Open Office and Java

Yesterday week I was doing some programming at work and got stuck on an issue, so I decided to look at the openoffice.org forums. I typed in the URL and received an error message stating that the DNS couldn't be resolved. I then did a whois search and emailed the site admin. I got no response. Today I was still struggling with the same issue and was getting fed up but now the site is back up.

The highlights a problem with software development particularly if depends on other users being accountable rather than companies. They can have problems with support sites and not bother informing their user base that there is this problem. I should point out that openoffice.org open source project is sponsored by Sun and so this issue shouldn't have happened.

Java was officially open sourced this week under the GPL. What does this mean? At the moment very little because there are a lot of little Java libraries out there.

Technorati Tags: open source, forums, technology, computing, openoffice.org, Java

Everyone's IT Expert

Before I worked in IT or became interested in working in it everyone who I met who had a job just introduced their title as "Something in IT". This mysterious job title was to stop people asking questions about their home PC.

However it doesn't work with family or close friends. I'm a software developer and write software that runs the backend of web applications. I have to muddle through my work using guess work and am quite competent at it. However I know very little about networks, printers etc. Yet everyone in my family thinks it's ok to ask me how to fix their printer, network etc or actually network it for them. Then they wonder why I have difficulty- it's because it's not my job.


Technorati Tags: IT Support, family, technology, computing, issues

Insults and Sexism

A few days ago I posted something on a message board. My post was basically a summary of other people's work and told the OP to use the boards search facility. The OP decided it was appropriate to:
1. Insult me on the board
2. Insult me via PM

A forum superuser saw the board insult and replied to the OP that I knew what I was talking about and the OP should use the search facility.

What is interesting in all the posts is that both posters presumed I was male as obviously only men use the computers and open source.


Technorati Tags: sexism, politics, technology, computing, issues