Category Archives: Software

Minutes from New York City W3C Atom discussion

Minutes from today’s W3C Atom discussion in New York City are posted on the W3C site. Eric Miller, W3C: “In the past 6 months, RDF support has gotten stronger. At the same time, I’ve talked with Tim Berners-Lee, and he has said this will not be done by fiat.” Sam Ruby: “I would like to see more pull from W3C. Work on W3cCharter. IETF is a black hole. I’m not thrilled with them. But it has an external perception of being open.”…

Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac

I installed Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac last night. Notice how Microsoft’s site was last updated a month ago, and even though I have the product on my computer and it is selling in stores (#6 top seller on Amazon), I cannot read about the new program features on Microsoft’s own Web site. Bloggers within Microsoft did more to promote the released product than Microsoft corporate! [Update: 10:05 PM] Microsoft Office 2004 for the Mac is now live on Microsoft’s site….

Peter Loforte video demo Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005

Robert Scoble interviewed Peter Loforte, general manager of the Tablet PC team, and asked him to show off some of the new features of Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005. The interview is posted on Channel 9. Context based inking is very cool. I did not know the level of context involved until I watched the video. Entering a state name in the United States? The recognizer will try to match your scribble to one of 50 options. Entering a URL? The recognizer was trained on top site URLs from around the world, and also checks your history for a…

Newsfeed reader user interface, improvements

I have three newsfeed readers open, subscribed to the same feeds, and each program presents each channel, and the items within, notably differently. I examined the default configuration of each application. The traditional model is an alphabetical listing of all channels in a group. Channels with unread items are highlighted, and the number of unread items displayed. Ranchero Software’s NetNewsWire follows this model. A modified model orders the channels by their latest item’s publish date. Graham Parks’ Shrook follows this model. Freshly Squeezed Software’s PulpFiction displays items chronologically, without the navigation through channel listings. The item’s creator appears before the…

Movable Type Recently Updated list

I have a recently updated key from my previous donation to Movable Type. My pings are still accepted by the Movable Type server and I appear on the recently updated list, even though I do not have a Personal Edition license. I am not sure how long it will last, but worth noting for everyone confused about Movable Type changes….

Movable Type 3.0D

I just upgraded my weblog to Movable Type 3.0 Developer Edition, also known as Movable Type Free. Limitations of the license: No support from Six Apart No access to paid installation service No access to fee-based services No promotion of your weblogs through the Recently Updated list No commercial usage No more than one author and three weblogs Sounds okay to me! Paid licenses start at $70 and includes “a guaranteed path to future versions.” If Movable Type does change, at least all the entries are on my own server, in MySQL, and I can move to a separate publishing…

More on aggregators and feed distribution

Dave Winer writes more and invites more comments regarding the issues raised in the Wired article. I have had some ideas regarding more community sharing of news feed resources. How can aggregator developers better publish their users subscriptions and activities? Would the end user be willing to have their data published? Share Your OPML is a start. What if aggregators had Share Your OPML functionality built-in? Locally stored and placed online as well. Most users have some online space available, either through their ISP, personal site, MSN, .Mac, etc. You have the dateModified field defined in the head. Expand the…

Wired News: Will RSS Readers Clog the Web?

Ryan Singel of Wired News wonders if RSS readers will clog Web servers. The solution is HTTP status code 304 Not Modified. See section 10.3.5 of the HTTP 1.1 specification for more details. “If a cache uses a received 304 response to update a cache entry, the cache MUST update the entry to reflect any new field values given in the response.” Date is a new field value. If no date found (clockless origin server) you use client date….