Links for December 17th through December 18th

A little something extra…

Like a few days back, today’s extra will be the full comment I sent in relation to one of the stories RedMonk is quoted in below, on the topic of Visual Studio 2010 being delayed a bit:

When it comes to development, and even Microsoft’s plans in cloud computing, the VisualStudio portfolio is at the center of just about every Microsoft strategy and community.

While delays are always disappointing, given VS’s importance for much of the product lines in STB [the Microsoft Server and Tools Business] – .Net, Silverlight, Azure development, and good old fashioned web development – its worth biting the bullet and taking however long is needed to get it right. While there’s competition in other development ecosystems – Java, LAMP, web, etc. – Microsoft does have the luxury of being the prize horse in its own space, so it might as well apply the old menu maxim from The Mythical Man Month: “good cooking takes time; if you’re made to wait it is to server you better, and to please you.”

That said, you’re allowed about one big, public delay like this before the hecklers start licking their lips.

The Links

• Shuttleworth to step down, narrow focus at Canonical
• Flurry Smartphone Industry Pulse, November 2009
  "While it is clear that the iPhone has significant short-term revenue value for Apple, Flurry believes that the iPod Touch holds more long-term strategic value for Steve Jobs and team. As all industry eyes look to the iPhone, the iPod Touch is quietly building a loyal base among the next generation of iPhone users, positioning Apple to corner the smartphone market not only today, but also tomorrow…. When today's young iPod Touch users age by five years, they will already have iTunes accounts, saved personal contacts to their iPod Touch devices, purchased hundreds of apps and songs, and mastered the iPhone OS user interface. This translates into loyalty and switching costs, allowing Apple to seamlessly 'graduate' young users from the iPod Touch to the iPhone. For OEMs hoping to challenge Apple, we believe an even greater sense of urgency must be adopted."
• New Whitepaper – Developing Software Collaboratively with Hudson : On The Record
• Raible Designs | Comparing Kick-Ass Web Frameworks at The Rich Web Experience
• Netflix-Box Roku Sheds Origins, Adds Content
• Indonesia Led Facebook’s Growth in Asia During November
  "Indonesia was on top, with 1.68 million new users. The country currently has the largest number of Facebook users in the region with 13.9 million monthly actives. However, this is still only 6.1% of its 229 million people."
• Top bankers destroy value, study claims
• Architecture in Austin – Guest Writer Series: Kristina Witt
• "New World Triptych" – Uncommon Premade Case by Phunk
• The Aquarium: GlassFish v3 is Now Available!
• Mozilla: Firefox Mobile will kill off app stores
  "Anyone who knows JavaScript and HTML can develop a great app without having to learn a specific mobile platform."
• Performance problems delay Visual Studio 2010 release | Developer World – InfoWorld
• Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Beta period extended
• Op-Ed Contributor – Four Sides to Every Story
  "If climate change were to suddenly reverse itself (because of some yet undiscovered mechanism of balance in our climate system), my guess is that the denialists would be triumphant, the skeptics would be skeptical this time of the apparent good news, the warners would be relieved, and the calamatists would seek out some other doom to proclaim. If climate change keeps getting worse then I would expect denialists to grasp at stranger straws, many skeptics to become warners, the warners to start pushing geoengineering schemes like sulfur dust in the stratosphere, and the calamatists to push liberal political agendas — just as the denialists said they would."
• Icon: Clint Eastwood
  "It just seems like we're making a lot of mistakes on this whole calling everybody racist. Everybody's calling everybody morons and nuts. We're becoming more juvenile as a nation. The guys who won World War II and that whole generation have disappeared, and now we have a bunch of teenage twits. People 50 years old acting like that. In Gran Torino, I play a guy who's racially offensive. But he learned. It shows that you're never too old to learn and embrace people that you don't understand to begin with. It seems like nobody else got that message, I guess."
• I’m sorry but we blew up your laptop (welcome to Israel)
  And you thought the TSA was bad!
• Robert Brook — Callbacks
  "I’d like to mention here Michael’s style of writing is really appealing. He writes – in a way – a bit as he speaks: a clear, approachable, narrative style. Rare in tech writing and a great relief. Also great not to hear a condescending voice, but a human one. Michael has never felt he had anything to prove in his podcast, or his writing – and rightly so."
• Dell – Dell Works with Google to Simplify Enterprise Search on Next Generation PowerEdge Servers
• Do we want “smart” utilities?
  "'Smart' so far looks complicated. And most people don’t want complicated, especially from their utilities."
• Hobbyists Use Etsy to Trade Day Job for Hard Work
• RIM Forecasts Tops Analysts’ Estimates; Shares Jump (Update3) – Bloomberg.com
• 2010: Newsweek Calls It
• Ten years of .NET – did Microsoft deliver?
• NetBeans 6.8 joined the GlassFish v3 in the release feast.

Disclosure: see the RedMonk client list for clients mentioned.