ahh...

Why does the Links folder keep re-creating itself?

Those of you who dislike the Links folder have probably tried to delete it, only to discover that it keeps coming back. Why is that?

This is Internet Explorer trying to do some auto-repair. It noticed that the Links folder is missing, so it figures, "Gosh, it must be corrupted! I'd better fix the problem by creating a replacement."

People complain that computers can't perform self-repair, and then when the software tries to perform self-repair, they get mad. "But I wanted it to stay broken." You can't win.

The way to indicate, "Yes, I know about the Links folder, but I don't want to use it" is to hide it.

Just a quick note... I've had a wonderful few days programming extensively in .NET, mixing evenly between Visual C# and Visual Basic. My productivity has been incredible - completing several important project tasks. There is nothing like positive project progress to make a developer feel happy.

For instance, I was talking to one of the other developers on my team today about a particular task on our to-do list, and 10 minutes later I was able to hand over working code for that developer to use. (I've been working with the middle-tier components lately, and this developer was working on the ASP.NET front-end that uses those components.)

I love days like this. And having an easy to use development environment, like .NET, is a big part of it. The people on my team and the company I work for are another big part of it.

I'm tired of hearing that Apple is the be-all-and-end-all of innovation. They steal ideas as much as everyone else. Maybe back in 1984 they clearly led the way in graphical UIs. But since then the innovation has been spread out across the industry: sometimes Apple innovates, sometimes Microsoft innovates, and sometimes someone else innovates. In the end, that doesn't stop Apple from including those other innovations in their OS without attribution. So stop your whining Apple.

Dave Winer's Weblog

What to do when the platform vendor "validates" your product by copying it and announcing it will bundle the copy with the OS. I love what Konfabultor did, kick them in the ass, hard, with their own humor. "Cupertino, start your photocopiers." It's funny because that's what Apple said yesterday to poke Microsoft in the ribs (in a nice way of course). That's often been the lie around Apple, that they invent and Microsoft steals. I like to tell the story of how Mac scripting software came to be. I was in the audience at a Bill Gates speech in the early 80s in Palo Alto where he described a system-level scripting language for a personal computer, connecting various apps, a spreadsheet, word processor, plotting app. I made a note. That's a good idea. A few years later I started work on such a program. Showed it to Apple. Next thing you know, Apple has this great idea. A system-level scripting language for a personal computer, connecting various apps, a spreadsheet...

This is huge news out of Microsoft today. Wow.

Microsoft Announces new Express Products!!

In the TechEd Europe keynote today we officially announced the new Express products that are available to download right now:

 

• Visual Basic 2005 Express Edition (download)
• Visual C# 2005 Express Edition (download)
• Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition (download)
• Visual J# 2005 Express Edition (download)
• Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition (download)
• SQL Server 2005 Express Edition (download) – Note, SQL Express is included as an optional component in the installers of the other Express products. 

 

Thank goodness... I've been waiting for this to happen since GMail and Yahoo increased the acceptable standards for free email account stoage. I have a Hotmail account, and pay $35 Canadian a year for extra storage, and now I can cancel that service...

PCWorld.com - Hotmail Storage Jumps to 250MB

The domino effect Google started in April by announcing plans for a free e-mail service with 1GB of inbox storage continues, with Microsoft promising on Wednesday to boost Hotmail inbox capacity to 250MB from the current 2MB.