Cringely, on the other hand, posting at I, Cringely @ PBS.org, posits a different future, with a Google brand internet-on-top-of-the-internet emulating a disturbing model: “Sam Walton Taught Google More About How to Dominate the Internet Than Microsoft Ever Did” Time will tell.
Archive | November, 2005
Adam Green: Web Explosion in 2006
Over at Scripting News, Dave Winer points to Adam Green’s blog. Yes, dBASE fans, that Adam Green, Check out Adam’s blog and bio link for an update on what he’s been up to. Dave says “Adam Green says that 2006 is the year the web will explode. Interesting theory, hope it’s not true, because when Google tries to host my content, how much you want to bet they’ll also change what I say by adding links to things they like (for example ads) and removing unnecssary links (for example, the ones I put there). And maybe if I write a post that talks about Eric Schmidt’s hometown (I think it’s Atherton) that somehow magically that post won’t appear. Or, perhaps my site won’t be included at all, by some mysterious algorithm (like Google News) not deemed worthy of inclusion. Hey it’s just one guy writing it, after all. This would be a very bad development, so bad it should be made illegal, quickly, before they actually do it.”
Personalizing your PowerBook… with a tarsier
Slashdot post: Laser Etching a Laptop. ptorrone writes “I didn’t really plan using a $20,000 laser cutter on my 17” Powerbook to etch a 19th-century engraving of a tarsier, a nocturnal mammal related to the lemur (also the vi book cover), but it seemed like it had to done. The results are stunning…”
Very cool hack. Personalizing a PowerBook like this makes it a lot easier to identify, too…
Viewing OpenDocument Files in FireFox
OSNews posts an exclusive article, *Why Browsers Should Be Able to Display OpenDocument*. “OpenDocument got a lot of publicity lately. StarOffice 8 and OpenOffice.org 2.0 finally arrived, and all the other makers of office suites (with the notable exception of Microsoft) have started implementing the new standard into their programs. Massachusetts recently decided to use OpenDocument as the standard file format, effectively locking out MS Office as soon as January 1st, 2007. Other countries are on their way to do the same. Also, OpenDocument recently got submitted to become an ISO standard.”
An interesting tidbit I picked up from the article: you can view OpenDocument files in FireFox! If you have both FireFox and OpenOffice.org 2 installed on your machine, start OpenOffice.org and navigate the usual menu/dialog/treeview to Tools | Options, Internet, Mozilla Plug-In, and check the Enable checkbox. Shut down and restart Firefox. Now, you can open OpenDocument documents for viewing in the browser! A toolbar appears that allows editing (opening the doc in OpenOffice.org), direct printing, direct export to PDF, searching and more. Pretty cool stuff.
Doc: Saving the Net
Doc’s at it again. Years ago, he pointed out that the ClueTrain was leaving the station, this time he posts a call to arms in Saving the Net. Required Reading.
“I’ve spent much of the last two weeks writing an essay that just went up at Linux Journal: Saving the Net: How to Keep the Carriers from Flushing the Net Down the Tubes. It’s probably the longest post I’ve ever put up on the Web. It’s certainly the most important. And not just to me.”
Read the (both now-Internet-Archived) entire post-about-the-post here: Saving the Net from the pipeholders.
Bricklin’s WikiCalc: Very Cool
Andrew MacNeill – AKSEL Solutions posts “Just saw this over on zdNet but then wanted to try it out.
I think David may be right when he talks about the potential of what this could do.
Wikis aren’t just for group blogging or information – now you’ve got a live application for it as well.”
Wikis are a great way for collaborative effort at building up knowledge online. Witness the mother-of-all wikis at WikiPedia. But each of the hundreds of wiki software packages out there has its own markup language, or worse, no language at all. With Dan Bricklin’s WikiCalc, we have a demonstration of a rich client app that can lock, read, edit and write formatted material and then publish it to a web site. The software is at version zero-point-one alpha stage, but the concepts are cool. Check it out.
All Your Base Are Belong To… Google?
The ever calm, fair and balanced Slashdot reports Google Base Launches. An anonymous reader writes “As announced on the Google Blog, Google Base has finally launched. According to Google, Google Base enables content owners to easily make their information searchable online. Anyone, from large companies to website owners and individuals, can use it to submit their content in the form of data items. We’ll host the items and make them searchable for free.”
Apple’s latest 15-inch PowerBook reviewed
Daring Fireball posts a brief review of the 15-inch Powerbook: “I have, for several years, subscribed to the theory that those who are mostly desk-bound should buy the cheapest laptop they can get by with and the most expensive desktop system they can afford… As of two weeks ago, I officially unsubscribed from this theory,…”
Thank a veteran today
A few months ago, I was chatting with a buddy about my military service. Out of the blue, “Thanks,” he said. “Thanks for serving.” I’d never heard it put so well. Thank a veteran today.
NPR doubles their podcast offerings
Scripting News points out “Press release announces new NPR podcasts.” Way cool! There’s enough online content now that you can mix their streaming headlines with their podcasts and create your own lineup!