Jim Roepcke's weblog have browser, will travel (est. 1999)

New Orleans

I've been quite depressed about the New Orleans situation since Saturday night. I've stopped myself from writing about it until now because I don't think I have the skill to write anything worthy of the magnitude of the situation, which is rapidly deteriorating.

I went to New Orleans in 2003, for a week, for the first Plone Conference. It was an amazing week. I'll forget the conference long before I'll forget the time I spent in the city, if ever. Tulane was beautiful. The French Quarter, Canal Street, seeing the Mississippi, the French Market, the restaurants I enjoyed, the people, nearly all wonderful, and those who weren't just added to the memories.

Right now it looks like New Orleans will never be the same. I'll do my best to remember how it was.

I wish the best for all the people affected along the Gulf Coast, and their families.

The best day in a long time

Jodi Ivy: Our God is faithful!

I'll admit it freely and proudly, I broke down crying when I heard the news. My best friends in Arizona, the Ivy Family, have finally found what they've been searching for since before I met them.

For those who don't know what I'm talking about: Jodi and Steve turned to adoption after years of unsuccessful and very costly fertility treatments, and finally, after all this time and trial, they've found the little one that will have them as Mom and Dad, in Ukraine!

How I would love for us to be there to greet them when they return home, alas it's not to be, but I won't let that dampen our enthusiasm for the occasion!

Hooray!

Mambo team splits over foundation, IP concerns

OpenSourceMatters: Mambo Open Source Development Team - Letter to the community (via /.)

I'm not a fan of Mambo, but I think it's great the developers are doing the right thing. Contrast with the Plone Foundation, which IMHO, was done right. That's not to say it was done perfectly, or that there aren't issues or that everyone in the Plone community agrees with every goal of the Foundation, but by and large, the founders, almost all developers, had the right interests at heart.

I wish the new Mambo team all the best!

Hockey players get completely new on-ice look

PR Direct: Hockey Canada debuts new Nike Swift Team Canada uniforms

I heard about this last year, but hadn't seen any pictures of the new look until now. It makes a lot of sense, it's almost embarrassing that hockey players have been wearing such low-tech gear (sweaters, pants and socks, at least) for so long.

I can't wait to see what it looks like to see 10 (or 12, do the goalies get Swift unis too?) players wearing this gear at a time.

Seth auctioning donated software for the PMC

Seth Dillingham: [tw] : Donate Software to the PMC

A great idea that caught on very quickly with software developers! It's amazing to see how many developers have already stepped up and offered their wares to Seth's fundraising effort...

Bravo!

Paul Thurrott says Boycott IE

Paul Thurrott, Windows IT Pro: IE 7.0 Technical Changes Leave Web Developers, Users in the Lurch (via /.)

Amen, Hallelujah! I was thinking the same thing when I read that IE 7.0 will not pass the Acid 2 test (it took the Safari team, what, a few weeks to pass the test?), but to see a Windows-oriented journalist publicly call for the boycott is very encouraging. Hopefully the big media outlets pick up on this story and help put massive pressure on Microsoft to do the right thing.

If they're so worried about backwards compatibility, Microsoft could (once again) copy Netscape - include two rendering engines, the good one and the bad one (IE 6). If a user wants to risk using the old renderer for the sake of backwards compatibility, let them, but let's put pressure on web producers to get out of the proprietary IE markup hole.