Monday, February 21, 2000

Josh Lucas implemented the Java equivalent of the code we released today for Frontier.

As Dan Gillmor said yesterday, Internet developers create platforms that have APIs and developer programs. Today we have released Manila's API in an easy to program-for package.

8/22/95: What is a Platform? "The author of an API is offering a challenge, saying 'blow my mind' to everyone who might take a stab at implementing something on top of the API."

Pike, coming soon, is a desktop application that builds on the Manila API. You might think of Pike as the MacWrite of the new web writing environment we're building. A simple app with the essence of a new idea, that can be expanded on and competed with, as Word, Pagemaker, MORE and Quark XPress were refinements of ideas pioneered by MacWrite.

I'm sure this is totally confusing if you don't know a glue script from a hole in the ground, suffice it to say it's a step down the road to something that (we hope) every person who writes for the Web will want to use.

***Evening work

I just figured something out peeking behind the scenes at tomorrow's Marc Canter piece. He links to a ShockWave page by Stuart Sharpe. I sat there clicking on things, and then I realized that Stuart isn't doing presentations, he makes musical instruments. But they always play something sexy no matter how you click.

I think Marc has been telling me this for years, but somehow it just sank in.

I'm working on the hotlist code, making some changes, adding some of that infamous logic, but not too much.

Blogger: Which site should be blog of the week?

***Search engine evangelism

Do you know any business development or engineering people at search engine companies such as Google, Atomz, Yahoo, Inktomi, AltaVista, Lycos, Excite or Ask? If so, and if you like Manila, you can help us get more great searching, preparing for a million sites this year, and help us focus on making the editorial system work better and better.

Here's how you can help. Send them a pointer to this open proposal to Search Engine developers. Thank you.

BTW, this proposal should also interest our competitors, whose users will want smarter and faster searching too.

Atomz.com appoints Robert Carr and Marylene Delbourg-Delphis to the Board of Directors. I knew Robert when he did Framework for Ashton-Tate, and Marylene when she was CEO of Acius. I sent an email to their PR people asking them to look at our proposal.

I just set up Atomz to search scripting.com. (It only found two pages here, heh heh.)

PicoSearch is a free web search engine.

***Links and stories

Does KDE have XML-RPC integrated?

What are Pushlets?

I just discovered HitBox. It's awesome.

Why developers want HTML rendering in the OS. "All I had to do was copy and paste. This is what OpenDoc was trying to do. You have to go all the way back through VisiOn and Xerox PARC to find examples of software engineers trying to pull off this kind of integration on a mass market level, with varying degrees of success."

Eric Soroos sees some privacy problems with Javascript in Mail.

Richard Smith: The Web Bug FAQ.

CNN: Louisiana law permits tossing lingerie from Carnival floats. Thanks to Flutterby.

Press release: Alphanumerica Embraces Mozilla.

Bob Crispen reviews the presidential campaign websites.

NY Times: Old Apple Macintosh Team Aims to Put Linux on the Desktop. "The Beatles never got back together, but four members of the original Apple Macintosh team are regrouping. And they mean to take the best of the quirky Apple computer and move it to the world of Linux software." Go go go!

Marc Canter: "I could go on for ages. But why do you think God invented time? So everything doesn't happen at once!"

Webfeet is another new hottie. The hits just keep on comin!

This weekend Jeff Shelton, editor of Zope Newbies, ran in a marathon in Austin, TX.

Even though today's a national holiday in the US, we're still going to release a Biggie. This one is for Frontier users, although when Pike is released it'll be for them too. Hint: It'll make it easy for you to write scripts that connect your workstation (Mac or Windows) with your Manila site.

MacWEEK: Windows 2000 Server benefits Mac users.

Andre Radke: "One year ago today I started working for UserLand." Wow! The blink of an eye. I feel like Andre's just getting started. On second thought, the reason our servers are running so smoothly these days is Andre's work. I like Andre so much. He's smart, disciplined, and (most important) he laughs at my jokes.

Last night Bradlands spammed the hotlist. I thought someone might. We can easily correct for the technique he used. But maybe this could run on the honor system? (And before any ninnies say I'm criticizing him, I like Brad, and if you view source on his home page he's merely asking whether we need popularity contests, which is a fair question.)

So here's the answer. I have no idea, but I like to see what makes my sites move up or down each kind of list, and I learned a lot about how the weblog world links into our sites, and it's already lead to some plans for improving the flow of our sites, so to me, it's totally worth it, after one all-nighter and two scans.

While I was traveling Sheila and Brent stayed at my house. Sheila took some pictures. She also left a little plant, which I spaced out and forgot to water. Not to worry, I caught it in time, and hosed it down last night. I'll post a picture later.

FireDrop: "FireDrop is in 'stealth' mode because we’re doing something incredibly special and we’re not quite ready to tell the world about it."

Isn't it amazing that CNN still hasn't fixed the display of their site in MSIE5/Win? I cannot read the text on their site. It's too small. Is anyone home at CNN?? Of course Yahoo has no problem with the same story.

One of my favorite web pages. It's where we redirect from sites that are gone. But not forgotten.