Matt Croydon::Postneo

Category: Weblogs

  • Monday Linkfest

    I roadtripped to North Carolina today to do lunch with some of the RTP bloggers.  Excellent food and great conversation.  I also did some last minute (except for me it’s just getting started) xmas shopping this evening.  Instead of any real content, here are a bunch of things that I need to read in detail:

    • Michael J. Radwin: “YHOO is buying INKT”
    • Slashdot (and the rest of the planet) announced Red Hat 8.0.96, codenamed Phoebe.  XFree updates, Moz 1.2.1, and glibc-2.3.1 seem to be the major points here.
    • Sean & Scott install .NET Server RC2 using VMWare, with Sam Gentile‘s help. (I’m downloading RC2 myself right now, will try to throw it on a lonely box when I get a chance)
    • Chris Gulker digs further into weblog statistics.
    • DSpace 1.0.1 is released.  “DSpace, currently in use at MIT Libraries, is a Java-based Open Source digital library system designed for scalability, and the long-term preservation of data (such as books, documents, and multimedia publications).”
    • Rick Klau is making me drool over the Matrix sequels.
    • Learn MIDP (J2ME) with a game.  Mental note: I need to download the wireless toolkit, as it is much sexier than the barebones SDK.
    • There is a fullblown service called Wapblogger which allows you to do much more than my whipped together WAPBlog script.
    • Sadness: Joe Strummer of The Clash has died.
    • Silicon.com reports that IBM is releasing its “Storage Tank” as open source.

     

  • RTP Roadtrip Eve

    As I said about a week ago, I’m going to be daytripping down to the Research Triangle Park area for lunch with a bunch of RTP bloggers.  The DC to RTP distance is just a little longer than the San Louis Obispo to San Jose trip that I made while I was in California over the summer.

    I drove four hours each way from SLO to San Jose in order to visit the geek Mecca of Fry’s.  Tomorrow I’ll be driving to North Carolina in order to have lunch with a bunch of bloggers.

    I’m a geek.  A hopeless geek.

    Note to self: You’ll probably get better gas mileage if you take that monitor and Sparc crap out of your trunk.

  • Creative Commons RSS 1.0 Module

    Ben Hammersly:

    The latest draft of the RSS 1.0 Creative Commons module is up. After a great deal of good thinking from Shelley Powers (who added Creative Commons licenses to here stuff today) and many others over the RSS-Dev list and other blogs, I’ve made some pertinent clarifications. Of course, if anything is unclear, or you disagree with something, I’d love to know.

  • Ingo Blogs From Exchange Server 2000

    Ingo “Mad Scientist” Rammer has pulled it off again.  He’s blogging using Exchange Server 2000.  The screenshot included in his post looks like an enterprise weblogging app.  Truly wicked.

  • RSD Sneaks into NetNewsWire Pro

    Brent Simmons:

    I wasn’t planning for the first public beta of NetNewsWire Pro to include RSD support. In fact, I wasn’t sure I would do it for 1.0 at all.

    But then the folks who make weblog publishing systems supported it so quickly and I realized—hey, RSD is here, time to do it. So this first beta does indeed include RSD support.

  • 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?

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Build Your Own Bookmarklet

    Jon Udell:

    Googling remains a useful way to discover services, but it only finds a fraction of four supported systems, and there are many still unsupported. So here’s a complementary approach: Build your own bookmarklet.

    The idea here is twofold. First, if your library uses one of the supported systems, but isn’t listed, you can just generate the bookmarklet you’ll need. Second, it provides a framework that can easily include more systems, as people discover and report the URL patterns that can drive them.

    Excellent work, Jon.  Keep disrupting!

  • CC For Software Licenses, Part e^x

    Lawrence Lessig has commented  to his weblog post clarifying his position on using CC licenses for software:

    Great questions all, and I’m sorry I wasn’t clear before. We don’t mean to forbid the use with software. We just didn’t write the licenses with software in mind. But if the license fits, wear it. Obviously, adding this into RSS is a critically useful adaptation, and we encourage it.

    There is a heated discussion going on over at burningbird.

    Denise Howell also discusses CC metadata.

    Thanks to Diego for the links.

  • Phil Windley Switches To OSX

    Phil Windley:

    With my resignation, I find myself, for the first time since 1988, in a position where I must buy a computer. With my own money on the line, I chose a Mac (actually, I chose OS X).

  • creativeCommons RSS Module Validates

    Sam Ruby has made sure that the creativeCommons RSS 2.0 module validates.

  • New .NET Bloggers On the Block

    Sam Gentile points to a few new bloggers that he is keeping track of:

    I found two more new .NET Bloggers in my Referal logs to welcome to our community: Badre Narayanan and Jesse Ezell.  Welcome and RSS-subscribed!

    Clemens Vasters is keeping track of another blogger:

    Welcome a new blogger on the block: Morten Abrahamsen! (Blog, RSS). Morten is a friend of mine who I met at one of my many visits to Norway last year.

     

  • Autoreplies

    That’s two autoreplies to two emails this evening: Richard Stallman and Dan Gillmor.  I wonder how much spam they recieve in a day.  Goodnight all.

  • Variable Variables

    Scott Johnson plays around with variable variables in PHP.  Also, you can now buy inbox buddy through digibuy.