Submitted my first technical article after a two-year self-imposed hiatus. While I’ve written a few small web pieces and whitepapers for a dozen conferences or so, (oh, and a book), this was my first article, and I was rusty! Keeping it short, sweet and organized. Eliminating all the extra verbiage but keeping enough transition and organization so the reader could follow. Submitted the first draft to the editor and expect to get back a red-inked-bloodbath. It’ll take a while to get into the swing again, but it’s good to be writing.
Archive | February, 2003
Google Buys Pyra; Blogging World Erupts
Another Merger and Acquisition hits the streets. No doubt this will be the most talked-about item today, unless the US invades Iraq:
- Google buys Pyra Labs [Slashdot]
- Google Buys Pyra: Blogging Goes Big-Time. NOTE: This is a slightly edited version of a special column running in tomorrow’s San Jose Mercury News. We’re posting… [Dan Gillmor’s eJournal]
- Announced by owner Evan at the “Live from the BlogoSphere” happening last night in L.A. Musta been some event – looks like few blogged much before crashing for the night. Wish they’d blogged it live. Waiting for the sun to rise on the left coast for more details…
- http://blogger.com and http://www.blogspot.com are the properties sold off.
- SlashDot is on it, of course, with their mixture of brilliant insightfulness and inane irrelevancies.
Flash Mind Reader
Several folks, like Dave Winer and Adam Curry: Adam Curry’s Weblog have posted “flash mind reader. I have no idea how this works, but it’s tripping me out!” pointing out once again that programmers and math majors Think Different, not necessarily better, but different. I read the test, looked at the table and knew the trick. Sometimes it’s no fun knowing how the magic works. Try navigating to “Flash” and select the Flash Mind Reader from here if the link above isn’t working.
Weekend Reading, Part II
New Issue of JOHO. A new issue of my free newsletter is out. Here’s what’s in it The Internet is not a thing: It’s an agreement. And there’s a big difference. I’ve been thinking about the end of the Internet. No, not its collapse, but as in the”End-to-End” (E2E) argument, put definitively by David P. Reed, J.H. Saltzer, and D.D. Clark and in their seminal article, End-to-End Arguments in System Design. The concept is simple: whenever possible, services should not be built into a network but should be allowed to arise at the network’s ends. For example, it’s a good thing the Internet designers… [Joho the Blog]
Weekend Reading, Part I
Damn, this is impressive – David Weinberger, whose poetic/philosophical descriptions of the Internet are without peer, has written an amazing cybercitizen’s rant. I’m posting this mostly so that I preserve the link and can go back to read it again, but the rest of you are free to follow the link too. [Ernie the Attorney]
It’s Neither Simple nor Easy.
The Microsoft buzzwords are “Simple” and “Easy.” I don’t know how they do it, but every member of the sales collective seems to come out with the same phrases at the same time. Maybe it’s just corporate communication, but it feels more like… hivemind *shiver*. “Simple” and “Easy” came out of every sales flack’s mouth last month, over and over.
I’m just trying to read the documentation on Indexing Services. I tried the msdn.microsoft.com site but it’s giving a “Server error 500-013: Too Many Users. Internet Information Server” – nice that they plug their product as they show their inability to scale to enterprise heights.
Fine, I’ll install the Platform SDK on my local machine. No go. An error comes up in Mozilla stating that I have to have IE 5 or later. I do – this is a Win2KPro box with IE 5.5 on it. Ah, but it’s not the *default* browser, perhaps? Since Microsoft is telling us that IE is an integral part of the operating system, couldn’t they have the brains to invoke it directly instead of invoking the default browser they can’t use? Simple? No. Easy? No. Sloppy? Yup.
Explorer, Tools, Folder Options, File Types. Change HTM and HTML files to point to IE. Run the installer. Works fine. Change it back. What a pain. Simple and Easy. Sheesh.
It’s about choice, freedom and responsibility.
When showing off Visual FoxPro working with Open Source tools last weekend, there were concerns voiced by the attendees:
- Who provides the support?
- How do I chose the right tool?
- Who fixes the bugs?
- Learning all that *stuff* looks hard.
It’s about choice, freedom and responsibility.
- You provide the support to your customers; that’s what you’ve always done. You get your support through newsgroups, associates, and paying experts who know more than you. That’s where you get your support now, right? How many times have you gotten support – how many times have your even bothered to ask – from BigCompany’s 800 number?
- How do you choose your tools now? Now you get to shop around a little; read reviews, experiment, pilot test. It’s what you’ve always done, isn’t it?
- Anyone can fix the bugs if everyone has access to the source code. Chances are, someone will. Usually pretty quickly. Usually better than you can. And there’s a peer review process that tells you the fix is good and right and proper. Isn’t that better than what you have now?
- Learning is hard, but if you don’t enjoy that, the computer field is probably not the place for you to be. I’m exhilarated when learning a new tool; yes, I curse and stay up too late and drink too much caffiene and sweat bullets when the deadline approaches, but the thrill of getting “Hello, World” to work in yet another language/application/platform is worth it to me. And don’t tell me that the latest thing you learned from BigCo was any easier!
Seventeen below zero Fahrenheit
You’re thinking, well, if you don’t like it, why do you live there? The usual story: a girl, a romance, a plan. Seemed like a good idea at the time. The girl is long gone, the romance soured, the plan failed. But, there’s a kid finishing college and a house that needs a lot of work to be marketable. After that? Chesapeake Bay sounds interesting: ocean, temperate climate, East Coast. We’ll see.
Hey, is that WiFi File Server in your pocket?
Microsoft devotees speak out. The software giant is gleaning some of its best advice from the 1,300 consultants, dealers and enthusiasts the company honored this week in Redmond, Wash. By Joe Wilcox, Staff Writer, CNET News.com. It will be interesting to hear from bloggers like Robert Scoble later on this week on what they heard from the MVP Summit.
Hey, is that WiFi File Server in your pocket?
At our FoxPro retreat last weekend, I brought a spare laptop with Twiki installed for group collaboration. Geeks and Gurus supplied the WAP and 56k POTS dial-up router. Presto! Instant network. With this device, it looks like we can leave a lot of stuff at home… Sony’s Wi-Fi equipped pocket Web server: GadgetWatch identifies (and offers an English explanation of) a Wi-Fi-enabled portable fileserver! Nifty. 70,000 yen. Pointer from [80211b News]