Free software for students

If you're a high school, secondary school, or college/university student, you can get Visual Studio .NET and Microsoft Office Standard free. The details are here.

Sadly, there doesn't seem to be an option for high school students whose mothers could use a copy of Visual Studio .NET and Microsoft Office Standard.

Fix Bugs First

According to a number of sites, Amazon's currently holding a Developer Conference.

That's a lovely idea, but here's one that I think is better: Amazon should consider holding an Author Conference. Want to start a lengthy thread on any writer's mailing list? Just mention the problems you have with an Amazon book listing and fifty people will chime in with "I can top that" stories. Complain to a publisher, and all they'll say is, "We've tried to fix it, but Amazon is a mess."

Amazon, please: before taking on greater challenges that come from this conference, could you consider fixing your damn bugs first? Writers would be happier, publishers would be happier, and dare I say it, your customers would also be happier, because your site wouldn't be lying to them any more.

Hell, I'd pay my own travel expenses to an Amazon Author's Conference to talk to their developers, if only I thought that they'd actually listen.

The Incredibles DVD Preorder Deal

Here's a good deal that I just got in the mail: The Incredibles Widescreen DVD preorder on sale at Buy.com for $16.82, which is more than a dollar less than at Amazon. The DVD is set to be released on March 15. Looks like the usual quality collector's edition from Pixar, with two discs, one just for the extras. It also includes the Boundin' short that played with The Incredibles. We loved the movie, so we're buying it for sure.

Mac mini out of box experience

Tom Bridge got his Mac Mini and documented the out of the box experience. I still don't need one, but I still want one.

It's National Finger-Down-the-Throat Day

Tomorrow, George W. Bush will be inaugurated for his second, and no doubt even more egregious, term of office. In "celebration," I suggest that at noon Eastern time, as many people as possible face towards Washington DC and make that finger-down-the-throat gagging gesture.

Reminder to self

This is my backup brain, and this is my reminder to myself to NOT forget to call my Mom and wish her a happy birthday. And to do it at a more reasonable hour than the one at which this is being posted.

And no, she doesn't read this blog, so this entry does not count as official b'day wishes.

Here, there, and everywhere

I'm horribly behind on linking back to and thanking several people for their kind words about one or both of us. Here's an attempt to catch up some:

• Christian Crumlish named this site one of his favorite blogs of 2004 (in the "Geeks and Gadgets" category). I'm honored just to be mentioned along with the likes of some of those folks.
  
  
• Thomas Vander Wal said in his recommended books of 2004:

  On the Apple/Mac front the following reference books have been good finds this year. Mac OS X Unwired by Tom Negrino and Dori Smith. Mac OS X Power Hound by Rob Griffiths.

  A number of people at Macworld Expo made a point of telling me how much they liked Unwired, and it just kills me every time. Big sigh.
  
  
• As I've mentioned numerous times before, the thing that I like best about my life is that I get to know some amazingly smart people. Over at her blog, Kathy Sierra, wrote something similar (along with much more good stuff), and gave us a nice compliment along the way.
  
  
• So far as I know, this is the first time I've ever been mentioned in someone else's book proposal. That's just way cool, as is this reference to me here. I'm honored.

podSites.com

Not long ago I posted about Westciv's Style Master CSS podGuide, an iPod-ready collection of notes containing everything anyone would want to know about CSS. Now, there's podSites.com, a collection of all kinds of documents available for download to your iPod.

The good news: there's some interesting stuff here. The bad news: they don't have an RSS feed (with or without enclosures) to let me know when they've added something new.

O'Reilly layoffs?

Chris Pirillo heard a rumor about massive layoffs at O'Reilly Books. Anyone know the facts about this? I'm interested not only because they're a major computer book publisher, but because they're also one of the largest local employers.

Later note—here's Tim's response:

Yeah, just saw this. A complete surprise to me.

I have no idea how rumors like this start. Things are actually going darn well at O'Reilly. Like everyone else, we had a tough time back in 2001/2002 with the tech downturn, but we've been solidly profitable in 2003 and 2004, have been gaining significant market share in book publishing, as well as growing both our online and conference businesses. Layoffs are the furthest thing from our minds. We've got at least a half-dozen open reqs for hiring. We've just added about a dozen people, and are looking for more.

In any business, people come and go for personal reasons, departments get reorganized and jobs get changed, but there's nothing going on now at O'Reilly that would even remotely justify rumors of layoffs. We've just come off a terrific year, and are looking forward to an even better one in 2005.

Feel free to forward.

Whew, that's a relief.

Bush: It's my personal government, and I'll do what I want with it

After Macworld Expo, I've been catching up with the political blogs. On Matthew Yglesias' blog last week, there was Putinization Watch. An excerpt:

The government of the United States is not the personal property of the President of the United States. But to a president who's already used the Treasury Department on several occassions as propaganda outlet, who has maintained that wartime removes all limits on executive power, who feel frees to violate the rules of congress and illegally hide pertinent information from its Members, who uses the United States Navy as a campaign prop, and who views loyalty rather than accuracy as the primary value of an intelligence report, it apparently is.

Add to this Bush's recent comment that the only accountability that he needed to pay attention to was the results of the election, and it shows how dangerously unhinged this president is. There are too many silimarities to Soviet-style government, aren't there? Besides the above, add the fawning adulation of the Dear Leader by the lickspittle "news outlets" like Fox News, surely the Pravda of this-era America.