Blogging with Microsoft Live Writer

It's easier than I thought.  Surprisingly, the Writer detected blogger.com settings and configured everything automatically.  I even have my layout profile imported into Writer.  So what I see when I enter text into the Writer is what I actually going to get when the blog entry is published on the blogger.com.  Much better than typical web-based blogging tools in which you have to from edit to preview mode to see how your text will look in the blog.

Next time I'm going to try the Writer with the spaces.com.  The Writer is supposedly optimized for working with spaces more than with any other blogging service.  We'll see if that's actually true.

Nicer fonts for your Linux

As I recently discovered there is a reason why fonts look so bad on Linux. Apart from general lack of good Truetype fonts, some of the algorithms of used in the font rendering are patented by Apple. So on Linux you can't render fonts quite correctly even if they are good. I had such a feeling that something is wrong when I installed my Windows fonts on Linux. They still looked worse than on Windows platform (though better than default Linux fonts).

But fear not my friends, as the font rendering engine in Linux, Freetype, has those patented algorithms in there, only disabled in most distributions. Since it's all about Open Source on Linux, you can enable them by recompiling a certain source code. Search the web for specific instructions for your distribution. On Fedora Core it's seems to be quite easy.

WG21 rejects proposal on the new allocator model

Yes. According to this post on the comp.std.c++ newsgroup and WG21 meeting notes the proposal on a new allocator model has been rejected.

I've seen a talk on this model on the C++ Connections conference in Las Vegas. Back then in November I didn't like the model because it didn't work with copy-constructors, (N)RVO and yet to be added move-contructors. However Bjarne Stroustrup was a strong supporter of it. That got me worried. But I assumed that the committee would do a right thing (either make it work or punt it). And it did.

C/C++ Users Journal goes defunct

Sad news. I received my last issue of CUJ. The first page contains a note from the publisher that explains everything:

Dear C/C++ Users Joungal Reader,

For nearly 30 years, the C/C++ Users Journal has provided resources and information to serve the constantly evolving community of C and C++ developers. More recently, however, we at CMP Media LLC have come to the difficult realization that the best way to serve this community in the future is to focus on new web sites, magazines, and events. What this means is that you are holding in your hands the last issue of the C/C++ Users Journal. As a result, Dr. Dobb's Journal, which has published C and C++ articles ranging from the days of Small-C to C++, will expand its coverange of these important programming languages even more.

We are going to transfer your subscription to C/C++ Users Journal to Dr. Dobb's Journal, and you will be served the number of copies of Dr. Dobb's Journal that remain in your C/C++ Users Jounal subscription.

If this offer is not acceptable to you just write us at the address below and we will send you a refund.

[address]

CMP Media will continue to engage the community with our existing products, which in addition to Dr. Dobb's Journal and Software Development, also include the CMP Developer Network of sites and the Software Development conferences. We sincerely appreciate your support of C/C++ Users Journal in the past, and we look forward to the opportunity to serve you in the future with timely and useful information about software development.

Sincerely,

Michael Goodman
Publisher
C/C++ Users Journal and Dr. Dobb's Journal

What this means is pretty clear. CUJ is R.I.P. Their intention to expand coverange of C++ on the pages of Dr. Dobb's is a typical bullshit. Let me remind you that CUJ was a "Advanced Solutions for Professional Developers" jounal. Dr. Dobb's is crap. It doesn't even deserve to be called Journal. It's a magazine at best. I receive Dr. Dobb's for free and I don't even read it. Get this: CMP sends out Dr. Dobb's for free. I've never got an offer to receive CUJ for free. People don't find Dr. Dobb's valuable enough to subscribe.

What this mean for professional C++ developers? We're left without a printed periodic media to cover advanced C++ topics, period. Since the death of C++ Report there wasn't any journal covering C++ as well as CUJ. And even though CUJ wasn't perfect, it was the only one. Other magazines are crap. I'm sure something else will rise from the ashes of CUJ sooner or later. But CMP is definitely losing it.