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Hot on the heels of FireFox 3.0 being released (have you downloaded it yet??), the Wine team has announced they’ve finally hit version 1.0!

The Wine team is proud to announce that Wine 1.0 is now available. This is the first stable release of Wine after 15 years of development and beta testing. Many thanks to everybody who helped us along that long road!

While compatibility is not perfect yet, thousands of applications have been reported to work very well. Check http://appdb.winehq.org to see the details for your favorite applications.

Congrats guys, it was a long time coming!!!  For those who don’t know, in short, Wine allows you to run Windows programs in a Linux environment.  Right from their about page:

Wine is a translation layer (a program loader) capable of running Windows applications on Linux and other POSIX compatible operating systems. Windows programs running in Wine act as native programs would, running without the performance or memory usage penalties of an emulator, with a similar look and feel to other applications on your desktop.

The Wine project started in 1993 as a way to support running Windows 3.1 programs on Linux. Bob Amstadt was the original coordinator, but turned it over fairly early on to Alexandre Julliard, who has run it ever since. Over the years, ports for other Unixes have been added, along with support for Win32 as Win32 applications became popular.

Cool, huh?  Speaking of cool, check out the cake that Microsoft sent over to the FireFox crew:

Now that’s class!  Those of you may remember that this same thing happened for the launch of FireFox 2:

Gotta love the sense of humor these guys have!

I was checking out some articles online today and came across some interesting ones dealing with IT and how corporations tend to deal with them.  If you have time, you should check them out.  The one that best describes most IT departments I’ve worked in is the “Dead Sea” effect… here’s a quote from the post:

There is an anti-pattern that I’ve seen in large organizations which I have come to call “the Dead Sea effect”. The Dead Sea, of course, is a large body of water between Israel and Jordan, located well below sea level. The Jordan River empties into it; water leaves only by evaporation, which means that over the eons, the Dead Sea has become very salty (e.g., 8x saltier than the ocean). As such, it is generally unable to support life, except when spring floods temporarily lower the salinity.

Many large corporate/government IT shops — and not a few small ones — work like the Dead Sea. New hires are brought in as management deems it necessary. Their qualifications (talent, education, professionalism, experience, skills — TEPES) will tend to vary quite a bit, depending upon current needs, employee departure, the personnel budget, and the general hiring ability of those doing the hiring. All things being equal, the general competency of the IT department should have roughly the same distribution as the incoming hires.

But in my experience, that’s not what happens. Instead, what happens is that the more talented and effective IT engineers are the ones most likely to leave — to evaporate, if you will. They are the ones least likely to put up with the frequent stupidities and workplace problems that plague large organizations; they are also the ones most likely to have other opportunities that they can readily move to.

What tends to remain behind is the ‘residue’ — the least talented and effective IT engineers. They tend to be grateful they have a job and make fewer demands on management; even if they find the workplace unpleasant, they are the least likely to be able to find a job elsewhere. They tend to entrench themselves, becoming maintenance experts on critical systems, assuming responsibilities that no one else wants so that the organization can’t afford to let them go.

For those in IT, that may sound very familiar.  For the longest time I thought it was just my luck, but it seems that’s almost the “usual” when it comes to IT.  If you’re interested, here are a few more good articles from the author (Bruce F. Webster):

The Wetware Crisis: the Expert Pool

The Wetware Crisis: the Thermocline of Truth

Anatomy of a runaway IT project

Some are a bit long, but they’re all good reads.

For those not “in the know,” I was diagnosed with Thyroid Cancer (papillary carcinoma) about 10 years ago, and about every 5 years I need to get a scan done to make sure it didn’t come back.

Long story short, I went completely off of the pills that deliver my thyroid hormones about 2 weeks ago (this is to prep me for the scan) and still have about 2 weeks left to go. Every day I feel a little worse and little less like sitting at my PC. It’s a total bummer. Once everything is said and done not only will my posting go back to “normal,” but I’ll make a post explaining about how this affects someone going through it.

Here’s a great website for you if you’d like to learn some, or have a family member about to go through it:

Canadian ThyroidCancer Support Group (Thry’vors)

I know I’m not from Canada, but they have some real good information. For example, a whole section on “going Hypo” which is what I’m doing:

“Going Hypo”

Our bodies require thyroid hormone; a hormone taken in synthetic form once the thyroid has been removed. Without thyroid hormone, the body produces an increasing amount of thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH). An elevated TSH of at least 30 mIU/L is needed for the RAI treatment to be effective. To achieve this rise in TSH, patients must stop taking their thyroid hormone replacement pills, or have their TSH stimulated by taking Thyrogen®, a medication given by injection (see section below). Going hypothyroid by hormone withdrawal, involves stopping levothyroxine, also known as T4 (brand names are Synthroid and Eltroxin) for approximately 4-6 weeks prior to RAI treatment. During the time that levothyroxine is stopped, Cytomel (T3) may be prescribed. Cytomel is a fast-acting (and fast dissipating) form of thyroid hormone used to minimize the symptoms of hypothyroidism during hormone withdrawal. Cytomel is stopped approximately 2 weeks prior to RAI treatment. ‘Going hypo’ is a gradual process with the thyroid hormone changes occurring slowly over the six week period. The longer the patient is off of thyroid hormone, especially during the last two weeks prior to RAI treatment when no thyroid hormone is taken, the more likely the patient will experience symptoms of hypothyroidism.

Some Symptoms Associated with Hypothyroidism:

• Tiredness, loss of energy, weakness
• Trouble sleeping, nightmares or excess sleep
• Puffiness and bloating especially in the face
• Loss of ability to concentrate, memory loss, absentmindedness
• Weight gain
• Anxiety, panic attacks, irritability, mood swings
• Depression
• Dry eyes, skin and hair; hair loss
• Change in menstrual cycle
• Joint pains and stiffness, muscle cramps
• Intolerance to cold
• Constipation
• Tingle or numbness in arms or legs
• Ringing in ears
• Slight changes in eyesight

Helpful Hints for “Going Hypo” and Preparing for RAI

1. Identify people you can count on for support and help before and after your treatment.
2. Obtain information from your Nuclear Medicine department or doctor regarding precautions and preparation for your return home from the hospital. Make sure your family and friends understand the necessary precautions.
3. Consult with your doctor about your daily activities including driving, and learn when you should restrict your activities. (Note that hypothyroidism is a form of physical impairment, thereby restricting you from driving in the final days or weeks before treatment.)
4. Prepare low iodine diet (LID) menus and have your pantry stocked with low iodine foods (see LID section).
5. Take naps as needed.
6. Watch alcohol consumption while hypo as the impact will be much greater than what you normally experience.
7. Keep your sense of humour.
8. Don’t expect immediate recovery right after your scan is complete. While patients feel much better in 2-3 weeks, it takes approximately 8 weeks for the thyroid hormone levels to normalize once thyroid hormone pills are resumed.

How great is that? They have much more advice on the website as well.

Okay, my fingers are freezing from all this typing (dunno, seems to be a side effect I personally get while off my meds) so I need to go try and warm ‘em up. Thanks for dealing with this and being patient with me!!

From Neowin.net & Bink.nu:

Windows XP SP3 is finally here for those that use Windows Update, and here is a direct link to the stand-alone version of SP3 for x86 XP systems (32 bit). Thanks Bink! Neowin reader WindowsNT says: “There won’t be a 64bit version until Windows Server 2003 hits SP3 since they share the same code base.”

Here is an interesting article regarding SP3 performance, ignoring the fact that Vista SP1 is still faster than XP SP2/SP3 users will enjoy a performance boost over SP2. When will people learn that Vista ain’t all bad!

Windows® XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) includes all previously released updates for the operating system. This update also includes a small number of new functionalities, which do not significantly change customers’ experience with the operating system.

Links:

Download Direct: Stand-alone installer for Windows XP SP3 English, 32 Bit (316 MB)

Download Direct: Windows XP SP3 for Chinese Traditional, 32 Bit Systems

Download Direct: Windows XP SP3 for Spanish, 32 Bit Systems (308 MB)

Download Direct: Windows XP SP3 for German, 32 Bit Systems (313 MB)

Download Direct: Windows XP SP3 for Polish, 32 Bit Systems

Download Direct: Windows XP SP3 for French, 32 Bit Systems

Or just use Microsoft Update: Service Pack 3 for Windows XP via Windows Update (Size varies)

Again, from Neowin:

Known issues:
On some hardware configurations, you may encounter the Windows XP SP3 BSoD Endless Reboot Loop with Stop c0000139 on GDI32.dll Error, follow this guide to repair your XP installation. Thanks daPhoenix for the tip!

Also, if you need the Uxtheme.dll, you can use my patch (it’s English Only):

Download Direct: Windows XP SP3 Modified Uxtheme.dll for English Systems

Have fun updating, everyone!