MS is about to launch a new web application they call Virtual Earth. It is essentially Microsoft's new and improved mapping solution and it looks like they have really put some hard thought into this product. It looks sweet! But, don't take my word for it - watch a video interviewing the guys that made it. I hope they meet there expected launch time of early July as I'm moving to Redmond at the end of June and that would be an invaluable tool for learning some of the areas I'm not familiar with....

Yesterday, I put the cash I received from my parents as a university graduation gift towards a dining table and chairs for my new apartment. Yes, thats right, a table and chairs. A year ago I would have burnt that cash on some new electronic toy, golf clubs, or in the lamest case put it into my investments. Everyone always wonders when one becomes an adult, 18 or 21 years of age? Today I learnt the answer is neither, but instead when one buys a table and chairs - :). Edit: Yes, I'm joking.....gotten...

I was on a good blogging pace this month until a very nasty flu got ahold of me. Needless to say I have had a lot of couch and movie time over the past week and a half which, when I had the energy, allowed me to do some reading. If you read the title of this post you will know my latest book of choice was “SSL and TLS Essentials - Securing the Web” by Stephen Thomas. I think (maybe I just never noticed) this is one of the first books I have read that was published by Wiley Computer Publishing...

This is an interesting artcile on why corporate blogging is popular and why it works

Had some issues when I posted this the first time - user error probably :). Anyways, looks like my buddy Mack is having a rough go of it with Imagine Cup this year as he explains. He is encouraging your feedback

Elisa and I went hiking on Mt. Finlayson a week or so ago. The trail is a little more rugged than Elisa was expecting

Bonjour, formerly known as Rendezvous, is a networking technology from Apple that is designed to make zero-configuration simple. The Apple website says it “enables automatic discovery of computers, devices, and services on IP networks”. In a previous article I dumped on OS X quite a bit and ruffled some peoples feathers :), but I have to say this is one area that is quite interesting and they are releasing an SDK for Windows as well. For more information check it out here. I have seen...

A while ago I posted about incompatibility issues with Apple operating systems and how I would not start to look at the system closely from a development standpoint until they provided a signal they are finally getting away from breaking changes in their APIs. Well it looks like I won't get my signal yet as meantioned here and here ; however, the opposite view is presented here...

Winsock is the socket-based API on the Windows platform. Winsock (on Windows) provides more functionality than a standard BSD socket interface and also has additional MS only functions above what is defined in the WinSock spec (WinSock is not a strictly MS thing). Maybe in a future post I will talk about how Winsock is really just a layer on top of a much more general API allowing Windows to easily move to the next API of the decade. Ok lets get back on track and start talking about IP independent...

This is a really nice post summarizing the three tiered architecture. Check it out