Microsoft’s Eric Nelson has posted about how the OLEDB driver for SQL Server is being deprecated and will not be supported beyond “Denali”, the forthcoming version.

OLEDB was created to be the successor to ODBC – expanding the supported data sources/models to include things other than relational databases. Notably OLEDB was tightly tied to a Windows only technology (COM) whilst ODBC was not (Although we did try and take COM cross platform via partners)

ODBC never did get replaced. What actually happened is that ODBC remained the dominant of the two technologies for many scenarios – and became increasingly used on none Windows platforms and has become the de-facto industry standard for native relational data access.

ODBC was as I recall Microsoft’s first attempt at creating a universal database API.

The death of OLEDB will be slow, according to Nelson. The OLEDB driver for Denali will be supported for seven years following Denali’s release. He also says that OLEDB itself, as opposed...

A press release from .appendTo, a company which offers jQuery-based services and training, states that “jQuery Overtakes Flash on World’s Top Websites”. I found it a curious claim insofar as jQuery is not really an alternative to Flash, though there is some limited set of graphical effects for which I guess you could use either.

I took a look at the source data from httparchive.org – note that the data at this link changes regularly. I compared the most recent stats, from August 15 2011, to the oldest available, November 15 2010, an interval of nine months. The data is based on the most visited sites based on various lists and seems to amount to between 15,000 and 20,000 URLs.

In November 2010, jQuery was found on 39% of the sites, whereas Flash was on 49%. In August 2011, the stats show jQuery on 48% of sites with Flash on 47%, hence the press release.

Other figures that caught my eye: in web servers, Microsoft IIS has moved from 21% to 20%, apache from 51% to 49%, nginx from 11%...

I am reading the excellent book Continuous Delivery by Jez Humble and David Farley. But what is Continuous Delivery and how does it differ from the other “continuous” development methodologies?

It helps to understand that all these methodologies spring from the Agile software development movement, and the expression Continuous Delivery is a quote from the Agile Manifesto:

Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.

Now, the starting assumption is that most software projects integrate a number of smaller projects, whether from third-parties or from team members. Since these pieces are developed to some extent independently there is a risk that changes made to one piece will require modifications to another piece; hence according to Humble and Farley:

Most software developed by large teams spends a significant proportion of its development time in an unusable state.

The business of getting all the parts to work...

I had a look at HP’s latest financials, following last night’s triple blast of news from the computer giant. It is ceasing webOS operations, acquiring enterprise knowledge management company Autonomy, and considering (though only considering) a spin-off or other major change to its PC division, the Personal Systems Group. Here is what HP said:

As part of the transformation, HP announced that its board of directors has authorized the exploration of strategic alternatives for the company’s Personal Systems Group. HP will consider a broad range of options that may include, among others, a full or partial separation of PSG from HP through a spin-off or other transaction. (See accompanying press release.)

Looking at the results for the second quarter 2011, here is how the main pieces break down:

$millions

Segment Percentage of revenue Earnings Percentage of total earnings Services 9,089 28.5% 1225 33.8% Servers, storage and networking 5396 16.9% 699 19.3% HP Software 780 2.4% 151 4.2% Personal...

Oh yes, and buys Autonomy, a fast-growing specialist in enterprise knowledge management.

Here’s the news from HP’s announcement:

As part of the transformation, HP announced that its board of directors has authorized the exploration of strategic alternatives for the company’s Personal Systems Group. HP will consider a broad range of options that may include, among others, a full or partial separation of PSG from HP through a spin-off or other transaction. (See accompanying press release.)

HP will discontinue operations for webOS devices, specifically the TouchPad and webOS phones. The devices have not met internal milestones and financial targets. HP will continue to explore options to optimize the value of webOS software going forward.

In addition, HP announced the terms of a recommended transaction for all of the outstanding shares of Autonomy Corporation plc for £25.50 ($42.11) per share in cash.

A few quick comments. First, the failure of webOS does not surprise me....

Oh yes, and buys Autonomy, a fast-growing specialist in enterprise knowledge management.

Here’s the news from HP’s announcement:

As part of the transformation, HP announced that its board of directors has authorized the exploration of strategic alternatives for the company’s Personal Systems Group. HP will consider a broad range of options that may include, among others, a full or partial separation of PSG from HP through a spin-off or other transaction. (See accompanying press release.)

HP will discontinue operations for webOS devices, specifically the TouchPad and webOS phones. The devices have not met internal milestones and financial targets. HP will continue to explore options to optimize the value of webOS software going forward.

In addition, HP announced the terms of a recommended transaction for all of the outstanding shares of Autonomy Corporation plc for £25.50 ($42.11) per share in cash.

A few quick comments. First, the failure of webOS does not surprise me....

As if we needed telling, a new Gartner report shows a steep decline in the PC market in Western Europe. A “PC” in this context includes Macs but excludes smartphones and what Gartner called “media tablets”, mostly Apple iPads. A few figures comparing shipments in the second quarter 2011 with the same period in 2010:

Total PC sales down 18.9% Netbook sales down 53% Desktop PCs down 15.4% Apple up 0.5% Consumer PC market down 27% What interests me here is not so much the normal ebbing and flowing of the PC market, but structural change indicating a switch away from PCs and laptops to more lightweight mobile devices. I believe this is evidence of that, though the economy is weak and extending the life of existing PCs is an obvious saving both for businesses and consumers.

Still, the dramatic decline in netbook sales suggests that consumers really are buying the more expensive iPad in preference. If you believe that consumers are to some extent ahead of business in their technology choices, then we...

Google is to acquire Motorola Mobility, a major manufacturer of Android handsets. Why? I believe this is the key statement:

We recently explained how companies including Microsoft and Apple are banding together in anti-competitive patent attacks on Android. The U.S. Department of Justice had to intervene in the results of one recent patent auction to “protect competition and innovation in the open source software community” and it is currently looking into the results of the Nortel auction. Our acquisition of Motorola will increase competition by strengthening Google’s patent portfolio, which will enable us to better protect Android from anti-competitive threats from Microsoft, Apple and other companies.

What are the implications? This will assist Google in the patent wars and perhaps give it some of the benefits of vertical integration enjoyed by Apple with iOS; though this last is a difficult point. The more Google invests in Google Motorola, the more it will upset other Android partners....

Adobe has released a preview of Muse, a new web site design tool.

My first reaction was one of be-musement. What is wrong with Dreamweaver, the excellent web design tool included in Creative Suite? Bearing in mind that there is also a simplified Dreamweaver aimed at less technical business users, called Contribute.

Here are some distinctive features of Muse:

1. It is aimed at non-coders. The catch phrase is “Design and publish HTML websites without writing code”. Muse actually hides the code. I installed Muse on a Mac, and one of the first things I looked for was View Source. I cannot find any such feature. You have to preview the page in the browser, and view the source there. That is in contrast to Dreamweaver, where the split view shows you simultaneous HTML and visual designers, and you can edit freely in either.

2. It is an Adobe AIR application. I discovered this in a bad way. It would not install for me on Windows:



A...

Last week Google integrated Native Client into the beta of Chrome 14. Native client lets you compile C/C++ code to run in the browser. It depends on a new plug-in API called Pepper. These are open source projects sponsored by Google and implemented in the Chrome browser, and therefore also likely to turn up in Chrome OS which is an operating system in which all apps run in the browser.

Native Client is cool. For example, NaCLBox lets you run old DOS games in the browser by porting DOSBox to Native Client.



Another project is Qt for Google Native Client, a project currently in development....