Commenting on Julia's quandry: http://weblogs.asp.net/jlerman/posts/22704.aspx

The biggest challenges as programmers is building a client base in a down economy, building a personal brand, handling political issues crisply so we can move on to the important stuff. Those are tough things to accomplish. The specific language you use (and your programming methodology) is secondary importance. After all, if you're using your favorite pet language (mine is Logo) but no clients, your code won't go anywhere.

Yes, yes VB is not Logo. All I'm saying is give yourself points if you have a client base, and let the methodology fall out from there. 

comment []9:59:19 AM  trackback []   

With no warning to its customers, MSN groups is now part of its subscription service. I'd have no problem with this, it's a good product and they deserve to make money off of it. However there is not a realistic pricing model for folks like me who already have internet access. There is no way I'm going to pay 21.95 a month for a calendar. The other big faux pas they made was not to warn their customers. If you offer a free product, there should be a warning before all of a sudden you start charging for it. Especially something as intimate as a calendar.

On the good side, the revision looks really good and appears to handle most of my comments.

Unfortunately I will need to (as Scoble says) "fire" Microsoft with regard to this feature. This will cause me some pain, as it's not just my calendar that's online but a volunteer organization I've set up as well. My choices are to move to another service (yahoo or AOL), or an independent calendar tool (Caldera) or else program my own (possibly simpler, and no popups or upsells!)

comment []9:49:16 AM  trackback []