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Check out the cover on the Summer 2010 edition of 2600, The Hacker Quarterly:

Cover, Summer 2010 issue, 2600 magazine

I saw it at my local Barnes & Noble bookstore and had to buy it for its complete awesomeness. The one thing 2600 has, every issue, is cool cover art.

I don’t know the exact system to which these tape cartridges belong, but I remember seeing very similar ones back in the late 1980s at the University of Maine’s computer lab.

The labels are what make this cover so great:

• The coordinates on the top cartridge’s white label mark the epicenter of the Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake in Haiti. The “KH-5″ label on the side refers, I assume, to a series of early 1960s mapping / spy satellites. There may be a more significant connection between the two labels that I don’t get.
• I like the implicit message in the third tape’s label, that the Library of Congress is retaining tweets.
• I love the fifth tape’s label: If only such a tape existed, it would eliminate quite a bit of annoying political sideshow. Then again, no; it probably wouldn’t.
• The tapes from the seventh down are also quite amusing.

And taken in context with the “DESTROY” label on the box in the background, and the placement of the entire stack atop tabloid personals ads, really adds to the entire presentation.

Continue reading: A Completely Awesome 2600 Cover »

6:50 PM:

The event ended at 4:45 PM, following Chris Bowen’s very interesting overview of Windows Phone development. I was desperate to get out of there, and this is the first access to the Web (wifi on the Concord Coach bus) I’ve had since making a beeline for Copley Square.

On Windows Phone: It leverages Windows Presentation Foundation for applications and uses XNA (like XBox does) for games. The capacities of the phone seem on par with Android / iPhone, and Microsoft is using a vetting process similar to Apple’s for approving applications.

Developer tools, including an express version of Visual Studio 2010 and an emulator, are available at developer.windowsphone.com, where you can also register for their marketplace.

On the event’s end: End-of-event giveaways were paltry; a notebook charging station (not the laptop rumored earlier), three copies of VS 2010 and some trinkets, for 500+ attendees.

Not to sound greedy or childish, but that’s pretty cheap. If Microsoft can’t afford to seed its new products by giving away some of its software to those who were motivated enough to spend an entire day learning about it, that’s a sad, sad commentary.

Overall, I rate Launch 2010 a major disappointment. The afternoon sessions were good, but I have a feeling the Roadshow event being held in Augusta in two weeks will be effectively the same thing.

Overbooking the event, providing little more than glorified commercials for half the day, sending me home with garbage, hosting a mixer after they  wore out my patience and making me look like a fool for talking up this event has put a seriously sour taste in my mouth, one I won’t easily forget.

Continue reading: Live From The Microsoft Launch 2010 Event In Boston »

While cruising through Google Reader’s recommendations, I ran across a link to the idroid Android OS port for the iPhone 2G that has set the Internet tubes to rattling in recent days.

That’s right: If you have an iPhone 2G laying about (and I am seriously kicking myself in the rear today for having turned my old 2G iPhone in to the recycler a couple months ago), you too can put the vastly superior Android OS on the vastly superior iPhone device.

This is not a project for a Linux noob, as you have to have enough skill to follow the instructions (PDF) on how to extract the touchscreen firmware from the iPhone, plus extensive skills in installing and configuring Linux (I probably couldn’t pull this off). Fortunately, the package comes with prebuilt images for Android, Linux and other necessary components, so once you have properly prepped the iPhone to receive Android, it should go smoothly.

The MediaFire link is http://www.mediafire.com/?xqjzn12igfn. Be forewarned: There are JavaScript redirectors and pop-under ads at MediaFire, and unfortunately you must enable JavaScript to get the download link.

UPDATE, April 28, 2010: File has been deleted from MediaFire. I don’t know of an alternate source.

I am not telling you to do this. If you add Android to the iPhone, you are certainly violating several agreements with both Apple and AT&T. You probably will brick the iPhone. It certainly will have performance issues and may not work at all as expected. If you install Android on an iPhone, you do so at your own risk.

All links in this post on delicious: http://delicious.com/dougvdotcom/idroid-andriod-os-port-for-iphone-2g-available-for-download-from-mediafire

Sent to me via e-mail from Billy, a frequent commenter on this blog (that is, for as infrequently as the blog gets comments, Billy is often one of those commenting):

I was wondering if I could get a small interview, just one question, for a term paper. I have 15 bibliography cards to do and I need sources and I was going through websites, found three good ones about career prospects in the programming/web development and design fields and that was it. I was thinking about people I could ask questions to and thought about you. I basically needed to know what you think the career opportunities in the programming and web development fields are and what you think they’ll be years on down the road. If you’re too busy I understand. Thank you for your time.

Billy:

I’m no industry analyst; my prognostications are usually limited to American football, and more often than not turn out wrong. (Quoth I, just before kickoff of Super Bowl 44: “The Saints are a great story, but this is gonna be a rout. Indy’s gonna annihilate them.”)

But I do have opinions about what programming and the Web will be like in 20 years, formed as a result of listening to others’ opinions, the history of the neolithic, agricultural and industrial revolutions, and my own experience of seeing how the Web has changed over the roughly 15 years I’ve been working in programming it.

The Web and computer programs we have today are, in a lot of ways, very much like the horse plow, rail fence and punch-card looms of antiquity. Today’s Web technologies and desktop programs are not primitive, but they’re largely second and third drafts of technologies that are changing fast.

The first Arab to tend a garden didn’t envision ConAgra; Adam Smith would probably have laughed at the notion of a Chinese economic juggernaut as he wrote The Wealth of Nations. The same will hold true of Al Gore and Tim Berners-Lee: What they thought they were making, at the time they were making it, is markedly different from what we have today, and will result in something far different, further down the road.

Continue reading: The Future Of Web Programming: From Artisan To Assembly Line »