I’m working on a piece of software that, while not the answer to world peace, is still pretty neat and approaches a specific problem in a fresh way. The project is at the stage where it needs to get unveiled to early adopters in the target audience. So how does one introduce possibly unfamiliar concepts…
Category: commercialism
And Microsoft still unhip. I’m not even bothering to click through the second ad… -m
The company is in great need of talented XML professionals, including sales engineers, consultants, support, and technical writing. Let me know if you (or someone you know) is up for the challenge. -m
I prefer the Yahoo! Search iPhone interface. Search Assist and SearchMonkey goodness abound, and make a concrete improvement to the experience. But why can’t I get Yahoo! Go for iPhone? I’m gobsmacked that such a strategic app isn’t available this far into the game. Yahoo! Go was first announced in 2006. Then 2007. Then 2008….
Mur Lafferty’s new superhero novel is making the rounds. She’s encouraging everyone to buy a printed copy on August 25 (buy it here) to make a nice impression in the bestseller lists. I’m a sucker for these kinds of promotions. The full text also recently appeared on the Escape Pod feed, under a Creative Commons…
This post will be continuously updated to contain the most recent details about an XQuery 1.0 RDFa parser I wrote for Mark Logic. It follows the Functional RDFa pattern. At present there is little to say, but eventually code and more will be available. Stay tuned. -m
By now you’ve likely noticed the Geek Thoughts postings here. This is an experiment on a few different levels. What makes comics special? To what extent are pictures, often little more than stick figures, a critical part of the web comic experience? Can a web comic still be funny and thought-provoking with only words? Specifically…
Through the weekend I put most of the final touches on an implementation of RDFa in XQuery. The implementation is based on the functional specification of RDFa, an offshoot of the excellent work coming out of the W3C task force. The spec contains a procedural description of the parsing algorithm, and several have successfully followed…
The W3C RDFa specification is now in Candidate Recommendation phase, with an explicit call for implementations (of which there are several). Momentum for RDFa is steadily building. What about eRDF, which favors the existing HTML syntax over new attributes? There’s still a place for a simpler syntactic approach to embedding RDF in HTML, as evidenced…
In C, if you find yourself writing large switch statements (or rafts of if statements), you should consider using pointers to functions instead. In C++, if you find yourself writing large switch statements (or rafts of if statements), you should consider using objects and polymorphism instead. In XQuery, If you find yourself writing large typeswitch…
This one’s internal. If you’re a Mark Logic employee, look me up. If not, well, expect things to be slow around here for a couple of days. -m
Actually, instead of a review, let me quote the opening testimonial from the inside-front cover. Competing globally with dynamic capabilities is the top priority of multinational executives and managers everywhere. Rethinking strategy in a highly networked world is the big challenge. How can your company navigate successfully in this turbulent, highly networked and socially connected…
At least at the Burlingame Apple Store. Lines wrapped all the way around the corner and to the back. They were turning folks away within 20 minutes of opening Friday. Some had been there since 7 am. No iPhone for me. Yet. -m
Looks like a reasonably-sized revision. The first public working draft seems downright thin, in fact, relative to all the SHOULDs and MAYs in the requirements document. In particular, I’d like to see progress on 2.3.16 Higher order functions. (Then do we get a book XQuery: The Good Parts? …kidding..) -m
Someone overseas, whom I consider trustworthy but haven’t actually met, wants to buy one of my domains. Great! There’s not huge sums involved, though it’s a hassle to move the money and coordinate the transfer. Readers: Any advice on how to complete the transaction? Escrow service? Anything lighter-weight? Comment below. -m
That’s my game idea. Unfortunately I won’t have time to develop the idea, so somebody else go for it–just mention my name in the credits ;) My 7-year-old has just discovered Oregon Trail, or more accurately Westward Trail, a respectable online clone. -m
Today Google announced Protocol Buffers, described as “think XML, but smaller, faster, and simpler“. Language bindings for C++, Java, and Python. Oddly not even a whisper about JSON, which is a much more apt comparison. And along with that, no JavaScript implementation. So why the omission? My guess is that it wouldn’t compare that favorably…
Nope, not spam. You can now order electronic components from Amazon, advertised right on the front page for me. What can’t you get on Amazon? -m
I haven’t seen an announcement about this, but try the following query on Yahoo Search: [searchmonkeyid:com.yahoo.rdf.rdfa] (link). It shows documents containing RDFa, with Digg at the top. Since this is a Searchmonkey ID, it’s also usable in Searchmonkey to actually extract the metadata and use it to customize search results. Does your site use RDFa…
Commentators, having long since run out of useful things to say about YHOO+MSFT, only bemoan how it continues to drag out. In reality, deals of this size do tend to take a while. Microsoft (and specifically Ballmer) aren’t walking. Why? Because they need Yahoo. They need search share–the deal with Google only puts on more…
Several folks, including me, have experienced increased CPU usage on Firefox 3, especially on OSX. Try disabling it, going back to the bookmarklet. -m
Even though the timing is about perfect, it’s not gonna happen But if it did, would that be awesome or what? -m
A common point of debate within Yahoo! was whether employees should feel compelled to use Y properties (“eat your own dogfood”) or whether said properties should have to compete on pure merit to earn internal usage. But in any case, there’s always pressure, even if subliminal, to use internal products. I’ve free of such influence…
According to Ars Technica, Google captured 61% of mobile search market share in the first four months of 2008. Yahoo! came in at a distant 18%, so pretty much reflecting desktop search market share. This is due, of course, to Google being the default provider on the iPhone, and the iPhone being the biggest bulk…
Here’s something I’ll bet you didn’t know. Netflix has gone on record as saying that although their Instant View library, viewable online or via the hardware Roku player, is much smaller than their DVD library, they’re working hard on closing the gap. For instance, one quote says “adding titles at light speed”. But some titles…
During a Q&A session today, I asked a panel of MarkLogic users about whether they saw metadata (and specifically RDF) as becoming an important factor in the near future. Fair enough question, having just come from the SearchMonkey project at Yahoo! The answer: A qualified yes. Having a strong metadata store and query engine isn’t…
Other than training sessions today was the first day of the Mark Logic User Conference. And I was surprised by the feel of it: very much like a industry XML conference. Many familiar faces were there, like Norm, Zarella, Kurt, and Eliot. The sessions were somewhat more narrowly focused around MarkLogicy things, of course, but…
I’ll be up in San Francisco the rest of this week at the Mark Logic User Conference. If you’ll be there too, be sure to look me up. -m
For instance, The Business Value of Windows Vista. Seriously, Vista for “speed and security”? Or mobile? The comments on this post alone are worth the click. -m
From the Yahoo! Developer blog, new search keywords you can use to hone in on indexed microformats. For example, to see every hAtom-bearing page that mentions ‘dubinko’ use the query [searchmonkeyid:com.yahoo.uf.hatom dubinko]. Works similarly for hCard, hCalendar, hReview, and XFN. I’m sure more are coming soon too. -m