You know when grown-ups tell you everything's going to be fine, and you think they're probably lying to make you feel better?
Yes.
Everything's going to be fine.

One And The Same

Don't blame me.  Blame Pat Robertson.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:25 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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Thanks, Microsoft!

No, really.

Microsoft have a program called BizSpark that offers free development tools and server software to small web startups.

I'm a small web startup.  I'm about as small a web startup as you can find.  And while I'm not sure I want to move away from Python, I could use IronPython and have access to all the other Visual Studio languages - so I could easily import modules written in C# or IronRuby or whatever.

And SQL Server 2008 has some attractive advantages over MySQL, and can be licensed quite cheaply for web applications.

But I wasn't going to spend a lot of time, effort, and money testing out the Microsoft platform when open source was working pretty well.  Microsoft knows this, so they set up BizSpark to remove one of those factors completely.

SoftLayer is now a BizSpark partner, which made it really easy for me to apply.  So I did.  And today my application was approved.

Now I just have about three metric tons of stuff to download.  They are very generous.  I currently have Visual Studio Express installed - it's the free edition, but it gives you access to a pretty decent set of tools for basic development.  Now I have access to so many different versions of their enterprise-level development tools that I don't know where to start.

Whether and how I use the software remains to be seen.  I do want to write a desktop client as a companion to Minx, so that seems to be the place to start.  But in any case, I have to thank Microsoft for giving me access to all this stuff.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 07:21 AM | Comments (12) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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Mountain Ranges 'R' Us

I just bought 5GB of content for Bryce, the terrain-modelling and 3D-rendering program.  I've hardly touched Bryce since I bought it on sale late in 2007* but I do have a nice new quad-core system with a teraflop graphics card to run it on if I ever find the time.

So, you ask, if I never use the program, why did I buy all that content?

Well, it was 95% off.**

* Or indeed, when I first bought it way back in...  Whenever version 4 came out.

** Individual list price is over $700, discounted price is $50, Platinum Club member price is $35, and I had my monthly $5 voucher, so only $30 in the end.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 12:11 AM | No Comments | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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