Linked List: May 13, 2008

Tuesday, 13 May 2008

So the city-wide network they contracted to build never worked well and now they’re bailing. And they’re suing to rip out and take back the infrastructure. Heck of a job, EarthLink.

Comparison of the Day 

Henry Blodget projects that Google’s search revenue will surpass Microsoft’s Windows revenue next year.

Erik Schwiebert on VBA’s Return to Office for Mac 

Erik Schwiebert:

When we came to the realization in 2006 that there was no way for us to keep VB in the product and still ship Office 2008 on any semblance of the schedule we wanted, we announced its removal, but kept looking at how to bring it back into the suite even before we shipped. Many of the technical challenges I wrote about then still remain, but for a while now I and several others have been working with a group of people who know a heck of a lot about the internals of VB, and once we determined that we could achieve the revival VB in the new schedule for the next version of Mac Office, we locked it into place on the feature list.

Create Good Queries in Spotlight 

Nice guide to advanced Spotlight query syntax by Kirk McElhearn.

Scathing NY Times Reviews of the Mercedes-Built Smart Fortwo 

Lawrence Ulrich, from New York City:

If the engine is mediocre, the five-speed automated manual transmission is an engineering embarrassment. You could practically squeeze a half-inning of baseball into the maddening delay between the release of one gear and the engagement of the next. The Smart loses momentum in the pause, lurching passengers forward, and then Barcalounges backward when it oozes into a higher gear.

And for another opinion, Eric A. Taub from L.A.:

When accelerating, the dreadful 5-speed automated manual transmission shifts awkwardly and slowly. It may be enough to make you reach for the Dramamine: the engine temporarily slows as the car is about to upshift, jerking the driver forward and then back with each shift. Several times, my wife threatened to walk home.

NY Times Reader Beta for Mac, Based on Silverlight 

Even if it weren’t based on Silverlight, I still don’t get why anyone would use this rather than the web site. But it is based on Silverlight, so it’s even worse (e.g. no support for copy-and-paste).

iPhone-Optimized Google Reader 

Really does seem like a big improvement over the previous mobile version, which wasn’t optimized specifically for MobileSafari.

A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats 

Record sales for the new version of Mac Office — this despite Apple’s own iWork suite. The MacBU also announced that VBA scripting will return in the next major update.

HBO Added to iTunes 

Episodes of The Sopranos, Deadwood, and Rome cost $2.99.