Denise Howell says Blogger deserves some Corporate Weblogger Points.

ZDNet asks "is Linux more vulnerable than Windows?"

Translation #2: Microsoft is trying to kill the Windows API and move toward a completely .NET future. Hmmm. Let your mind twist around that one for a few minutes.

Joshua Allen says that Microsoft wants to get rid of PINVOKE. Sounds good to me! For the uninitiated, PINVOKE is the method for calling the Windows APIs directly from the managed world of .NET. That requires programmers to get out of the .NET "managed" world. Why does that matter? Cause it isn't close to as productive as calling API's (er, frameworks) inside the .NET world.

A friend of mine, who wrote some utilities for the new Tablet OS, said that 30% of his code was using PINVOKE but that that code took him about 90% of the time to write, debug, and maintain (and is far more brittle).

I think what Joshua is trying to say is "we're trying to make it a lot easier to develop apps for Windows in the future." Imagine if your programmers could write programs that didn't crash as often, had more features, and got done in less time? That's what will happen when programmers won't need to leave the "managed" world of .NET.

OK, to be fair, Joshua didn't mention PINVOKE by name. Probably cause he knew that everyone's eyes would glaze over if they weren't a developer. My eyes did when someone first explained this to me. But, look where he admits that currently 99% of all desktop apps are managed code and then he said "we want to see that number be closer to zero." Translation: Microsoft wants to get rid of PINVOKE and wants to help developers get much better apps out the door faster.

Rivals chip away at Microsoft's dominance. "An array of free and low-cost open-source alternatives are gaining traction in governments and classrooms, as well as among a few companies. Many of those switching face tight budgets."... [Lockergnome's Bits and Bytes]

I haven't checked in on Zeldman lately, but I see he's showing how the different browsers on the Mac handle HTML and stuff. Usual good Zeldman stuff.

Yeah, someone snuck me an invite for the Google/Blogger party tonight in SF, but it doesn't look like I'll be able to go. Oh well. Too many geek parties for one month. Sounds like fun, though, and I wish everyone involved well.

Robert McLaws found an RSS News Aggregator (SNARF!, which stands for Simple News Aggregator for RSS Feeds) that was built with ASP.NET. It's very good -- it'll open up a search bar over on the left if you're using IE on Windows. Not sure if it works on any other browser or OS, but I really don't care, so probably should assume that this is a Windows-centric thing.

What does a "mainstream media type" do when he tries to do a weblog? Puts freaking pop up ads all over the place. It's too bad, too, cause Always-On has a nice interview with Sony's CEO. This site was designed by the guy who started Red Herring. Dude, get rid of the ads. Figure out a new model. Look at Google. They make tons of money without pissing me off.

I can't get to Steve Gillmor's InfoWorld weblog (he's brother of San Jose Mercury News' Dan). I hear he's been laid off. That really bums me out. Steve, if you can, start a weblog and let's get something going. Your voice is too important to stay silent.

Hmm, JD Lasica moved to Moveable Type. JD has a bit of SXSW conference blogging.

First impression of XML in Office 2003. Today at Q42 Laurens looked into Microsoft Office 2003 beta 2. After reading John Udell's article about InfoPath we thought Microsoft migth have caught up with Xopus. Thankfully this does not seem to be the case: [Sjoerd Visscher's weblog]