I'm trying out the new Reader function in Safari 5.0.

Here's how it works. Safari determines if you're viewing a "webpage that contains a text-based article."

If so, a gray button that says "Reader" appears at the right end of the address bar.

Here's what the Yahoo news page looks like. Very busy.

Now, put aside for a moment the business issue for Yahoo, and why Apple would be the one pushing this particular envelope. See how pleasing the Reader version of this page is.

But you have to try it out yourself to appreciate how nice it is. The scrollbar is the right user interface for reading. It shows how much better the web can be.

Apple wants to lead publishers into the iPad environment, but I'm compelled to try to lead them to the environment suggested by Reader. And it gets even more interesting, because Reader is actually Readability.

The developer of Readability, Richard Ziade, will be our guest on Rebooting The News podcast on Monday. Should be a very interesting discussion.

Safari 5, Readability, iPad and Scripting2 are swirling around the same idea, how can we improve the reading experience on the net. I think we're poised to make a lot of progress, very quickly.

 6/12/2010; 3:02:51 PM.   .

A minor display glitch that's visible on the home page of scripting.com.

If you scroll down near the bottom of the page you'll see a couple of posts with headlines that are long enough to wrap. I want the text to wrap so that the + icon stands out on its own. I want the second line of text to appear directly under the first line of text.

Here's a screen shot of what it looks like now.

And here's a screen shot of what I'd like it to look like.

Appreciate the help! ">

 6/12/2010; 7:43:55 AM.   .

A very interesting public rant by Steve Jobs, esp the part where he says he was pissed (his word) about Flurry spotting experimental Apple products that were flying around the net with clear identification saying they are something new from Apple. I mean come on, how naive can you be? Is Apple really that freakishly vulnerable? If Steve thinks it's confidential, maybe he should take some steps to protect the info?

That was the first curious thing about his rant. The second thing was the utter hypocrisy of it. I don't use that word very often, I try to be understanding of other people's point of view. It's possible he just doesn't know how careless his company is with its users' secrets.

Basically, if your Mac hard drive breaks and you want Apple to replace it, they take the old drive, even if you pay for a new one (more than you'd pay at NewEgg or Amazon) and "refurbish" it. Where does it go after it leaves your hands? You have no idea and no say.

When this happened to me at the end of 2007, I made a huge issue of it, even sending an email to Steve Jobs. It was so unbelievably reckless. Are they shipping the hard drives to Nigeria? Do they know there's a thriving business in recovering data like bank account numbers and social security numbers from broken hard drives? I mean seriously, most of us don't have the kind of money Steve has. If our bank accounts were cleared out by an identity thief we'd be fairly screwed. Think we'd have a right to be pissed Steve? Maybe you could help us out here and protect our data instead of actively putting it at risk?

We can talk about it (to paraphrase Steve) when I'm less pissed off. This happened almost three years ago and I'm still angry about it. Not just on my own behalf but because no doubt other users are trusting Apple, and they're doing something that more or less proves that they are not worthy of the trust.

Update: An intelligent discussion of this topic on Hacker News.

 6/12/2010; 6:16:57 AM.   .

I'm getting myself organized for the next phase of work on Scripting2.

The first few weeks were like building the foundation and frame of a house, putting up the drywall, plumbing and wiring. Building a chimney, putting on a roof.

Now comes a different kind of work. Staircases. Cabinets in the kitchen. Fixtures in the bathroom. Outdoor lighting. Doors. Locks on doors. Etc. All the things that make it possible for normal human beings to live in the house.

You hope that the architect didn't forget any major systems that require ripping up the foundation. ">

At this point you'd have to be a construction worker to live here. The hope is that it will at least become a cottage high in the Alps. Not camping out. Many of the comforts of home. But still a 1.0, a work in progress.

To get ready for this work, I've added two new sections to the blogroll on every page called To-Do and Done.

These are just scaffolding. Pretty soon I'll have a site at scripting2.com that includes a project management section. These lists are primarily for me, but if you like to snoop, feel free to expand them.

 6/12/2010; 5:45:02 AM.   .