Month: March 2004

Infoworld and some others picked up on a press release by VIA on their new smaller than it used to be motherboard form factor.  The Nano-ITX form factor is 12cm x 12cm, or about 4.75 inches square.  That’s freaking amazing!

For more information, check out nanode.com.  The nanode will be available sometime in Q2 2004 directly through mini-itx.com.  I so want a board to slap in something extremely tiny, just because it’s there.

Nano-ITX: the only thing that could make a pretty small Mini-ITX board look like a Buick.

Nokia announced Pocket Kingdom: Own the World.  So far it looks like an interesting mix of Civilization, Street Fighter, and The Sims Online.  It is massive multiplayer in your pocket.  Expected launch date: Q304.

Nokia’s Lifeblog site has gone live.  Christian Lindholm confirms that the 7610 will be out Q204 (as I reported earlier).  A trial of Lifeblog will be included on the CD that comes with the 7610, and should also be available for download near the official 7610 launch.

I wrote up the announcement of the 7610 on Mobitopia today.  It looks like an interesting little Series 60 device.

I’m such a dork.

I am now the proud owner of a remote controlled boat a little bigger than a standard issue Matchbox car.

I’ve been eyeing it at my local Discovery Channel Store for a few weeks, and it is finally mine!  It looks like it behaves similarly to the Zip Zap cars: charge the capacitor for a little bit, and you get several minutes of fun.

Rinse.  Lather.  Repeat.

I’m stoked that cool fun technology like this itty bitty motorboat have made the right price point.  My little boat cost $19.95.  Not too shabby at all.

I’m just worried about a cat coming out of nowhere, pulling a Godzilla, and capsizing the poor thing.

I really wish I knew what conversations were happening at connecting.nokia.com and blogs.labs.mot.com, and why they were linking to my blog.  Does anyone care to share?

What I wouldn’t give to subscribe to some feeds on blogs.labs.mot.com and know what they’re talking about at Nokia…

I’m getting ready to do my taxes tonight.  Well, not really, I’m getting ready to let a wizard do my taxes for me.  I’ll probably do a sanity check on paper, but I’m so good at making stupid math mistakes that I’ll trust some software.  Scary.

Anyway, somtimes dialogs amuse me.  The above informs me that I am about to install Maryland.  Which is weird as I look around and find myself in the state of Maryland.

This is a reminder to myself and others that the biggest local DC-MD-VA Hamfest is coming to the Timonium fairgrounds March 27 and 28.  I’ll try to hit the Hamfest on Sunday.  Hopefully I’ll be able to pick up some cool and obscure hardware for next to nothing.

I don’t hold a ham radio license, though I have thought about it in the past.  I lack the funds and free time for another semi-expensive hobby though.

A discussion on the Atom Wiki should make it possible for clients that lack PUT and DELETE to fully implement the Atom API.  If folded in to the next revision of the API, this enhancement will make J2ME Atom API clients a possibility.  As Russ pointed out previously, J2ME does not include support for PUT or DELETE.  But why get rid of SOAP?

I don’t want to make things too hard on Atom API server implementers.  At the same time, I love the flexibility of being able to choose between coding a client with GET and POST (and hopefully PUT and DELETE) or SOAP.  Sometimes the former makes more sense.  Other times it’s the latter.

If I wanted to whip together a quick client demo to impress my friends, I would probably point WSDL2Java or Visual Studio .NET at a WSDL file.  Then I could whip together a working Atom API client in just a few minutes in front of their eyes.  They would get bored while I implemented things on the HTTP level.  I’m sure that Mark or Sam could whip something together at that level in a few minutes, but not I.  (On a side note, check out this post in Sam’s blog and this sample C# client on atomenabled.org)

To demo things, I could easily point my client at Blogger or Typepad, two services with significant user bases, and both with SOAP implementations of the Atom API.  It’s times like this that SOAP shines.

So why do we have to get rid of it?

It seems that many people are against having SOAP in the spec at all.  I can understand where they are coming from.  On some platforms, it would be fairly easy to implement SOAP on the server side.  On the other hand, if your chosen platform does not have a SOAP toolkit that you can use, implementing it from scratch is non-trivial.

Here’s what I think: SOAP should stay.  It adds more flexibility for consumers.  In an ideal world all clients would interact with the API using GET, POST, PUT and DELETE.  Ideally, clients that lack PUT and DELETE would interact with the API using GET and POST possibly as outlined on the wiki.  Alternatively, I would like clients to have the option of using SOAP to interact with the API.  SOAP support SHOULD be implemented on the server side, but should be no means be neccesary.  It would be cumbersome to make SOAP support a MUST, but there would be fewer SOAP implementations if support is listed as MAY.  If several of the big players continue their SOAP support, writing a SOAP client will still be rewarding.

I was listening to Marketplace on NPR on the way to class today, as I’m known to do.  I was amazed to hear that over 40% of Disney shareholders opposed the re-election of Eisner to the board.  That’s an insanely huge number, and will probably result in some sort of changeup in the company.

I like the fact that Roy Disney and Stanley Gold were given a chance to air their grievences.  The pair left the board a few months ago.  Disney and Gold are threatening to oust Eisner.  Roy Disney pretty much installed Eisner in the first place.

Who knows what the long term outcome of this no confidence vote will be.  In my fantasy CEO league, I’d love to see Steve Jobs behind the helm at Disney.  I don’t think that reality agrees though.

I stumbled across a CD by Katy Rose today while picking up some cords and connectors at Target.  I’ve listened to the samples, and I might just pick it up tomorrow.  The site is no admission without Flash though.

She could be the next Avril.  Or not.  I like what I’ve heard so far though.