The Daily Grind 394

By Mike Gunderloy
Friday, June 11, 2004

Mother & child doing fine, now all we need is labor & delivery.

Software

Visual Basic Power Pack - Seven free custom controls written in VB .NET, including TaskPane, "toast", and FolderViewer. (via Paul Vick)
WSE 2.0 Tracing Utility - Easy display of messages for WSE 2.0 connections. (via Ohad Israeli)
BooWiki - Ever get annoyed at the syntax of .NET languages? These folks did too, and they decided to do something about it: the boo language. Read their manifesto for justification, or download the first version of their compiler.

70-330 and 70-340: Sweating over Security - I review a couple of new MCSD exams for MCPmag.com.

E-mail vs. RSS - Ed Brill speculates on the "RSS will replace e-mail" theory that one sometimes hears. He misses the boat on one thing, though; there are already RSS feeds that include ads, and there will be more. I know of several e-mail newsletters that are headed in that direction in the near future. (via 15Seconds Weblog)

A followup to my rant from a few days ago. A manager from HP did in fact telephone me yesterday (not in response to the Larkware posting, but in response to the online e-mail I sent to Carly Fiorina's office). She apologized for the attitude of the support tech, but said they did need a serial number to do anything - even for out-of-warranty service, which strikes me as a silly policy. The good news was that she'd checked their records and they already had my serial number from the product registration. So, they were prepared to open a repair case. However, in the interim I'd attacked the problem myself with pliers and other implements of destruction, removed the offending battery, cleaned all the contacts, and ordered a new battery. The final resolution: they're going to reimburse me the cost of the third-party battery. So, I give the home office points for initiative and followup, but still don't think much of their service operation.

Mike Gunderloy is the lead developer for Larkware and author of numerous books and articles on programming topics.