Tuesday, October 28, 2003

Organizing information: the hard way 

At Writer's Digest, by Jeffery D. Zbar.

"I subdivide my Rolodex (two, actually—one by individuals, one by subjects) and ACT! Contact Management Software by both subject and name. I have a four-drawer file cabinet brimming with research and statistics on the trends I follow, all filed by category."

Ouch.

There is a huge demand for a piece of software that can do this without locking the data away in a single-platform/proprietary format. The tragic part is that most people don't even realize it, and instead come up with (admittedly very clever) workarounds like the ones Jeffery describes. -m

Sunday, October 26, 2003

Kapor: Why the old development model is history 

On IT Managers Journal.

Whether you think open source development is a good trend or not, it is seemingly unstoppable, "like flowing water". -m

Saturday, October 25, 2003

XForms Essentials in Libraries 

I donated a copy of XForms Essentials to the Avondale Public Library. Budgets are amazingly tight at libraries these days, so probably not too many have a book as narrowly-focused as XForms Essentials. -m

Thursday, October 23, 2003

Detailed Office 2003 review 

At PCWorld.

Outlook 2003: "Does it help me clean up the mess that is my in-box?" After spending several months with the beta version of the new Outlook, we say the answer is a definitive yes.

Word 2003 and Excel 2003: Ho-Hum

InfoPath 2003 and other apps: glossed over by the review.

Should you upgrade? "The one-person office: Upgrade Outlook only." -- "Corporate workgroups: Upgrade to Office 2003 if your company will use the XML and group features."

My opinion: OpenOffice 1.1 does what I need. I did get to try the new Outlook briefly, but it interacted very badly with the older Exchange Server, forcing me to downgrade. We still need a good open source email/info manager progam. Here's wishing Chandler continues to make progress. -m

Todays entry brought to you by 1-800-4MEMORY 

Recommended. I got a gig of PowerBook G4 memory for 50% of the cost that the local Fry's had it. -m

Thursday, October 16, 2003

XForms REC Press Coverage 

Start with the source. Next, the testimonials, which represent users from a large chunk of the UK insurance industry and US govenment. Even if you normally write off testimonials as PR-fluff, I recommend reading these.

InternetNews.com has a nice write-up, with comments by Redmonk Analyst Stephen O'Grady (but why do these guys always write "X-Forms"?): "we're of the opinion that with the vendors it has backing it now X-Forms has a bright future ahead of it."

Meta Group's Thomas Murphy, on the other hand, said: "The question for XForms will be how it gets packaged and how this will market vs. Microsoft, since InfoPath is already available (of course Microsoft has to convince people to upgrade) and XForms is just a recommendation with a bunch of more minor players involved." I guess compared to Microsoft anyone else is a "minor player", eh? IBM (among others) would probably disagree. This also highlights another peeve of mine: you can't directly compare XForms (a data format) with InfoPath (a specific application). App vs. app or data format vs. data format makes more sense.

The News.com article has some interesting comments from Curtis Sasaki, vice president of desktop solutions at Sun: "We believe that XForms will take an important role in realizing Sun's vision of open XML standards for a heterogeneous web of devices." Interestingly enough, the day before the announcement, News.com had a headline article Software makers look for profits in e-forms, which mentioned XForms as well as some nice references to Cardiff Software, my employer.

On the UK side, more coverage from Digit Magazine and PCPro.

Finally, while not specifically mentioning XForms, Donald Doane over at ZDNet writes about the "open standards movement" and how it can lower costs. Indeed. That's probably a serious friction point for XForms-avoiding non-minor players. -m

Tuesday, October 14, 2003

One small click for the W3C Webmaster; One giant leap for Webkind 

XForms 1.0 is a W3C Recommendation. I'll try to keep up with the ongoing press coverage. Stay tuned. -m

Monday, October 13, 2003

XForms Essentials online at Safari 

Go get it. Shortcut: search for one of my favorite words, "feint", and take the top hit. Now, how do I get it to be the top hit for a search on "XForms"??? -m

P.S. Some more searches and a mini-contest: "pitch manure", "change a diaper", "set a bone", "fight efficiently" (much the same feeling as reviewing the 43rd draft); "gHorribleKluge" (am I really the only one to use that in print?); and "x-sindarin" (a royalty-free language identifier and a fine LOTR reference to boot). If you come up with any other good Safari searches that yield XForms Essentials as the top hit, let me know.

Are InfoPath signatures secure? 

Catching up on email: XML Security expert John Boyer relates his experiences with the signature features in Microsoft InfoPath. -m

Thursday, October 02, 2003

Some time off 

Minimal updates here. I'll be kicking back, relaxing, and best of all NOT WORKING for the next week. -m

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