Archive | November, 2003

JOHO: Skim, Not Aggregate

David Weinberger, Joho the Blog blogs: Skim, Not Aggregate. “I don’t want an aggregator. I want a skimmer. Functionally, the two are quite alike. But while an aggregator pulls together the stuff I want to read, the point of a skimmer is to let me figure out what not to read. I’m not looking to read automatic summaries because, well, they suck (see the next blog entry). Once I’ve decided to read something, the skimmer lets me read it in full. I just want help in knowing what not to read. (As far as aggregators go, I’m continuing to like Bloglines.com.)…”

Rather than skimming, I want an aggregator that will let me discriminate, in the proper use of that word, separating wheat from chaff. Perhaps based on a Bayesian filter, take all the feeds I like to read (and perhaps all the feeds they link to, and so on, spidering), and filter them for keywords, scoring highest those most like my past preferences. Even my favorite bloggers blog the non-sequitors of their lives, and while I like to read those occasionally, I want their dead-on, killer pieces to float to the top of my reading list.

Advisor FoxPro DevCon: JW Marriott Resort, Las Vegas

Once again, Advisor hosts their conference at an expensive facility that doubles the cost of attending DevCon vs. the other conferences. I think Advisor is still marketing to a corporate, expense account clientele that don’t patronize DevCon any more. Conference Attendance over the years shows a pretty clear trend. Well, this should have a postive effect on the Essential Fox and Great Lakes Great Database Workshop conferences.

VFP DevCon Hotel. “I just got my December FoxPro Advisor. DevCon will be at the JW Marriott Las Vegas Resort & Spa. Again, the dates are Sept. 29-Oct 2, 2004.” From Craig Berntson’s FoxBlog

FoxForum Wiki RSS 1.0 Feed Back Online

For those who prefer the RDF-enhanced RSS 1.0 feed to an RSS 2.0 feed, both are now once again available for the FoxForum Wiki at the site of my RSS feeds, http://www.tedroche.com/RSSFeeds.html. Steven Black, owner of Fox Wiki, had to rebuild the server that serves wiki content, and for some reason my little hack couldn’t connect to his web service, although other developers didn’t seem to have any trouble. I finally got around to rebuilding the application and RDF once again pours forth from http://www.tedroche.com/FoxWikiRSS/foxwiki.rdf. Enjoy!

Windows Explorer Annoyances

It’s annoying that every time I open Windows Explorer, I have to wait for it to render the 60 sub-folders and 65 documents of “My Documents,” even though I know I want to browse immediately to some folder on my C: drive. Here’s one solution: change the default location in the command line of Explorer.exe. Details here:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/tips/august/bertleff1.asp

This will change the default page to the root of “My Computer,” which at least on my computer, opens significantly faster. An explanation of the command line options can be found here:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;152457&

Brother off to Micronesia

YapHurricane.jpgBrother Joe has an annoying habit of flying off to some remote country when family holidays approach. I think it’s just his excuse so he isn’t volunteered to bring the olives. Seriously, Joe is a Registered Nurse volunteering to fly where medical attention is needed. He managed to do this last Christmas, too, although miraculously arrived home at the last minute from Guam. This year, Micronesia was just hit with a Category 5 hurricane, and off he goes. Godspeed and good luck, brother. Take care of yourself.

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