MSVC-8: alive and well

Over the weekend I installed the latest Flickr Uploadr for Win32. The install popped up the familiar “Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Redistributable” installer as part of its installation. Microsoft Visual C++ 8 is still solid and widely used.

Biting Brit Commentary

In this piece from the UK’s Register, Dominic Connor savages British Computer Science Higher Ed: No wonder CompSci grads are unemployed His biting style is a little over the top, but entertaining. I hope not everything he claims is true. A couple gems: Java fanboys tell me that it is “easier” than C++, and seem… Continue reading Biting Brit Commentary

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Dora Full Circle(s)

Dora the Explorer turns ten. It’s a TV show, but it pretends the TV is a computer. (When Dora asks where something is, you see a mouse go across the screen and click it.) But we watch it off of the Netflix instant queue on our computer. So our computer acts like a TV acting… Continue reading Dora Full Circle(s)

C/C++ IDEs

Wikipedia compares C/C++ IDE’s, and Netbeans C/C++ pack looks surprisingly good. But being written in Java, I suspect that it’s as resource-hungry as large Java apps are.

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Global hackers caught

The perpetrators of what sounds like a big zombie-net have been arrested: Three Spaniards arrested in alleged global hacking scheme Apparently, 13 million computers were infected.

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Scrum

Here’s an interesting read: the Scrum development framework. Methodology, strategy and work-flow all rolled into one rather informal process. Not specifically for software projects, either.

Gentle Introductions (to Programming)

Here are two applications to help learn the basics of programming: Alice.org (aka, Alice) teaches computer programming by letting you “program” things in an animated virtual world. WizBang is a visual programming tool that lets the learner drop and connect symbols. Both are free to use. Wikipedia keeps a more exhaustive list of visual programming… Continue reading Gentle Introductions (to Programming)

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Ten Whole Megabytes

When I was in college, I rented a friend’s computer for a year. It had an amazing ten megabyte hard drive, and I loved it! I didn’t have to boot it with two single-sided single-density 360KB floppy disks. It was great! And ten whole megabytes! I figured I could type non-stop for decades before I… Continue reading Ten Whole Megabytes