Balisage, formerly Extreme Markup, is the kind of conference I’ve always wanted to attend. Historically my employers have been not quite enough involved in the deep kinds of topics at this conference (or too cash-strapped, but let’s not go there) to justify spending a week on the road. So I’m glad that’s no longer the…
Category: announcement
About a week ago I moved XForms Institute over to Subversion. Now the entire site is under version control, with a local copy I can edit. Publishing is as easy as logging in and running the command ‘svn up’. Honestly, I should have done this long ago. And any future sites I work on will…
Another anniversary this week, one year at Mark Logic. Much of it in stealth mode, but more details of what I’ve been up to are forthcoming. -m
My plan is to start unsubstantiated rumors about the SUV Flu, and by association cause people to distance themselves from said implicated devices. You can help. Despite denials from the CDC (you know they’re in the pockets of the auto industry), SUV flu is serious and spreading fast. You might already have it and not…
As of today, I have been out of Yahoo! for a full year. And what a year it’s been… I guess that means I’m now free to recruit…any good XML people still wearing purple? -m
The universe is deeply, fundamentally weird. At the quantum level, all kinds of non-intuitive effects are the building blocks of, well everything. So what if not just observing, but believing in a particular outcome could influence the actual outcome of an experiment? Something like that could explain a lot: many of the claims of perpetual…
Don’t panic. Panic == not thinking clearly. Avoid Twitter until symptoms subside. Probably HuffPost and Drudge too. Think ahead. If you don’t already have an Emergency Preparedness Kit assembled, well, that was kind of dumb. Over your next few trips to the grocery store, gradually get stuff for one. Don’t believe everything you read on…
Thanks to those who wrote in with bug reports about the XForms Validator: something changed recently and made the inserted Google Ads script confuse browsers, resulting in a blank page where you’d expect results. I’ve turned off the response-page ads, which were only getting in the way, and the problem seems to have vanished. Carry…
I’ve always thought that the EXSLT model of developing community specifications worked well. Now a critical mass of folks has come together on a similar effort, aimed at providing extensions usable in XPath 2.0, XSLT 2.0, XQuery, and other XPath-based languages like XProc. Maybe even XForms. Check it out, subscribe to the mailing list, and…
Never trust a document with “Manifesto” in the title, nor that document’s writer. More collected Geek Thoughts at http://geekthoughts.info.
The 1980 BBC version with John Cleese. Available for instant watching, but will go away on April 01. Apparently lots of BBC stuff is supposedly going away soon. (I’ve never linked to a Netflix title before, let me know if it doesn’t work) -m
With apologies to a real news site. (02-27) 16:14 PST SEATTLE, (AP) Amazon.com Inc. changed course Friday and said it would allow copyright holders to decide whether they will permit their works to be read aloud by the latest laryngeal apparatus, a feature that has been under development for several thousand years. The move comes…
From the company home page, reknown XSLT trainer and friend G. Ken Holman has expanded his offerings to include XQuery training. The first such session is March 16-20, alongside XML Prague. I’ve always thought there is great power in having both XSLT and XQuery tools at one’s disposal. I’ve seen people tend to polarize into…
XSLTForms, the cross-browser XForms engine (written about previously) that makes ingenious use of built-in XSLT processing, reached an important milestone today, with a beta release. Tons of bug fixes and additional support for CSS and Schema. If you’re thinking about getting involved with XForms and are looking for something small and approachable, give it a…
This year’s Mark Logic User Conference is May 12-14, in beautiful San Francisco. Attend the conference at no charge as a speaker! Submit a proposal for a breakout session on business applications, technical implementation, or best practices. Deadline is February 13th. Thanks! -m
If you’ve seen MarkMail before, you may be pleased to know that a new version launched last week, including new features (like saved search sets) for power users. If you haven’t seen MarkMail before, what are you waiting for? -m P.S. If you could use something like this behind your firewall, ping me.
My friend and XForms conspirator T.V. Raman was written up in the New York Times. (Link) [If the link happens to not work because of NYT’s stupid content policy, access the article via a search on Raman’s name on Google News.] Raman has done all kinds of great accessibility work that benefits everyone, photon-dependent or…
After a delay, the code to my RDFa parser in XQuery is now available under an Apache license. Go get it. This is some of the earliest XQuery code I ever wrote, so go easy on me. It follows the earlier work on a functional definition of RDFa. And feel free to send in patches….
I’ve heard not a peep about this before, but here it is: XForms for HTML. Let’s read this together. Feel free to drop any comments or observations below. -m
I’m off to XML 2008 in Arlington, VA. One thing I’ll be seeking is a top-tier QA candidate for XML technologies. If you are that person, look me up. :-) -m
To celebrate the unlamented demise of Valleywag, use as many of the ten insulting words you should know (along with any other appropriate words) as you can in a single short paragraph. Post in the comments below. This site is for geeks of all ages, so keep things PG. All right, PG-13. My favorite will…
I’ve successfully completed the National Novel Writing Month challenge–to write 50,000 words during the month of November–for three years running, and now I have three draft novels sitting around. At some point, racking up mere drafts gets to be pathetic, so this November I’m picking one to dig into with a heavy editing pass. I’m…
Another mead class is scheduled for November 15th in Los Altos. Come join me! Mead, honey wine, “the nectar of the godsâ€. Whatever you call it MoreFlavor Los Altos is sponsoring a class to help you learn more about this wonderful fermented beverage and equip you to brew your own. Saturday, Nov. 15, 2008 2:00…
Haven’t mentioned here that RDFa is a W3C Recommendation. I’m thrilled that something that I’ve been thinking about for a while is ready for prime time. Also, as of this writing the first page of results at Google still prominently links to a terribly outdated draft of the spec. The first page of results at…
This weekend I’ll be judging organic homebrew at the Seven Bridges Cooperative in San Jose. Yes, not only is this beer carbon-based, it’s certified. :-) If you’ll be there too, be sure to look me up. -m
I’m upgrading to a bigger and better internet service plan. Some possible downtime in the near future… -m
I know what it’s like to be laid off, I’ve been through it twice. If you need help connecting up with a new gig, whether at MarkLogic or a hand-off to one of the zillion headhunters that constantly harry me, let me know. Send me email and I’ll do what I can. -m
Cringely writes that a mandatory ban on incandescent lighting would cut U.S. electricity consumption by 18% within a year. What else could have a big impact? The Onion Radio News reported on a new eco-friendly Hummer that kills its owners. (aired Aug 7, 2008) That’s not bad, but a tax on SUVs of one dollar…
Levy a $24,000, one-time tax, payable in installments over 10 years, against anyone who took out an interest-only mortgage (or various other high-risk instruments) during the previous 10 years, using the full nasty power of the IRS to collect (garnishing wages, etc.) Take the proceeds and give it to homeowners who did NOT engage in…