JD on EP

Eddie Awad links to an Oracle initiative to author HTML/database connections through a web browser, rather than through a coding IDE. I haven't researched the Oracle initiative, and so can't confirm his description, but the leading-edge action moved away from pure serverside work earlier this decade, and since the RIAs of 2002 the biggest growth has been in predictable integration across both server and client. I don't think that a new classic-webapp method could be reasonably called a parallel to today's ColdFusion...?

On a blog trawl last week I came across this Studio 8 Dream from Megumi, whom I haven't met... poignant and sorta funny, though. 8)

Hidden Windows XP Apps is a listing of those essential little tools which are invoked from the Start menu's "Run..." command. Lots of comments with more additions too.

In last week's CPAINT/AJaX vulnerability story, one of CPAINT's authors describes and confirms that his end of the conversation was a little different than what he later found himself implying in print... he agrees that the subsequent "GMail is risky" conversations may not have been tightly moored to the actual facts.

Nanotech production breakthrough to economically construct large sheets of flexible display screens... this item may seem to be on the fringe, but if this new production method holds up, could lead to a dramatic increase in ambient computing, and so have an effect on all our work.

Glenn Reynolds wrote of the whole "Dell anti-CustomerService" debate but included this line: "If I ran a company, I'd have somebody search the company name on Technorati several times a day to find out what people are saying, and try to get ahead of the buzz." When I read this, my first response was "... and THEN what?" This is sort of what I've been doing the last few years, and just knowing that there's public discussion of some issue isn't enough, because the conversation has to go two-way at some level or other... the non-verbal "judge us by our actions" strategy can take some time to reveal itself... getting involved in a negative public discussion can be tricky for any employee (there's a criticial difference between an individual's speech and the group's speech, and any employee who pokes their head up is an easy target for ad-hominem followups)... I thought Glenn was right in the emphasis on listening, but I'm not sure whether listening alone is enough in any way....