As a long, long, long time user of Bind (and quite frankly not being the only one by far) I’m afraid I’m losing faith. Yes, Bind still does what it does (which is: being a kickass name server or DNS) and does it well,but today a colleague introduced me to PowerDNS. Whoa!

Why I like it? Well, aside from being a Dutch product (yay!), and of course FOSS, it has a staggering amount of back-end possibilities. A list, you say? Here goes:

• Bind and Bind2 regular zone files
• DB2 database
• geo information
• MySQL database
• PostgreSQL database
• Oracle database
• SQLite database
• LDAP directory
• *any* ODBC-coupled database
• *any* OpenDBX library supporting database (like MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, Firebird, Interbase, SQL Server and Sybase ASE)
• Pipes (yes, ask any outside process for answers)
• random (eh?)
• xdb tables on disk

Holy crap, that realy is a bloody long list. And it’s fast and powerful, does all you want from it (i.e.: answer DNS queries) and does is well. It’s very simple to set up, runs like a charm, easy.
I think I’m in love.

I know IE (Microsoft Internet Explorer) is not the quickest, not always up to (web) standard(s), not the safest, and of course carries the taint of Windows-integration-you-have-no-choice-in-and-can’t-get-rid-of, but people should be free to choose, and I actually admit to using IE side-by-side with Firefox. A small banner in my WordPress admin interface pointed me to Browse Happy, which states it’s a site to help you “choose a browser that is right for you”.

Yeah. Sure.

I agree that people should be made more aware of alternatives, but for Pete’s sake be honest about it. Browse Happy actively steers people away from IE, pointing in stead to Firefox, Opera, Safari or Mozilla, on the grounds that IE is unsafe. Yes it is. So are all the other ones. What’s your point?

Made and promoted by the otherwise great folks at WordPress, I think this is pushing it a bit far. Make a fair comparison in stead of just quoting articles about IE’s flaws, people! I’m no big fan of IE myself but I also know that with some Googling I can find quotes on the issues on all the other browsers in the world as well. Inform, don’t just shove some subjective opinions and “testimonials” down my throat.

Oh, and as much as I absolutely love WordPress, I really don’t appreciate the banner in the admin interface, thank you very much.

As a muddling designer I always have one or two color ideas when working on a new design, but you need more than just two. I’ve tried various pieces of color matching software in the past, but now my need for matched color ideas is combined with my love for my iPod (I am the proud owner of the most excellent iPod Classic 160Gb) in Koloroo for iPod, a free (well, careware) little tool that turns my iPod into a very spiffy color picker.

I can wax poetic about it all day, but this is one you just have to get and use to see what a great little tool it really is.
And remember, it is Careware, so you do actually have to do a nice thing for someone else as ‘payment’. I myself helped a friend dig out the foundations of his house (which gave me muscles sore enough to hinder my mouse use at the moment).