August 31, 2001
Dave Winer: Microsoft's Scripting Strategy. It scares me, but I think he's right on. What scares me more is that there are lots of people whose response will be, "Yeah? So?"
When we were looking to pick a WYSIWYG HTML editor at work, it came down to a choice between Microsoft FrontPage and Macromedia Dreamweaver. There were a few strong voices who insisted that we go with FrontPage because it integrates so well with other Microsoft products. True, and that's something mighty powerful. What bothers me is that FrontPage integrates with MS products to the exclusion of other companies' products and of open standards. That's one of the things that I like about Dreamweaver: its deliberate and focused commitment to open standards.
The not-so-hidden subtext to the demand that we use FrontPage was the desire to move toward a solely Microsoft-based environment, because they make everything so easy and interoperable. Again, pretty much true, and that's what frightens me: because that interoperability comes at the expense of being able to cooperate with other environments and open, non-proprietary standards. Not unlike the situation that Winer describes.
August 31, 2001
W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0, working draft. Good stuff, some nice improvements over version 1.
August 31, 2001
I turn my back and MySQL is building in useful things like transaction support, in a new version they call MySQL Max.
August 29, 2001
Scot Hacker on Byte.com: He Who Controls the Bootloader. Yeah, he starts out talking about BeOS, which may or may not be of interest to you. But keep on, because he eventually makes a point that's bugged me for a long time.
It's always bothered me how the antitrust lawsuit seemed to focus on the browser wars. I believe that integration of the browser with the OS (or really, I guess, with the file manager) is a competitive advantage. Hell, I love it in KDE.
No, the real problem is Microsoft's abusing their monopoly on the desktop by strong-arming OEMs with license agreements that forbid offering a choice between a Microsoft OS and another OS as a boot option. And the DOJ dropped the ball.
August 29, 2001
Oh yeah. Farscape, quite possibly the best show on television, is being played in its entirety on the Sci-Fi channel weekday evenings, at least in the US. It's got everything: good science fiction, smart writing, sharp acting, amazing puppetry, interspecies sexual tension... You really should check it out.
August 29, 2001
Edd Dumbill on WebReview: Running a Weblog from IRC.
August 29, 2001
Internet Explorer 6 under fire for not supporting rivals.
"Microsoft decided to drop support for the plug-ins -- additional software that lets users play music, watch videos or perform other tasks -- in favor of Microsoft technology called ActiveX. Microsoft spokesman Jim Cullinan said the move was for increased security."
Uh, yeah. 'cuz ActiveX is so secure.
August 29, 2001
A few days ago we got an email at work asking about what had happened to an ePortfolio RFP. We knew nothing and responded accordingly.
Today, I walked into work and saw something posted on the wall pointing to the conference room where an meeting about ePortfolios was taking place. I asked a guy leaving the room what ePortfolios were all about, and he invited me to join the meeting! And bam! I'm on another task force. But it's a really cool project, something that ISEEK is doing. Students, faculty, and job-seekers (in Minnesota and the immediate area) will all be able to create a web-based portfolio. In some respects it's little more than a fancy resume, but then the ability to post or link to files that make up your portfolio makes it something tremendously more interesting.
A couple years ago I saw a presentation on this sort of thing by a faculty member at the University of Minnesota, Duluth who had created an ePortfolio system for the U. UMD faculty were beginning to work it into their curriculum and advising, so that through a student's academic career, s/he would slowly build a portfolio that they could make available to potential employers or grad schools as they neared graduation. Very cool.
And now ISEEK's doing it with a bit of a broader focus. Right on! I'm glad that I asked.
August 29, 2001
One of the things that I love about most of the areas of focus in my academic study -- be it French historical linguistics or Ancient Near Eastern religion -- is careful, painstakingly detailed study of manuscripts. Spending hours poring over minute, often spare or seemingly insignficant details; noticing patterns and drawing connections where they may not be obvious; slowly building a larger picture of what's going on ... I love it.
This is what I'm going through right now as I wrestle with LDAP. Frustratingly little documentation -- bits here, bits there -- but slowly I'm figuring it out. LDAP is not a tricky concept at all, it's just the command line tools are not immediately obvious if I have little idea what's in the database. It's been fun.
August 27, 2001
It might take me a while to do the conversion of the old archives. The files are there, but I have to convince Greymatter to add them to the archive index, which is more than I have time for right now. Or maybe I'll find the answer right away instead of having to dig through a bunch of code. Either way, I'm sure you'll live.
Update: it was easy. Old archives are there and hopefully working.
August 27, 2001
Well, for what it's worth Internet Explorer 6 has been released, only for Windows so far. This will most likely overwrite your existing IE installation, so please proceed with caution. In fact, for that reason alone I'm likely to hold off on testing it. The only Windows machines I have available to me are at work, and I'm hesitant to install more than I need to, especially since most of our users are unlikely to be using IE6 anytime soon.
Besides, I'm still raging over IE5.5 service pack 2 disabling Quicktime support. In case you didn't catch that bit of nastiness, Robert Cringely has some interesting observations about it, placing it in the context of Microsoft's struggles with Sun over Java.
August 25, 2001
OK, I'm back, with a new and very simple design. As before, you're better off using a browser that supports CSS well.
I've also started using Greymatter for updates, and am busy going through to make sure that it's producing valid XHTML throughout. So far so good, but I'm still finding the occasional problem. Fine piece of work, Greymatter.
I'll have to spend a little time getting the archive converted over, but it oughtn't take long. Then there'll be something in the menu. :)
I wanted to point to something that's got me pretty excited:tunneling XML-RPC with Jabber. I'm starting to use XML-RPC in earnest, and just love the idea of using Jabber as well. I doubt that my first XML-RPC-based tools will need to use Jabber, but I'll for damn sure play around with it and offer it as an option!
And considering the time I've spent recently thinking about collaboration and communication, I'll also point to the article that got me excited about IM as a useful tool for collaboration instead of just a teenage AOL user's toy: For Your Eyes Only?
