The Sean Brunnock Blog

NewsApp changes

Mon, 26 May 2003 15:53:51 GMT

I made some changes to the NewsApp yesterday. So far, I'm happy with the results. I implemented the GUID field, but probably not the way it was intended. I think Dave Winer intended aggregators to skip new RSS items if they already had an item with its GUID. Currently, the NewsApp will insert an updated RSS item and delete the prior versions.

Style Sheet Rebellion

Mon, 26 May 2003 11:06:44 GMT

I decided to force DiscussionApp admins to use Style Sheets to change the colors on their DiscApps. I wrote a a very simple introduction. Madness ensues.

I'm an idiot

Tue, 13 May 2003 16:53:10 GMT

About two years ago, I developed a hybrid mailing list/message board. It worked mostly like a message board, but you could receive a daily email message with links to the newest messages. I thought it was brilliant. You could read messages in an easy to follow threaded format on the Web and stay apprised of new messages without flooding your inbox. I anticipated that people would sign up for DiscLists at a rate similar to ListApps- over 2 million subscribers in a few years. Instead, subscribership topped out in the low tens of thousands and stagnated. I've been beating my head wondering what went wrong.

I think I've solved the problem. I assumed that DiscApp admins would promote the DiscLists and encourage visitors to subscribe just like ListApp admins. I'm guessing that the concept was too foreign. Anyways, yesterday I made subscribing to a DiscList as easy as checking a box while posting a message. DiscList subscriptions have increased by nearly an order of magnitude.

I still think DiscLists are a great idea. I'm hoping to get over 100,000 subscribers by the end of the year.

ListApp owner accused of spamming

Fri, 09 May 2003 14:34:03 GMT

This burns me up. Someone who has been using our ListApp for over a year was accused of spamming and his ISP disconnected him. He's now switching from the ListApp to a blog. When are ISPs going to stop with their spam witchhunt?

WIMP and FILTH

Wed, 30 Apr 2003 13:54:51 GMT

I'm surprised that these acronyms haven't become more mainstream. Web searches on the terms return mostly references to flames.

WIMP - Windows, Icons, Menus and Pointers. The traditional and still dominant GUI layout utilized by Windows, the Macintosh and some websites such as Oddpost.

FILTH - Formatting, Images, Links, Text and Hypermedia. The dominant layout method utilized by websites. Considering that web browsers were adopted by people quicker than WIMP GUIs, you would think that more applications would be written using a FILTH interface.

Spews in NY Times

Tue, 29 Apr 2003 16:50:27 GMT

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/29/technology/29SPAM.html

Server.com is also listed in the Spews database simply because we're hosted by Rackspace.

Slashdot compressing RSS feeds

Sat, 26 Apr 2003 16:27:12 GMT

It seems that Slashdot began compressing their RSS feeds last night. Unfortunately, our aggregator can't parse it.

Update- They fixed it Saturday afternoon.

Write code in XML

Fri, 25 Apr 2003 19:04:32 GMT

Apparently, somebody wrote an XSLT which converts XML to Java.

Email issues

Fri, 25 Apr 2003 18:24:34 GMT

Email is a pressing concern for me today.

First, there are the anti-spam proposals at ISPCON. One company wants to prioritize legitimate email. How do you distinguish between legitimate email and illegitimate email? If it were possible, we wouldn't have a spam problem. Another company wants mailers to pay a deposit up front which will be disbersed to recipients who complain. Many ISPs make it easier for recipients to report a message as spam rather than unsubscribe. Yahoo hides our unsubscribe instructions! Another company wants to force mailers to visit a webpage and perform an action in order to deliver a message. We get thousands of subscribers a day. What on earth are they thinking?

Then there's disc.server.com which apparently hasn't been able to receive email messages for several weeks. I'm guessing it has to do with a patch that our ISP installed.

Finally, our one of the nameservers for Server.com was returning the incorrect MX for grapps.server.com.

If the IETF wants to overhaul email, they won't hear me complain.

Another anti-spam coalition

Thu, 24 Apr 2003 14:07:11 GMT

The Network Advertising Initiative has formed an Email Service Provider Coalition which has announced the intention to create an industrywide whitelist for mailing list companies called Project Lumos. I believe that a widely available whitelist of decent mailing lists companies would be beneficial, but I don't think that the NAI would be neutral enough. The biggest advocate for this whitelist appears to be Topica (they're hosting ESPC's mailing list, for example) which is on several spam blacklists. It appears that Topica's attempt to get whitelisted via Habeas didn't work out.

Credit Card Merchant Account

Thu, 17 Apr 2003 12:49:43 GMT

Trying to line up a merchant account so we can accept credit cards. I went through this last year and selected PayPal. They've really got their act together, particularly when it comes to handling recurring payments for online services, but it seems that most consumers are turned off by the approval process. After EBay bought PayPal last year, it seems that PayPal is turning into a EBay payment solution rather than a mainstream solution.

We've been with Fleet for years, but they keep pushing us to use Skipjack which is a third-party company. It appears that Skipjack competes with Charge.com and Merchant Accounts Express. Many folks on WebHostingTalk recommend 2CheckOut.com but their fees seem high (5.5% + $.45 for each transaction).

New DNS provider

Tue, 15 Apr 2003 19:20:35 GMT

We're paying Network Solutions $50 a year to handle DNS and MX services for Server.com. It's a great relief. We used to outsource the DNS and MX to another company, but they decided that we were getting too much spam and dropped us without warning. Other companies wanted to charge based on traffic (which would have been hundreds of dollars per month) or had conditions that our service could be taken away without warning if we were suspected of sending spam. When you host thousands of mailing lists, you have to deal with spam complaints on a daily basis. Mail service providers like Yahoo are making it easier to report mailing lists as spam rather than unsubscribing.

Is there bad blood between UPS and the USPS?

Tue, 15 Apr 2003 11:16:49 GMT

For over a year, our mail has been handled by Mail Boxes Etc which is now The UPS Store. They would receive all of our mail and then bundle it up once a week and mail it to our home location via USPS Priority. Up until a few week ago, there were no problems, but two of the last three mail drops have gone missing. No one has an explanation. The UPS Store we deal has stated that they will send packages to us via UPS Ground which is trackable. They say it will cost about the same as USPS Priority. Update - We got the latest package, much later than usual, though.

Wireless PDAs

Mon, 14 Apr 2003 14:29:16 GMT

Interesting article in Wired about Palm going wireless. The article strikes me as a PR piece. I don't notice as many people using PDAs nowadays as I did a few years ago. Wireless phones nowadays tout features like games and screensavers more than PDA functions. In my last few trips to Best Buy, I noticed that they stopped displaying the Handspring Treo phones.

I used to use a Toshiba Libretto with GoAmerica's nationwide unlimited CDPD service for $60 a month. It was great. I could use it anywhere in Boston. I even used it when I went to Hawaii. Then GoAmerica dumped the unlimited plan and charged by the KB and I received a bill for several hundred dollars for one month.

Verizon has an unlimited CDPD plan, but they charge by the byte if you stray into a competitors calling area.

ISPs play games with email

Mon, 14 Apr 2003 11:45:05 GMT

Aaron Sherman states that AOL is playing games with email. Actually, ISPs have been playing games with your email for years. Unfortunately, people seem to think that these games are necessary in order to curb spam.

Sun, 13 Apr 2003 11:15:53 GMT

It's funny. On 9/11, Server.com had one of its busiest days. In one hour alone, over 15,000 people visited our message boards talking about the events of the day. We got so much traffic that Media Life magazine wrote about us. Since Gulf War II started, our traffic has dropped to levels we haven't seen in years. One woman pleaded with us to delete her message board because she couldn't convince her visitors to stop discussing the war.

Server.com vs Weblogs.com

Sun, 13 Apr 2003 11:04:08 GMT

It would appear that the migration of Internet usage from traditional mailing lists and newsgroups to blogs has reached a tipping point-