Prestwood IT Newsletter Aug 2009 Issue - Full Edition

A trip down memory lane: Borland 1983-2009
Micro Focus buys Borland. The decline of Borland is now complete. The once legendary software company is no more! Okay, for those of us that worked at Borland and those that loved their development tools, it pretty much was over years ago. For me, I'm still a big fan of the CodeGear development tools, especially Delphi and Prism, but the fanatical culture and clarity of purpose was over when Philippe Kahn left. I've been following Borland ever since I left the company in 1995 and every time I heard of a stupid move, I cringed. I'm sure all of us who have watched the decline of Borland over the years have a list of stupid Borland moves.

Website Design topic (classic post):

by Wes Peterson

With the release of Internet Explorer 8, Microsoft has made IE more compliant with current standards, fixing problems that have bugged webmasters for years. This compatibility would probably be great except that it breaks perfectly good web applications created using Microsoft's latest and greatest development tools. This is the sort of thing that results in Apple's great TV ads. In this article, we introduce Compatibility View, discuss the problem, and a couple of the solutions.

by Wes Peterson

A question has arisen about how best to manage SMTP connections when using psSendMail. Here are some tips:

by Wes Peterson

You know (or think) the file is out there.  You have a pretty good idea about one or two things that are (or ought) to be in it.  Find it fast with Windows GREP.

by Scott Wehrly

This article explores and defines the following terms: crash, bomb, hang, deadlock, exception, fatal error, and blue screen of death.

by Wes Peterson

Are you fed up with calling a company and finding yourself speaking to somebody in a foreign country? 

I am, and I've just learned of an effective way to fight back, help return jobs to America, and keep them here.

The best part? We don't have to wait for government to do a thing.