when building REST XML protocols. Kimbro Staken. Good stuff. -m
For a while, I’ve had an iGo Juice 70. They’ve really nailed the “universal” power adapter for notebooks. Input can be 120 volts, 240 volts, 12 volts (auto), or whatever you get on planes. Output is a series of pluggable tips that work well with 8 different models of notebooks, including everything I own. The…
I originally wrote this in the comments, but it’s worth a full entry. If phone companies thought they could get away with it, you’d have this: “I’m sorry, all circuits to Domino’s Pizza are currently busy. Would you like to be connected to our preferred pizza provider instead?” -m
About a year ago, on this blog I started a series called “Patternalia”, examining various patterns in technology and life in the style of a popular Christopher Alexander series. Over the coming weeks and months, I’m going to revive the series, first of all by getting the old entries into WordPress. Everything will be under…
To me, the true power of the web is in mediating conversations between parties that have never met. I consider it a success when a new name posts a comment–and comments have been picking up here. -m
A reader named Jeff asks: are you aware of any way to render an XForm as Swing widgets (or heck, AWT for that matter) from within a Java thick app? Anyone have pointers? Comment here. -m
It’s no secret that Yahoo! has two different photo sites. And two different social bookmarking sites. Until pretty recently I thought this was craziness. But gradually I’ve realized the power of this approach. You take a smaller, hipper embodiment of an idea alongside a mainstream site. The resulting double-threat can’t easily be matched be either…
Lots and lots of blog traffic on Google Spreadsheet, but I haven’t seen anyone make a key point: The underlying message is: full-blown applications in the browser are now real. Many smaller players have been doing things like this for years, just as many smaller player were using Ajax before it had a catchy name….
Python+XPath is a surprisingly powerful combination for doing all kinds of arbitrary validation tasks. I should know. I’ve recently figured out a few things that make it even better. Line numbers in error messages. Libxml2 docs aren’t exactly forthcoming in this area. It’s pretty easy to register an error callback, but maddeningly it doesn’t include…
New features in InfoPath 2007 make me smile Design once to work on browser and client Object model the same across client and server Both things I worked on extensively for Cardiff LiquidOffice in 2003-2004. ‘Cept we had design once and write out to DHTML, PDF, or InfoPath. :) -m
For better or worse. In no particular order. Affordable unlimited data plans Google getting into the operator business Yahoo! getting into the operator business Affordable phones not tied to carriers The iPod phone Development of strong AI (yes I say this about everything) Development of decent agent software Affordable unlimited voice plans Collapse of network…
Part of tech reviewing means dusting off a Windows machine again. I haven’t done more than check email or run Quickbooks online on a Windows machine since I was writing my book in 2003. Remarkably, Windows XP is still the latest desktop OS available. But it needs updates. Checking my update history, I had 37…
Nokia has announced a port of Apache to Symbian, allowing a full web server to run on a phone, with the quote “there really is no reason anymore why webservers could not reside on mobile phones”. Well, there’s battery life… Anyway, would you want to run a server on your phone? What would you use…
Still in development, but I have clearance to blog about a forthcoming Web 2.0 book. So far I haven’t seen a good book that covers all the technical angles of Web 2.0, from designing URL spaces to Ajax to proper use of HTTP. I’m tech reviewing this book, so I have high expectations for it….
Check out the presentation page, with a link to the paper. Because someone asked, my name got top biling due to the prestigious “alphabetical” reference system. -m
I’m on the IT eqivalent of emergency life support for a few days. I returned to a DOA hard drive. If you’ve sent me mail in the last week or so, think about re-sending it. See the comments for the gritty details. -m
Steven Pemberton has done several recent talks on XForms, XForms tutorial at XTech and WWW The Power of Declarative Thinking – same slides for the talks at XTech and WWW I attended at least parts of both of the WWW talks, and I can report that they were well-attended and well-received. -m
Limited and insecure network connections have kept me from writing more, but man are there a lot of iPods in Scotland. They’re everywhere. Finding a power adapter for a PowerBook, on the other hand, is nearly impossible. -m Update: See the comments here to view (or add) your travel tips.
I’m heading out shortly to Edinburgh. How much will I be blogging from Scotland? Good question! Depends greatly on connectivity, fatigue, and opportunity. In that order (I think). -m
As long as I’ve got conferences on the brain, I need to mention the XML 2006 Call for Participation. XML 2005 was great, and this year looks like it could be even better. Deadline for regular talk and tutorial proposals is July 19. -m
Seen on Bill Trippe’s blog. Gray Knowlton, who indentified himself as a Senior Product Manager for InfoPath 2007 said the next version of SharePoint will “include InfoPath Forms Services, which will render InfoPath forms to browsers and html-enabled mobile devices, and this will not require InfoPath on the form fillers’ desktop, nor will it require…
At WWW I have a short presentation on Yahoo! Go on Friday. It’s one-fourth of a 90 minute slot, so don’t expect any huge revelations. You might also see my name on another paper, Visualizing Tags over Time on Wednesday (nominated for Best Paper) (!). I won’t be presenting, though I did help a bit…
The following is a blatant job posting. If you’re not into that kind of thing, feel free to skip. In Yahoo! Mobile, we’re working on an amazing project which, unfortunately, I can’t say much about just yet. We’re growing, and we need some more talent. All of the following are in Sunnyvale, CA and have…
My friend Kimbro Staken has mostly stopped blogging, instead relying on del.icio.us. Several others on my RSS reader are trending similarly. Until very recently, I was doing the same. For me, posting links is a way of keeping the ‘pilot light’ burning when I didn’t have enough time to do full postings–on del.icio.us, posting a…
Since switching to WordPress, I’ve gotten some gentle reminders along the lines of changing the default theme. Well, I’ve done it. I still don’t understand why so many themes have a huge image taking up half the space ‘above the fold’, but nevertheless, Tony Greer‘s excellent theme I’m using here was easy to customize, is…
According to news.com Apple and Japanese telecom giant Softbank may be developing a new mobile phone that can download songs from iTunes Wait a minute, is that the same Softbank that owns the biggest chunk of Yahoo! Japan? Yep. This is utter speculation, but I’d watch the Apple+Yahoo! space, particularly for mobile… -m
If you’re like me, you often get email messages with long URLs that wrap, which are a pain to actually get into a browser. Easier on Firefox though: Go to about:config and change editor.singleLine.pasteNewlines setting to 3 or add: user_pref(“editor.singleLine.pasteNewlines”, 3); to your user.js file. Excellent! -m