....Why don't I just bill the user via email using something like PayPal? Think about it, the user enters their email and phone number on their phone, promises to pay the 99 cents when they get to a real computer and that's it. Done. No middle man, no carriers, no …

Apparently some top Xbox execs are quietly confirming that the Xbox 2 isn't going to be backwards compatible with original Xbox games. via [Engadget]

MSDN Magazine: 2, Raymond Chen: 0!!!!

On rereading Joel's article, I think his argument boils down to:

He's not denying the need to rely on "external dependencies," he's advocating that such dependencies be localized. Why? Because when there are several external dependencies, they have a tendency to have internal dependencies, and you tend to need a …

Corporate development choices are driven by the imperative to rapidly deliver customer value. Developers have their own values (language preferences, philosophical agenda, etc.) which sometimes conflict with this imperative but when push comes to shove, a CTO's job is to "get it done."

The great advantage of Web Apps for …

Those guys rock.

Joel Spolsky's (why hasn't Software Development hired him as a columnist?) Microsoft Lost the API Wars has a series of solid observations and at least one brilliant construction ("Chen v. MSDN"), but I'm afraid his title and conclusion aren't supported by his arguments.

He hoists himself on his own petard …

Oof! I woke up this morning to find my Inbox filled with "gotchas". My latest SD Times column claims that Microsoft "got the Tablet PC right the first time." Conveniently forgetting PenWindows and WinPad. No way to finesse my way out of this one: just a stupid statement on my …

I want everyone who agrees with me to blog the following sentence:

Unit Testing support should be included with all versions of Visual Studio 2005 and not just with Team System.

via [ScottWater]

1. I agree
2. I think a "blog petition" is pretty damn clever
3. But what I really want is …

These guys have patented a gadget for stabilizing your Tablet PC in an ergonomically correct way. Not in production, and it doesn't look like it holds the Tablet PC in a natural position (it looks like it requires your elbow to be thrust out too far), but I was thinking …

That's it: I've just unsubscribed from Scoble's link blog (headlines from 1400 feeds). Whatever the solution is to post-linking while maintaining credit / click-through, titles are insufficient. Scoble generally posts in batches of several dozen things he finds interesting. I've said before that I'm skeptical of linking without commenting, but even …