scott cochrane

Category Life
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Well for those that know me this won't be news - but I've left my permanent employment to rely fully on my own business!  The business prospects look good enough for me to work full-time so its exciting,scary and nerve racking all at the same time.  After almost 6 years of a guaranteed income its going to be a bit of a change - but a great one I think.

We will be selling some of our own solutions, doing asp .Net development and we are talking to people about providing email solutions (Notes & Domino of course).  Although there is no obvious need right now I'm determined to keep my hand in with Domino development - I've a few ideas up my sleeve on that front as well.  (I don't want this blog to become a big advert for the business so I'll leave it at that for now)

So its going to be a real mixed bag and I hope a whole lot of fun.  And I'll have more time for blogging ... I think

Posted by Scott Cochrane At 12:08 PM Location Glasgow | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Category Funnies
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...  Taser Trouser Blazer.

But boy did I laugh.. I'll probably go to hell

Posted by Scott Cochrane At 11:45 PM Location Edinburgh | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Category Food
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My girlfriend and I got a Mushroom block for Christmas - and finally got round to opening it up recently .. and within 3 days:

You are meant to put the block in a cold place to 'shock' it into starting the process. That didn't work out .. it sat behind the sofa for a few months but it doesn't seem to have done any harm

So we have the first crop...

The fly in the ointment is that I don't like mushrooms..

Posted by Scott Cochrane At 10:26 PM Location Glasgow | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Category Ext
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In case you missed it the Ext guys announced the release of version 2.1 today.  This looks like another fantastic update with a significant focus on performance improvements - I've certainly seen some older machines go a bit slow at times so this should help.

There is also a sneak preview of Ext 3.0 which is available on the SVN trunk but most notably for me the licensing has changed.

I can't remember the exact details of the previous release but essentially the graphics and design (CSS) were under quite a restrictive license limiting their use to only with the Ext framework and the framework code was released under the LGPL (Lesser GPL).  This meant that you could use the Ext framework to create a program that you would sell.

Now the whole framework is available under the GPL (I'm not sure if this will apply to version 2.1 onwards only or also apply to previous versions).  There is also a commercial license which has always been there - particularly if you wanted support.  Now I think this means:

+ You can use the Ext framework for your own personal use (ie no distribution of a product) for no charge.
+ You can use the Ext framework to create applications within your business for no charge.
+ If you create a product that uses Ext (a derivative works) that you want to distribute for no charge then the product must be distributed under the GPL (or a compatible license) and the source code made available.  You can do this for no charge.
+ If you create a product using Ext that you want to sell on and you wish to keep the source code closed you will need to buy a commercial license - which by the way are not that expensive for what you are getting.

Now I've tried to condense into 4 points what I find to be quite a tricky area - so corrections appreciated.  I've done this partly because I find the whole open source licensing thing a bit difficult - so I assume others do to (has anyone found a good dummies guide?).

So I think a few more people will be reaching into their pockets now, but I certainly won't have a problem spending the money given the value and quality of what you get.

Posted by Scott Cochrane At 12:28 AM Location Edinburgh | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Category Social Networking
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I got invited to join yet another social networking site a couple of weeks ago - naymz.com - which of course I've joined.  Naymz seems to be selling itself on its system of ranking .. ie you can get recommendations and get more points.   Of course you can do some basic stuff like upload a picture and get a small number of points but you really need the recommendations for the big bucks.

But this got me thinking ... how many social networking sites do you need and is it not all just a bit like collecting marbles?  I don't know if marbles is popular across the pond ** but I certainly remember having a bag of marbles and you wanted at least one of each kind - oilies, milkies, steelies and cats eyes - ring any bells?  So when it comes to building your network is making connections a bit like getting a new marble?  

Not that I'm comparing my connections to small balls but despite it being about "networking" and "social" it doesn't actually feel that social.  You fire an email off with hopefully an inoffensive message asking them to acknowledge you and hope for a reply.  What do you do if you get a positive reply - say thanks?  What if you don't get a reply - do you strike this person off your list never to be contacted again.  Then what to do when you have that contact - email them from time to time, pick up the phone every so often - or (as I suspect so many connections are) ignore the person until you remember that they might be helpful in a given situation?  All of this doesn't sound very social and I wonder if I'd be just as well with an address book?  This certainly doesn't seem to be the situation on the 'real' social sites (Face book et al) where people are talking about their social lives - but will it translate to a business context?

Now maybe this is all being too cynical or I'm just not getting it, but I'd really like to know if there is any real concrete evidence that social networking has some tangible benefit.  The best I can offer so far is that I got a job interview as a result of being on Linkedin.  Should I be actively looking for people on Linkedin - but I don't really have a need to do that

I think even IBM is struggling with this.  From all the their presentations I get the reasons for why it should be good but the arguments are not that concrete and a lot of people needing convincing that social networking, particularly in a business context has real value.  

Has anyone seen any real benefit and if so what?  Or are we all just going to have to wait and see?


** and I guess it isn't that popular in the UK either these days - I think kids collect games consoles now.

Posted by Scott Cochrane At 10:18 PM Location Edinburgh | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Category Code
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This is a laugh...  'The Quadrasort'  if you like that sort of thing

Posted by Scott Cochrane At 9:48 AM Location Glasgow | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Category Notes8
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Hardly a red hot blog post but..

When you have a spell check error on a hotspot, the hotspot menu takes precedence.  Obvious work around is to just fix the spelling mistake myself .. but maybe I'm to just too lazy.

And on the subject of lazy .. where do you notify IBM of this kind of stuff?

Posted by Scott Cochrane At 2:10 AM Location Edinburgh | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Category OpenSource
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This PDF presentation gives you an idea of what is coming in the next edition of Open Office.  Crucially Office 2007 XML support, which looks like it might be import only i.e. I don't think it will natively edit Office 2007 documents but at least you will be able to open it and edit it as and OpenOffice document.  With that capability I can't see why I would need Office after that.

Now if IBM can leverage this for Symphony that would superb.  I'm starting to really like the little use of the Notes 8 client that I make.  Little things like having the side bar with my calendar available while editing a document the other day just struck me as really handy.

Posted by Scott Cochrane At 2:20 PM Location Bristol | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Category Web
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I've been changing logins for some accounts recently and was changing the subscription for the developerWorks Newsletter thinking that this used my IBM id (the one you use for forums etc).

It turns out the developerWorks newsletter doesn't use the IBM ID .. as shown below.  Thats me, but the IBM sign in option is still there !!



Talk about making it difficult ..

Which kind of brings me on to OpenID - what a great idea.  If you haven't seen this read the wikipedia page.  That is just what I'm looking for, one id to rule them all .  Assuming of course its secure and not going to give away personal information etc etc.

Now, has anyone integrated it with Domino?  I've no idea what would be involved, but it sounds good.

Posted by Scott Cochrane At 2:11 PM Location Bristol | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Category OpenSource
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When looking at this page for an open source .Net library for zip compression I thought this comment was nice..



Which is just as well because the text that preceded it had me completely confused !

Posted by Scott Cochrane At 10:26 PM Location Edinburgh | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)