Obviously "EDS" doesn't stand for "consistency"

Looks like EDS veeps don't pay much attention to what their company does. The following is from a case study on the EDS site.

Our Approach

• Implemented Linux server environment to ensure stability and security while keeping costs low
• Implemented Linux-based messaging application that meets EDS' corporate security standards while enabling communication with users of other messaging software

. . .

The new Linux environment provides a level of security and stability unavailable elsewhere. Because it is open-source software, it also offers significant cost savings on licensing and allows EDS to provide faster, more responsive support because programming problems can be diagnosed and repaired more quickly.

Maybe ole Robb is channeling George "They've got WMD" Bush after all.

Is Dubya moonlighting for EDS?

A recent quote from EDS Global Alliances Veep, Robb Rasmussen, might make you wonder if you've ever seen him and George Bush together. Talking about why the Alliance members like Sun and Microsoft don't believe Linux is right for big business (Surprise, surprise!), Robb opined,

"A large enterprise needs to be sure because it relates to securifying the environment. ... it could splinter into many different types of languages."

Well, about all I can think to say about that is HUH?

Jef Raskin

I just found out we lost one of the great pioneers of modern computing last week. While at Apple, Jef Raskin started the MacIntosh project in parallel with Steve Jobs' PARC-inspired Lisa. Raskin's Mac was character based and keyboard driven, far different from the final product produced after Jobs forced him out. His concepts were then used in the Canon Cat, a computer that didn't last long in the marketplace either because of its unique user interface or Steve Jobs' meddling.

The result of his time spent post-Apple is a UI he called The Humane Interface, about which you can learn more from The Raskin Center For Humane Interfaces. The link below is a Flash demo of the Archy UI that he thought would make computers as usable as humanly possible today. It's a remarkable vision incorporating ideas like the spacial indexing of stored information (it's easier to remember visually where you put something) that stretch back decades to his more recent ideas that you are better off directly manipulating information than you are doing indirect manipulation through proxies like icons.

http://www.raskincenter.org/main2/img/zoomdemo.swf

Winter daffodil