Scripting News -- January 1998
Saturday, January 31, 1998
A review of Vignette and the response.Source for Palm Springs slide show.
I just registered Frontier 5 on windows95.com and . tucows. Hopefully the listings should appear in the next few days. If you have ideas where we should register our Windows software, please send mail to dave@scripting.com.
I signed up Scripting News for a bunch of search engines thru this service. Very nicely done, on a Mac, using WebSiphon. Great use of client-side JavaScript.
Now that Frontier 5 is shipping, we can start some longer-term projects. The first one I'd like to open for discussion is the XMLization of Frontier's website framework.
An interesting observation on the XML process. We have to help our competitors! This hurts, a little, but it's also fun. I've been watching an agent from Vignette crawl the XML files generated automatically when I work on Scripting News. There's no doubt we compete with them. That's the way it goes!
Apple points to Frontier 5 from their Hot News page. After all we've been thru, people ask if this is progress? Yes it is! Thank you Apple.
And thank you to Microsoft! Their enthusiasm for Frontier is an inspiration. Every day we make a new friend in Redmond, some days several! This company is widely misunderstood. The people are great, and the company is incredibly organized. They have decided to support us and Frontier, and we totally appreciate it.
And thank you to the Frontier community! We have the best users and co-developers. An incredibly diverse group of people, from all over the world. All ages, professions, nationalities, but one thing we all agree on, the future is bright! There's a huge spirit of accomplishment here. We help each other. We have fun!
Finally, to the Frontier 5.0 team, Doug Baron, Bob Bierman, Brent Simmons and Wesley Felter. This is the first release where I kicked back and watched. Frontier 5 is their accomplishment. Two operating systems! Man. We pulled it off! Wow. I'm so proud of these guys!
Here's the song for the release of Frontier 5. "A just machine to make big decisions. Programmed by fellows with compassion and vision. We'll be clean when their work is done. We'll be eternally free yes and eternally young!"
News.com: The Browser is the OS.
Friday, January 30, 1998
Frontier 5.0 Ships!More mail.
This is a very good idea: http://www.homestead.com/.
Jesse Berst's Seven Deadly Sins of website design.
Seattle Times: Barbara Walters interview with Bill Gates to air tonight.
BusinessWeek: Compaq's Power Play.
A heads-up to people using Frontier 5 alphas. They will all expire the day after tomorrow, February 1. Luckily, it appears we will have the final-final ready in time.
Thursday, January 29, 1998
DaveNet: My Uncle Sam.The ideas keep flowing on Mail Starting 1/29/98.
If you are of Asian descent you might be able to save Cindy Moy's life.
Alan German kept his old Frontier disks, back when it was a commercial product.
The Economist: Microsoft's contradiction.
I'm trying to figure out how we will use and build on XML Namespaces. I'm reallllly confused by this stuff. Anyone who knows Frontier well care to try to explain this?
Atlantic Monthly: A grief like no other and Who deserves to die?
Netscape says the browser wars are over.
Newstracker query for Karla Faye Tucker. Her execution is set for next Tuesday, and she's losing all the appeals. Oh the shame of it. How dare they kill someone in my name. This makes me angry!
PC WEEK reviews new 333 MHz Pentium systems.
I'm now running Frontier 5.0fc1 to manage this site.
Wednesday, January 28, 1998
DaveNet: As Good As It Gets.New shipdate for Frontier 5.0: January 30.
I've been emailing with Sun's Bill Joy about Java. I'd say based on his responses there isn't much chance that Sun will change their licensing policies anytime soon.
Sun: What is Java?
ArborText: XML Styler.
An open letter to Netscape on theobvious.com.
Hey I'm back from Palm Springs. Had a wonderful time, so many smart people, the energy was just like the CNET conference in New Orleans in October. The session on Automating Content Management with Frontier 5 went well. The slide show was fine, the product performed flawlessly, but I got flustered, and the demo was awkward! Oh well. People seemed to understand the product anyway. Onward!
The slide show from yesterday's demo, looks best if you can zoom your browser up to full screen.
Finally, hearty thank you to Microsoft! So many coool people. I felt really welcome at their developer conference. It was fun!
I'm checking on the status of the Frontier 5 shipment this afternoon.
Your mileage may vary, from Brett Glass.
Claris reorganizes, becomes FileMaker, Inc.
SJ Merc: Bill Gates visits Silicon Valley.
PC WEEK: Compaq buys Digital in $9.6 billion deal.
MSNBC on the aftermath of the push hysteria of 1997.
Sunday, January 25, 1998
DaveNet: Good News for Java?Tomorrow is Monday, so another great site is featured on Thea's Galleria.
Upside interview with Netscape's Marc Andreessen, after the decision to release the source code for Navigator.
SJ Merc: Dan Gillmor interviews Senator Oren Hatch on Microsoft.
More comments on Mail Starting 1/24/98.
Scripting News will resume on Wednesday.
Saturday, January 24, 1998
DaveNet: Java Loses Netscape.My friend Marc Canter of Venue Media led the team that did the in-stadium software for the SuperBowl in San Diego tomorrow. Microsoft technology played a central role in their project.
In the 1970s, before ThinkTank, Ready, Framework, PC-Outline, MaxThink, Acta, MORE or Frontier, Doug Engelbart, the man who invented the mouse, worked on an outline-based workflow system called Augment, at a company called Tymshare. I remember reading about Engelbart's work in a book by Ted Nelson. Engelbart and Nelson are pillars of the software industry.
I wrote an article about Ted Nelson in June 1995.
Ted Nelson coined the term hypertext.
It's so cool that yesterday's article about Frontier 5 as an outliner got me in touch with people who are watching the history of this area. To people who use Frontier as a scripting system, the outline people are going to turn our heads around. Trust me on this one. They're a different breed. Very smart people.
I'm using my new Dell laptop to edit this site now. It's a beautiful machine, but the tracking pad is quirky, and the setup process was much more complicated than for a PowerBook. Why can't Microsoft and Dell work together to make this simpler?
SJ Merc: Netscape pulls back from Java.
W3C: XSL Website.
CNN poll on Microsoft anti-trust issues.
Friday, January 23, 1998
Frontier 5 is an outliner for Mac and Windows."They are gaining an army of unpaid software developers," seems to be the conventional wisdom among analysts, talking about the Netscape plan to release the source code for Navigator. But what if a cash-rich company like Intel or IBM invested in moving Navigator forward? There are good strategic reasons for lots of rich companies to want a strong alternative to Microsoft's browser. All the programmers I know like to get paid.
A new mailing list for people using Frontier 5 as an outliner.
Lots more on Mail Starting 1/22/98, including two comments from Microsoft people.
BusinessWeek: How TCI'S Malone played Gates off against McNealy.
Philadelphia Inquirer: Texas is uneasy.
Thursday, January 22, 1998
DaveNet: Netscape to Release Source.Stunning move! Netscape will release source code. Will Microsoft match them?
10/28/97: Netscape Had Options.
Invitation to Scripting News readers: What effect do you think this will have on browser evolution? Send mail to dave@scripting.com.
Another question: What about the Macintosh OS?
Reuters: Netscape to give away browser.
News.com: Microsoft, DOJ settle. Unbundles MSIE from Windows 95. Not settled for Windows 98.
Wednesday, January 21, 1998
Matt Neuburg put together a typical Frontier site. Thanks Matt!The Incoming Objects agent script watches a sub-folder of the Frontier folder, and loads objects into the database. It's running on www.userland.com (an ancient slow 486 box) with excellent results.
Mail Starting 1/21/98. Pointers and opinion on Windows Scripting Host and a comment about Dell's service, and more to come.
The official SuperBowl website is powered by IBM software and hardware.
A little-know fact, you can obtain the source for Java from Sun for non-commercial use. Here's the FAQ page and here are the instructions for obtaining a source license.
Here's proof that Microsoft is 14 times bigger than Elvis. And almost twice as popular as God.
Dell is a great company! I ordered a top of the line laptop system from them about two weeks ago. I wanted to have it in time for the conference next week. But, when I got the email notifying me that it would take 2.5 weeks for delivery, I saw I had a problem. I sent an email to Michael Dell, asking for some help. I just got a call from a VP at Dell saying the new machine would be here tomorrow. Wow!
To the people who think I have an "in" here, I wonder about that... I guessed Dell's email address and got it right. He's not on the DaveNet list. I've never met the man. For all I know he's never heard of me. It's amazing to me what some people choose to make issues of. Anyway, the computer hasn't gotten here yet... And according to News.com, laptop prices are about to plunge. So allow me to enjoy the moment. Thanks!
A 6.7 megabyte QuickTime movie, nicely done, of developers speaking up for the Mac.
Call for Websites. I'm looking for something new to demo in Palm Springs next week. If you have an interesting Frontier site, not too large, but interesting from a design standpoint, that makes good use of Frontier's website framework, send a pointer to me, dave@scripting.com.
PS: The site has to work with Frontier 5.
Interesting sites! Uno Mas, University of Oregon Office of University Housing, The Unofficial Larisa Oleynik Website, chanson's actress archives, Just In Time Solutions.
Frontier Trucks. "Frontier delivers tough truck performance without forsaking our trademark smooth, controlled ride."
Tuesday, January 20, 1998
Frontier 5.0b9 app-only release on the Fast Track site.PalmPower Magazine is a Frontier site.
The official Wag the Dog site.
SJ Merc: Women execs have to be resourceful.
My two year-beginning pieces got a nice review on News.com.
The two pieces were: Men Stay Silent and Male Anger.
Frontier Homes, starting at $42,500.
Boy there's nothing happening on the web today... Has this stuff gotten boring? I don't know!
Cooool. Robert Wisdom has a page that alleviates boredom! Including a great picture of Ana's beautiful hands! (Who's Ana?)
In the meantime, I'm wondering if people are using Windows Scripting Host. Send mail to dave@scripting.com.
Monday, January 19, 1998
DaveNet: The Tail and the Dog.Chris Nolan in the SJ Merc: Barksdale doesn't use email. Scroll down to "Take a letter Maria."
Wired: An excerpt from Microserfs. "I'm an e-mail addict. Everybody at Microsoft is an addict. The future of e- mail usage is being pioneered right here. The cool thing with e-mail is that when you send it, there's no possibility of connecting with the person on the other end. It's better than phone answering machines, because with them, the person on the other line might actually pick up the phone and you might have to talk."
Robert Deniro, Dustin Hoffman in Wag The Dog. An inspiring movie!
Every Monday, a new beautifully designed site on Thea's Galleria. Keep em comin!
Frontier 5.0b8 for Windows and Mac: Download page, upgrading, change notes. Shipdate -- January 28.
A searchable lyrics database!
MacInTouch is covering the release of Mac OS 8.1.
Saturday, January 17, 1998
Marimba, Netscape, et al: HTTP DRP proposal to W3C.I just read the Netscape/Marimba proposal and am thinking about the value of having a clean XML repository on the client machine. A picture that assembles on the client side of the net connection can be higher level than just a set of files in folders. We want to push around data, not just plain text. Numbers, dates, schedules, lists, outlines, scripts, wp docs and spreadsheets. With the RPC stuff we're building, we put a clever interface on HTTP, the stuff need never make it to a file system on either end of the connection. And then we hook in the content management system and create newsroom systems for managing this kind of content.
More sandbox pieces: Metadata, Fractional Horsepower HTTP Servers, XML, Real-World XML, Scripting News in XML, XML+RPC+WEB+ODB+WIN+MAC.
One more thing. It's a short step from viewing the client side as something different from the server side. It gets really interesting when you start thinking about the workstations as peers, each with their own powerful object database (and powerful human beings). This is the vision that Microsoft had with Cairo, Newton with their soups, and General Magic with their intelligent agents. These were good ideas.
Wired: Microsoft on the back-end.
NY Times: Besieged Microsoft is humbled and jittery.
Time: Cloning is the technology of narcissism.
Melbourne Online: Scientists find a tiny fountain of youth.
PC Magazine: A human mouse.
PC also surveys Windows authoring tools. We have to do some PR groundwork here.
Thursday, January 15, 1998
Updated: The RPC test script. It's now a POST request, and specifies the User-Agent, Host, Content-Type and Content-Length attributes. Thanks to all the people who sent mail. This is the fastest way to get stuff like this working. Next step -- get a realistic demo app working, and do an interesting client.Our man Cameron Barrett is becoming a superstar. Someone, give him a job!
Slashdot.org is calling for Netscape to GPL their browser.
GPL stands for Gnu Public License.
It's kind of like what I asked Apple to do with the Mac OS last summer. Free source code, released at the right moment, could create a lot of trouble!
News.com: Microsoft hardball is backfiring. Should they cut their losses or double the ante?
Builder.com: Dan Shafer calls for a boycott of software that doesn't support XML.
Updated: What is Frontier?
Dr Dobbs interviews Larry Wall, the creator of Perl.
Webgrrls: 25 Most Influential Women on the Web.
SJ Merc: Wanted -- A Few Good Geeks.
CNN: Texas prepares to execute woman.
Wednesday, January 14, 1998
Frontier 5 and XML: RPC via HTTP.Mac version of the RPC test script.
DaveNet: XML+RPC+WEB+ODB+WIN+MAC.
News.com reports on Apple's Q1 results.
Don Crabb is losing his religion. Fantastic! Now let's get some work done.
Stewart Alsop talks back to Bill Gates in Fortune.
Neat new connections between the Frontier object database and Netscape on Mail Starting 1/13/98.
XML 98 Conference, 3/23/98.
HotTea brings BASIC programming to the Java VM.
CrossBasic also does Java applets.
WebWeek: Microsoft and XSL.
PC WEEK: A meeting to talk about NCs.
Tuesday, January 13, 1998
Fortune: America loves Microsoft.A new Built With Frontier gif from Robert Hess. It's animated!
A research project: By now there should be hotels offering in-room Ethernet connections to the Internet. Have you ever stayed at one? dave@scripting.com.
Forbes: Rooms with a Clue. A database of hotels around the world with special services for laptop travelers, such as in-room data ports and Internet access.
Tutorial: Writing DLLs for Frontier 5. Windows.
The more we learn about Steve Jobs at Apple, the more I believe that my friend Doc Searls called it right in September 1997.
The Hayes Conference Center in San Jose has in-room Internet access.
Phil Suh scanned the O'Reilly brochure. Yeah, it's a bison all right, a pretty nice lookin one!
Another bison: the mascot of Howard University. Thanks to Laurence Rozier!
Time: The nicest woman on death row.
MacWEEK's "Platinum Utility Holdings" is probably Platinum Equity Holdings.
Monday, January 12, 1998
MacWEEK reports that Starnine has been sold to "Platinum Utility Holdings". Who?
Coming in February, O'Reilly's Frontier 4.2.3 book by Matt Neuburg. $34.95. Our animal is a bison? Niel Bornstein writes "It should be a bucking bronco, shouldn't it? What a shame they passed up on the opportunity."
Michael Richardson rebuts "The bison doesn't seem like a bad choice to me. After all, what are the really memorable animals of the frontier? The bison, the coyote, the prairie dog, the rattlesnake, the horned toad... it could be a whole lot worse. :-)"
Wired is doing a story on startups formed by ex-Apple people in the last twelve months. If you know of one, send email to jessie@wired.com.
News.com: Quarterdeck to sell Starnine. Among other products, Starnine makes WebSTAR, a leading Macintosh web server.
Every Monday another coool site is featured on Thea's Galleria.
If you have a stylishly interesting site implemented with Frontier, please send mail to thea@yes.net. It's not the technology that counts for these sites, it's the site design we're interested in.
Check out this elegant demo of XSL on Microsoft's XML site.
Note to Microsoft's webmaster: It would be more valuable if this site weren't frame-based. The Back button works. I want to easily find the source of the XSL style sheets.
PS: Can you do an XSL viewer for Scripting News? What the hay! I just figured this out... Check out Scripting News in XML on our XML site. If you can do it, send me a pointer to your site.
A breath-taking BusinessWeek editorial hails Bill Gates as the robber baron of the software age.
WebMonkey's Jeff Veen says MSIE 4.0/Mac is missing important features.
TechWeb interview with Microsoft's Chris Carper on the feature set of MSIE/Mac.
Jackob Nielsen recommends the use of Link Titles.
How to do it: <a href="geeks.html" title="Deep technical info for geekish users.">Geeks</a>.
Today's NY Times raises a free speech issue first raised here on Scripting News. The question is whether an employee can be fired because his employer finds his writing offensive. The site in question is http://www.camworld.com/.
MSNBC: Should women face the death penalty?
Newstracker query for "Karla Faye Tucker".
Dan Gillmor in the SJ Merc connects the logic of gun control and encryption technology. My own opinion: guns are outdated dangerous technology that don't have a peaceful purpose and should be regulated as much as possible. Software is current technology, and the benefits of distributing encryption technology internationally far outweighs the risks.
News.com: Free email a hot property.
Guys! Here's proof that women have a sense of humor!
Sunday, January 11, 1998
Microsoft's XML site.Meet Tom Hammer from NetObjects, with his newborn son Zack.
Alta Vista Personal Search. Windows.
Red Herring interview with Apple CFO Fred Anderson.
Friday, January 09, 1998
DaveNet: Retraction & Apology.MacInTouch: Henry Norr's report on Apple's presence at MacWorld Expo.
CNET reviews MSIE 4.0/Mac.
You've heard of cookies, now check out Cupcakes...
BusinessWeek: Apple isn't applesauce.
TechWeb: Microsoft posts piece of XML puzzle.
Tutorial: How CGI scripting works in Frontier 5.
Thursday, January 08, 1998
DaveNet: Affirmative Action.Screen shots of Frontier 5.0b1/Win. Note the new professional gray-scale look.
Exciting news! Eudora 4/Win is scriptable via OLE Automation. It should be possible to create a cross-platform scripting interface for Eudora via Frontier. Ye-hi!
I saw this Be OS integrated app yesterday and it's beautiful! Done by six members of the original ClarisWorks team. It makes me think that critical mass may be possible for Be OS.
Wired News on Mac-only developers.
Rob Morse in the SF Examiner on the cases of Ted Kaczynski and Karla Faye Tucker.
SJ Merc: A kinder gentler Microsoft?
http://www.netscape.com/ has a new look today.
Wired: 3COM accuses Microsoft of trademark infringement. They have a point. Palm is a pretty unique word used in conjunction with an OS. Not generic or descriptive. Microsoft could take the high road, look for another word that evokes the image of hand-sized computers.
Salon's Scott Rosenberg surveys PC emulators for the Mac.
CNN: Microsoft's plans for car computers.
PC WEEK's John Dodge will never buy another PC. Uh huh.
Wednesday, January 07, 1998
InternetWeek: XML will become ubiquitous. I hope so!A landmark piece on Java in Marketing Computers. If you read one piece on Java this month, be sure to read this one. As far as I'm concerned, they got the story, totally.
Hey we won another award, this time for Scripting News. Thank you thank you thank you!
Did you know that there is a http://www.y2k.com/?
Seattle Times: Is Microsoft putting on a softer public face?
From Bruce Francis at MSNBC: "I interviewed Jobs [yesterday] morning. Quizzed him on the CEO search, and he walked off in the middle of a LIVE interview. A kinder, gentler Jobs? Not from my perspective!"
Here's the video. Requires Microsoft NetShow.
I just re-listened to the Jobs interview, and his last words were We agreed we weren't going to talk about this. That explains why he walked out. A thumb's up to the MSNBC folks for not editing that out.
A note to the remaining Mac enthusiasts who can't tolerate anything but mindless enthusiasm for their "cause" -- what you do has a clinical definition. It's called control. Look it up in a psychology textbook. It's ridiculous to think that your viewpoint is the only valid one. To try to make people conform to your view of the world is a very offensive and immature (and boring!) way to respond to disagreement.
To which I add... Steve Jobs says Think Different. I say Think For Yourself!
Tuesday, January 06, 1998
DaveNet: Bang that Script!Frontier CGIs are working on Windows this morning.
Netcraft query for the server running the CGIs.
The simple CGI tests are running on Windows now: tellTime, tellParams, syntaxError, runtimeError.
Happy Birthday to Perl! Ten years young!
MSIE 4.0/Mac ships.
News.com: Apple to report $45 million profit. Good PR, otherwise meaningless. We've been here before.
PC WEEK on XML.
Listening to the keynote at MacWorld Expo.
News.com: VCs like acquisitions.
Forbes: Selling Porsches to Microsoft millionaires.
Technology Funding, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm, is doing something unusual: they're doing an IPO.
SJ Merc: Sonny Bono killed in skiing accident.
God to Sonny: I Got You Babe.
Monday, January 05, 1998
Unfortunately there will be no DaveNet Live at the show this week, nor will there be a UserLand presence. We will have a launch event for Frontier 5.0 on January 28 in Palm Springs at Microsoft's web technology conference. However, the Mac is still hugely important to us, we support our Mac users, and are keeping the Mac product moving in parallel with the Windows version of Frontier. Let's keep diggin!Milestone! Frontier 5.0b1 for Mac and Windows: download page, upgrade page, change notes. Just in time for MacWorld Expo!
It's Monday! That means Thea looks at another cool site.
Who is Thea? And why does she do a Galleria? Hey that rhymes!
MacWorld Expo party list.
WebWeek interviews Tim O'Reilly.
MacWEEK: Mac OS 8.1 will ship in February. New file system. New Java Runtime. MSIE bundled.
Wired News: Big Q4 Loss at Netscape.
Tim Bray on Lark. A validating XML parser in Java. New release contains source code.
Nando Times: Death row mercy should not be based on gender.
Amnesty International: The Death Penalty Around the World.
WebTechniques: A really interesting technical summary of where Java was at at the end of 1997.
Beavis: Come out with your pants down! Never mind!
Jodi Mardesich in the SJ Merc: Apple Apple Apple at MacWorld Expo. Shhh. You might wake up the users!
Chris Gulker: A visual equivalent of recent DaveNets.
Jeff Veen on WebMonkey: Be your own design team.
News.com: The year in review for web browsers. You can also read about the browser wars of 1997 on the Microsoft and Java pages of the DaveNet year-in-review site.
Sunday, January 04, 1998
DaveNet: Onward!Richard Sucgang is doing work to flow Macromedia Flash content thru Frontier websites.
Brian Andresen: New version of HALO, works on Windows and Mac, supports XML rendering of Frontier outlines.
Nando Times on The Rules. (1996)
More comments on Mail Starting 1/1/98.
Dan Gillmor's pre-MacWorld Apple column.
Saturday, January 03, 1998
Amazon.com: When She Was Bad. "Our culture, argues award-winning journalist Patricia Pearson, is in denial of women's innate capacity for aggression. When She Was Bad offers a fearless and timely look at female violence, as fascinating and thought-provoking as it is controversial."Albert Camus: Neither Victims Nor Executioners.
Hey! I made the MicroTimes 100 List this year. And so did my buddy Chuck Shotton, and a third-cousin of mine, Hedy Lamarr.
More comments on Mail Starting 1/1/98.
An interesting piece in Computer Shopper about software distribution thru the Internet.
I fixed the glitches in the home page of the mail site. Mail is still more awkward for me on Windows because Eudora on the Mac is so nicely scriptable, and we don't have hooks yet into any Windows email clients.
Friday, January 02, 1998
DaveNet: Male Anger.Crying by Luke Tymowski.
More cool stuff on Mail Starting 1/1/98.
News.com: IBM to introduce faster PowerPC chip.
BatchExport cleanup script by David Bayly. Mac only.
The Cool Tool guys chose Frontier as one of their Best of 1997. Thank you thank you thank you!
Sydney Morning-Herald: Texas to execute a woman. This story exposes issues of justice, gender issues and hypocrisy.
Interactive Week: 25 Unsung Heroes of the Net.
Thursday, January 01, 1998
DaveNet: Men Stay Silent.From the New Yorker, 7/28/97, a story of how Levi's proved that men could be sold fashion.
An XML parser in UserTalk.
Back issues...
Check out Scripting News -- December 1997.
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