Monday, September 13, 2004

Firefox 1.0! Firefox browser to hit 1.0 milestone. Set for release tomorrow, the latest version of the open-source rival to IE promises to work with KDE. [CNET News.com] Oh, goodie! Firefox hits the big 1.0, meaning it's a "real" release. I've been using it for many months now: it's my default browser. Other than a couple of problems (managing bookmarks, opening PDFs), I'm quite happy with it. I only open up M$ IE as a last resort, when a website just won't behave otherwise. The few websites that declare themselves to only work with IE have lost my business. 5:08:18 PM    Questions? Comments? Flames? []

The dirty truth Can't Trust This Telecommuter. For all the talk about how we're soon going to be a nation of telecommuters, thanks to new technologies, Broadband Reports points out a study that shows one very big hurdle: most employers still don't trust their employees to work unsupervised. . .  Of course, it's not just the bosses that don't trust telecommuters: 75% of employees think their telecommuting co-workers are simply goofing off and "are not working at all."[ Techdirt] Of course, they're right: we telecommuters never do any work. That's why our projects are never delivered, certainly never on deadline; why we never call into meetings; why you never see us on IM; why we never answer the telephone or respond to email; why developers complain that they never hear from us; why we never file status reports, or ask questions, or fill in your tracking spreadsheets. Come on, you know we're working by the fact that we deliver. What else do you want? I could make a case that the average office worker spends half their day chatting, gossiping, shopping online, drinking coffee, IMing friends, making children's dental appointments, going out to lunch. Not all, but many. If telecommuters don't produce, fire 'em. If we deliver, why do you need more control? Some folks joke about working in their pajamas; I shower and shave and and brush my teeth and dress every day, and I'm at the keyboard by 8:00 a.m. Stop complaining and get back to work! 4:55:05 PM    Questions? Comments? Flames? []

Spaced about six feet Watch that space. Mike Taht: I just volunteered for SpaceShipOne's launch crowd on Sept 29th, 2004. It is also (and, I hope, not coincidentally in the minds of many) the day my favorite asteroid, Toutatis, make the closest approach to earth of nearly any major asteroid, roughly 1.6m km - or only 4 times the distance from here to the moon - that's a short hop to some of the most desirable real estate in the solar system - billions of tons of useful materials and radiation shielding, and an elliptical orbit that leads to Venus, Mars, the Belt, and the moons of Jupiter.... I'm interested in going to the SpaceShipOne launch too. Who else? [The Doc Searls Weblog] I'll probably just stay here in front of my nice, warm monitor and watch in the comfort of my own home. Side note: Mike held a weekend-long party in celebration of an asteroid near-miss earlier this year. I had to miss the party, due to some looming work deadline. Isn't it unfortunate that such mundane things distract us from the momentous? It's a matter of setting and observing priorities, I suppose. 11:01:32 AM    Questions? Comments? Flames? []

Move on, Ivan HURRICANE IVAN Maps and Charts. Latest tropical cyclone track maps and wind charts [National Hurricane Center (Atlantic)] It's looking more and more like hurricane Ivan will not drench the already-soaked center of Florida. Word I hear from friends there indicates they really don't need any more rain just now, thank you, and they'll be happy just to get the power back on. 10:28:02 AM    Questions? Comments? Flames? []

Thanks a lot PeopleSoft aims to keep worker morale high. Six days before the ruling in the Oracle case, PeopleSoft sped up the vesting terms for its workers' 2004 merit-based stock options. [CNET News.com] Doesn't do diddly for me, thank you. 10:25:27 AM    Questions? Comments? Flames? []

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