Month: September 2002

Kryzysztof Kowalczyk on buffered blogging:

The hard part about blogging is keeping the pace. Blogging is a marathon, not a sprint. That number on a calendar without corresponding link is the worst thing that can happen to a blog. So here it comes: Buffered Blogging TM (patent pending, of course). The idea is simple: have a few pre-written entries and have an automated system to post them if there are no post on a given day. Preparing a few posts in advance is easy. Automated posting shouldn’t be that hard to do either in some systems (e.g. Movable Type). Probably just a bit of hacking. Or someone could provide a web service that would allow people to create a bunch of blog entries and would post them automatically using Blogger API if it would detect that there were no post that day on a given blog.

While this may appear to be cheating, it makes a lot of sense. If you have a really busy day and can’t sit down in front of the computer, you can pull out that mini article or observation that you’ve been meaning to talk about and autopost it. I don’t know if buffering your blog like this is exactly legal in the blogosphere, but then again, only if you get caught… Perhaps it would be something like Userland’s Mail to the Future service. An interesting thought at the very least.

Bluefish: Newsforge points to this open source html/php/css editor for Linux.  The screenshots look good.  I’ve been editing most of my html in the browser lately, though.

Russell Beattie‘s coworkers dig eclipse.

LaNewsFactory: A phjp-based news system and forum system that does not rely on MySQL.  This is good stuff for people using bargain basement web hosting that does not give them access to MySQL.

Emergic points to an InfoWorld article about SAP’s new mySAP CRM.  This is cool, but as I’m reading the article, I roll over the many links in the article.  They all link to stories or metastories at InfoWorld.  I know that they need to do that to make money, keep the user trapped, get more ad impressions, but it stinks at the same time.  I guess it is in contrast with weblog entries that I read more of that tend to hand out external links with pleasure.

I’m just an external link snob then.

Slashdot: Linux may be outpacing Mac on the desktop.  I don’t know if the article referenced is authoritative or not.  The author, Nick Selby seems to be a travel writer, aviation writer, and tech writer on loan to the International Herald Tribune.  From the article:

Dan Kusnetzky, an analyst for International Data Corp., said Linux had a 3.9 percent share of desktops worldwide, outpacing Macintosh’s 3.1 percent.

The article doesn’t quote whose bum these figures were pulled from.  A Macworld article from July of this year pegs Apple’s market share at 3.48 percent.  A recent BBC article pegs it at 5%.  I’m not saying that this author is wrong, I’d like to see the market share of both Mac and Linux higher than the figures quoted.  I think it will be hard to find hard numbers out there that aren’t skewed by the mac vs. pc mentality.

As a sidenote, the International Herald Tribune article left me looking for the scrollbar, but instead I had to find the ‘next page’ button on the bottom right.  I don’t feel too good about this interface, it didn’t feel right.  After playing a bit, the interface on the bottom right is kinda slick.  It allows you to resize text on the fly and change between a single column and multiple column format on the fly also.  I definately like that part of it, but I think that this type of interface still needs a little work.

Powerbook Duo/Picture Frame: How to turn obsolete hardware into that digital picture frame that sells for too much at the store. [via Slashdot]

VeryQuickWiki: A simple yet functional JSP-based wiki.

Brainsplat: A PHP/MySQL journal program:

BrainSplat was originally conceived to scratch my itch for a journal program that I could use to replace LiveJournal.
It is a simple blogging program that has support for comments. The recent additions is a client interface and a forum like code for formatting BSPHPCode. The reason I made my own was simply because all the scripts I found were generally made for multiple users. And thus, I made my own. I started originally in Perl, but I found that PHP makes a much better interface for these type of programs.

Learn Logic with Beavis and Butthead [Blogdex Gem of the Day]:

Fallacy of Accident

Assuming that a generalisation will hold in every case.

Butthead: They must be cool, they’re from Seattle.

Brent Simmons: “It’s weird because you need coffee first before you have the energy to make the coffee.”

Russell Beattie:

This is very cool. Okay, I’m going to very clear on my opinions about this. Blunt, actually. If you have control over your *nix mail server and you’re NOT using Spam Assasin, then you’re a fucking moron. ’nuff said.

His post also references my post from earlier this morning, creating a nice little circle to and from Jeremy Zawodney’s blog. To illustrate:

[Jeremy Zawodney] -> [me] -> [Russell Beattie] -> [Jeremy Zawodney]

Dan Gillmor: 10 Choices that were critical to the Net’s success. My personal (geeky) fave:

5) The National Science Foundation (NSF) funds the University of California-Berkeley, to put TCP/IP into the Unix operating system originally developed by AT&T. Berkeley thereby created a full but low-cost network operating system, along with a full suite of network applications, that computer start-up companies flocked to use in their boxes. It was, says Bradner, “a way to get into the networking game without spending a lot of money.” So it spread fast.

Bruce Perens: “I am no longer with Hewlett-Packard” [CNet and Newsforge and Slashdot report]

Sam Ruby: His new essay is a quick intro to XML namespaces.

CNet: Eclipse will be getting an update later this month. It will also work on more platforms than before:

Eclipse next week is sprucing up its software framework with more operating system and language support, said Duffy Fron, a program manager at IBM’s software group. Version 2 of the Eclipse framework will now support Solaris, HP-UX, AIX and QNX operating systems, he said. Eclipse previously supported Windows and Linux.

It has been a while since I looked at Eclipse, but each time I’ve loaded it up it is easier and quicker.  Of course, the first time I tried it, it was completely unusable, but it was definately useful and helpful the last time I checked it out a few months ago.  I’ll have to give it another try when the update comes out.  The new version will also support Java, C, C++, C#, and Cobol. Rock on!

BBC Tech: Medieval: Total War rocks.  I just saw it on the shelf yesterday, it looks like a wicked game. The website has some previews and info.

WebServices.Org: An overview of the Web Services One Conference.

The Web Services One Conference, held in the Boston World Trade Center from August 26-30, focused on the needs of Enterprise developers and offered a variety of tracks such as Java Programming, Enterprise Architectures, Web Services Standards, and more.

DPReview: Kodak is recalling all DC5000 digital cameras between serial numbers 01800001 and 11700825. From the recall notice:

Kodak has received 12 reports, including six in the U.S., of consumers who experienced an electrical shock while changing batteries, or installing or removing the memory card or USB cable. There have been no reports of serious injury.

MyOrgBook: A php/mysql GPL’d project. “Some features include multi-user login, lost password emailer, contacts, todo list manager/scheduler, calendar, profile changer. MyOrgBook allows you to edit everything.”