Fort Wayne trying to move forward on recycling

(note: one update in comments)

The city of Fort Wayne, Indiana has had a recycling program for some years, as have most cities. They are currently switching to another vendor who will distribute new containers. The prior containers were plastic boxes in which we were required to sort all our recyclables, then carry to the street. Two weeks worth of Fort Wayne Newspapers (Journal and Gazette) has been difficult for an old guy such as myself to carry out. These containers were then all dumped into the same bin in the truck — mixed all together — even though the route personnel would sometimes refuse to pick up if we had not carefully sorted everything into separate bins.

The new containers will be in the “tote” format with wheels and no fuss will be made about sorting anything. There is a new website (in pre-release testing at this time) from which you may eventually register for the cities tote — you must eventually use this site or telephone the number provided thereon, so it is unavoidable. The site is at http://www.cityoffortwayne.org/recycle-cart-request.html, and if you have a new Microsoft computer that has the Microsoft Only browser enhancement “SilverLight” you will be able to use the site. If you do not use Microsoft (because of privacy, corporate data mining, government tracking and snooping, or virus concerns, or because you object to their policies for socially-aware reasons) you are out of luck and relegated to spending your working day on the telephone trying to reach the number to register instead. Since about 40% of people are not using Microsoft OS, that will inconvenience a bunch of people.

Microsoft is apparently planning to move away from supporting SilverLight, but not publicly announcing it as such yet. I saw comments to this effect several places last week, including the Wall Street Journal blogs. Some related articles are at http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsoft-our-strategy-with-silverlight-has-shifted/7834?tag=mantle_skin;content

But when it comes to touting Silverlight as Microsoft’s vehicle for delivering a cross-platform runtime, “our strategy has shifted,” Muglia told me.

Silverlight will continue to be a cross-platform solution, working on a variety of operating system/browser platforms, going forward, he said. “But HTML is the only true cross platform solution for everything, including (Apple’s) iOS platform,” Muglia said.

And another at http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Windows/Kinect-Windows-Phone-7-Silverlight-Controversy-Marked-Microsofts-Week-263275/.

Muglia felt compelled to write the post after an interview with ZDNet at Microsoft’s Professional Developers Conference, which ran Oct. 28-29 in Redmond, Wash. Speaking to Mary Jo Foley, he reportedly said, “Our strategy has shifted,” and that, while Silverlight would remain a sort of cross-platform glue for developers, “HTML is the only true cross-platform solution for everything, including [Apple’s] iOS platform.” Although that interview’s next paragraph featured Muglia assuring readers that the next version of Silverlight is indeed in the works, his words nonetheless set off debate over whether Microsoft would curtail the platform

But the City of Fort Wayne Recycling registration site is only an advance trial, so maybe the city will decide to comply with International Standards in web design and allow their site to be accessible by all using HTML v5 instead of requiring the newest Microsoft browser and possibly ‘fading’ SilverLight to access this public information. And there is a grammatical error in the second line of the first paragraph, which we hope they have fixed by the time you read this. Yes, it is in the graphic above (click to see).