Andrew Leonard of Salon.com delivers a social networking primer and profiles the different approaches of big name social networking sites such as Friendster, Tribe.net, and Orkut. Marc Canter is mentioned as social networking taken to the extreme but there is no mention of FOAF or how to move common data between social networking providers. The article does a good job examining the privacy trade-offs when a user provides a profile to an online site. “Promise someone a date, or a chance at a job, and they’ll happily expose their most intimate secrets.”…
Category Archives: Software
Scientific American on Microsoft Research
Gary Stix wrote about Microsoft’s Research division and its history in Scientific American June 2004 issue: “Can Microsoft’s assemblage of all-star researchers transform computing?”…
New York Times on RSS
NY Times: “[I]f you can control yourself, you may find that R.S.S. is the best tool yet for taming the Web.” The Bob Scott graphic is interesting. Open the information spigot for the NBA and J Lo!…
Atom Community Meeting IRC chat logs
An IRC chat log is online from today’s Atom Community Meeting. (via Finally Atom)…
Atom Community Meeting Report
Tim Bray will update his blog throughout the day from the Atom Community Meeting. Also live at irc://irc.freenode.net/#atom. Wish I could be there….
Windows Media Player 10 Technical Beta
Windows Media Player 10 Technical Beta is now available for download from Microsoft’s Web site. The software only works with Windows XP. New design, better sync abilities, and an integrated online digital media mall….
Sam Ruby: Each format has its strengths
Sam Ruby posted a long and interesting writeup on the differences between RSS and Atom, and what tool builders need to worry about. “[I]f you want to support any version of RSS completely, you essentially need to support all of them.” “If you can’t generate unique ids for entries, then perhaps Atom is not the format for you.” “Atom has more required elements than RSS. Atom adds type attributes to titles and links to resolve the ambiguity described above. It has separate elements for summary and content.”…
Apple Mac OS X 10.3.4 Update
Apple released Mac OS X v10.3.4 update today. Key enhancements: Improved file sharing and directory services for Mac (AFP), UNIX (NFS), PPTP, and wireless networksimproved OpenGL technology and updated ATI and NVIDIA graphics driversImproved disc burning and recording functionalityiPods connected via USB 2.0 are now recognized by iTunes and iSyncAdditional FireWire audio and USB device compatibilityUpdated Address Book, Mail, Safari, Stickies, and QuickTime applications…
Atom + FOAF = great things
Kendall Grant Clark, faculty research associate in the University of Maryland’s semantic web lab, wrote an interesting XML.com article about the courtship of Atom and who’s courting whom. FOAF plus Atom (or FOAF plus your favorite RSS flavor) is to the Semantic Web what home pages were to the Web. A machine-readable description of a person, plus a machine-readable version of that person’s web space, is enough Semantic Web for us to do really great things, whether or not the hard KR stuff ever amounts to anything at all. This idea is exactly what I was trying to get Technorati…
RSS, Web Services and Online Content in Cocoa Apps
Next month’s Apple Worldwide Developer’s Conference features a bird of a feather meeting on RSS, Web Services and Online Content in Cocoa Apps. I do not have a conference pass, but I will try to attend the exhibits and this BoF. This BoF discussion delves into recent developments in desktop applications that integrate with content and services on the Internet. Such applications include RSS readers like Shrook and NetNewsWire and weblog editing tools like Ecto and Xjournal. Come get answers and share ideas about rich network client design and implementation….