contest
Contest - Looks like we are finally doing a “web services contest” for developers to show off their web services skills. It’s amazing how long this idea floated around internally before something was done about it. Here is a cool web service, if you have been wondering how to get your applications to read Quran.
Steve Gibson is the guy who has been claiming that Windows XP raw sockets are a national security threat, and who has annoyed a number of hackers who say he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Now it appears that some in the hacker community are trying to discredit him by proving him to be a hypocrite. I really don’t think that Steve Gibson is a national security threat, but it is dumb to argue with people who value being right above all else.
Here is some beautiful music, sent from heaven.
Regarding XML database support, it seems that The Register screwed up again. They call their piece an “analysis”, but apparently they just paraphrased what they read in an article by The Standard. The Register gives the impression that Microsoft won’t be shipping XML support until Yukon release, but at least The Standard points out that the XML support has been integrated with the database engine since SQL Server 2000, even quoting a fellow from Rolling Stone who has been using the stuff:
“Some users are already starting to reap the rewards of XML. New York-based Rolling Stone magazine, for instance, has been using SQL Server 2000’s XML capabilities to stream data from its database out to its Web site and to more than 60 business partners. “We use XML generation across the site and that has definitely improved performance,” said Andy Rice, director of technology at Rolling Stone.” And the independent sqlxml.org site is built entirely on top of XML database support built into SQL Server.