Matt Croydon::Postneo

Month: December 2002

  • FreeBSD 5.0 RC2 Released

    OSNews:

    FreeBSD 5.0 RC2 has been released and the final release is scheduled

  • phpEclipse

    Josh Cooper seems to like Eclipse 2.0.2 with phpEclipse so far.

  • Flock 0.6 Released

    Flock 0.6 has been released.  Changes from the freshmeat page:

    This release of the Flock RSS Aggregator has mostly bugfixes, and minor feature enhancements. RSS 2.0 parsing has been improved, as well as handling of international characters and dates. A “Fold all” checkbox has been added.

  • NetNewsWire Development

    Brent Simmons has set up a page for developers:

    It points to things like a description of NetNewsWire’s AppleScript support, a description of the RSS clipboard formats used, a list of XML-RPC APIs and methods used, and so on.

    Go, Brent!

  • google.ping();

    Jeremy Zawodny thinks we should be able to ping google every time we update.  Why not?

  • Zeroconf

    Jeremy Zawodny:

    There’s a good article at O’Reilly Net that introduces Zeroconf (“Rendezvous” for all you Apple fans), Mutlicast DNS, and talks a bit about Microsoft’s push for Universial Plug n Play (UPnP).

    From the sound of things, Rendezvous has a chance of becoming the standard. But it’s a bit too early to know anything for sure.

    It sounds like the open source community could do well by getting behind this.  Free time aside, I’d love to play around with this extremely cool technology.

  • Cafe log and Fugly Code

    Reverand Jim looks into Cafelog:

    If you program in PHP (or any language, really), and are developing something that you intend to release to the public, please, please, please spend the little bit of extra time it takes to develop your application properly. This means using function or classes to help break down and simplify the logic in your application, using meaningful variable names, and a directory structure that makes sense. When you do, you encourage other developers to improve your product, you encourage the use of your product in ways that you never intended, and you obtain a following from developers and users alike.

  • Wikis

    Andy:

    With Pier Fumagalli‘s invaluable help I set up the ApacheWiki and no sooner was it announced than Leo Simmons and others started generating documentation with vigor!

    I tried to install MoinMoin the other day, but I don’t think I have the required libraries and stuff installed on the barebones server that I was playing on.  I also would love to mess around with Tiki, but alas, no time.

  • Linux-based Conference Registration System

    Jeremy Zawodny:

    There’s a good story over at NewsForge about a Linux-based Conference Registration System. It uses LAMP, iOpeners, LTSP, and some custom-built Java code. Very cool.

  • VisualAge C++

    Hack the Planet:

    IBM VisualAge C++ for Linux on pSeries, V6.0 Beta. Good news for PPC Linux users.

  • Bochs 2.0

    Kenneth Hunt notes that Bochs (an IA-32 emulator) 2.0 has been released.

  • CC For Software

    Jon Udell comments in Sam Ruby’s weblog about CC for software:

    Regarding the license, I again thank Shelley for raising what I think are important questions. I’m still unsure about my use of that license. The whole project is an experiment, and it became part of the experiment. I will say, though, that my 5 lines of JavaScript (which became 3 lines today, when I took another look at) is not much of a test case for CC w/respect to software. I’m mainly an idea person, a writer, and a scripter, not a professional developer. Even if CC is right for my project, I would not presume to advocate it in place of established licenses for more conventional kinds of software projects.

    And I’m not usually a troublemaker.  There are concerns about some of the details about Creative Commons licenses.  I’m sure that everyone involved will do the best that they can to iron those issues out.  Let’s not let the whole CC for software debate overshadow the hard work done by everyone at Creative Commons.

    They’ve put up.  They’ve released code.  Now, lets submit ‘patches,’ suggestions as to how the Creative Commons licenses could be improved.  Let’s speculate.  Let’s help out a great idea.

  • PocketSOAP 1.4.0

    Simon Fell:

    PocketSOAP v1.4.0 now available!, includes support for HTTP compression, and HTTP timeouts on PocketPC as well as a few bug fixes.

  • Ad-hoc Blog Meetings

    I have a proposition for you.  There are many bloggers in the Washington, DC area.  Many bloggers find themselves in and around DC while on travel or while attending events/conferences. 

    My proposition is this: if you find yourself in DC and would like to have an ad-hoc blogger conference, meetup, coffee, or anything, send me an email.  I’ll email you my cel phone number if you need to get in touch while in town.  I work and attend school, but my schedule is somewhat flexible.

    Who knows, it just might be fun.

  • LDAP for MovableType

    0xDECAFBAD:

    This week, at work, I cobbled together a hack for MovableType that hooks it up with an LDAP server for author accounts: MovableTypeLDAPAuthors. This is an early, early, early release of the thing, and is likely to do very nasty things for all that I know. But, I wanted to share, and it seems to be working for the proof of concept at work (that is, MT weblogs on our intranet for every employee). Hopefully soon it’ll be approved, and I’ll be looking into a commercial use license for MovableType.

    Truly wicked stuff.

  • Bloggers Against Stop Energy (BASE)

    Okay.  This post requires a little background.  Ever since I can remember, I have been in the middle of things.  Arguments.  Fights between friends.  Friends that were incompatabile with other friends that wanted to spend time with mutual friends.  Hostile customers, hostile coworkers, hostile strangers.

    I’m always in the middle.

    I was probably a diplomat, mediator, problem solver, social worker, or something else in another life.  I do everything that I can to avoid confrontation.  When confrontation is unavoidable, I do my best to solve the problem for as many people as possible with the least amount of trauma.  It’s what I do, don’t ask me why.

    This brings me to the issue at hand.  It seems that the CC software licensing debate at burningbird and intertwingly has come to a screeching halt.  I feel partially responsible for this, and if you add in my natural behavior listed above, I want to do something about it if I can.

    Sometimes we say or write stuff that comes out wrong.  Or maybe it comes out right with the wrong inflections or emphasis.  We end up saying more than we mean to say.  I see Sam’s side.  One defense mechanism against counterproductive bitching/moaning/flame wars in projects (open source and otherwise) is to take a ‘put up or shut up’ attitude.

    At the same time, I can totally see how Shelly could be upset and frustrated.  Weblogs and online collaboration/idea sharing should not be an elitest thing.  All of this new communication technology is supposed to make things better, not worse.

    I have a feeling that nobody involved wanted to cause a breakdown.  I don’t think that very many people knowingly cause stop energy.  It happens sometimes.  What can the blogging community as a whole do to correct it?  We can do our best not to send that email or publish that entry/comment that you made while you were hopping mad.  Lets try to keep personal attacks to a minimum.  Lets try to see something positive or something that makes sense on ‘the other side.’

    I don’t want to turn this into a he said she said kind of thing.  I really would like to do whatever I can to help diffuse the current situation and the whole stop energy phenomenon as a whole.

    Things are busy today at work, and I don’t have the full time and energy to think about this in more detail, but I’m sure that something can be done.  Perhaps consider Bloggers Against Stop Energy (BASE) as a project for my spare time and yours.  Feel free to direct thoughts, rants and flames my way.

    Update: I really like Simon St.Laurent‘s comment at burningbird:

    “Shut up and write some code” should never be an answer. Coming up with powerful and elegant solutions requires thinking harder than that, and talking.

  • The Lion Sleeps Tonight

    Does Sam Ruby have something up his sleeve?

    Joshua Allen: But, there is reason for optimism. Thanks, Jon!

    P.S. This post is a riddle. Let’s see who gets it first.

    XML and LibraryLookup?  Or something completely different.

  • Mono & .Net: The odd couple

    CNet:

    And de Icaza says he has unofficial word that in the coming weeks Microsoft plans to share .Net-related intellectual property. Pending review by Microsoft lawyers, he says, “Microsoft patents on technology developed specifically for .Net will be granted royalty-free to those trying to implement the spec.”

    [Via Newsforge]

  • Matt Croyden::postneo

    Someone made it to my weblog by a google query of matt croyden.  Croyden is the most common misspelling of my last name, by the way.  It’s understandable but amusing.

    Thanks to google for picking that one up.  Did you mean: matt croydon  Let’s hope that this post doesn’t mess that up.

  • Is it Software?

    Jon Udell:

    Text is code, code is data, data is text.