Matt Croydon::Postneo

Category: Web Services

  • New O’Reillynet Articles on XML, Python, and Web Services

    O’Reilly unleashed several new articles today:

    Is There a Consensus Web Services Stack? by Kendall Clark:

    What Marx said of world history — that it occurs the first time as tragedy, the second as farce — is increasingly true of conversations in the XML development community. Conversation among XML developers has grown increasingly ossified. Permanent topics of conversation return — never, it appears, to be fully repressed — over and over: the ins and outs of namespaces, the nature of resources and representations, why SOAP is sweetness-and-light or pure evil, the ideal simplifying refactor of XML itself, and so on. And, each time the cycle repeats itself, the positions grow more shrill, more caricatured, and less interesting. I suppose that it’s possible that someone eventually learn something from all of this; more likely, people give up the hope of learning something and stop paying attention.

    Building Metadata Applications with RDF [and RDFlib] by Bob DuCharme:

    The real test of any technology’s value is what kinds of tasks are easier with it than without it. If I hear about some new technology, I’m not going to learn it and use it unless it saves me some trouble. Well, being a bit of a geek, I might play with it a bit, but I’m going to lose interest if I don’t eventually see tangible proof that it either makes new things possible or old things easier.

    Simple XML Processing With elementtree by Uche Ogbuji:

    Fredrik Lundh, well known in Python circles as “the effbot“, has been an important contributor to Python and to PyXML. He has also developed a variety of useful tools, many of which involve Python and XML. One of these is elementtree, a collection of lightweight utilities for XML processing. elementtree is centered around a data structure for representing XML. As its name implies, this data structure is a hierarchy of objects, each of which represents an XML element. The focus is squarely on elements: there is no zoo of node types. Element objects themselves act as Python dictionaries of the XML attributes and Python lists of the element children. Text content is represented as simple data members on element instances. elementtree is about as pythonic as it gets, offering a fresh perspective on Python-XML processing, especially after the DOM explorations of my previous columns.

    I’ll be reading all of these articles later this evening after some coding for schoolwork gets done.

  • Web-Enabled Government Notes

    Web-Enabled Government

    I attended a little bit of the Web-Enabled Government Expo this morning.  I was most interested in the keynote address by Lee Rainie, Director of the Pew Internet and American Life Foundation.  I had feared that the rest of the expo would be sales BS and middle management stuff, and it was.  I missed the beginning of his address, but did catch some results of his organization’s research.  These can be summarized in his 7 findings about the internet and e-citizen:

    1. Email enhances communication with people that the user cares about.  For the most part this is extra communication that would not happen otherwise.  Most of the time it supplements letter writing, phone conversations, and face to face conversations.
    2. Different people use the internet differently
      • Kids have their instant messaging, SMSing, the own abbreviated language.
      • Even different types of children use the net (and particularly IM) differently
        • Extroverts come home after spending all day with their friends, then hop on IM to rahash the day and continue communicating with those same friends that they were with at school all day and saw 20 minutes ago.
        • Introverts come home after school (most likely with less interaction at school) and look for a friend online, find new people, and hang out with people online since they most likely lacked that during the day.
      • People take online what is important to them offline.  Finances, sports scores, cooking recipies, religious information.  Whatever they’re interested in offline, they’ll look for online.
    3. The internet helps in everday life.
      • Window shopping outnumbers e-commerce by a factor of 5.
    4. People use the net more seriously as they gain experience
      • You may start using the internet for stuff like online games, but over time, people tend to do serious stuff like do their finances online, track stocks, get financial and government information online, and seek health information online.
    5. The quality of net access matters.
      • Broadband users are more intense
      • They crave more information
      • 15-18% of people in The United States has broadband.
      • Broadband users aren’t willing to sit back and watch a static web, they create content.
    6. E-patients are changing the way they deal with healthcare
      • Before the internet, patients were for the most part uneducated about the stuff doctors were saying.  They were more passive.
      • Now patients can do massive amounts of research on a particular subject easily.  They can arm themselves with this information and bring it with them to their doctors office.
      • Patients are now ‘end users.’  Doctors can be thought of as ‘tech support’
    7. E-citizens are creating a new civic government
      • They comment on government
      • They gather info for voting
      • They turn online for information from national, state, and local governments
      • Interesting: When asked, many people say that they hold privacy as a core value, though in other contexts, they will give out their email address if they might win a car.
      • An Exxon-Valdez style information leak would be devistating for consumer confidence in online privacy.
      • If a website (government or otherwise) is hard to use, it’s a lot harder to get people to come to the site.
      • Also interesting: Most users are oblivious to .com, .gov, .edu, .org. and their implications.  They tend not to realize if a hyperlink takes them off a .com and to a .gov or an .org.

    After the keynote and a bagel,I briefly checked out the expo floor.  It was mostly marketing stuff meant for people in middle to upper management.  Red Hat had a computer running 8.0 (and I’m sure were happy about having Advanced Server rated a COE (Common Operating Environment).  Macromedia was there, as well as WebMethods and some others.  I didn’t really talk to anybody, I felt like I’d be wasting their time and mine.

    I have a feeling that I have more practical experience in web services than most of the people attending and exhibiting.  Web services seemed to be the buzzword of the day as usual.  I figured that I was better off getting back to learning and coding at home than speaking to some marketing guy.  Probably a good call.

    The Ronald Regan Building is quite nice.  Here’s a view of the expo floor:

    Web-Enabled Government

  • Card Readers in Laptops

    CNet:

    Aiming to better connect its notebooks with a growing array of digital devices, Gateway is introducing a portable PC that can read the tiny flash memory cards used by digital cameras and MP3 players.

    This is smart.  Previously, the Sony VAIOs were the only major laptops that would take any memory cards, and those just take Memory Stick.

  • Google SQL

    Jeremy Zawodny:

    I’ve been wanting an SQL interface to Google for so long. 🙂

    He’s referring to the DBD::google module at CPAN.

  • Web-Enabled Government

    Tomorrow morning I’ll be attending the Web-Enabled Government Expo.  A writeup and some photos should follow later in the afternoon, perhaps after class.

  • Intel Eats Its Own Words

    BusinessWeek:

    Intel wants to take your mind off chip speeds — especially if you’re going to be in the market for a new laptop. That might sound crazy to anyone who has watched Intel constantly crank out newer, faster chips — and constantly try to convince consumers and corporations that the speediest semiconductor is the answer to all their computing prayers. But in a reversal of emphasis, Intel is about to start pressing the public to buy laptops with new brains that aren’t faster than existing ones. Instead of simply running more rapidly, says Intel, its new laptop chip will result in better overall performance in real-world applications.

    But.. but… so much for Intel FUD.

  • Exception in Aisle 6

    Will Cox on self checkout aisles:

    So I kicked the piece of shit aisle. And cussed in front of my daughter for the first time. And now they know how I treat the machines at work.

    I tend to do okay at the self checkout aisle at the Weis Market around the corner, but I don’t have child processes throwing exceptions.  Every once in awhile I’ll find myself in a situation where the aisle freaks out, but it doesn’t happen too often.

    I’ve also found that self checkout is really only worth it if I’m getting a handful of things.  Once I’m beyond a few things in a basket, I’m better off letting the pros handle it.

  • New Web Services Book by Ballinger

    Sean & Scott (via Christian Weyer):

    New Web Services book by Kieth Ballinger is due out Feb 14th.

    Keith is crazysmart, and his upcoming book has the potential to rock.

    It’s funny, I’m much more likely to pay attention to a book (especially in the web services area) with an author that I’ve heard of (on the web), actively read (their weblog), or have met.

  • How to Prepare for a Terrorist Attack

    Duct TapeTerrorist Attack Preparation List:

    • 3 gallons of water per person, check.
    • 3 days worth of food, check.
    • Plastic sheeting, check.
    • Duct tape, check.
    • Can opener, check.
    • Blankets, check.
    • Flashlights, radio, batteries, check.
    • Kiss yer ass goodbye.

    On a serious note:

    The officials said they believe the al Qaeda terrorist network is particularly targeting New York and Washington.

    I’ll blog it live if I’m still alive and with power/internet 🙂

  • Windows Forms Smart Client Sample

    David at Chris Sells’ site pointed to an MSDN article entitled TaskVision Solution Overview: Design and Implementation.

    It looks like it has lots of good nuggets about .NET, Windows Forms, and Web Services.  It also contains the answer to a question that I had a few months ago:

    The ASP.NET file extensions (.aspx and .asmx) must be registered with Internet Information Services (IIS). (In the case that IIS was installed after the .NET Framework was installed, you must run the following application “C:WINDOWSMicrosoft.NETFrameworkv1.0.3705aspnet_regiis.exe –i”.)

    I ended up deploying my test stuff to a remote server, but finding the answer to a question without actively looking for it is always a good thing.

    Update:

    C:WINDOWSMicrosoft.NETFrameworkv1.0.3705>aspnet_regiis.exe -i
    Start installing ASP.NET (1.0.3705.288)
    Finished installing ASP.NET (1.0.3705.288)

    C:WINDOWSMicrosoft.NETFrameworkv1.0.3705>

  • Userland on the Microsoft Patent

    Dave Winer:

    It’ll be interesting to see when Microsoft claims to have invented this. We were creating APIs for a network software platform in the late 80s. We eventually worked with Microsoft on this stuff with the understanding that they had not filed any patents in this area. As I write this I’m sitting in a building filled with lawyers.

    John Robb:

    Hmmm.  Microsoft’s patent application for .Net sounds exactly like Radio.

  • Moore Says: Moore’s Law Will Continue for 10 Years

    CNet:

    Moore’s Law will continue for at least another 10 years, according to Intel cofounder Gordon Moore, but it’s going to take a lot of work.

  • Brian Graf’s New Apartment

    Brian Graf found a new apartment:

    We won’t have any more deadlock conditions waiting for the shared bathroom resource.

    What a geek!  Congrats, though.

  • 802.11g: No Interop?

    The Register:

    It is nearly a year since NewsWireless Net warned of the disasters looming if American wireless manufacturers went ahead with 802.11g – the go-faster WiFi standard. Now, we hear of incompatibility problems between rival 11g products – discovered in “secret” testing sessions. Are we really supposed to be surprised?

    Apple has Airport Extreme, Linksys has Wireless-G (and the worlds most confusing packaging) and that’s just the beginning.  It’s like building software around alpha APIs.  They’re gonna change.  Compatability should be possible once the standard is ratified.  You can upgrade their firmware.

  • New Nikon Digital Camera

    Steve’s Digicams:

    The secret is already out. Several forums and web sites have posted the URL where you can see the last Coolpix SQ shockwave teaser. We can’t tell you anymore at this time, Nikon has us under NDA. All will be told (and seen) in a little over a week — we’ll also be posting a First Look of this radically styled digicam.

    A special thanks goes out to my friend Tony who pointed me to the link (on the phone no less!)

  • TSA Contraband

    BoingBoing:

    Oh ho, he said, this is different — it has a smaller flame than your lighter.

    So I flipped off the wind-shield, and cranked the little valve-control lever around counterclockwise, and then lit the lighter. A foot-long jet of flame shot out of it.

  • Ingo on Matt on Documentation

    It looks like we have a conversation going here.  Here’s Ingo’s latest:

    Break the cycle. Write your next documentation the same way – and with the same quality – as if you’d write an article or book. Your readers will love it. And don’t forget: documentation is marketing your code to a peer.

    I will definately do this the next time that I put together documentation.  In the past, I have found that good documentation or a good example of usage brings a smile to my face.

    I’m not in the same corporate/professional situation as Ingo and others, where documentation is just a check mark next to a step in The Process.  I am definately guilty of putting together ‘good enough’ documentation just before a release or before showing someone my code.

    I will follow Ingo’s advice and suggest that others do also.  I think that the open source community in particular should pay attention.  Sometimes the documentation is good, but more often than not it’s missing, incomplete, or poorly written.

    If these notes on documentation don’t apply to you, if you already write good docs, thank you.

  • Technical Writing

    Ingo on documentation:

    Technical writing is a form of communication which takes a certain degree of sophistication. Especially when you actually expect someone to read it.

    Good technical documentation is hard to produce.  By the same token, good technical documentation is hard to come by.

  • Top 100 Music Videos of 1995

    While I was installing and rebooting and updating and rebooting this evening, I popped in a VHS tape makred “MTV.” It turns out that the tape is about half of the top 100 videos of 1995 (100-50ish). It was great to see some old videos and hear some old songs. It made me remember the days of flannel and long hair.

    1995 was the year that I saw David Bowie and Nine Inch Nails from the mosh pit. I was in a band. At our first practice, we tried horribly to cover Soul Asylum’s Misery.

    What struck me most wasn’t the videos, it was the commercials. The commercials told more about 1995 than anything else on that tape. Sure it was a big year for REM, Hole, Collective Soul and Hootie and the Blowfish. The thing that intrigued me most is that the Sega Saturn was being advertized for “Just $299.” I saw a few ads for Super Nintendo games. That annoying ad for the overpriced retro store down the street (which closed down several years ago) played a few times.

    Today we’re so quick to skip the commercials, TiVO that stuff right out of our viewing experience. I think that if you still have a functioning TiVO eight years from now, you won’t skip the commercials when you watch that old show.

    They’re a wonderful snapshot of who we are.

  • Tweaking the ASP.NET Web Services Test Page

    Scott Hanselman: “A reminder from Sairama that editing the DefaultWsdlHelpGenerator.aspx page in CONFIG underneath the .NET Framework directory allows you to customize the Web Services test page. Even if only to change the default textbox to a textarea, it’s a useful tip.”