Aaaw! I was going to go to bed early tongiht, but Mark pointed out that Lugaru have announced that there is a beta Version of Epsilon 12 Available!. Epsilon is the best programmers editor I have ever used, by a long, long way. I know that one’s choice of editor is almost a religious preference for some, but consider this; I have for the last 12 years consistently proven that I can perform day-to-day file editing tasks faster and more reliably than any of my non-epsilon using colleagues in job after job. I can perform many complex or unusual file editing tasks with epsilon which colleagues just cannot hope to even attempt (even if, in some cases, their editors are capable). I would walk away from a job which did not allow me to use epsilon! (Can’t you just smell the religious fervour? Hear the pulpit pounding?)
So now I’ve got to play with some of the juicy new features in this new version!

I forgot to mention in all the Harry Potter related excitement this wonderful piece of news:

“On Friday, 20th June 2003, the death knell sounds for US patent number 4,558,302. Having benefitted its owner, the Unisys Corporation for 20 years, the contents of the patent are entered into the Public Domain and may be used absolutely freely by anyone.
Officially titled “High speed data compression and decompression apparatus and method”, it is more commonly known as the LZW patent or Unisys’s GIF tax.”

This quote from a great summary and timeline by Stuart Caie over at Kuro5hin
It’s not quite all over yet:

“One down, seven to go:
So the US patent has expired. What does this leave?
* The European patent EP0,129,439 covers Germany, France, Britain and Italy and expires on the 18th June 2004.
* The Canadian patent CA1,223,965 expires on the 6th June 2004.
* The Japanese patents 2,123,602 and 2,610,084 expire on the 20th June 2004. “

But nearly…