Wednesday, January 05, 2000

Reviewing the feature requests for Manila, consistently near the top are requests for improvement of the discussion group user interface. We get lots of comments about what people don't like, but it would also be helpful to get pointers to interfaces people *do* like.

"I built my first website in the late 1900's." Huh?

Milo Hansen: "Pokemons are real animals but in some of them they changed their names." Milo is 7.

I wanted to comment on Apple's review of MacWEEK, but when I tried to become a member, they told me to buy a Mac!

Late Night Software, makers of fine AppleScript tools, has an implementation of XML-RPC for AppleScript. Yahoo!

Dan Gillmor: "MacBird is a tool that lets programmers customize the user interface -- the screen and the various gadgets that populate it. It's a Macintosh tool now, but the potential for this product seems to me to be in its application to Linux, the poster child for the open source world, and other operating systems. Hey, Jean-Louis, how about Be?"

MacWEEK: "Jobs unveiled Aqua, the new system's user interface. Aqua will make extensive use of color and transparency; for example, red, green and yellow buttons at the top left of each window will close, minimize or open the window."

MacWEEK has an annotated Aqua screen shot.

<rant>Why don't they just make a deal with MS and embed the HTML renderer in the OS. Mac OS is slipping further and further behind. How will you feel when EditThisPage.Com has important features that only work on Windows? Think about all the other net services that are better with Windows. It's not a conspiracy, it's lack of competitive follow-through by Apple.</rant>

Industry Standard: Tool Time. "Desktop Web-construction systems like NetObjects Fusion and Macromedia Dreamweaver treat Web site construction as a different kind of traditional desktop publishing – with all their efforts dedicated to precise object placement and seemingly zero attention devoted to building a site that will flourish in the hypertext-rich, two-way environment of the Web."

Sam Yates: Dreamweaver != Netobjects Fusion. Agreed.

I have already sent an email to Mr. Guterman offering him a Manila site to play with, and offering to meet with him in Boston in February. Please don't send him email, it'll look like we're spamming him. Yes yes, he is describing Manila. I love it!

Looping back to the BeachShack comparison of Pitas, Blogger and Manila, I'm beginning to figure out where the confusion is about "disappearing stories". The stories that appear to disappear were ones that were "made the home page". If you click on the Stories link in the Editors Only menu you will see the stories. Further if you link to /1999 on your site, you'll see all the 1999 stories, and the same for 2000. That's how we do it on the DaveNet site, which was the first to use the feature. Probably the best thing to do is to read the docs. As the BeachShack reviewer notes, Manila is pretty deep. If you want to use advanced features like this one (our fault for making it so easy to discover) you have to read the docs.

BTW, there are now 1573 sites on ETP, here's a list of the top 100 most visited sites.

New searching features this morning on Weblog Monitor.

Brent Simmons has a personal weblog. It's another view of UserLand.Com.

Quark FAQ on XML. "You can also put XML to work by using a system such as Vignette StoryServer to automatically convert it to HTML. Web publication systems that work with XML content are also available from UserLand Software, Inc.; Arbortext, Inc.; and Inso Corporation."

LinuxNewbies: Your wish is the command. "In today's world of point-and-click operating systems, Linux is a bit of a challenge. Most people just now getting into computing are going to find the concept of a command-line a very daunting one. The command line, however, is the heart of Linux, and that is where its greatest powers lie."

MSNBC: Businesses disappear when servers crash.

Lance Knobel: "Only in Davos will you be able to chat with Umberto Eco, Elie Wiesel, Shimon Peres, a South African labour leader, a Filipino indigenous peoples' activist and more CEOs than you could shake all the trees in Davos at."

The Cluetrain Manifesto is shipping. Congrats to Doc and the other freshmen!

MacWorld: 1999 Editor's Choice Awards. MP3, Dreamweaver, QuickTime, Jonathan Ive.