Good news: the author of the Postgres/Ruby database adapter has published Windows gems to RubyGems. They are easier to install and update and now offer an improved feature set too.
Kim and I are looking for a fun place to go to celebrate New Year’s Eve, and we’re thinking about going abroad for the weekend. Not too far away from the Netherlands and not too expensive, just a sweet place to celebrate and get the mind off things.
Only recently the Dutch armed forces got into major trouble when the Afghan police lost a strategic crossroads. Now that the Dutch reclaimed the territory, they’re building new police compounds and training Afghan men to arm them.
That sounds sustainable enough, until you watch this video update.
Mind you, I’m entirely for continuing the mission, but that video just made my heart sink. Are these the people that are supposed to stand up against Taliban forces that have been in training camps for I don’t know how many months?
The fastest Windows Vista notebook we’ve tested this year is a Mac. Try that again: The fastest Windows Vista notebook we’ve tested this year–or for that matter, ever–is a Mac. Not a Dell, not a Toshiba, not even an Alienware. The $2419 (plus the price of a copy of Windows Vista, of course) MacBook Pro’s PC WorldBench 6 Beta 2 score of 88 beats Gateway’s E-265M by a single point, but the MacBook’s score is far more impressive simply because Apple couldn’t care less whether you run Windows.
According to [Socialist Party Member] Gerkens one solution is to provide Windows separately from the computer. In that way the customer himself can choose which operating system he would most like to use. “That would improve the market economy.”
My initial reaction: have they crazily come to their senses?
I don’t know though. The phrase “market economy” definitely has this capitalist ring to it, but what if we consider the near-monopoly that Microsoft has with its Windows operating system?
It’s a funny thing. One the one hand, monopolies are an entrepreneur’s ideal. On the other hand, it’s the driving force behind a socialist economic structure. The practical implications for the socialist thinking are interesting to gauge: monopolies are fine so long as they aren’t acquired by enterprises.
Is there fairness in that? Does it serve the public interest? There is a case to be made here, though it is surely not consistent from a practical point of view.
Everything is up and running again and I’ll put up my review about HostingRails soon. Suffice it to say that I have been most pleased with their offering so far.
I realize that some of you will be looking for the Ruby database drivers and my HOWTO on how to install Windows XP from USB. Rest assured that I will be reinstating these pages shortly.
Roderick is COO at