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August 31, 2005
[Part 2] Assets, Atom Feeds, and AspectXML - The Triple Threat of Web Development?
[Part 2] Assets, Atom Feeds, and AspectXML - The Triple Threat of Web Development?
I've just added the second part of the 'Assets, Atom Feeds, and AspectXML' series to my O'Reilly Weblog.
As the post starts:
In developing this post I realized there needs to be a separation of concepts; The first concept covers the idea of weaving together separate data, layout, and layout definition files into a final output. Once this concept is understood is then much easier to understand how implementing AOP-based concepts can take things to the next level, bringing incredible power with very little additional code with each new project.
In realizing the time I decided to post the first part of this, which is basically just the code base I will be working with to introduce the general concepts of data weaving using XML for both data and layout definition and XSLT to combine the various files together into various output types.
I plan to follow-up a bit later this evening with an explanation as to how the transformation file works to then extend into the concept of accessing an external Atom feed to be used as a way of creating a drop down menu that contains various links, images, and other related files bringing a much more powerful and robust linking system that turns a typical link within a page into an 'Asset' that can be managed through various tools and publication methods and used as part of our build process to ensure that each and every time we reference an asset the most up to date links, images, and related files are available to visitors to our sites.
Cheers :)
Posted by m.david at 11:20 PM
Past, Present, and Future of Mozilla SVG
Past, Present, and Future of Mozilla SVG
In regards to some of the projects our little hacker group is working on, Sylvain recently brought out the idea of putting a lot more focus on SVG, wondering how the rest of us felt. Given that Kurt (updatee: oh, and Don as well... Definitely another SVG pioneer who's expertise is a huge benefit) is a part of our little group of hackers, you can probably guess what his opinion is on the matter. Of course this conversation has only been taking place over the last 2 hours and there are a few folks, Kurt included, who are still yet to start their day. So in the mean time Sylvain has been researching the topic from a cross platform perspective and recently found the above presentation dated August 17th. It contains a lot of interesting information so I thought I would pass it on to the folks reading this blog to help in your own evaluation of using SVG within your own projects.
Thanks for link Sylvain!
Posted by m.david at 12:26 PM
August 28, 2005
Site-Redesign in Mid-Stream... Please excuse the non functionality and, even more so, the currently 'ugliness'... I promise it will get better :)
As noted on the main page the date filter functionality is currently under development and non-functional. There's also an obvious color scheme clash. That will be fixed, please don't get the impression that the current combination of colors was done on purpose and meant to stick around for a while. I'm presently in a push to integrate a TON of features and functionality that I have been working on independently and as such there will various "Huh??? What the hell is this???!!!" stages over the next 24 hours or so.
Cheers :)
Posted by m.david at 01:50 PM | Comments (0)
August 27, 2005
Gizmo Project: Yet Another Skype Wanna-Be? First Take: This Is What Skype Should 'Wanna-Be'
Before Google Talk released a few days ago I was completely unaware that the Gizmo Project even existed. Before Google Talk released a few days ago I doubt much I would have even cared.
Thats not to say that in-and-of itself Gizmo doesn't have what it takes to make it in the world of Internet-based text and voice messaging services. In fact, it very much does. The problem (and thus the "I doubt much I would have even cared" comment from above) is there are SO MANY messaging clients, both text and voice, its simply impossible to keep up with the latest addition to this (still!) ever increasing list unless I quite literally devoted each and every waking minute of my life to such a cause.
So what about Google Talk makes the Gizmo project suddenly seem interesting:
- Google Talk is backed by... (I'll let you fill in the obvious)
- Google Talk is based on XMPP, or Jabber, as it is known from the marketing side of this IETF-backed standards specification for XML-based Internet Messaging Protocol.
- Google Talk is also working on implementing an SIP-based voice service (at present time they are using a customized XMPP-based extension coupled with various voice codecs). SIP, or Session Initiation Protocol is another IETF-backed standard that focuses on the voice-side of Internet-based Communications. But don't let the simplicity of the name fool you into believing that SIP is only about initiating a Internet-based voice communication session... It goes MUCH deeper into the details of properly handling everything from the initialization of the session itself to transfering to a voice mail server to pretty much anything and everything else that we have come to expect in the non-internet based world of voice communications -- and beyond.So how does this tie-in with Gizmo?
[from the Google Talk Developer page...]
3. When will federation with EarthLink and Sipphone be available?
We do not have details at this time on when federation will be enabled. But we are working closely with Earthlink and Sipphone to federate EarthLink's Vling service and Sipphone's Gizmo Project with the Google Talk service as quickly as possible, while offering the best possible user experience.
What about Skype? As far as I am aware, Skype uses a proprietary communication and messaging protocol. So with Skype you are limited (speaking from a software and software development perspective) to what Skype offers (speaking from a software client or extensions made available via their proprietary API perspective.) In other words, write software for Skype and, at least for now, you are limited to the Skype service as far as what your software is capable of connecting to and supporting. Write an extension for Gizmo, and technically speaking, your extension should work with any SIP-enabled voice service. At the moment the difference may not mean all that much as far service providers are concerned. And before Google Talk, there was no real way to determine which service had true staying power. If Skype were to win out, it wouldn't be the first time a proprietary platform took the lions share of any given market.
But if Google Talk continues down this SIP-enabled path (and, based on the same Q/A from above, it seems pretty cut-and-dry they have every intention to do just that) instead of looking at a proprietary network vs. proprietary network battle between the likes of MSN, Yahoo!, Skype, AIM, etc... we're now looking at an extremely well financed effort at building a text and voice communication network on top of two open standard, open source (well, there is no 'open source requirement' but there are certainly plenty of open source projects focused on these two standards) software projects -- both backed by IETF, who just so happen to be the same standards body that the Atom Publishing Format and Protocol standard (it should be noted that the W3C is also publicly backing the Atom 1.0 Syndication Format.) is backed by.
I'll leave you to figure out how these three IETF standards could (and most likely will) be easily connected to form an open standards-based messaging powerhouse that would/will be difficult to reckon with... at best!
While I definitely have no intention of putting all my eggs into one communications basket, I most certainly know where and who I'll be getting my eggs from ;)
Enjoy your Standards-based Messaging Day :)
Posted by m.david at 07:14 PM | Comments (0)
[ANN] Saxon 8.5.1 is available [via saxon-help]
In a recent post to the saxon-help mailing list Michael Kay announced:
I've issued a maintenance release that contains fixes for all the bugs reported on 8.5.
It also includes some enhancements relating to multiple modules in XQuery,
and some performance improvements dealing with the parsing of large numbers
of small files, and reducing contention on the shared NamePool. Thanks to
those who contributed the insights that led to these improvements.Michael Kay
I will merge the changes into the Saxon.NET CVS repository later this afternoon and if it doesn't seem like much more than a rebuild of the Java source to then be processed by IKVM.NET I will do just that and check the resulting debug (dll, exe's, and pdb's) and release (dll, exe's, all of which will be signed) files in as well.
Please note: I plan to make this standard policy if Dr. Kay releases any new Saxon bits over the next few months -- meaning merging the source, running a build process, testing for issues that are easily detectable; if all looks Ok at this level I will check the resulting debug and release files into CVS, using this as the "official" release mechanism until such time as I have completed and integrated an NUnit test suite.
At that point (development and integration of an NUnit test suite) it can be verified if Saxon.NET passes all conformance test's based on the latest available specification; if yes, I will package up an .msi and release this publicly; if no, then this will give me a good place to begin hacking out the now known issues.
Posted by m.david at 05:16 PM | Comments (0)
This belongs in 'Code of the Day' but in reality should be *AT LEAST* Code of the Month, if not Year
O'Reilly Network: Make Internal Links Scroll Smoothly with JavaScript
Simple ideas make the iWorld go 'round...
When they're navigating through a long document, users often are confused or disoriented when they click on a link that jumps to another location in that same document. Are they on the same page, or a different page? Should they scroll more from here? What's going on? The answer to this problem is to scroll the user through the document to the linked location, as you can see from this demo. In this tutorial, we'll use a smattering of JavaScript to ensure that links that are internal to the document scroll users to their destinations, rather than jumping straight there and confusing site visitors.
I guess in this case the iWorld is going up and down. But thats a good thing... I remember seeing the first attempt at creating "spatial" site maps in late '96. I've seen a million more attempts since then, even some that I thought really had a chance, all-be-it slight, at changing the way we navigate the web. But not one of them has.
Obviously this idea is nothing like the idea of a "spatial" site map. But in ten years this is the first idea related to hyperlinks that I think has staying power. Furthermore I believe we should make absolutely every effort possible to make it universal, embedded directly into the browser source.
IE7 team... Its not too late to include this functionality 'internal' (even if we have to explicity set the flag to true via the settings dialog.)
Mozilla... Given your model, nothing is ever 'too late', now is it... ;)
Opera, Safari/Konqueror?
Either way, Stuart Langridge deserves a phreakin' medal of some sort for this one... Excellent idea!
Posted by m.david at 06:24 AM
C# 3.0 and the future of the CLI
A good friend of mine just forwarded the above link which contains this nifty little snippet:
Hejlsberg also will speak on C# 3.0. It will feature extension methods, lambda expressions, type inference, as well as anonymous type for expressing queries and interacting with objects, XML, and databases in a strongly typed, natural way, according to one abstract. C# 3.0 ties in with the .Net Language Integrated Query Framework.
"Exxxxcellent..."
Posted by m.david at 05:56 AM
August 25, 2005
I Love it When Opportunity Knocks; Especially When It Knocks On the Door of the House You Moved Into A Month or Two Back, Giving You Just Enough Time to Unpack, Get Settled, and Have The Sara Lee Ready and Waiting
I'm now wondering if that is quite possibly the worst title I have ever come up with... I think it is. But its been a long day and I'm too tired to care at this point so please ignore my sad attempt at trying to make some sort of analogy about something or other... When I have a few hours sleep in me, and If I think of a better title instead, I'll change it.
In the mean time...
oh, before I copy and paste that in I should note that it was about two months ago that Uche got me REALLY turned on to XMPP as he felt it made a lot of sense in regards to developing LLUP-based solutions that when tied together (XMPP = Jabber by-the-way), gets us nearly 99% of the way to the end goal utlilizing existing open source and open standards...
That Uche I tell ya... He definitely knows a thing or two when it comes to... hmmm... is there anything Uche doesnt know a thing or two about... I'm trying to think of at least one, and I can't.
Well, while I ponder the "Is there anything he doesn't understand" question, this is from the above link...
4. What other communication services will you federate with? We look forward to federating with any service provider who shares our belief in enabling user choice and open communications. We do believe, however, that it is important to balance openness with ensuring that we maintain a safe and reliable service that protects user privacy and blocks spam and other abuses. We are using the federation opportunity with EarthLink and Sipphone to develop a set of guidelines by which all members of the federated network can work together to ensure that we protect our users while maximizing the reach of the network. We are also eager to hear from other people in the industry about how best to build a federation model that is open, scalable, and ensures best-in-class user experiences. If you have thoughts on federation or suggestions for how we can better enable open communications, please share them with us at the Google Talk Interoperability Google Group.
Want to hear my favorite part again (or read it if you happen to be reading this instead of piping it through your speak and spell like I am... um, like I am... ummm. oh, like I am not presently doing anything of the sort (phew... that one nearly broke me... lucky for me I pulled out the X factor and put it to good use at the last second... otherwise, well, I would rather not talk about the otherwise... lets just get on to my favorite part of the above:
If you have thoughts on federation or suggestions for how we can better enable open communications, please share them with us at the Google Talk Interoperability Google Group.
While you have that door and window open Google, I've got myself and a couple friends who'd like to pay you a visit if you dont mind to discuss a few open source and open standard extensions for Atom and RSS-based data feeds that I think you might find REALLLLLLLLYYYY interesting. I assure you it will be worth every bit of your time! You can expect contact from me in the next 24 hours.:D
Guess what about? :)
Cheers :)
More will be added soon.
Posted by m.david at 04:32 AM
August 24, 2005
via My First O'Reilly Blog Post | Assets, Atom Feeds, and AspectXML - The Triple Threat of Web Development?
Assets, Atom Feeds, and AspectXML - The Triple Threat of Web Development?
Whether we immediatelly realize it, our company websites, corporate and personal blogs, community and personal websites, discussion forums, listservers, etc... all contain common elements that appear on a regular basis. And yet in most cases instead of taking the time to, in essence, externalize these assets such that when simple things change such as:
If you find this entry to be fairly typical in regards to one of my posts... wait till you read my up and coming book... Oh yeah, I've had/am having some fun with this... All good natured, but definitely a lot of fun.
Cheers :)
Posted by m.david at 01:15 PM
August 22, 2005
Interesting Comments from DonXML Regarding Acrylic
Microsoft Codename Acrylic Does Not Do It For Me
First off, I really, really wanted to love Microsoft’s latest graphics tool, codename Acrylic. I down loaded and install the first public beta, and wasn’t impressed, but hey, it’s an early view into what they are doing, so I decided to cut them some slack (it is based on Creature House Expression, which MSFT bought in 2003).
Read on for some more interesting tidbits and a link to a sweet little Illustrator to XAML conversion utility plugin from Michael Swanson.
Posted by m.david at 07:20 PM
A very light blogging week
A Quick FYI... This will be a very light week of blogging for me as I have my head down on my current project. I will be checking email twice each day: once at the start of my day and once at the end. My apologies if I am slow to respond to any correspondence.
Cheers :)
Posted by m.david at 03:10 PM | Comments (0)
August 19, 2005
via Bill de hÓra | One-Click HTML?
Bill de h�ra: Should we solve one-click subscription by turning the HTML off?
So my answer to clicksub - don't start from there. Instead this would be great: at some point weblogs flip over and the HTML website bits will become secondary fluff to the XML content, like how PDFs are secondary web fluff to HTML today. The frontpage would be the feed, the archives would be Atom entries, and instead of a "subscribe to the feed" buttons, you could have "read this stuff in a browser" buttons. And reading this stuff in browser would be retro-cool in a Harris tweed sports jacket kind of way - you could use Lynx at tech conferences to read weblogs and get some respect for keeping it real. It would be strictly for the weekends. Otherwise, no more handwringing about one-click subscriptions - if you got here, you're already subscribed.
You know, the idea has merit... All of the content and the "quickview" navigation on this blog is done via rendering the Atom feeds for each section via client-side XSLT anyway. So its not difficult to do, it would just have to be done in a way that makes it easy to make it the default behavior for a given site on the web. In fact, as long as the data feeds are valid that's one Greasemonkey script that would pretty much be guaranteed not to break.
If I could find about 4 or 5 hours I could finish off the "Asset-based AspectXML" project I've been working on which may not make complete sense at the moment, but if you think of everything on a website as an asset, and then store each of those assets as an entry in an atom feed I think you'll be quite amazed at what you can do with such a set-up.
I'll see what I can do to get that finished and posted ASAP.
Posted by m.david at 12:10 PM
via EBay | I Now Know What I Am Going To Get Edd Dumbill For Christmas [Link Source: Engadget]
Bluetooth Star Trek Barbie has arrived... You can use me to make and receive calls with Bluetooth 1.1 compatible mobile phones. I have no wires. I work within a 10 meter radius of your phone so you can leave your mobile in your pocket or a bag. You turn me on/off, receive calls, make calls and pair me with other devices by pressing in the small of my back.
Now this is not to suggest that Edd plays with Barbie Dolls, and I have no idea if he's a Star Trek fan. But come on... Bluetooth Barbie? When Barbie has gone Bluetooth you know Bluetooth has finally arrived... And that alone should be reason enough for this gem to find its way under Edd's tree come Christmas morning.
My only concern is where do you talk into, wear do you listen, and how exactly do you attach it to your head such that what you talk into and what you listen to matches well with what you talk with and what you listen with.
I guess thats for Edd to figure out, huh... its going under his Christmas tree, not mine ;)
Enjoy your (Barbie?) Bluetooth-enabled Day!
Posted by m.david at 07:40 AM | Comments (0)
August 18, 2005
via Tim Bray | In the Works Tim... No, You Are Not the Only One Who has Connected the Dots
ongoing ? Podcasting and Patricia
So, here’s a gifted artist out there in the Long Tail with a moderate but devoted fan base, here’s this hot new podcasting thing running up headlines everywhere... am I the only one wanting to connect the dots?
I love music. In fact, so do a lot of people. Actually, there are very few people on this planet who I think could state that they don't love music of one form or another, if anyone. So whats this have to do with the above quote?
About a month and half ago Russ and I were working on a few things related to LLUP. I was thinking about a few things relating to ChannelXML and blogXast and that got me thinking about podcasting. One of the things that has surprised me about the podcasting trend is that I know very few people on this planet who would feel comfortable even recording a podcast much less publishing one on the web. Its not like posting text to a blog where you can:
1) Easily and without knowledge of how to use audio editing equipment edit an reedit something until you feel good about it
2) Express your emotions about something without having to make a sound.
3) Write a quick little snippet and post it (I guess you could post a quick little podcast but I'm not so sure people will be driven to subscribe to your snippet-casts all that much... but who knows, maybe they will. Don't let my non-belief get in the way of your passion... go get 'em tiger... rrrrrrroar!)
4) And so on...Even blogging text takes a certain bit of confidence, or as Eve Maler stated in one of her first blog post's, "I did intend for there to be a faint whiff of “pushing” since blogging requires a certain confidence (arrogance?)". Everybody on this planet has emotions, but not everyone would be willing to express them to ANYBODY much less leave them open for the entire WorldWideWeb to read. So even blogging (in its current form, more on what I mean by that in a later post) is slightly limited to those of us who don't mind publishing to the web our thoughts on a certain subject. But without a doubt that number is going to be A TON bigger than those willing to speak their thoughts.
So, again, what does this have to do with Tim's post? Quite a bit actually, although at the present time nothing is ready to be announced. But it will be soon as you can rest assured that between myself, Russ, Uche, Sylvain, Don, Kurt, and Micah(although Micah is currently focused on getting moved and starting his new research position at Yahoo!) there is enough drive and talent to push this product out the door in a hurry.
Q: So what is it?
A: I don't want to spoil the surprise so I will hold off on answering that question just yet. But you can probably figure out most of it from the content of this post. But I can promise you one thing for sure... It's going to kick some serious a$$. :)Q: Will it be open source?
A: Yes. And Open Community, but that may not make that much sense at the moment, but it will.Q: Will it cost anything?
A: No. And thanks for helping to push the idea that Open Source and free do not have to be the same thing. But this OSS project will most definitely not cost you a dime to use or participate with. You could try and get technical and suggest that buying or having access to a computer and buying or having access to an internet connection is required and that DOES cost money so therefore its technically not free, but then your just being a prick, and you don't want to be a prick do you? Good.Keep in mind however that, as Tim points out, podcasting does present opportunity for musician's and artist's to extend their marketing arm by opening up a new medium in which people can subscribe to gain access to new items that have been produced. We want to help develop the software to make that happen. Why? Because we are all passionate about music and want to help develop new technologies that break down the barriers of entry such that anyone, anywhere can be easily "discovered" and promoted to the rest of us via an Open Community channel in which we can both subscribe to and take part in (maybe now the Open Community concept makes a bit more sense?) Thats it. Thats our reason.
Q: So in the spirit of Open Source and Open Community will it then be required that everybody who participates provide their music free of charge?
A: NO! That would be ludicrous! While we all believe that the barriers of entry into the music scene need to be broken down, we are all business men and understand that we can't all just give away everything we create with no expectation of payment. That's why we develop these projects in our spare time. We all have jobs in one form or another as we all need to make money to survive.But we are also all driven to make the computing world a better place and we are all in a position where we can do that in our spare time and in various forms without requiring a payment in return for access to what we produce. So we do.
Any other questions? Actually, comments are still broken at the moment from yesterdays slashdot attack[1] so if you have any questions or comments I guess you could email them to me. I have finally found a new blogging engine (dasBlog) that I like and plan to move everything over to it as soon as possible. But for the moment comments and trackbacks are dead. If I have time to get moved over this weekend I will, but until my current book project is complete I can't promise anything.
With that, enjoy your day!
[1] I think its fair to use such a term... if you saw the log file flying by at the speed it was flying by at without realizing where all these people were coming from and why they were all hitting the same page, you would have assumed it was a DOS Attack as well... Oh, an important point to recognize... I don't keep track of the referer in my log files. Why? I don't know, I guess I'm not that worried about where people are coming from... I can't think of one reason why knowing how people got here helps me write a better blog. But maybe it does and if so maybe some time I will add the referer to what the log file tracks... but at present time it doesnt. Actually, maybe recognizing when something is a DOS attack and when something is a link in a slashdot post or another popular site is reason enough... hmmm... good point. Maybe I better add that to the info being logged. Anyway, not important in regards to this post.
Posted by m.david at 11:26 PM
August 17, 2005
I'm not sure what it may have been that Kurt stated in his Keynote at SVG 2005, but apparently someone is upset enough to have invoked a DOS attack on the transcript he posted earlier
As such I have ripped mt-comment.cgi out of its stranglehold on that particular server and am now using the error_log as my new fan... Theres gotta be at least 10 requests a second for his "The Future of SVG" post from earlier today and while the IP's are definitely starting to show a recurring pattern theres gotta be at least 300 different machines making requests to make a comment on that same post... While I'll admit Kurt tends to be a popular guy at conferences, especially at SVG conferences, something tells me there are not 600 or so people every 60 seconds who are just dying to post a comment. In fact there is no actual POST requests, just GET so my recent check of Kurts comment log with hope of finding revealing hate mail or something of that nature reveals nothing but Viagra and Poker comment spam waiting to be approved. I'll get right on that... just wait right here.
[[UPDATE: This just in from Kurt:
Mark, I've been slashdotted - if you've had problems with your server, it's my fault - my usage chart is throught the damn roof.
]Wow, so thats what its like to be slashdotted (BTW... if you read any of my really snide remarks from a bit ago, there now deleted... I've never deleted anything before from this blog, but when you think you're being DOS Attacked and it ends up that its really just Kurt being slashdotted you kind of want to erase all the stupid things you said when you thought it was a DOS Attack and you felt like giving the one responsible a piece of your mind...
Ummm... nevermind... :) Please, visit Kurt's blog all you want... :) Sorry bout that!
Although, I have discovered yet again that CGI scripts are the difference between a server that is being strangled to death and a server that is able to handle whatever's thrown at it... including being Slashdotted! With comments enabled Movable Type calls the mt-comments.cgi script each and every time that page is hit, I'm assuming to have the proper form state passed in as part of the HTML. As soon as I ripped out mt-comments.cgi, suddenly the server was back down to less than 10% resource usage, even with the, quite literally hundreds of requests that were hitting the server every 10-15 seconds.
And people keep writing CGI scripts because....?
[END OF UPDATE]][Original Post cont.]
---You're still here... Damn, I thought that would throw you off track... Oh well, while I have you here I guess I could speculate some more while I enjoy the cool breeze being generated via a Putty-based SSH session with that server...
[ Comment Spam? ]
I'm ruling out comment spam on this one as comment spam attempts to POST a comment, not just GET the page to leave the comment on. I'm pretty sure that posting a comment is kind of the point of comment spam, but I could be wrong. Besides, comment spammers are a bunch of lazy a$$ phreaks who rely on scripts to locate the posts with the highest Google page ranks. As such comment spammers are always 3-4 weeks behind the most recent posts... at least thats the pattern I see on the blogs hosted on this server so I can only assume its the same elsewhere as well.Suffice it to say if you try and leave a comment on any of the blogs on this server which include mine, Kurts, the Saxon.NET weblog, alphaCOmega.com, understandingxslt.com, Reusablog.com (theres a blog that I had the best intentions of posting to and havent since the first post like 10 months ago... I do reuse a lot more code than I did at that point which was kind of the point of the blog -- to force me into reusing code by blogging about the struggles that are involved with someone forcing themselves to trust other peoples code enough to simply plug in a component, script it with some other components, write some event handling scripts, and then "Let Go and Let God" while I cringe at the hideous nature of the app I just wrote.
If not obvious, I definitely tend to be the type who for the most part, would rather rewrite the Kernel from scratch than deal with other peoples potentially sloppy code. Well, obviously I'm not that bad (I don't even think I would know where to start writing a Kernel... It takes a special kind of hacker to want to get down that close to the metal....) but I definitely have been the type of hacker who prefers to start at the beginning with each and every application I have written...
But, like I said I've gotten a lot better. Which is too bad cuz' Resuablog.com I thought was a really cool name... I guess I could "reuse" it for something else but now I have to go and smack myself upside the head for saying something that cheezy! Yes, even I have my "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY TO DAMN CHEEZY" standards I have to abide by...
Anyway, I'm interested to hear from Kurt if anything happened that may have invoked a DOS attack on that one post from a few hours ago...
"Kurt... what you do?" ;)
I'll keep you posted with all the juicy details... Oh wow, I think it just doubled in nodes slamming the comment requests for that post at the moment... DAMN!!!! I could power the city of Seattle with the wind being created by the error_log flying by me fast enough that the IP addresses are but a blur...
[DELETED AS PER THE SLASHDOT DISCOVERY LISTED ABOVE]
Enjoy your DOS Attack free day! (or your DOS Attacking Day as the case may be)
Posted by m.david at 11:54 PM | Comments (0)
August 16, 2005
Open Laszlo | More Interesting Than I First Realized
Although I have heard about and have even played around with the various online demos it wasn't until today that I realized Open Laszlo was something that needed to be taken serious. The realization came when I installed the SDK and Server-Side runtime engine on one of the servers here in my office such that we (meaning those of us working on various projects like LLUP, etc...) could all gain access to a sweet little app Russ conjured up over the weekend using none-other than... Open Laszlo.
At first take it just seems like Yet Another XML-based GUI Markup Language and as such my initial reaction was "we have XHTML, SVG, XUL, and XAML. Do we really need another client-side markup language to be productive?"
What I didn't realize was that, while the first bit is still true, its doesnt require Yet Another Client-Side Run-Time Engine. Instead it relies on Flash (6.0+), something we all have already, no matter the platform. And if by chance we don't, at between 200-300K and one-click installation its not exactly something that can be viewed as any sort of barrier to entry.
So while it does require a server side installation to get things up and running as soon as that's taken care of your pretty much home free and running everywhere. It's open source and from my initial scan of the markup it seems to be based on the "canvas" model and the elements seem to fit naturally within what you would expect so the barrier to entry for programmers is minimal, at best.
I'm still not 100% convinced that this is "THE" solution for declaritive XML-based client-side GUI development. But its definitely a lot more interesting than I first realized and might very well be worth a second look at some point in the future when I have more time to evaluate things further.
If and when I do, I'll fill you in on the details.
Cheers :)
Posted by m.david at 04:28 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Hey, Sylvain Hellegouarch's Here!
First entry Lawouach - Mon, 15 Aug 2005 18:24:39 - (11) Comment
My first entry on this blog...
Hope it'll work :)While it may be his first blog entry, Sylvain is no stranger to many of us. Welcome to the Blogosphere Sylvain! :) Subsribed.
Posted by m.david at 01:34 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Standards Bodies? Come on, we don't really need standards, do we?
USB, CD, DVD, HTML, XML, RSS 1.x/RDF, RSS 2.0, Atom
All of these except for one belong on this list. Can you guess which one?
[Hint 1: Standards Bodies]
[Hint 2:
"In the end I think they'll do the right thing [with the technology]," Winer said of Microsoft's RSS rebranding moves in an e-mail to the IDG News Service. "I also don't think we need a standards body. RSS happened outside of the standards bodies for good reasons."
]And look what happened to it. (Separation of RSS 1.x, RSS 2.0, broken publishing extensions, a joke for an outlining standard (to name a few))
The next comment is killing me:Jupiter's Wilcox agreed. "As long as there’s a standard everyone can agree on, it doesn’t matter much who the steward is," he said.
And how do they agree on a standard? They form a "standards body."
Do these people live in a bubble?
Here's a suggestion: If you don't define a specification as a standard and furthermore get a common standards group like the W3C, or the IETF, or IEEE(allowing room for the fact that software is only half the computing equation), etc... then don't get all pissed off when people decide to make changes to it that conform to their own needs. What are we, in Kindergarten?
"That's my ball, give it back!!!! You can't touch it. THIS ISN'T FAIR!!! WAAAHAHAHHAAHHAHA"
Hmmm, interesting.... Could someone please change the channel?
Ahhhhhh... thats much better. Thanks!Posted by m.david at 04:44 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 14, 2005
via My Personal Calendar | Bumbershoot, September 4, 2005. Check.
Not that I had any plans to miss Bumbershoot (for those of you scratching your head, Bumbershoot is Seattle's annual Music and Arts Festival) this year, but this just gives me one more thing to look forward to.
Marc Broussard
September, 4 2005 at Bumbershoot - The Seattle Arts Festival
305 Harrison , Seattle, WA 98109
Cost:
11:00am is the door time. For more information:Posted by m.david at 04:44 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Lisp and AOP : One in the same?
Berlin Brown's Weblog : Weblog
I've often wondered how long it would take people to realize the relationship that AOP has to Lisp. To me the connection is so blatantly obvious that I've just assumed that others from the Lisp world -- or better said, those who have a background in Lisp but have since been forced into an OOP way of hacking such that they could put bread on the table -- felt the exact same way. But up until now I have never seen any evidence that others have made the connection.
The above link was recently posted to comp.lang.lisp.
I mentioned AOP(aspect oriented programming), this isn't the full use of AOP(you probably want something like AspectL or AspectJ).
"Suppose we want to do logging at both the beginning and the end of each function body. This will result in crosscutting all classes that have at least one function." -- On AOP
Ok, so maybe this doesn't come right out and say it (you'll need to read the whole post to understand why I am connecting the two), but the assumption is that AOP and Lisp contain similarities -- which they do -- in fact in private conversation with a few hacker friends I've even gone as far as suggesting that Aspect-Oriented Programming is Lisp's backdoor entry into the mind of an OOP developer. While AOP is obviously in and of itself its very own entity it seems that if instead of trying to think about AOP from an OOP perspective, think about it from a Lisp perspective. Doing so will hopefully help separate AOP from the logging and security role it seems to have been pigeon-holed into and open the mind of OOP hackers into realizing that AOP can be used for the same things Lisp can be used for -- or better said, EVERYTHING! :)
Enjoy your Aspect-Oriented List Processing Day :)
Posted by m.david at 03:29 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 13, 2005
via 'Google Code' | Goopy? Functional Python? I didn't notice this during my last visit but it appears they are one in the same...
Goopy/Functional
Goopy Functional is a python library that brings functional programming aspects to python.
I think I need to pay a bit more attention to code.google.com
Posted by m.david at 11:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 12, 2005
via Communications with Gerald Bauer | What do Mono, Google, and XAML all have in common?
Apparently quite a bit...
Yes, MyXAML works for Mono but initially MyXAML had some "ugly" dependencies on Windows.Forms as far as I can remember. Thanks to Google there's now also an open source XAML parser that is part of Mono itself. See http://groups.yahoo.com/group/xaml-talk.
Sweet! I haven't kept well enough up with all of the details of the Mono-Project and this one totally blew me away!
Nice :) Thanks for the info Gerald!
Posted by m.david at 07:10 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 11, 2005
Web 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, +, Each one exists now, so whats all the fuss?
While Shakespeare I am not, heres a few thoughts of my own on the whole "Web 2.0" debate thats going around at the moment.
---Web 1.0 1994/5 = Static HTML Content, Browsers: Mosaic, Netscape
Web 2.0 1996/7/8 = Dynamic HTML Content, CSS, Browsers: IE 4.0+, Netscape 4.x
Web 2.5 1999/2000 = Dynamic XML, XHTML, CSS 2.x, client-side XSLT, Asynchronous Partial HTTP refresh/Dynamic Server-based, Browsers: IE 5.x, Netscape 6.0 (no client side XSLT at this point)
Web 3.0 2000/2001/2002/2003 = XForms, SVG, XUL, expanded client-side XSLT, RSS 0.9x, - Browsers: IE 6.0, Netscape 7.0, Mozilla - eventual client-side XSLT is added to Netscape in 7.1 via Mozilla's TransforMiiX
Web 3.1 = 2003/2004/2005 = 3.0 cntd., RDF(RSS 1.x), RSS 2.0, Atom, The Blogging and PubSub Generation - Browsers: IE 6.0, IE 7.0 beta and Netscape 8.0 (eventually), Mozilla, *Firefox* 1.0 emerges from Mozilla and eventually becomes the defacto browser for the Mozilla group ++ FeedReaders emerge and begin to take on the role of the browser + feedreaders + (in some cases) advanced XML messaging applicationsWeb 3.5 = 2005/2006/2007 = Web 3.1 cntd., XAML (XUL + SVG + Declaritive XML-based .NET API wiring framework) + RDF(or RPV-esque Semantic Web Markup of choice) + Mature XML Query languages (e.g. XQuery, SPARQL) + plus XSLT 2.0 processing and reprocessing of XML - First real sign of the The Semantic Web - Browsers: IE 7.0, Netscape 8.x, Mozilla's *Firefox* 1.5/2.0?, The feed reader begins to evolve into something really useful.
Web 4.0 = 2007/2008/2009 = Cross-breeding of Push/Pull Declarative-style application messaging framework, true and pure application interoperability via advanced XML messaging formats (COM/DCOM-XML if you will), true and easy access to the most relavent content with truly simplified searching mechanisms - The true and pure semantic web becomes a reality, Browsers, etc... - your guess is as good as mine... My personal belief is that the browser as we know it today will not exist anymore... Applications will be built dynamically via Atom and RSS/RDF data feeds that allow both ease of subscription to dynamic application frameworks and UI's and the data they process and present. These same data feeds will act in the capacity of an interapplication XML messaging frameworks to allow ease of subscrition controlled messaging between applications.
---It is my very strong opinion that each one of the Web x.x entries above represent innovations that enabled a new level of web-based application development that did not exist before each level came into being as it simply was not possible to do with existing technologies what these new technolgies brought to the table. As such, new features bring new version numbers.
With that said I can easily think of individuals and/or groups of individuals who actively, to this very day, live in each one of these spaces. Some have never seen the need for anything but static text... the still-quite-popular Lynx browser should easily testify to that point.
While Web 2.0 technically started with Dynamic HTML in 1997 it has reemerged despite a core group of new technologies that far surpass the capability of the 2.0-based technologies - e.g. SVG, XForms, XUL, XAML. But then again Dynamic HTML was always seen as a lightweight weblication enhancement, not as a true weblication framework for the simple fact that too much DHTML overloaded the workhorses of the time and would push visitors away rather than attract them. Still, sites like DynamicDrive kept at it and developed a truly expansive and popular code-base that is suddenly finding a rebirth as the latest machines rip through this code like butta'.
Web 3.0 came with extensive client-side XML processing in XSLT and CSS as well as the introduction of SVG and XForms. It can easily be said that we are only just now beginning to realize the potential of these 4 year old technologies and yet there are others who are simply slipping over the top and attempting to fix the problems of the 3.0 bits when in fact we're not really sure if and what these problems may even be.
Web 3.x brings the Blogging/PubSub revolution and the focus on creating a simple but capable data feed format. Suddenly we are finding that people are beginning to dig deep and use all sorts of technologies, old and new, to really push this new medium to the extreme. Its still early in the 3.5 time frame and as such this group could easily morph into something else completey... So, if we base our current "Web Version" on this general idea it could easily be seen that some of us are living in 3.x world while other are simply enamored by the 2.0 world they never really had a chance to take advantage of in the first place.
And, for that matter, there's a small but important group of folks who have been working on the 4.0 stuff for quite some time.
So, with all of this combined we go from 1.0 to 4.0 and can expect to find a decent group of developers and/or users at each level who is happy, content, and in no hurry to move on while others couldnt stand still doped up on 50 milligrams of Ritalin and as such have simply got to move on to the latest and greatest. Whats cool about the "Rit'z" is that they have a tendency to figure out what works and doesnt work long before the others even arrive into the picture. They're the bleeding edgers and, as a card carrying member who also likes to dabble in the current state of blood-clotted affairs, I am of the belief that no matter what label we try and place on the current generation of web users, its never going to be totally accurate, and in some cases 7 years behind the times. Still, without marketing types there would be no money for us hacking types to play around with to create the latest and greatest thing... so, while it can be a real pain in the A$$, dealing with the current "versioned web" its something I think we simply have to put up with.
Although you might be surprised what a bottle of Tequila and a digital camera can do in "helping" the marketing folks realize that maybe "Web 3.0" is not such a bad label for the current state of affairs afterall... :D
Oh, BTW... do yourself a favor and at least pick up a bottle of Tres... Patron is too trendy, but it's at least drinkable... kind of. Cabo Wabo would obviously be even better but tends to be a little harder to gain access to ;) Don Julio ... well, anyway, just make sure that when at the liquor store, you don't have to bend down to grab the bottle... never a good thing to do. Just remember:
"Bending down = Hanging your head down in agonizing pain the next day"
Good words to live by and some friendly hints from someone with experience ;) (oh, Mezcal is always a good choice... something about that worm just makes them go bonkers -- no need to tell them the truth about the worm as for whatever reason it really does seem to make them think and act quite a bit crazier... all the better for a *FANTASTIC* shot to post (don't publish or you'll completely lose your ability to bribe... just let them know that its there... the morning after that is... They'll know what to do next ;)
Posted by m.david at 12:38 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
via my Mother | Understanding the current state of Zimbabwe from the words of a mother to her children
My mother was born in a small town called Chester-le-Street, Durham County, in Northern England. At the age of 8 her Father, finding the employment situation in Durham (this would be th 1949 time frame) difficult at best (he was a Teacher by trade) discovered that in the then British Colony of Rhodesia (South Eastern portion of Africa; northern and southern Rhodesia would eventually become Zambia and Zimbabwe respectively) the employment opportunities were quite good. Named after Cecil Rhodes [from Wikipedia]: < who was an English businessman and the effective founder of the state of Rhodesia who became quite wealthy from the natural resources found in this part of Africa which, of course, made the opportunity to work at the Wankie Colliery(Now called Hwange, nearby Hwange National Park, one of Africas largest wildlife preserves) seem somewhat appealing.
I could go into greater detail but will save that for another post, another day... What this post is about is all too important to let my family's history take center stage. Suffice it to say that those who grew up in Zim (as it is refered to by the British population who either have lived, or in some cases (like several of my relatives) still do) tend to stay in very close contact through email, newsletters, and sites such as the popular zimdays.com. This letter was recently forwarded to my mother who forwarded it to me asking me to post this to my blog. I recently made a post regarding the horrific acts currently taking place in Zimbabwe: that of torching and bulldozing the shanty towns of Zimbabwe -- an act which was recently condemned by the UN (details in the above link.) but it seems has had no effect as these crimes continue to devastate the people of this region.
I have no idea what we can do about this, if anything. But maybe we can. As such, please take the time to read this...
[UPDATE: Huh, thats wierd. I found this exact same letter on congress.org that is, as far as I can tell, word for word > except its states the increase of costs as 250% instead of 600%. Obviously Congress.org is probably the more accurate of the two and it doesnt make the situation any less significant... just kind of a strange thing to see...
Actually, seeing this on Congress.org listed as a SoapBox Alert helps drive home even further the importance of doing anything we can do to help. And the above linked article is a place to enter your zip code. It then takes you to an email interface to send a message directly to the Congressman or Senator for your part of the United States. Probably not a lot needs to be said other than "Are we helping in anyway already? If not, why not? And further, when will support from the US be made available? If you can justify sending troops to Iraq you sure as hell can justify sending aid to citizens on the brink of Genocide... Or maybe you don't like your job and I should vote for your challenger at the next election?" This is what I am about to send Orrin Hatch, Robert Bennett, and Rob Bishop > I bet you'll come up with something better when you write yours...]
---
Letter from a mother in Zimbabwe to her children in UK
Date: Sun, 5 Jun 2005 19:45:47 +0100Dear all,
Below is something I found on a Zim news website. I'm pretty sure all of you are (semi-) aware of what has been going on in Zim over the last few weeks. A few people I've spoken to back in Zim say that it is just horrific. People are having to sleep on the roadsides in winter and there are huge areas of burnt homes and buildings. I know that we cannot change
it all, but I have always believed that we can create a huge awareness over here, where we are free to express how we feel and free to say whatever we want. Therefore, please, please, please let's all help out the people in Zimbabwe and the country we have all grown up in! We may not ever get to live there the way we have, but we have a responsibility to put away all of our bitterness and anger and help the people there who are so obviously helpless. I have read horrifying stories over the past few weeks -
people are actually burning all of their worldly possessions because they cannot afford to move them to their rural homes and no-one will buy them. What is happening is utterly ridiculous! Martin Luther King once said, "When evil men plot, good men must plan. When evil men burn and bomb, good men must build and bind. When evil men shout ugly words of hatred, good men must commit themselves to the glories of love. Where evil men would seek to perpetuate an unjust stat us quo, good men must seek to bring into being a real order of justice". All I'm asking is that you pass this (and anything
else I send you) on to as many people as you can. I don't know about the rest of you, but I am sick of this! It's time to do something - better late than never I guess! Let's not just sit here and read everything and sympathise, but remain passive. Let's try and do as much as we can. It really will take very little effort, only a few minutes of your time. This is our fight too, believe it or not, regardless of whether you're going to go back there eventually or not or what the colour of your skin is! For those of you who are not from Zim, please pass this on to your friends and family too, the more publicity we get, the better. At the end of the day, it is our home.See Below
My Dearest Children,
I know you don't want to hear the bad things that are happening here because it makes you worry about us, but it is really awful feeling that I cant tell you because you don't want to know. But we are all terrified at what they are going to destroy next........I mean they are actually ploughing down brick and mortar houses and one white family with twin boys of 10 had no
chance of salvaging anything when 100 riot police came in with AK's and bulldozers and demolished their beautiful house - 5 bedrooms and pine ceilings - because it was "too close to the airport"...so we are feeling extremely insecure right now. You know - I am aware that this does not help you sleep at night, but if you do not know - how can you help? Even if you put us in your own mental ring of light and send your guardian angels to be with us - that is a help - but I feel so cut off from you all knowing I cannot tell you what's going on here simply because you will feel uncomfortable. There is no ways we can leave so that is not an option. I just ask that you all pray for us in the way that you know how, and let me know that you are thinking of us and sending out positive vibes..that's all. You can't just be in denial and pretend its not going on. To be frank with you, its genocide in the making and if you do not believe me, read the Genocide Report by
Amnesty International which says we are IN level seven (level 8 is after its happened and everyone is in denial). If you don't want me to tell you these things then it means you have not dealt with your own fear, but it does not help me to think you are turning your back on our situation. We need you to get the news OUT that we are all in a fearfully dangerous situation here. Too many people turn their backs and say - oh well, that's what happens in Africa. This government has GONE MAD and you need to publicize our plight or how can we be rescued? You cant just say "oh you attract your own
reality". T he petrol queues are a reality, the pall of smoke all around our city is a reality, the thousands of homeless people sleeping outside in 0 Celsius with no food water, shelter and bedding are a reality. Today a family approached me, brother of the gardener's wife with two small children. Their home was trashed and they will have to sleep outside. We already support 8 people and a child on this property and electricity is going up next month by 600% as is water. How can I take another family of 4 - and yet how can I turn them away to sleep out in the open? So I am not asking you for money, or a ticket out of here - I am asking you to FACE the fact that we are in deep and terrible danger and I want you to pass on
our news and pictures and don't just press the delete button for God's sake. Help in the way that you know how. Face the reality of what is going on here and SEND OUT THE WORD. The more people that know about it, the more chance we have of Unit ed Nations coming to our aid. Please stop ignoring and denying what's happening. Would you like to be protected from the truth and then if we are eliminated how would you feel? Surely you would say "if only we knew how bad it really was we could have helped in some way".
I know we chose to stay here and so we "deserve" what's coming to us. For now we ourselves, have food, shelter, a little fuel and a bit of money for the next meal - but what is going to happen next? Will they start on our houses? All property is going to belong to the State now. I want to send out my Title Deeds to one of you because if they get a hold of those I
can't fight for my rights. We no longer have SW radio which told us everything that was happening because the Government jammed it out of existence - we don't have any reporters, and no one is allowed to photograph. If we had reporters here they would have an absolute field day. Even the pro government Herald has written that people are shocked, stunned, bewildered and blown mindless by the wanton destruction of everyone's homes which are supposed to be "illegal" but which a huge percentage of them actually do have licenses for.
Please my children - have some compassion and HELP by sending out the articles and personal reports so that something can be DONE.Love
MumPosted by m.david at 09:39 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 10, 2005
While late in approving the comment, Lloyd O. is absolutely spot on... Opera, whats up with Client-side XSLT?
My apologies to Lloyd for not seeing and approving this comment before now...
I was just browsing google, looking for Opera XSLT when I came across this blog and felt compelled to agree.
Client side XSLT is the coolest thing I've seen in web design in ages. Makes all-XML web design a reality among other things.
Personally I am using XSLmaker to create stylesheets - and guess what - they work everywhere except Opera. First I thought it was some obvious problem I'll fix in no time, until I found articles where Opera people *explicitly* state 'XSLT on client is bad'. Bad preaching is what it is.
I think Opera will die if they don't enable client-side XSLT. I tried to do some hacks with XSLmaker (redirect to all-HTML and such) for web sites I maintain (I am webmaster/designer contractor part-time), until web site owners told me they don't care about the small percentage of Opera users who will only see stripped down text.
Just my 2/100 - I simply couldn't understand hard-headedness of Opera people.
Absolutely spot on Lloyd. While I have taken Opera, and specifically Håkon Wium Lie to task before, I have since come to appreciate Håkon as an individual. But to this very day I do not understand why XSLT is seen as "competition" to CSS. And I can speak with some authority on this (I'm about to let the cat out of the bag) as I am writing a book for O'Reilly right at this very moment on Client-side XML Processing and Presentation with CSS and XSLT.
Ok, so I will admit that four or five months ago I felt differently on this matter, but after spending quite a bit of time in study of the power that CSS brings to XML processing and presentation table I am of no longer of the "CSS is dead" mentality. But CSS alone is not the answer!
Fortunately for us (and for Opera for that matter) Google has come to the rescue and has developed AJAXSLT. So we no longer have to deal with the "no Client-side XSLT!" attitude that Opera has taken. It also give's us script-based transformation capabilities in Safari that we don't have right at this moment. But I have no doubt it will be there eventually which leaves Opera as the single and solitary stand-out. And lets face it, as grateful as I am to Google for the development of AJAXSLT, using client-side Javascript for processing XML is not exactly the speediest solution on the planet. Still, its A LOT better than nothing and so no complaints are going to be coming from this loudmouth of mine.
I would be EXTREMELY interested to hear from Mr. Lie, or anybody from the Opera world for that matter, as to why on earth XSL-T and XSL (ala XSL-FO) can't be separated and the XSL-T side of things be seen as a FANTASTIC tool for client-side XML development that, when coupled with CSS, creates an unbelievably powerful combination that is pretty tough to reckon with.
Anybody?
Posted by m.david at 07:39 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
via Bob Ducharme | The Paris Index -- This sounds interesting. But doesn't Attention.XML get us at least part way to the end goal?
Blog value, link value, and the Paris Index
She wants to quantify the depth and impact of those connections by looking at more than just the number of inbound links and the number of a particular blog's subscribers. He blog posting includes a table with nineteen kinds of information that could be taken into account, and she floats the possibility of an open-source algorithm to combine this information into a score. (She also includes a nice picture of the napkin from the Paris restaurant where she and her dinner companions sketched out their initial ideas.)
As always, Bob has done a great summarization of a very interesting topic. My only question is what about Attention.XML? If the end goal is discovering the quality content as opposed to the popular content, doesn't it get us at least part way to that end goal? Or do I not completely understand what Attention.XML is all about?
Thoughts?
Posted by m.david at 05:47 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
via MSN Search | Hmmm.... not exactly the results I was expecting.
Problems with search.msn.com? Seems as such...
[UPDATE(about 5 minutes later): Seems the problem was short lived. Results are now as expected.]
Posted by m.david at 02:28 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 09, 2005
New Additions to the Lefthand-side Column
I suddenly realized that I don't have DonXML listed in my recommendations section of the site. While Don generally is focused on long term contract gigs (as opposed to my "get in, get out, get on with it" tendency to take the shortest termed gig I can possibly find) and as such is rarely "on the market" I still hold Don in high regard and would recommend him to anybody and everybody who needs development work related to XML and the .NET platform. If you can get him (good luck! :), do.
Regarding this list: Soon after I added them to the "list" both Kurt and Micah went all corporate on me -- ["No! Turn Away From the Light.... Bzzzzzzzzzzzz... hmm, well, nevermind" -- Uh oh, Don... If there's any connection between the two, you could be next!] -- Anyway, I have decided that unless there's a really good reason (going corporate isn't a good reason -- in today's technological world even the charred remains of going corporate can be rebuilt) to take someone off the list I plan to leave them right where they're at. Corporate or Indy: I still highly recommend them to anyone and everyone who has the need for XML/XSLT-related development services.
Regarding the legends list: I noticed the other day that missing from the legends list was the name of someone who absolutely should have been there all along... I've fixed the mistake and added Elliotte Rusty Harold to the list with my apologies for not realizing my mistake sooner.
If not obvious before it should be now... Just because someone isn't listed as a legend doesn't mean they shouldn't be. Please, if you notice a blatant mistake (like an obvious legend in ERH) please let me know. As long as its legit (read: I'm not going to add any random name you email to me... they need to be obvious enough that I've at least heard of them and, if not already aware, can easily trace their "legendary" commitment to making the XML/XSLT world a better place) I'll make sure it gets fixed immediattely.
Posted by m.david at 09:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Excellent point from Don Demsak regarding Google AdSense and the Semantic Web
I've been "underground" for the last 2 days and so am now just getting to approving this comment from DonXML. I'll let Don's comment speak for itself (with the added bit that I totally agree)...
The problems with GoogleAds help emphases the importance of the semantic web. The reason that GoogleAds are serving up irrelevant ads is because Google has to derive what a blog and blog entry is all about. Google has their own algorithm to do this, but, in order to maximize your results, you have to tweak your blog and blog entries to take advantage of their algorithm. Since most of us don’t want to take the time to learn the way Google does its magic, and/or adapt our writing style, GoogleAds will not work for us. Now, if we had the semantic web, then we could add metadata to out site and pages, so that Google could put more relevant ads on our pages.
Posted by m.david at 04:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 07, 2005
After a sudden realization caused first by Tim Bray, and now by Dave Winer... I have seen the light... All ads are now GONE!
And I for one am not going to miss them.
Taegan Goddard asked me to say when I re-subb'd to the Political Wire feed after he removed the ads, so it only seems fair to say that I unsubbed today, and that's the last time you'll hear about it here. He brought the ads back, without notice, without permission of the readers. It's pulling my attention into his stuff, and dammit that's my aggregator not his, and not FeedBurner's and not his advertiser's (who I won't name here). I think advertising is so over, and it really pains me to see a visionary like Goddard go this way.
Screw the 30 and 60 day trial crap... I didn't start this blog to make money off of ads. In fact at the very beginnining I even had a disclaimer that stated that if ads were to ever appear it would be because I totally stood behind what the ad was about and therefore felt good about advertising it.
I was hesitant to add Google AdSense to this site in the first place... I should have stayed hesitant.
Concerning the other ad programs...
While I like Alienware I hate graphic ads on blogs. There fine on news sites or on sites like XML.com or any of the other tech sites I visit often as they have been designed well into the site. I think it would seem a little wierd to suddenly find MSNBC or XML.com to suddenly go all text on us. But a blog... Except for graphics that I create and occasionally will post, what on earth do the images and me have in common? Beyond representing a product I might happen to like, like Alienware in this case, its someone elses creation flashing in front of you while you try and read the text of the post... WAY TO DISTRACTING... So they're gone too.
In regards to my book blog that will eventually take shape and form... This is something that I think fits quite well into representing who I am as I am someone who loves books, especially tech books. So if a particular book happens to be related to the content of one of my posts then I think it would be appropriate to point to the blog entry about that particular book. Amazon has a great affiliate program and even that is built around Web Services, something in which I have great interest in and even more so is an area of personal expertise.
I'm also one who loves music. Again, Amazon covers this quite well so if I find the time to create a separate music blog, and a post happens to be related (although in this case it might be a bit of a stretch... the exception would be something like the Marc Broussard post from the other day) then you might find a link to the entry regarding that artist or a particular track or album.
Beyond that... If I take interest in other areas then, again, Amazon has me covered...
The personal recommendations on the left hand side of the main page... Those are staying. Those are completely unsolicited of which nobody has or ever will pay me a single dime for. They link to people and companies I personally feel are the best-in-breed when it comes to XML/XSLT related technologies/consulting. The list is short and will remain that way more than likely... If you see a new addition to the list its because I have come to experience that the person or company it links to is top-notch, another best-inXML/XSLT-breed, so to speak.
The experiment was fun, but after reading what Tim had to say on the matter and then reading Dave's post that Tim pointed to I realized that when it comes to personal blogs, they need to both be and stay personal... As such, XSLTBlog is becoming personal again...
Sorry for the temporary distraction!
Posted by m.david at 03:59 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
via Tim Bray | Hmmm.... maybe its not my ad placements after all
The ads are going. Herewith an explanation of why, an apology to BlogAds, and thoughts on advertising in general. It’s gone because the ads were irritating me visually, it wasn’t making much money, it was slowing down the ongoing load time, and because it’s an unsatisfying relationship.
After looking at Tim's monthly revenue from AdSense I am now questioning if this has nothing to do with my placement and everything to do with, like he states, lame ads (see the entire article for some interesting points.)
Ok, I'm giving AdSense 30 days from today... if the performance increase is marginal at best, they're gone. If Tim Bray, who has got to be one of most widely read bloggers in general, and without a doubt the most widely read tech blogger (I'd be interested to see Scoble and Tim's log files as beyond the actual page views and distinct visits/visitors, without a doubt I'm sure they would show some interesting trends coming from two very different sides of the tech world) is only pulling down a couple Bejamins a month then whats the point? I would have to, quite literally, convert my entire site into one big gigantic ad which goes beyond the whole point of having a blog in the first place and would ultimatelly lead to you all chopping me off your list.
I enjoy writing this blog... that would suck!
I like my book blog idea... and while I'm still unsure If I like the image ads, I do like Alienware, so I'll give that program a month or two to see if the return is worth the 'sellout'.
Actually, regarding the image ads... do they bother you? Are they distracting? If yes, then please let me know as its not worth it if the cost of making a few bucks each month is losing those in whom choose to stop by for a visit now and again or are subscribed to one of the news feeds. Maybe I'll check with the Alienware affiliate program and find out if I can convert the image ads to the equivalent text ad. As far as the link goes it shouldnt matter whats entices you to click it... an anchor tag is an anchor tag, who really cares what its wrapped around, right?
Guess we'll see how it goes. Number one priority is avoiding turning people away from the content and if I see even the slightest decline in visits because of the increase in ads then they're all getting tossed...
I'll keep ya updated...
Posted by m.david at 03:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 06, 2005
You meet people in the craziest places...
Ok, so maybe its not that strange to run into a developer in whom you share common interests with when browsing the Tech aisles of Barnes & Noble (I was at the Sugarhouse store for those familiar with the area.) But, for me at least, its rare to strike up a conversation as when I'm at B&N I tend to zone out, headphones keeping me in a solid groove with whatever it is I happen to be listening to at the moment. But this time round I happened to notice that the the person next to me, who was also in "browse zone mode", happened to be wearing a Microsoft MVP shirt. I was in need to switch to a different track anyway so in doing so it was easy enough to strike up a quick conversation while I was in "silent" mode -- not something that happens a lot in my world :).
I'm definitely glad I did.
As it turns out, Craig Berntson happens to be one of the longstanding Visual FoxPro diehards. When I took my first contract at Microsoft I worked on the Visual C++ team, but all of the Visual Studio teams at that point (for the most part) were located in the same general area on campus so "mingling" between product groups was a common occurence. Of course the Visual FoxPro team was one of the groups that happened to be in the same building (Building 5 for those of you familiar with MS campus.)
Even at that stage of the game (circa 1996) I was amazed that the FoxPro product continued to move forward even though Access and SQL Server were the primary database applications on campus. After the acquisition of FoxPro the Jet database engine consumed its features and became the DB force behind Access, so it seemed logicial to me that this would ultimately lead to the demise of FoxPro. I even queried the Lead PM for the VFP team at one point and asked "So how much longer do you think VFP can survive given that the priorities are, for the most part, Access and SQL?" To this day I will never forget his response... while I don't remember the exact statement, paraphrased it was something to the effect of:
"Visual FoxPro users always have and always will be Visual FoxPro users. There is an installed user base of around 100,000 users who always have and, it seems, always will upgrade to each new version of VFP that is released. Even though 100k users is peanuts compared to Visual Basic and Visual C++ [note: which at the time were bundled with Visual SourceSafe[1] and a variety of add-on tools (Crystal Reports, etc...) and dubbed "Visual Studio" -- Visual FoxPro was an add-on, and Visual J++ was just getting underway at that stage of the game.] you simply don't turn your back on 100,000 developers who are this enthusiastic about a product..."
Now here we are nearly 10 years later and still Visual FoxPro is very much alive and has a very active development community. I would tend to believe that its probably the same 100,000 developers who have kept this product alive and kicking for all these years, something you kind of have to give some credit where credit is due. First to the 100k developers for keeping the product alive by continuing to push for improvements which would lead to new releases and, as such, a continued revenue stream to justify the continued development. You also have to give credit to Microsoft for not simply turning their back and "forcing" these developers to move to one of the more mainstream solutions in Access or SQL Server. With as much bad press that MS tends to get in regards to "forcing" what they want upon developers you never seem to hear about situations like this where the absolutely opposite is proven to be the case.
I think we most definitely should.
[Follow-up Note: All that sentiment, and then I find this entry on Craig's Blog -- Hmmm, oh well... 13 years is still a long time to keep something going that for all intents and purposes served its purpose in bringing new features and power to the Jet database, and as such, could have easily been sent to the chopping block soon thereafter... At least it seems the FoxPro team will live on...]
---
In Follow-up
In checking one of my email accounts in which I havent checked for a while I found an email from Craig, the MVP that I met at Barnes & Noble. In it was a quick "good to have met you... see ya at the PDC" and so forth a long with a link to his website. After visiting the site I found the link to his blog which, I've discovered, happens to be really, really well written and very informative. Not that I expected anything less. Its just nice to find bloggers in which you know you can turn towards to find good quality information in regards to their area of expertise, on a consistent basis...For those of you who happen to have interest in Visual FoxPro, especially those who have an interest in moving into the .NET side of things, I would definitely add Craig's blog to your reader as this is someone in whom I think you should really pay attention too... Without a doubt a developer who definitely knows his stuff.
[1] Visual SourceSafe if I remember correctly (which was PM'd at that point by David Streams, someone I would eventually work under in the Windows CE group -- Great guy... need to track him down again one of these days...) was at one point acquired by Rational (I think it was Rational anyway), only to somehow find its way back to MS... one of those "huh?" question marks I still have never found the full story behind.Posted by m.david at 10:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Update on Site Ads and Ad Placement
It seems that any fears I had before regarding both the ability to control what ads are placed on my site, and then the overall benefit these ads would bring have, for the most part, been quenched. While I will admit I definitely expected better performance from the Google AdSense ads I have done a bit research and discovered its probably more from my placement of the ads more than anything else.
In addition to this I discovered that my favorite computer hardware company, Alienware, has an affiliate program.
I *REALLY* love Alienware and their approach to hardware design, development, and there all around customer service. So it occured to me that if I was going to sell myself out I might as well do it with ads for a company whos products I personally use and can stand behind and feel good about doing so. So, where was once a vertical stack of ads from Google is now an ad from Alienware. At the top of each entry is a Google AdLink unit and at the bottom a standard 728x90 ad unit.
One final note: I am currently in process of taking inventory of each and every book I have in my collection and plan to begin keeping track of each one via blog notes on a separate blog, some of which will be private, some public. Eventually I plan to integrate these in some manner (not sure exactly how yet) into my posts such that again, I can feel good about the things I am promoting, and can further back it up with the public entries for each of these titles. The process will be a long one so I have no idea when the integration will take place. But at some point you may see this system implemented so I thought I should give you a heads up.
If you have any comments I would be interested to hear them.
Cheers :)
Posted by m.david at 03:22 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 05, 2005
via Tim Bray | Hey cool, this sounds kind-of like what I have been working on with my AtomicXML project
I’m thinking about Atom 1.0 from the coder’s point of view. I’m not thinking about the Publishing Protocol, I’m thinking about how you, the programmer, should go about inhaling and exhaling the stuff. I’ve never believed in One True API for XML, it’s just too broad-spectrum, but Atom’s pretty tightly constrained. Obviously, you can use something generic like SAX or one of the many DOM-style APIs, or one of the modern pull APIs. Maybe for Atom we could use something simpler and more natural. I’m thinking out loud in this space, this is far from finished, not even a proposal yet. But, I bet there are other people out there who care.
Absolutely theres people out there who care... and I'm most definitely one of them.
I won't go into a lot of detail of what I have planned for AtomicXML but you can probably figure it out for yourself when you discover its sister project AtomicLisp.
As we all know Atom's are the building blocks of elements, the stuff we find on our periodical table. In general, elements in there raw form are not all that usable in and of themselves. Of course there are exceptions to that rule but even the exceptions usually require processing of some sort before they reach our marketplaces as tradable items of desire and interest. In a nutshell, AtomicXML could easily be seen as the periodical table of XML-based software development, or, in essence, the building blocks of XML-based software applications.
So whats AtomicLisp? Originally AtomicLisp was my LispML project. But after really putting a lot of thought into I decided that we don't need a way of writing Lisp in an XML format to become productive. In fact in a lot of ways having to write S-Expressions in an XML syntax could be seen as counterproductive. The variations of Wiki's and Wiki-like languages is a perfect example of this. If it was required of us to use XML syntax for our Wiki entries I doubt much anybody would do it. Its too much typing. But having a way to define our Atomic elements and structures in a standard XML list format that can then be parsed and used within a Lisp-like dialect... now theres something that could be both appealing and productive as it would allow an easy way to define and publish our table of Atomic elements to the world, via Atom feeds of course, to then be consumed by our XML parsers and made available to us within our Lisp-like dialect, or AtomicLisp.
Thats the idea anyway... but there's LOTS to do first before this would or could become any sort of reality. But I'm working with an EXTREMELY talented group of people on these projects so you never know what could happen...
Time will tell :)
Posted by m.david at 09:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 04, 2005
Mozilla Goes Corporate : Will This Be the Cog That Finally Help's Drive the Idea That 'Open Source' and 'Free' Don't Have to Be Synonimous
NewsForge | Mozilla Foundation forms for-profit corporation
I sure hope so... There are so many great idea's and great products that result from these ideas that are stuck in the open source 'conundrum' which binds them to ideals that, while commendable, can not survive forever giving away the result of something they have worked years at to obtain and in many ways is all they(we!) have... They're(Our) knowledge.
It seems its almost become an unpardonable sin these days for someone to even think about running a for profit consulting and/or software business. "What! You're going to actually charge money!!! You sick phreak! Think about the Children!!!"
The Children? We'll be lucky if we can afford to have children anymore if we keep taking money out of our economy by giving everything away... Or maybe you were too busy smoking pot and miss that Economics 101 lecture... The one where they explain how you can't make money unless somebody else spends it first?
Hmmm... Oh well... Rock On!
From the news post:
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., August 3, 2005 –– The Mozilla Foundation, a non-profit public benefit software development organization, today announced it has formed a wholly owned subsidiary company to be known as the Mozilla Corporation. The Mozilla Corporation is a taxable subsidiary that serves the non-profit, public benefit goals of its parent, the Mozilla Foundation, and the vast Mozilla community. It will continue to leverage resources from diverse sources to create and distribute great open and free-of-charge end-user products -- such as the popular Mozilla Firefox Web browser and Mozilla Thunderbird email client -- that promote choice and innovation on the Web.
Good on ya Mozilla... I can see nothing but good things coming from this... Ignore the naysayers... They're just pissed off cuz' they didnt think of it first! It's about time you got paid for all of your hard work. Hell, I'd give up $50 bucks for a priority annual subscription to each and every Firefox release... Throw in an XSLT 2.0 processor and a bag a pretzels and I'll even go as high as flat benji...
Something to think about :)
Posted by m.david at 03:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
via weblog.saxondotnet.org | Saxon.NET 8.5 RC1 is now checked into the SF.net project CVS repository
The Official Saxon.NET Weblog: Saxon.NET 8.5 RC1 (0.1.8.5) Is Checked Into SF.NET CVS
As per my recent post to the Saxon.NET weblog...
Saxon.NET 8.5 RC1 (0.1.8.5) Is Checked Into SF.NET CVS
I have done very little testing on the compiled assemblies and as such don't plan to package up anything for download until I do. However, with the claim firm in place that there are absolutely no guarantee's beyond the fact that:
- I have successfully compiled the now modified Saxon 8.5 code-base from within the Eclipse and X-develop IDE's using the Eclipse and Sun JDK Compiler.
- Have successfully compiled the results from above into CIL assemblies in both Debug and Release mode (pdb's included -- in the debug folder obviously)
- Have implemented a minor version of a modified test suite to quickly verify that the basic and bare essentials are in working order.
If your Ok with the above, and you're comfortable with the idea that there is a chance things will change -- potentially big changes depending one where we sit with a true and full run through the test-suite tommorow -- then feel free to check-out the Saxon.NET-Latest module from the /cvsroot/saxondotnet of cvs.sourceforge.net as anonymous. Further instructions on how to do this can be found here.
Please access the entire post for quite a bit more information...
Posted by m.david at 10:11 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
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