Downloading a couple of Microsoft’s packages, since C++ is in beta 2 now [I tried beta 1 and it sucked big time, crashing all over the place]. I need to have a decent look at C# sometime I think, since I’m starting to feel like a dinosaur still using Visual C++ 6.0 [circa 1997!]. Since that classic version, various technologies have waxed and waned, and it’s probably about time I looked at what is useful right now…

Of course, I’m being disingenuous here; In truth I’m still holding out against Microsoft’s new way of doing things— I don’t even know what managed code is for chrissakes!

What I would really like is to come up with some kind of brilliantly simple web-services based concept, code the whole thing in PHP and then sell it to Google and retire. It would probably have something to do with SMS and social networking bla bla bla podcasting bla bla bla…

So what I’ll probably do today— once this ~400 MB install is complete— is launch Visual C++ Express, compile a sample app, nod and raise my eyebrows, read some docs, feel bored, sigh loudly, quit it, and go back to good ol’ VC6 to make a few more tweaks to my own humungous pile of not-quite-finished software. Then I’ll curse myself for not having invented internet dating or online blog aggregators, and maybe go for a walk.

Speaking of online blog aggregators, Bloglines is not living up to what it should be, and so I won’t be recommending it anymore. It still feels like version 1, it’s frequently out of action [this morning it wouldn’t show the bodies of articles for some reason], offers almost no useful API, and has no options for sorting all posts by time [when you view a page with entries from multiple blogs, it sorts by blog rather than timestamp]. Didn’t Ask Jeeves buy them for $20M a while back? Surely they can do better than that.

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Related: Crossroads

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