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Ted's Radio Weblog
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Saturday, May 31, 2003 |
Redmond's scanning the Net is the chilling title of this no-so-chilling tale of Microsoft Research's studies of community activity on the Internet. Interesting reading.
3:55:42 PM 
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Friday, May 30, 2003 |
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Thursday, May 29, 2003 |
Alan MacCormack: The True Costs of Software. A good essay and survey of published documents in the field showing that TCO is not a simple measurement like "miles per gallon," and that the context of computer use can have a major effect. At this point, everyone needs to analyze what the total cost of ownership of a particular piece of hardware or software is for them. Link from Scripting News
6:14:17 PM
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Tuesday, May 27, 2003 |
Zen Garden: "A demonstration of what can be accomplished visually through CSSñbased design." [Scripting News]
9:47:43 PM
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EricR has a blog! Imagine that! I ran across a reference to Eric Rudder's blog on Chris Sells blog on his "Senior VP meeting" after a month at Microsoft here: Chris Sells: "Imagine a company run as a strict meritocracy that's one of the most important and profitable in it's industry." ( via Scripting News). It seems that Eric, while not a daily blogger, is using Chris Anderson's BlogX tool http://www.simplegeek.com).
So far, one blog entry doth not make a log. Keep trying, Eric!
9:31:13 PM
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Sunday, May 25, 2003 |
Zawodny: "PageRank stopped working really well when people began to understand how PageRank worked." via Scripting News
11:59:05 AM
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Saturday, May 24, 2003 |
Despite the BigCo's attempts to hijack the definition of Web Services (note the capitalization), the fact is a web service (lowercase) is what we've been doing all along, whenever a response is generated from other than a static page. My RSS feeds are web services, even though they are once-an-hour updated XML pages available via http.
"What is a Web Service?. The definition of what constitutes a Web Service has been a moving target for quite some time. This article on Loosely Coupled notes that Gartner have modified their definition once more. The article reads on to state that SOAP and/or BPEL are not required to build Web Services." from the CapeBlog
10:04:51 AM
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Friday, May 23, 2003 |
A ComputerWorld story, linked via OSNews, states:
The other side of the story, however, is that Win 2003 is the foundation for an entire wave of next-generation Microsoft products and feature upgrades that are coupled with the new platform. Without an upgrade, corporations can expect to be in a holding pattern.
A holding pattern? Hello? How about a migration plan? An escape plan? An alternative? Thinking different?
Analysis: Windows 2003: What's Next? [OSNews]
6:14:36 PM
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Thursday, May 22, 2003 |
Got to see Whil Hentzen last night present "Linux Opportunities for VFP Developers" or "What do you get when you cross a Penguin with a Fox?" at the BAFUG meeting last night. Great meeting, and very well attended.
7:42:06 AM
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Tuesday, May 20, 2003 |
I endorsed CloudMark some time ago, before they let us in on their business plan to make money doing this. I had hoped that they were planning on marketing their database and services to businesses, in exchange for fees, while leaving their personal product free. A business with hundreds or thousands of users can easily show a good business case why their storage and bandwidth shouldn't be consumed with spam. On the personal level, the justification is weaker. There certainly had been no hint during the "beta" that the product would have a fee after the testing period. Now that we've populated their database, they want us to pay $60 to continue to access it. With free competitors like SpamBayes available, I doubt they will succeed. Too bad, a good idea gone greedy.
Where's the "but it will cost you" in the signature a friend uses?
I've stopped 29.254 spam messages. You can too!
Get your free, safe spam protection at http://www.cloudmark.com/spamnetsig/
What is it about "free" I am misunderstanding?
Fees rile spam foes. Claiming they helped build a service that was supposed to be free, testers of Cloudmark's spam-blocking system are protesting the finished version, which costs $60 per year. [CNET News.com]
1:15:54 PM
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WinHec sounds like someplace a Bible-belter goes when the computer starts going haywire, but it is, in fact, a Microsoft conference on hardware. My favorite quote:
"We're decomposing the user experience," said Tom Phillips, general manager in the Windows hardware experience group at Microsoft
Microsoft's un-grand design. CNET News.com's Michael Kanellos explains why the software company is scaling down its ambitions when it comes to convincing the rest of the computer industry to adopt design changes. [CNET News.com]
9:45:45 AM
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Monday, May 19, 2003 |
Let's review the rules again, folks:
- Never ever EVER run a program from an untrusted source.
- There are no trusted sources.
Questions?
Worm dupes with fake Microsoft address. A new e-mail worm, which feigns a Microsoft.com origin, is spreading rapidly. Antivirus vendors say it can also spread via a LAN and can install spyware on a victim's PC. [CNET News.com]
1:23:50 PM
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I've been using several wikis as indispensable toolboxes and sources of knowledge for years. Now the NYT picks up on the thread... NY Times: "The wiki, a quirky software technology that has been kicking around the Web since the mid-90's, is starting to gain respectability." [Scripting News]
10:36:59 AM
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"Gartner advises its clients to pull the plug on Passport implementations in the wake of a recently discovered security flaw" according to this article in Information Week.
8:17:45 AM
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Sunday, May 18, 2003 |
Got to see the sequel for Matrix with Steve today. Sure glad I don't have to steer clear of some of my favorite sites for fear of a spoiler. I enjoyed the movie a lot. It didn't, and couldn't, have had the alien innovation of the first, but it was definitely a part 2 of 3 feature. Lots of unanswered questions. Looking forward to seeing it again at the theater...
8:28:37 PM
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Saturday, May 17, 2003 |
Really glad to be home, after a ten-day stretch at a client site. Forsythia's still in bloom, the pear and apple trees are magnificent, violets and strawberries in bloom all over the yard, and the lilacs and lily-of-the-valley coming along well. Most of all, it's good to be home. The six weeks preceding and following the summer solstice are the greatest anywhere in the world.
8:48:14 PM
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Thursday, May 15, 2003 |
East Tennessee FoxPro User Group. NetLearning, Incorporated is pleased to announce their sponsorship of the East Tennessee FoxPro User Group. Meetings will be held at the training facilities of NetLearning, 16 Emory Place, in Knoxville. Details will be posted at the group comes together; first meeting is scheduled for June 24, 6pm informal Q&A discussion, 7pm main presentations. Watch for further news on FoxCentral.Net and also on the FoxForum Wiki.
8:14:20 PM
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Wednesday, May 14, 2003 |
Boston FUG, May 21st: Whil Hentzen: What do you get when you cross a Fox with a Penguin?. The Boston Area FoxPro User Group welcomes Whil Hentzen, presenting "Expanding Your VFP Skillset with Linux." Open to the public. BAFUG meets at a special place, date and time: New York Life Investment Management, Norwood, MA, May 21st, 6 PM for UG meeting, 6:30 PM for main presentation. For directions and more information, visit the group homepage. Subscribe or read the meeting announcements by clicking here. Seating is limited to first 100 attendees, with limited SRO space, so plan to arrive early for a good seat! [FoxCentral.Net]
9:01:00 AM
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Tuesday, May 13, 2003 |
Ed Leafe wrote an article for Linux Journal magazine's website, and it was published today. He tells me that he has sent in an addendum that covers the Microsoft "clarification" and the John T. Mitchell article; this should be added sometime later today. Here's the link:
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=6869
5:52:50 PM
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Monday, May 12, 2003 |
"Interesting pov on "social software" from Don Park." Link via Scripting News.
A disturbing example of how societies can fragment and balkanize and take on irrational ideas. While I have enjoyed the successes of some high-flying communities over the years (CompuServe's IBMVENDB, FoxForum and currently MSDevApps, Ed Leafe's ProFox list), I have also see communities where the ethos never fully developed or the ground rules were never clear.
6:34:20 AM
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Sunday, May 11, 2003 |
Certainly a book I am looking forward to, author Rogers Cadenhead announces Radio Userland KickStart. Check out his web site for a project page, sample chapter, drafts and Radio Userland tips.
6:46:35 PM
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The Brad is Back says Chris Pirillo, pointing to Nick Bradbury's TopStyle CSS editor, and FeedDemon RSS aggregator. Nick wrote HomeSite, a great HTML editor back in the days, and seems to have some other promising products worth checking out.
3:04:24 PM
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The Guardian has an article summarizing some of the aspects of Social Software that were presented at O'Reilly's Emerging Technology Conference. The Guardian referred to, but did not actually link to, this piece by Tom Coates on PlasticBag.com bemoaning the lack of historical perspective in the Social Software hype.
9:15:04 AM
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Saturday, May 10, 2003 |
An interesting article that suggests that "New Media" was oversold. It was also undermined by the telopolies that promised optical fiber to the home, but delivered POTS and got out-maneuvered by cable. Still, I'm posting this on a 50.2 kb dial-up. I don;t think "New Media" runs on old copper. However, I do think that collaboration and community and social software may be the NBT, perhaps the New Media we didn't know we were waiting for. 'New Media': Ready for the Dustbin of History?. "The digital age held out the potential for a genuinely "new media." But is the World Wide Web only good for shopping and searching?" By Steve Lohr. [New York Times: Technology]
10:23:45 PM
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There's some good priciples here that applied to all teams. From Adaptive Path: Fifteen Tips for Remote Collaboration. "It will always be easier to rally a group of people who work in the same building, but you can accomplish just as much (or more) with a motivated remote team. Getting team members motivated in the first place and holding their interest are your goals. Here are fifteen quick and useful tips to get you started." Linked from Tomalak's Realm
6:05:58 PM
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I think we need to talk with the IBM marketeers. If you're really trying to get across the message that a technology is alive and well, does the codename "T-Rex" really make sense? "IBM to unearth T-Rex mainframe. The z990 system, code-named T-Rex, spearheads Big Blue's effort to insure that its mainframes--under fierce competition from Unix and Windows servers--aren't doomed to extinction." Posted on CNET News.com
7:25:12 AM
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Friday, May 9, 2003 |
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Thursday, May 8, 2003 |
Andrew Grumet: Deep Thinking about Weblogs. Is blogging at a tipping point? Link via Scripting News. A good summary of where RSS and weblogs are, and some tantalizing hints on where aggregation and association can take us.
3:39:12 PM
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Wednesday, May 7, 2003 |
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Tuesday, May 6, 2003 |
Arrived in Knoxville. Very pretty airport, and comfortably small. It's so GREEN down here! Lawns already need mowing. In Contoocook, the snow's just finished melting three weeks ago...
9:52:33 PM
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Off to the client site for a multi-day visit. Hope to connect when I'm down there. Y'all take care!
8:35:04 AM
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Don't you hate it when a machine tells you you're wrong? Wordy error notices of death. "I just went to register a product at the Creative site, and got this: Microsoft VBScript runtime error '800a01a8'
Object required: 'cmdl'
/register/OCXnp.asp, line 212
And just yesterday I failed to buy a product at Buy.com because it insisted that my zip code was an error, and offered a popout menu with ten other nearby zip codes, all wrong. So I failed to make the buy. Smooth, huh?" from The Doc Searls Weblog
8:34:12 AM
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Monday, May 5, 2003 |
More on Social Software from Jonathan. Jonathan Peterson follows up on his blog entry about why social software is taking off: Cocooning, technology, commute times, and commodity McJobs all put tremendous isolationist pressures on individuals, anything that can lessen those pressures by enabling real, emotional, human, re-connection will thrive. I concur.... [Joho the Blog]
2:08:48 PM
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The Social Software Dust-up. Stowe Boyd jumps into the "Is social software just hype" kerfuffle. So does Ross Mayfield. If nothing else, the brouhaha is prompting some good writing...... [Joho the Blog]
2:08:26 PM
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Breadbox Obtains Worldwide Exclusive Geos Rights from OSNews
I was a big fan of GEOS on the Commodore 64. I beta tested several of their packages, including their GeoWrite, GeoCalc and a GeoBasic development IDE that never saw the light of day. On a 1 megahertz, 8-bit 6502 processor with 64 Kb of RAM, they had a GUI, WYSIWYG editors, scalable fonts, mouse, icons, PostScript output and more. With a souped-up system like mine (1 Mb RAM expander, low and *high-density* floppy drives, etc.), it was a slick system for office use and DTP.
I've just had an inquiry from a 501(c)(3) charity with *no* money and 100 486s. I wonder if GEOS might be the solution for them...
8:26:31 AM
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Sunday, May 4, 2003 |
 Steve and I saw the 1 PM show of XMen 2 - great fun! Lots of good special effects, stuff blowing up, nasty Wolverine fight scenes, awesome ending. Just like the comic books. Would have liked a little more depth into the characters, a little more acting, but how to fit everything into a movie? It's tough.
9:24:49 AM
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 Laura and I watched "Fosse" last night. Whew! Great, great, great dancing! It was really interesting to see Fosse pieces from the 50s against dances from the 70s and 90s. What an evolution. The cast was marvelous. Mini-interviews between acts brought even more depth to the performance. A great evening, a great day. This is what weekends were meant to be!
9:11:17 AM
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Saturday, May 3, 2003 |
 Sometime over the past few days - the summit had been cloaked in clouds - the Old Man of the Mountain, truly a natural wonder, slid down the side of the mountain, despite years of attempts to stabilize the feature. Heavy rains are blamed, no foul play has been suggested.
Glad I got to see it before it was gone. Sorry my grandchildren won't get to, though.
6:17:55 PM
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Friday, May 2, 2003 |
http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/319360/2003-04-20/2003-04-26/0 is reporting on a painfully simple snippet of code that crashes Internet Explorer. It doesn't appear to open the door to any exploits, but still... pretty pitiful. Trustworthy Computing, eh? Not there just yet.
Since it crashes IE, and IE is a component in applications like Outlook FrontPage and the Visual FoxPro Task Pane Manager, the code will crash those applications as well.
6:33:00 PM
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Jonathon on social software. "Jonathan puts well why social software is becoming important. I liked what Phil Windley had to say also. (I wrote about this topic here. Dave Winer wrote here about why he thinks it's over-hyped.)..." from Joho the Blog.
I think Dave Winer is right in pointing out that there's nothing new here, but what I suspect he might be missing, too close to see, is that there is something new in the attention being given it, in the way it is being used, and in the integration of blogs and forums and wikis into a more cohesive networked whole. Just as design patterns (Gamma, Helm, et al) didn't change object-oriented programming as much as classify it and provide a new vocabulary for OOP programmers to be able to communicate rich concepts with simpler phrases. Social Software may provide us with new taxonomies and phrases to talk about interrelationships between different posting idioms.
2:11:25 PM
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Thursday, May 1, 2003 |
OpenOffice.org: One year, 10 million hits Ten million hits isn't ten million sales, but 95,000 users have registered. It's an up-and-coming thing. We installed OO.o on the network admin's machine when we realized we didn't have a license of Office for the box, and he worked with it just fine. Posted from CNET News.com
8:39:04 PM
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 Bruce Bullough was the engineer on the USS Daniel Webster Blue crew, and I served on six patrols with him, including the one where they plucked me off the sail of the ship by helicopter to fly home to see my ailing son. He was a good man, and it's sad to see his passing at the early age of 54.
Story in The Day and another obituary here. Rest in Peace, Bruce.
4:28:29 PM
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