Sunday, August 22, 1999

Frontier 6.1d16 is now running. This should increase performance on MailToTheFuture and the main DG, as examples. We're also hot on the trail of a crashing bug. Excellent!

TechWeek's David Needle on me. "User interface design has become a lost art. In the early day of PCs, prior to the Mac, every program had its own UI. The Web is now in that position, where every site has a different UI. The next big thing is going to be a standard UI for the Web, so we have to decide what the basic features are a site needs. If we do it right, it will be better for users."

There's a lot of confusion in the Needle piece. Some important things were dropped in the editing process, I guess. Here's my response. After reading Needle's piece and responding to it, I read the Microsoft pages on the review sites for 1997 and 1998. I think I've been pretty consistent, preaching peace and love, and trying to understand Microsoft, playing dumb and taking them at face value, and then pointing out where the contradictions are. This is all in the hope of pointing the way, getting them back on course, so they don't try to hold back progress, in fact, I want Microsoft to *help* the new software world shape itself around the Internet. I've always believed since the Bill Gates vs The Internet piece in 1994, that Microsoft had to adapt to a world where they didn't set the standards. I believe that even more today.

Dan Gillmor: "My ability to get nearly instant responses to my e-mail query from so many smart people feels close to miraculous. It's just a hint of what's to come."

NY Times: "The conventional wisdom of the new economy says newspapers ought to be on their last legs. In this view, it will not be long before the Internet eats the newspapers' lunch by siphoning off readers and advertising to Web sites."

Dave Barry: "Nowadays all of the hip modern newspapers spend millions of dollars operating Web sites where we give away the entire newspaper for free. Sometimes we run advertisements in the regular newspaper urging our remaining paying customers to go to our Web sites instead. Stop giving us money! is the shrewd marketing thrust of these ads."

CNN: "The late astronomer and author Carl Sagan was a secret but avid marijuana smoker, crediting it with inspiring essays and scientific insight, according to Sagan's biographer."