Rui CarmoMy best recollection of Sundays (ever since I was a kind) was that of a long, balmy afternoon, with the sunlight streaming in across the house and me curled away on a couch reading.
The book has been replaced by a laptop now and then, but the overall feeling of contentment and peace is mostly the same, although occasionally tarnished by the sure knowledge of a Monday being right around the corner - and the usual clash of mental gears associated with getting back to work.
Anyway, the link of the day just has to be Pleix (via BoingBoing). Great videos, some interesting music as well.
And since we're on the topic of music, those of you using mt-daapd as a home DAAP server might want to know that iTunes 6.0.4 breaks it subtly again, but fortunately there's a new NSLU2 Unslung package (just ipkg update; ipkg upgrade or install mt-daapd_0.2.4-1_armeb.ipk manually).
Windows Collaboration
In the meantime, spurred by the senselessness of having to fly 1.600Km (and back) for a meeting, I've been following up on conferencing solutions and other stuff I mentioned in my earlier article on the short-sightedness of Apple's approach to collaboration tools.
As it turns out, I came across a Wikipedia article on Windows Collaboration, which has a very nice screenshot of the build 5270 UI:
Looks simple and obvious, doesn't it?
Yes, I know, it's almost too simple to look like a Microsoft application, so I guess it will be festooned with additional task panes, Office-like mashbars-of-doom and other suchlike idiocies by release time.
What I liked the most is that it apparently sets up a Wi-Fi ad-hoc network automatically if necessary, using some form of UPnP for peer detection - or at least that's what I would expect.
I also expect it to require some sort of MSN account for non-LAN invitations (or some other draconian tie-in to Exchange), but whatever it does, I am very much looking forward to using it when Vista rolls out (next year, by the look of it).
I also hope that Microsoft will do the clever thing and push out a XP client to join (but not host) these sessions, and that they at least consider the possibility of enhancing the Mac Remote Desktop client to do the same.
But my original question stands: is there any real reason why Apple hasn't done this yet? Or do they just... not get it?
Then at least I could complain about it not being interoperable with anything in the corporate world - just like iChat's video features, which have absolutely no relationship/interoperability with standard H.323/4 video-conferencing gear.
Ah well. Incidentally, the first XMeeting beta is out - I intend to check it out with our corporate H.323 boxes when I get back.