Blog Posts

February 2004

• 2004-02-07

  IMHO: I started and stopped

  IMHO: I started and stopped writing this two days ago, mostly because I didn’t feel like I knew any of the people or issues involved well enough to have the right to a meaningful opinion, not to mention that I would be seens as sucking up (people are so quick to judge – but what the hell, here goes…)

  But I just feel like I must post a brief note of support and agreement with what Doc and Jon wrote about the recent bit of mean-spirited writing about RSS and its history, both on public blogs and private newsgroups. I wasn’t there but ...

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• 2004-02-06

  TiVo watchers uneasy after post-Super

  TiVo watchers uneasy after post-Super Bowl reports: CNET News.com. Seems that I was not the only one!

• 2004-02-05

  Joho the Blog: The Semantic

  Joho the Blog: The Semantic Earth. David Weinberger’s new article for Release 1.0 sounds really worthwhile.

• 2004-02-04

  Stern on Jackson

  Stern on Jackson: What total sillyness, all the outrage over Janet Jackson’s bared breast during the superbowl halftime. If it wasn’t for TIVO I wouldn’t have been sure even of what I saw. I think the whole event lasted all of 1 second.

  Howard Stern points out the sillyness: The government is starting an investigation about Janet Jackson’s breast reveal, but can’t get it together to investigate Cheney and Haliburton. Ridiculous! Jon Stewart made more or less the same point.

• 2004-02-04

  Did you know how closely

  Did you know how closely you were being watched by your TIVO? A by-product of the Janet Jackson flap, was that Tivo announced through a press release that they registered the biggest blip of from their network at the instant of the famous reveal. Count me in – I did a bunch of Replay’s to see if I had really seen what I thought I had seen. Who cares?

  But the big surprise is that Tivo somehow is collecting that information at that granular level – literally what buttons I am pushing on the remote? Big Brother! I guess the second, smaller surprise, is that Tivo is so proud of this that they needed to put it into a press release.

• 2004-02-02

  Orkut Revisited: I had been

  Orkut Revisited: I had been wondering whether my negative vibes about Orkut was because I was the only person on the planet apparently that had not received an invitation. Well that’s all changed. And you know what? I still feel the same way. And apparently I am not the only one…

  In a bit of very clever social engineering, I believe the allure of Orkut was (somewhat or mostly) about the fact that it was unattainable. By being “Invitation Only” it produced two effects: a) people who were left out wanted “in”, and b) people who were “in” viewed it at some level as some kind of validation – after all they ...

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• 2004-02-01

  I’m not *that* geeky: I

  I’m not that geeky: I am totally fascinated and entralled with what’s going on on Mars right now. I’ve followed all sorts of sources and recently came across this blog by Susan Kitchens who has very detailed posts about what’s going on. I don’t know who she is or how she’s connected, but it’s a pretty comprehensive way to keep up.

  As a software guy I am very interested in how the software for the Rover is put together. I asked Susan whether she could give me some pointers, which led to this recent post in her blog, which I thought was amusing:

  “Backing up the Mars Rover Mission: ...

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  #science

January 2004

• 2004-01-31

  Sun still doesn’t get it!

  Sun still doesn’t get it! Ouch this hurts. The UI below is what the vaunted Sun provides to Windows users as their standard “Java Web Start” Experience — the latest release of Java no less – fresh off the presses.

  This is what poor first time users are expected to look at when they are installing Java apps on Windows (I suspect it looks just the same on other platforms.) **It turns my stomach. **

  The underlying technology is great, and seems to work, and be secure and convenient. But please doesn’t anyone think just a little bit about user experience?

  This is 2004, guys. First impressions count.

  

• 2004-01-30

  BlogBridge update: Just a quick

  BlogBridge update: Just a quick note about what’s up with BlogBridge. My time has been severely drained by a new consulting project, so progress has slowed down more than I would like. The last while I was knee-deep in installation, deployment, upgrade facilities. I looked at a bunch of possible ways of distributing, installing and then upgrading the application, evaluating 3 of them in detail. What a mess!

  In the end I settled on Java Web Start. I used to think of this as a bit of a kludge, but it seems to be well suited to deployment and installation of Java apps, and with each release Sun seems to make it a little nicer. So that’s what I am going with.

  I...

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• 2004-01-29

  Orkut’s back up: “I’m up

  Orkut’s back up: “I’m up to 193 friends – and counting.” Continuing the amusing fascination with what’s apparently a buggy new service duplicating several other existing services. Are we allowing software to help us with our self-realization? Wild!

• 2004-01-27

  Getting Your R�sum� Read –

  Getting Your R©sum© Read – From Joel Spolsky. Joel writes a good and amusing article with some brain-dead-obvious tips (that apparently aren’t so obvious) about resumes. One of the rants though:

  “OK, this one really bugs me. Learn where spaces go in relation to other punctuation*. Attention, the entire population of India: whenever you have a comma, there is always exactly one space and it’s always after the comma and never before it. Thank you.” *

  While still amusing (but perhaps somewhat culturally insensitive) this particular point stands out because I’ve had this debate/argument more than once. In particular the old ...

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• 2004-01-24

  What’s up with Orkut? There’s

  What’s up with Orkut? There’s this new “online community that connects people through a network of trusted friends” that’s causing quite a bit of comment here and there, in blogs and other newsgroups. After all the badmouthing that I’ve seen of services like LinkedIn and Plaxo, it’s funny to see the degree of interest.

  Their secret ingredient, it would seem, is that you can’t sign up! What a clever marketing scheme, exclusivity, has built up quite a lot of attention. Anyone who knows a two year old knows that there’s no better way to generate interest than in denying access! Their other secret ingredient is that apparen...

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• 2004-01-22

  The two Howards: Dean and

  The two Howards: Dean and Stern. Everyone is wringing their hands about the way Howard Dean acted out on the night of the Iowa Caucuses. I heard well known pundits talk about ‘the defining moment of Dean’s campaign.’ What a bunch of nonsense. This was a non-event, a crazy moment at the end of a long day with a huge crowd of revved up supporters. And indeed some of my friends who support Dean have commented, more eloquently than this, in his defense as well.

  Forgive me to mention the other Howard in the same breath, but the best came on Howard Stern’s show, wh...

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  #politics
• 2004-01-19

  Channel Dean: “An RSS feed

  Channel Dean: “An RSS feed that’s like a clipping service for people interested in US politics.” Dave Winer and some co-conspiritors have created something really cool: a new feed which brings together a series of feeds that all relate to US Politics. As I’ve said before, hats off to these kinds of innovation. I’m just loving it! Here’s the RSS (XML) link if you want to try it.This development raises some interesting questions/ideas:

  What is the Dean-bias of ...

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  #politics
• 2004-01-19

  Microsoft Money 2004. Disappointing. I

  Microsoft Money 2004. Disappointing. I started preparing my taxes and so I thought I might upgrade my Microsoft Money to the 2004 from 2003. I am a fairly comprehensive user of Microsoft Money, and so every year I do this, and frankly almost every year I am disappointed.

  There are almost no new features, enhancements, simplifications or whatever. Am I a sucker? Every year, I probably wait 2 to 3 months after the upgrade comes out to order it… I am well aware of their tack to extract yet another $50 from me (less the $20 rebate which) but I still fall for it, in the hope that even if nothing visible changes, bugs are fixed that will save me time even though I never am aware of it. Still I’d say if you are thinking of upgrading to 2004, you can safely skip it.

  #technology
• 2004-01-17

  Goody, Goody! Mary, over at

  Goody, Goody! Mary, over at LockerGnome notes: “…to look like a Windows application. With JGoodies you can give them what they want, and a whole lot more besides!”. This is in reference to a great UI framework for Java called JGoodies.

  As it turns out, the app I’ve been working on lately has been using JGoodies. Check it out, it does make a lovely WindowsXP looking UI with Swing actually possible. No small feat.

  #programming
• 2004-01-16

  Did you hear this one?

  Did you hear this one? (via some talkshow.) “President George Bush, trying to lay to rest concerns about our supply of beef: ‘Our beef supply is safe. I tell you, do not be concerned about eating beef. If we see a reduction in the consumption of beef in this country, then, the cows have won!’ “

  #politics
• 2004-01-16

  Living in 3d? So here

  Living in 3d? So here are these really cool 3D Mars Pictures. But my question is, where do I get the specs? I saw these freebie 3D glasses, but who knows if they are the right kind. I will report further if I find out. Faithful readership, please let me know?

  #science
• 2004-01-14

  I want RSS to disappear.

  I want RSS to disappear. The question was posed, “What do users want from RSS”? I thought long and hard about this and here’s where I come out.

  Speaking strictly as a user, what I care about are RSS applications. I care about reading, scanning, writing, absorbing, learning from, contributing, and sharing. So what I want from RSS is to disappear into the plumbing, and in every way possible enable and encourage great applications to be designed and built.

  All kinds of wonderful new stuff that is yet to be invented. Authoring tools, reading tools, syndication applications, content applications, distribution servers, mass political blogging platforms, search engines and indexes, ra...

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  #technology
• 2004-01-13

  Some amazing (Mars) panoramas. This

  Some amazing (Mars) panoramas. This is via Boing Boing. If you look at the navigation device in the bottom right, you’ll see that this site actually is an archive of all kinds of cool 360 degree panoramas!

  #science