Speaking of Macs…

The two features I find most interesting about Mac OS X 10.4 (“Tiger”) are not the ones getting the biggest hoopla, Spotlight and Dashboard. I’m more intrigued by improvements aimed at programmers. Core Data helps the developer manage the data within an application. Core Data, along with Cocoa Bindings, promises to make it much easier to write applications using the flexible model-view-controller pattern. Having just written a good-sized MVC app myself, I appreciate anything that makes it easier. The other feature I’m keeping an eye on is Automator, which allows end users to create their own scripts to automate tasks. Anything from renaming a bunch of files to rotating, cropping, and e-mailing a collection of photos is possible.

There has been a real lack of end-user programming tools built into operating systems lately; the last one was HyperCard, which was last bundled with a Mac in 1990. Windows had the primitive Macro Recorder, which simply recorded raw keystrokes and mouse events, and even that was removed from Windows when Windows 95 was released. So Automator is a welcome change. In some ways, Microsoft is moving in the other direction. It plans to include a new command-line shell and scripting language with Longhorn called MSH. That’s good for sysadmins, but doesn’t do much for end users.

Big week in information technology

It’s been a more eventful week in IT land than I expected. First, Microsoft announced yesterday that the next versions of Office for Windows and Mac OS X will use ZIP-compressed XML file formats as the default. Woohoo! No more brittle binary files. And they’re being smart enough to change the extensions so you can easily distinguish “legacy” Office documents from the new XML-based ones.

But then CNET News.com dropped a real bombshell when it reported earlier today that Apple will announce on Monday that it is switching its Macs to Intel. I’ll believe it when I hear it from Steve Jobs’ mouth. But if it’s true, that means that Apple switches to Intel at the same time Microsoft moves Xbox to IBM PowerPC. What???

Why I think there is a housing bubble in Silicon Valley

Consider this: between 2000 and 2005, housing prices have gone up 46%, or 7.9% per year. But at the same time…

So housing has gone up by almost 50%, but rents and employment have dropped by about 15%? Does this make any sense to anyone?

The Meaning of Lah

I don’t remember how I came across this, but… Singaporean English, or “Singlish,” has various particles derived from Chinese that are sprinkled throughout conversation, like, “You see my husband’s not at home lah,” or “There’s something here for everyone lah.” Even many Singaporeans can’t explain when they use it, but Mr Brown makes a valiant attempt. The English language is more diverse and complicated than I imagined.

Silicon Valley food

The Mercury News reviews corporate cafeterias across Silicon Valley. By the way, I’ll say from personal experience that IBM Almaden Research Center’s cafeteria is also quite good. (By the way, all opinions expressed in this blog do not necessarily reflect those of my employer, IBM.) Shortly after this article appeared, Charlie Ayers, Google’s head chef and the former chef of the Grateful Dead, left the company to start a healthy food restaurant chain in Silicon Valley.

(Update — February 17, 2006: It may have taken a year, but I’m now somewhat tired of our cafeteria and am bringing lunch much more often.)

Watching TV makes you smarter?

Steven Johnson argues that over the years, audiences have become much more sophisticated in their TV watching. Today, we have no problem watching shows like “The West Wing,” “E.R.,” and “The Sopranos,” which have multiple subplots weaved throughout several episodes, whereas in the past, most TV shows like “Bonanza” or “Dragnet” would consist of one main plot and maybe one subplot. That’s right: feel good about being addicted to “24!”