A good article from Ars Technica about the potentially weakening case for software patents and why it isn't the end of the world. Countering the fear-mongering piece by Duffy on the issue. For more of my thoughts on this, I posted an patent-related article on Cartographica earlier this month.

So, after reading through all this Vista stuff, I decided that I should blow the virtual dust off of my virtual Vista computer (thanks Parallels!), and make sure I had Service Pack 1 installed. Here are my experiences.

Just for the record, I've checked out the Mojave Experiment website (as I said I would in my previous article about it), and my expectations were met. If you look at the feature set for Vista, this is what people are experiencing here... features of the os in a controlled environment, running on current hardware with a fast internet connection. And what do they like? Not surprisingly, there are some features they like, such as "indexing of files", "fast integrated search", photo management, "being able to flip through all your windows and see them at once", making DVDs, parental controls, panoramic stitching of photos, and (repeatedly) the speed. I don't have enough experience to say categorically that you should or shouldn't use Vista, but I do know that the portrayal of Vista debunkers as "Mac users", and "people who don't get it" seems to go against the fortune 500 IT departments and Windows experts that I know who won't use it on their own machines. Maybe they're behind the curve. Maybe they're just too stoic to upgrade. Or, maybe they have too much legacy equipment and software and don't want to deal with the XP and Vista user experiences being so different. Unknown at this point, but the "Mojave Experiment" is a marketing experiment, not a scientific one (not than anyone reading this is surprised).

Since the iPhone 2.0 release, more people are considering Mobile Me (the follow on to Dot Mac). For those of us with more than one computer, it's a very easy way to keep your contacts, calendars and other data in sync. However, there are some tricks for some kinds of data. This installment talks about Keychains.

If you haven't already heard of the "Mojave" experiment, then you will—likely in the next few days. Microsoft, not please with the reaction so far to Vista, set out to attempt to bolster the new operating system's reputation by offering a "blind taste test" of the OS. What happened? Exactly what I would have expected to happen—in a controlled environment, with no administration and setup tasks, people actually liked Vista. Why did I expect this? More after the link...

Generally, I don't talk about the FSF (promulgators of the GNU "Free Software" license). The main reason is that I've spent most of my life writing software for a living and these folks are just plain wrong on how collaborative software should be done, in my humble opinion. However, this time they've gone too far and I'm not going to sit here and let this go unnoticed. If you've ever supported the FSF financially before, please stop. Why? Because they've made themselves into the PETA of the software. They're angry with Apple and to show it, they've engaged in what is appropriately referred to as a "denial of service attack" on Apple's technical support organization, the Genius Bar. Learn more after the link

Michiel van Meeteren of Made by SOFA "fame" has issued a report entitled Indie Fever that stretches to over 100 pages of mostly text analyzing interviews that he made with a group of independent Apple software developers. I haven't had a chance to read it completely, although I did skim it, and it's an interesting survey of how the community looks and how it got here and possibly where it is going. Thanks to Ranchero.com for the pointer.

This past week, Carol & I were in Ireland for the OpenStreetMap State of The Map conference (small, but interesting). However, not everyone who was supposed to be there showed up. Apparently, Thales (large French aerospace company that makes Magellan GPS devices) had put in a €100M ATC system in Dublin over the past few years and it was having severe problems.

Some of you may already know about XKCD, an online comic strip that is drawn 3 times a week with stick figures and alternating deep, obscure, or inane subjects. In this election year, it should be no surprise that somebody decided to run a campaign using XKCD-style stick figures. It's worth a look just for fun, but you might consider at least following this guy's attempt to unseat his incumbent.

The Register had an article last week quoting Richard Whitt, senior policy director at Google saying that Google is creating a set of tools to allow users to determine if their ISPs are filtering their access to the Internet. This is going to raise the bar a little...