As I was sitting in Pat Hynds phenomenal presentation on ASP.NET Security at VTdotNET last Monday, I started thinking about how people work SO hard to secure websites with password protection but then almost every website will email you your login and password. If we spend so much time worrying about people “hopping on” to authenticated HTTP transports, don’t those same people have the ability to read/grab/reroute our emails? Maybe the answer is “no” and everything is still right with the world, but it sure did make me wonder.

Hey – I just had an idea (probably not the least bit novel). When I register for a Microsoft event, and I get an email confirmation, it would be nice if it could attach one of those little Outlook calendar do-hicky things that when I click on it automatically pops the event into my calendar.

I just registered for the Reporting Services launch webcast (which is on Jan 27th). I had to fill out a form to register. Last week, I registered for one of the webcasts that is part of this week’s ASP.NET Webcast Week. It knew who I was, because it popped my email in there, but I still ahd to fill out the form. Whassup with that? What happened to Passport?

Hmmm – only 10 of the people who have signed up for Share your OPML subscribe to my feed here. Well, maybe there’s a few more who aren’t sharing their feed.  Maybe I’ll just go to bed before midnight tonight. Yeah, that’ll show ’em! Heh! 🙂

By way of Chris Sells, interesting analysis here by Mary Jo Foley 

“Not every move Microsoft makes is dictated by its worries over open source.“

I love my friends but I am sick of filling out their Plaxo contact information requests. Why can’t I just put it somewhere once and then when I get their request, say “hey you are allowed to see my global plaxo contact info”.

sheesh!

super duper crazy geeky entertainment!

A few months ago there was a proposal in the works for the state of Massachusetts that looked like someone was trying to force Mass to use “Open Standards and Open Source” software only and not get locked into licensing etc. (my interpretation of lengthy legal document…) This is pretty scary for a LOT of people, developers, Microsoft, etc. Just out of curiosity, I checked over on that site again today and coincidentally, they posted their official policy yesterday. They have split “Open Standards and Open Source” into separate policies and renamed Open Source to Acquisition, where they now strongly encourage the consideratoin of open source and freeware, but they do still have proprietary software on the top of their list. Phew!

Read more here:

• The press release
• The open standards policy
• The Acquisition Policy

Too me the most indicative sign of my pace of late is that I now find myself drinking two cups of coffee in a row in the morning. I have ALWAYS had only one cup first thing and then MAYBE another one a few hours later. I have weaned myself from coffee twice in the past. It’s a bad thing for me because I have a very mild form of anemia (low blood pressure anemia) that is really just a condition, not a disease. But the coffee does not help. I have not been able to function well with more than two cups in me per day (getting the shakes and nervous) and I am right now looking at my empty cup at 11:10 a.m. and thinking about a 3rd. Calgon, take me away.