Wednesday, August 18, 1999

James Spahr has an XML-RPC client for AppleScript.

More antique web browsers, for Macs of the late 80s, like the Mac SE. I wonder if Frontier 1.0 runs on these machines. MORE 1.1c surely did.

Chris Nolan: How I Got a Chance at .Com Wealth.

MSNBC: ICANN close to financial ruin. "In the process of trying to secure funds, it may have violated federal law."

Scott Rosenberg: More on Deep Links. "While most Web sites crave links and depend on them to get the word out and garner new traffic, these companies have instead sicced their lawyers on the linkers."

According to News.Com, Microsoft will release a specification describing how their Instant Messaging server works. I can't wait to see it. I immediately want to have a server, running in Frontier, so we can flow chat conversations out to to the web. I think the IM clients would make an interesting weblog authoring tool.

On 8/5/99, Microsoft's Yusuf Mehdi, the marketing director for MSN, said: "We will deliver an SDK for developers and we will have it out in the first quarter of next year. We're shooting to have it out before end of year." My response: "I didn't request an SDK. If you had an open and documented communication protocol no SDK would be necessary." Moral of the story: Microsoft, unlike all the other 800-pound gorillas, listens, and sometimes they respond.

Tim Bray on SDKs. "I grew up with networked minicomputers and (mostly) Unix, and maybe that's why, in the final analysis, I always want to see the bits on the wire."

MacCentral: AppleScript Primer.

Peterme: Why Broadvision Sucks. "For the past 3 years, I've had various clients that used Broadvision for their application server. And, in each case, Broadvision was a nightmare to deal with. The people who sell Broadvision know this, so what they do is head straight to the people with money but no tech savvy on the client side, and mesmerize them with tales of One To One Marketing and the people with money fork it over without bothering to learn that the system is bloated, slow, and pathetic."

USGS: Information on yesterday's California earthquake. The quake was centered in Bolinas, a hippie community on the ocean in Marin County, just north of San Francisco.

A slice of life on the Internet. Inktomi's robot is crawling the virgin root file that we keep on Nirvana. It's been doing it slowly for the last couple of days. Basically all the source we ship with Frontier will be accessible thru their search engine. It should be funny!

More life on the Internet. Now we're starting to get Y2K queries about IdleTime. Does anyone know if it is Y2K compliant? I have no idea, and I don't care!

Heads up! My old account, dwiner@well.com, has gone inactive. I wasn't checking the account regularly. So, if that's the address you have for me, please change it to dave@userland.com. Thanks!