Tim O'Reilly on MP3.com.
The big guys are getting into the open source software movement in numerous ways.
The O'Reilly Developer Network is embracing the weblog concept, and has some great weblogs being edited by Tim O'Reilly and Dale Dougherty.
Star Wars in Flash. [Dude!]
It's hard to believe it's only been a year since JWZ left Netscape.
XML.com: XML Web Pages with Mozilla. [I'm becoming a huge fan of XML.com]
I hope all of my readers understand that CamWorld is a direct reflection of what I'm reading and studying on the web, and that in the recent few months there has been a considerable turn towards XML and Mozilla oriented content and links. Six months ago, I would never have thought I'd be so involved in this stuff, but I have a great group of co-workers who soften the technology curve for me.
The Sullivan skin for Mozilla is about 70% implemented. We hope to release it next week.
IBM: Design For Scalability. [Great paper!]
Dori wants to have a Bay Area weblogger get-together early next month. I'm game, but I can't organize it. I'm far too busy.
You'll never guess what room (hint: it's a very small room with a sink) of my apartment I'm updating this page from right now. Let's just say that Apple's wireless ethernet rocks!
Harold Stusnick is one busy guy. I met Harold at the SXSW conference earlier this month in Austin. I've since learned that not only is Harold an editor at Yahoo, he also runs Offhand Remarks and Media Nugget of the Day.
I will be in San Francisco from April 6-9 for the Mozilla Party 3 and the first Mozilla Developer meeting the following day. If anyone wants to get together for lunch or dinner, don't hesitiate to contact me.
Don't forget, PBS is showing the Code Rush documentary tomorrow night. It's about the 1998 Netscape effort to release the Mozilla open source code.
O'Reilly, the popular computer book publisher, has announced an affiliation with MozillaZine. This is great news!
Kermit the Frog testifies in front of Congress.
Mozilla: The Mozilla Beta. "...since the target audience for the Mozilla project is the developer community, and the target audience for Netscape is an end user community; a beta for one community might not be a beta for the other. So some focus may be useful."
What, no phone number?
The latest on Bigfoot.
CHI-WEB: Why do children like big type?
How to Succeed at Getting Hired (and Lots of Ways Not To). [Side note: I know my boss reads CamWorld, this is not an indication that I'm job-hunting, so you recruiters can buzz off -- I normally wouldn't link to this except that the author is a friend. Hi David.]
Stephen King's e-book was cracked. That didn't take long.
LinuxWorld: The Dope on Zope.
Photo-Essay: Teens Overcome By Holy Spirit at Citgo Gas Station. [Bizarre...]
The famous computer security report from the late 1960s is now online: Security Controls for Computer Systems: Report of Defense Science Board Task Force on Computer Security - RAND Report R-609-1.
A List Apart: Why Gecko Matters [Must read.]
BabelParam is a open source piece of javascript code that allows users to set preferences for a web page. Included in their examples is a multilingual prefernces setting, although I can see all kinds of other uses for this. [Pretty cool.]
These "word pictures" are pretty cool, except the page doesn't load fully in Netscape (crashes NN4.x/Mac).
Stating the Obvious: Just One Question for Jeffrey Veen
More evidence that either the American TV networks have no clue when it comes to programming, or the real Amereican TV-watching audience is made up of trailer trash and braindead zombies. I just keep building that DVD collection, yessiree, in anticipation of the day there is absolutely nothing on television worth watching, save some PBS shows.
XML.com: Portable Site Information
I think I'm going to order one just so I can throw it out the window of my 10th-floor NYC office. [found at rc3.org]
Ha ha!
I think I'm going to buy stock in this company's IPO. The long-term market for this technology is potentially huge.
I did manage to see Koyaanisqatsi Live last night. Judith from Calamodin had an extra ticket and offered it to me at face value. The movie, as always, was an amazing piece of work. I've got tickets for Powaqqatsi Live tomorrow night. Great stuff.
www.blowthedotoutyourass.com
I've started designing a Mozilla skin that takes into consideration the niceties of the MacOS behaviors and user interface. The skin is loosley modeled after IE 5 for the Mac.
Writing Good Work Objectives Form and Substance (Specification and Derivation)
Probably fewer updates this week. I'm terribly busy...
Nothing gets me going more than the thought of seeing Koyaanisqatsi performed live. [Except the show is sold out. Bummer.]
This is truly amazing. It will be very cool when we can see massive data storage in small devices like your watch or your, ahem, MP3 player. Even better, a watch that can play MP3s.
After reading this Salon article about the fattening of dot-com magazines, I came to the startling realization that I'm not reading mine anymore. I still get them in the mail, but they just sit on the coffee table. Trying to lug them around with me to read is not acceptable, either. Hmmm, I wonder if these publishers realize they're losing readership because their magazines are too thick or simply have too much content. What it ultimately boils down to is that we are increasingly finding ourselves short on time, and one of the first things to go is the reading of the thick monthy periodicals.
PlanetIT: You've Got XML.
I can't help but get excited about the possibilities of Mozilla as a web application development tool. At Alphanumerica, we're working on a cross-platform script editor (yet to be named) that loads remotely across the Internet. This is true web application deployment. (If you're using Mozilla, you can check out how this works). The coolest thing about web application deployment like this is that it's a simple click to launch and run an entire application. And it's completely cross-platform. How cool is that?
A small startup called Civilution is working on some tools that allow a weblog owner to easily add online discussion forms to their sites.
IBM's Sash Weblications For Windows sounds like it has a lot of the same web application functionality as Mozilla. Why is Mozilla better? It's completely cross-platform. Any web application built using Mozilla as its framework can run on any OS that Mozilla has been ported to. This includes Windows 95/98/2000, Linux, Mac OS 8/9 and X, Amiga, BeOS, OS/2. Unix, and even PDAs like Nokia's web-enabled cell phones.
XML.com: Fooling With XUL
Press Release: Alphanumerica Sponsors First Mozilla Developers Meeting
LinuxWorld: The Promise of an Internet-Based Office Suite. Think web applications, folks. This is going to be a huge market.
DaveNet: What is a Web Application?
A good story/rant about Amazon's ever-fluctuating author data. My experience at Borders.com indicates that most of the data integrity problems are directly related to bad data inherited from any one of the databases sold and distributed to companies like Amazon. The largest and most well-known ones are Bowker's Books-In-Print and Muze (music). While it's fun to blame Amazon and other booksellers for bad data, often the problem is out of their control. [via rc3.org]
O'Reilly Network: Mozilla Interview
Whoo-hoo! Back from SXSW. The guy on the plane next me was a fart machine that looked like Walter Mitty. Other ethan that, the trip back was uneventful. Shared the flight from Austin to Atlanta with Jack and Elan. Heh.
Mozilla Conference: Lots of SXSW attendees probably heard me talk to them about Mozilla and how cool it really is. What's even cooler is my employer is sponsoring the first ever Mozilla developer's conference next month (April 7) to coincide with the Mozilla 3 party. If you're a Mozilla developer or are interested in web application development using Mozilla, I'll see you in Mountain View. [Oh yeah, free t-shirts and pizza.]
The O'Reilly Open Source Convention is July 17-21. One of the main technology tracks is Mozilla. Given the fact that this is an O'Reilly conference, the panels and speakers are going be simply amazing.
Dack has a web economy bullshit generator. You go, Dack.
Today's SXSW Conference Itinerary:
10:00 AM - Keynote Speech 11:00 AM - Panel: Weblogs 12:30 PM - Lunch 1:30 PM - Panel: Writing For the Web 3:30 PM - Panel: Web Development for Tomorrow's Browsers 7:00 PM - Party at Bruce Sterling's house (invitation only)
The weblogs panel was awesome. Despite some crowd flare-ups, Derek Powazek did an awesome job moderating the heated discussion. I missed the second panel because of an impromptu lunch gethering down the street.
The SXSW Closing party sucked. Bruce Sterling's party was much better. Met lots of people I hadn't met at any of the previous parties. Bruce even told me he has my site bookmarked. This was surprising news to me. BTW, he has a lime green iMac.
Despite what you hear, I'm not "giggly." Heh.
10:00 AM - Keynote Speech 11:00 AM - Panel: User Centric Design 12:30 PM - Lunch 1:30 PM - Panel:Interface Culture 3:30 PM - Panel: Syndication of Content 6:00 PM - Cocktails With Courtney 9:30 PM - Movie screening: "Spectres of the Spectrum"
Today's panels were even better than yesterday's. The keynote speech was fun, if not a bit flighty. More crowded conference rooms, more free drinks, and more industry gab.
The movie was absolutely horrid. Depsite the "good" reviews, half the auditorium was asleep despite the cranked sound system. I think the sound was to try and compensate for how bad the movie was.
10:00 AM - Keynote Speech 11:00 AM - Panel: Design Techniques 12:30 PM - Lunch 1:30 PM - Panel: Freelancing in the New Media Landscape 3:30 PM - Panel: Internet Industry Trends 8:00 PM Frog Design Party
The panels were pretty good. I'm very impressesd by the quality of some of the speakers. Of course, the SXSW organizers seem to have a knack for putting the most popular panels and roundtables in the smallest conference rooms. I'm sure they're breaking all kinds of Fire Marshall laws. Still, the interaction between the panelists and the audience is very good.
The Frog Design party was really cool, clowns, drum dancers, free drinks, and loads of cool people.
9:00 AM - 6:00 PM - Various Open Houses at New Media companies in Austin 3:30 PM - Panel: New Media Design 6:00 PM - Web Awards Party (Radisson) 9:00 PM - Deepleap Launch Party (invitiation only)
So far, today was pretty low-key. We attended some open houses at various new media companies in Austin. After fighting off the recruiters, we focused on studying their workspace environments and asked questions they couldn't answer. It was fun playing with their heads by launching into a tirade of questions about technical issues. Still, it was great to look at other new media company officespaces and make mental notes about what works and what doesn't work.
At 3:30 we attended a very good panel discussion about new media design. Interestingly enough, it was sponsored by the Texas branch of the Industrial Design Society of America. Lots of great info and ideas from people at Frog Design and BodyMedia.
Non-SXSW News and Links:
UIDesign.net: Jakob Nielsen review.
Epinions.com is finally out of preview mode. I like the new design. Very clean.
Gallery of the Absurd is a great collection of real-world objects and items that completely fail the real-world usability and functionality tests. Anyone who is fascinated by this industry ought to read Donald Norman's amazing book "The Design of Everyday Things."
Almost.org: Tales of Near-Sex Experiences. Finally, someone has put something on the web worth reading! [Over 18 only, please.]
11:30 AM - Flight to Atlanta 3:35 PM - Connecting flight to Austin
5:00 PM - Pick up rental car 6:00 PM - Check into LaQuinta Hotel 7:00 PM - Pre-Party at GSD&M 9:30 PM - City of Ideas Reception (Four Seasons Hotel)
The flights were uneventful. We ended up getting a white Chrysler Sebring convertible with 300 miles on it. I've already decided this is a car I will never own. We arrived at the hotel only to discover that they had given our rooms away to people who had stayed extra nights. After arguing with the hotel and pointing out that we had made reservations well in advance, they scared up two rooms. I ended up in a room usually reserved for wheelchair guests (the bathroom is huge). Sara and her husband (Sara is my coworker) ended up in a room with a window that doesn't shut and locks that don't work.
The GSD&M pre-party was truly awful. They held the "party" in the lobby of their building, which holds the likely title of worst acoustics in a building in all of Texas.
It's tornado season in Texas. We saw some pretty ugly skies that were clearly classic tornado breeding grounds. Fun!
A good rant about version 5.x browsers for the Mac.
This is truly an interesting experience: camworld@nish% telnet camix Trying 192.168.1.204... Connected to camix.alphanumerica.com. 4.4 BSD (macosx) (ttyp2) login: camworld Password: [macosx:~] camworld%
camworld@nish% telnet camix Trying 192.168.1.204... Connected to camix.alphanumerica.com. 4.4 BSD (macosx) (ttyp2) login: camworld Password: [macosx:~] camworld%
4.4 BSD (macosx) (ttyp2)
login: camworld Password: [macosx:~] camworld%
Beware the i-bomb!
OSOpinion: Answering the Monopoly Apologists. [Surprisingly well-written.]
MSNBC: The Rise and Fall of Netscape. I really hate journalism that sensationalizes stories like this. While I agree that Netscape is dead and that Microsoft won the browser wars, I feel that Mozilla is alive and well. The problem with today's clueless journalists is that they are still seeing Mozilla as a web browser. In truth, it's much, much more than that. While Mozilla started as a web browser, it has evolved into a very powerful cross-platform web application environment. More on this later...
Why the Open Directory isn't Open.
I think Rev. Peasboro needs to lay off the wacky juice.
Jesse James Garrett is back with a new site, WeblogNation.
The Infinite Monkey Protocol Suite (IMPS)
The Twelve Networking Truths
South Park at the Oscars and censorship in America. [via rc3.org]
The Maxx has an interesting look to it. Reminds me of some of the more popular Kaleidoscope themes.
Byte: The Future of the Programmable Browser [required reading]
Yesterday, I made the mistake of wearing my Microsoft Mactopia t-shirt to work. Several of my co-workers made comments about it, they being hardcore Linux geeks. That's what I get for 1) not doing laundry sooner and 2) accepting the t-shirt in the first place at a Microsoft recruitment party back in January in San Francisco.
I just finished watching Trainspotting on the Bravo Channel. While the movie wasn't as good as I expected, the soundtrack is a work of art. Highly recommended.
This article about Newmedia.com getting sponsors is clearly PR fluff. When the new site launched back in January, I criticized its no-holds-barred approach to using new technology. Before they canceled the print publication, I read the magazine on a regular basis. Now that the magazine is web-only, and the technology they use prohibits me from using their site, I've found that I'm turning to their competition (WebReview, WebReference) for the same info. From my point of view, they blew it by making their information very hard to get to (because of the web technologies they decided to use). The common phrase among web designers is "the web is not print" can also be applied with a slight modification, "the web is not CD-ROM!"
Remember my complaint/rant about advertisements in front of movies at the threatre? Apparently, this advertising atrocity has spread to DVDs as well. This is unacceptable.
XML.com: When XML Gets Ugly
This graspable user interface concept and supporting information is very interesting.
Ugh! The movie studios are going crazy this summer with web promotions for their movies. I can only imagine how much money they're going to pump into these sites, only to have people ignore them, and rely on word-of-mouth instead.
Apologies for the infrequent updates. Things will resume back to normal after I get moved into my new apartment. The good news is that I'm starting to write more. A lot more. In anticipation, I've updated my Essays section.
The creation of custom Mozilla browser GUIs is going to be a very cool thing. Mozilla uses a technology called XUL, which looks a lot HTML. The nice thing about XUL is that it uses CSS as well for exact image positioning. This set of technologies is going to make it very easy for web designers to build some very cool (and good looking) GUIs for the Mozilla browser. One of the decisions made by the Mozilla developers was to use a standard set of GUI widgets across all OS platforms. There is currently a lot of debate about this in the Mozilla newsgroups. However, the beauty of XUL is that you can design your own native OS widgets to work with your GUI package.
I usually enjoy Hiawatha Bray's articles, but this one that calls Mozilla "the most effective piece of useless software ever written" is clearly lacking of research. The problem is the reporter's point of view. He's clearly looking at Mozilla as being a consumer-oriented web browser, and has completely ignored the multitude of possibilities Mozilla's open source nature will offer. The point being, that Mozilla will likely never be a well-received browser for the average Joe Blow. The marketing and corporate support simply isn't there. Instead, I see Mozilla being a very valuable web application environment, allowing all kinds of truly customized web-based services that are much more difficult to implement with the closed nature of Internet Explorer and previous versions of Netscape. The reporter also has chosen to ignore the fact that Mozilla is simply the base for the next version of Netscape. If you're going to report on the consumer web browser market, you should really be looking at what Netscape's planning on doing with Mozilla, and not just at Mozilla itself.
ArsTechnica: Awesome first look at Mac OS X DP3. Excellent info!
Phew! I finally found an apartment and signed a lease tonight. It's a fairly large two-bedroom in Brooklyn (Park Slope) with two floors. The bedrooms are upstairs and the downstairs is one large room with the kitchen and bathroom towards the back. Not only is there also a small backyard, there are two, count 'em two, terraces -- one on each floor. I'm thinking of throwing an apartment-warming party sometime in April. Oh yeah, there's also lots of basement storage. Best of all: no broker's fee!
