waffle

Microsoft announces new plan for interoperability. They’ll publish over 30,000 pages of format and protocol documentation, of stuff used in “Windows Vista (including the .NET Framework), Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008, Office 2007, Exchange Server 2007, and Office SharePoint Server 2007, and future versions of all these products”, they’ll license it non-discriminatively and they’ll make it available for free for non-profit uses with a promise not to sue.

I’m not under any impressions that this is anything but an attempt to satisfy European Commission demands and turn the tide of negative press with the Open Office XML ISO vote clusterfuck. The goodness of their hearts this ain’t. But the positive upshots do speak for themselves, and if Microsoft’s MO is to invent new protocols with every major version, they might as well open them up as they enter their slow slippery slope.

Why, yes, everyone, let’s run out and pick the high definition optical disc format with the most onerous DRM (kernel integration is apparently preferred in any OS it has to appear in), the format that requires a fucking Java implementation to show some menus, the format invented by the company with a media empire grafted onto its shoulders. Real well played.

Rule one of consumer electronics: Never pick Sony’s format.

So a month ago I saw the Tom Cruise Scientology video, like so many others. And like so many others I was absolutely livid that these people can continue peddling their shit, ruining people’s lives and being as aggressive as any other group to anyone trying to expose them.

In that month, lots of stuff has happened. There was an early worldwide protest against Scientology earlier this month that I couldn’t take part in, but would have liked to.

On March 15, there’ll be another worldwide protest against Scientology. Go. Every single one of you reading this who’s not okay with people not only destroying lives but actually killing people under the guise of religion. It’s never okay.

Scientology has never been civilized, has always been pseudo-scientific and will always be calculating, deceptive, oppressive and ruthless. Enough people have been hurt, enough lives have been torn to shreds and wasted, enough lies and bullshit has been repackaged as truth. Scientology deserves to be erased from the face of the earth forever. We can do this.

Finally.

I’m proud to release the first beta version of Google+Growl, the successor to Gmail+Growl. To recap: Gmail+Growl was a plugin for Google Notifier that made it able to show Growl notifications. Gmail+Growl was first released for Gmail Notifier, but Gmail Notifier was later replaced by Google Notifier, which was able to show notifications for Google Calendar events, too.

Google+Growl finally closes the gap and can now show Growl notifications for Google Calendar events. Also, you can click a button to instantly preview the Growl notifications.

Due to a change in token field implementation on Mac OS X 10.5.2, releasing a Google+Growl that would run on both 10.4 and 10.5 would keep cutting off some of your spaces in the notification text. Therefore, Google+Growl 3.0b2, the version released today, is built just for 10.5. I intend to revert this if at all possible, since due to technical reasons I can’t use any 10.5 features anyway.

Although the original Gmail+Growl started out as a quick hack on a weekend night, it is by far the most widely used product waffle software puts out — it just passed 50,000 downloads a few days ago, and the bulk have been of the 2.0 version that’s been out since the middle of August 2006. I think a lot of people are going to be happy when they see that I’m not planning on abandoning the product.