Scripting News -- November 1998
Tuesday, November 17, 1998
IBM's AlphaWorks site focuses on XML and Java.Press release: Object Design does an XML data server. They claim to be first, but they haven't shipped yet. Further, it's not clear what the product does. For the record, Frontier 5.1 has a lot of the features they tout, and it shipped in July 1998.
Press release: Microsoft and webMethods sittin in a tree. They're making love over XQL, which looks very nice indeed.
Monday, November 16, 1998
SN members can now read the profiles of other members.Bookmark this site. It's a news site run by Lawrence Lee, aka Tomalak. There are a handful of people who send me links regularly, they know what I'm interested in, and Lawrence is my top number one link guy. In a way I'm sorry that he's got his own news page now, but that's the way it goes.. Thanks for all your help Lawrence, and best wishes for the new site!
InfoWorld: Jeff Walsh's report from XML 98 in Chicago.
InfoWorld: IBM unleashes raft of XML tools.
Information Week examines XML. "We're neck-deep in XML for the next generation of everything, from message formats to interfaces to all kinds of stuff."
Where is the system-level XML parser for the Mac OS?
Red Herring: Can Internet companies make money?
Macromedia: Director 7.
Wired: Ellison talks up databases running with no OS.
After ISP problems, ScriptMeridian is back on the air.
Chris Nolan interviews Robert X. Cringely. "Uh, that's a kind of lame excuse, isn't it? Yes, said [Cringely]."
InfoWorld: Microsoft snuggles up to Unix. "Common scripting across platforms will enable users to execute Unix commands and utilities in NT environments."
U/WIN: Portable shell scripting for Unix and Windows.
SJ Merc: 20 Years after Jonestown. "Rev. Jim Jones ruthlessly exploited powerful desires that many Americans harbor today -- a longing for community, racial equality and economic opportunity."
Sunday, November 15, 1998
Discussion Group members can now edit preferences and change passwords.Dueling press releases. Barnes & Noble calls Amazon's bluff. Then B&N said. And Amazon sighed.
Alibris: Out of print and rare books.
Ask this guy if he's heard of Mr. Murphy. As in the Law.
Reminder: The alternate home page is still alive and kickin!
ZDNet interview with Exodus's Ellen Hancock. Interesting perspective on the Apple-Microsoft dealings in 1997, which she participated in.
Jakob Nielsen: 2D is better than 3D.
Dan Gillmor: Intel at the Microsoft trial.
Updated: nestedTableDisplayer macro, now handles binary objects in a more concise fashion.
Saturday, November 14, 1998
Eric Soroos's mail server, running in Frontier. It's still beta, Eric needs feedback. This is an important project, we get a lot of power when writers can email directly into the content management system.Eric also released a suite that reads Eudora mailboxes into Frontier's ODB. Christmas came early this year!
While we're experiencing an early Christmas, I thought I'd put up a special page for the nestedTableDisplayer macro, which has turned out to be an essential tool for debugging and devloping .wsf pages.
News.com: Ingram dominates Amazon supply. Ingram was just bought by Barnes & Noble. The more I learn about the book selling industry, the more it sounds like the software industry! It's sticky.
An anonymous opinion from the bookseller industry.
InfoSeek: Ultraseek Server product site. A first-class product site, very interesting stuff.
InfoWorld: Group forms to end software chaos.
Mainstay: Arthur's Magic Card Trick. Requires Java. Arthur is a dog.
CNN: Searchable Bill Gates video.
Friday, November 13, 1998
DaveNet: Macromedia and XML.Important: Frontier security hole closed. It concerns all Frontier 5.1 or greater installations operating as web servers.
Wired: The Globe smacks it out of the park. They're former Mac developers. I once had breakfast with them at Bucks!
ScriptMeridian: Regex 2.0b10.
Wired: InfoSeek to pioneer in XML search engines. This is interesting, but they're missing a big opportunity. If there was an XML-based standard for webmasters to tell search engines what pages had changed, the crawlers could skip visiting pages that hadn't changed, resulting in more timely hits for search engine users, and broader coverage of the web. The first search engine to implement this will become the technology leader in search engines.
Check out siteChanges.xml. It's updated every night at midnight, listing, in XML, all the pages that changed on the server in the last 24 hours. It's cumulative, so you can visit us once a week to get current. Could you write a script to produce a similar file for your website? Once one search engine supports this, a lot of webmasters will support it too. After all, we all want better visibility on search engines, right? Let's work together!
Fat Pages Site: suites.siteChanges.
Thursday, November 12, 1998
DaveNet: How an Apple Developer Thinks.Microsoft's response to Apple's allegations.
MacInTouch coverage of the QuickTime sabotage issue.
Remember BOGU? We all have to do it. That message is for both Microsoft and Apple. I think Microsoft is closer to getting it because they used to do it so well. Apple has, in my opinion, never practiced BOGU. It's good for you. A little humility and even subservience makes better software. It's a yin-yang thing.
Hey, we're one of the top stories on Microsoft's press site. I guess that's not surprising, given the theme of today's piece. Oh well. Haven't heard anything from Apple. I guess that's not surprising either.
News.com: Intel to invest in Be. Yaaaay!
InfoWorld: Intel's investment game plan. "Clock speeds zipping past 1Ghz." Yipeee!
News.com's new look. Interesting. Here's their equivalent of the Scripting News home page. And their search page. My opinion? Too many sections. I'd make the one-week view the home page, and scroll every story thru it, and rely on the search engine for finding anything older than one week.
MIT Press: Markup Languages Journal.
From Norm Meyrowitz, an exec at MacroMedia: "In a few days, you will have the cross-platform XML parser you desired. We have been quiet, but listening." In a follow-up email, Meyrowitz said that the XML feature was going to be part of Director, so it is not the system level XML parser I was asking about. A cross-platform application-level parser is nice, but we already got one.
CNN: Literary agent Goldberg testifies before the Tripp grand jury. She's not related to Goldberg the professional wrestler, as far as I know.
Wired: Netscape buys AtWeb for $95 million.
Hitachi's BeOS computer. Jean-Louis does BOGU.
8/22/95: What is a Platform?
The discussion group brain transplant had a problem last night. It happens.
Chuck Shotton on the Mail Pages.
Wednesday, November 11, 1998
Quicktime's problems on Windows: Did Microsoft screw Apple or was Apple lazy? Let's figure this one out.Mindcraft says that Apple screwed up. And Todd Blanchard says that Apple would have had to use an undocumented Registry entry to make the QuickTime plug-in work.
Stanford Daily: PBS analyst falsely claims Stanford PhD.
Jim Whitehead, the chair of the WebDAV working group, comments on the Halloween memo.
Newsweek: The philosophy of Jesse (The Body) Ventura. "My brain is operating at such a level that I don't want to put my foot in it." Me too!
Chris Gulker: Do-it-yourself Supercomputers.
Fred Langa on Portals.
An R-rated song. Just for fun!
Press release: IBM, Oracle and Unisys Collaborate with XML.
The Discussion Group software is getting an overhaul today.
As of 12:02PM, the brain transplant is complete. Go ahead and post messages! Help me burn in the new brain. Now we'll be able to add lots of cool features in the discussion group. Whew!
NY Times: Email takes the stand.
All I want for Christmas is a 25GB hard drive.
Somehow all this stuff fits together.
Tuesday, November 10, 1998
W3C: XQL.Oracle: Oracle's XML Strategy.
Be. They announced lots of things tooooday.
The independent XML-RPC mail list is starting to get interesting. It's not owned by anyone, I have no idea who is on the list. It's the ideal venue for organizing cross-platform, cross-OS interapplication communication protocols and software.
4/2/98: "We want people developing in Frontier to be the most powerful developers on the Internet." That's why we need an independent group to manage XML-RPC. We are a commercial vendor with a well-established interest in making Frontier people the most competitive web developers. Also, a postscript to the SCNS design, it didn't make it into 5.0.2 (which actually was called 5.1) but I'm going to push for it in 6.0.
The WebDAV thread continues. Alex Hopmann, the lead on WebDAV at Microsoft, responded to my experiment with folder loops in XML-over-HTTP. He says that the WebDAV approach is not much more complicated. This in an example of collaborative development, in public, with Microsoft.
BTW, I knew Alex before he worked at Microsoft, he was a fellow board member of MIDAS, the Macintosh Internet Developer Association. It was an attempt by Mac developers, a couple of years ago (pre-Jobs), to get the Mac Internet software market going in a positive direction.
From Microsoft's PR firm, news about XQL.
Are you using Dreamweaver 2.0? James Spahr is just getting started and has comments.
Aladdin Systems: Stuffit Deluxe 5.0.
Do you wonder when the Mail Pages are coming back?
NY Times: At the Microsoft trial, truth is the big loser. Read the end of this piece, and remember that Apple stole the look and feel of the Mac from Xerox. The article says even Judge Jackson was laughing (at Microsoft). I ask whether he's sober enough to make the decision in this very important case, not just for Microsoft, but for the whole computer industry.
Eric S. Raymond expresses his true feelings about Microsoft and Bill Gates. There's always room for another point of view, and a proper time and place to express it.
Finally, a nice joke to end the day.
Monday, November 09, 1998
What I want from the open source world. After writing a piece last week asking for cooperation between commercial and open source developers, they called my bluff, and asked what I wished for. No problem!Red Herring: DataChannel's new CEO.
News.com: Microsoft posts QuickTime fix.
Jeff Veen and Rube Goldberg conspire to create an XSL rendering of Scripting News in XML. Neat!
There's an XML-RPC mail list. I forgot!
Rube Goldberg is not related to Goldberg the wrestler. As far as I know.
InfoWorld: XML integration tool for databases.
Internet.com: Dreamweaver 2.0.
Frontier users: The Pre-1998 Samples Suite.
Sample: Reading ThinkTank Files over HTTP.
Just for fun: Two jokes with nuns in them. R-rated.
Web Review: Introduction to JavaScript Pop-up Windows.
I just heard a preview on NPR for PBS's Frank Lloyd Wright documentary. It sounds excellent.
Sunday, November 08, 1998
Discussion Group: XMLizing Folders?A cute little demo script that could become a core verb if there were a standard way to walk a folder structure via HTTP.
Tomorrow's demo script will load a folder of ThinkTank files into Frontier's outliner, over HTTP using XML. How's that for connecting the past with the future!
Microsoft response to the leaking of the "Halloween memos".
Dan Gillmor: Connecting Coke machines with HTTP. A Coke machine doesn't need a web browser, it needs an HTTP client. There's a world of difference. An HTTP client doesn't come with all the FUD and posturing. It's a really simple protocol.
For example, Frontier has a verb, tcp.httpClient, which connects scripts to HTTP servers. Including comments, it's 241 lines of code. Not much room for FUD there!
Discussion Group: How XML-RPC will evolve.
NY Times: At the White House, relief and elation. Before the Presidential lying scandal passes into history, perhaps the electorate, the voters, want to consider the implications for future presidencies. Where is the line? What will we allow Presidents to lie about? Do we have any philosophy or vision for our leaders?
PC WEEK: Sun could terminate Microsoft's Java contract.
The Talking Moose is back! Mac OS only.
Saturday, November 07, 1998
With more XML parsers showing up on more systems, more people are experimenting with Scripting News in XML, reporting problems, so I can fix them.A glitch in MSIE 5, beta 2?
Update: It's a keyboard thing. If you choose Copy from the popup menu, no problem.
New docs: xml.valToString. This is the routine that Frontier calls to serialize a scalar when making an XML-RPC call.
We're having our first major winter storm in the Bay Area. If past years are a guide, there probably will be power outages in the next few days as the trees that died this summer are blown over and knock out the power lines. When the power goes out, so does www.scripting.com.
Microsoft: Web Folder Behaviors in IE5. What are they talking about? Makes no sense to me. What does the server side of this stuff look like? Do they have an example site I can browse to see what it looks like on the client?
Wall St Journal: Mistakes spread at light speed.
TechWeb: Standards blur distinctions in web browsers.
Wired: Ushering IE to Netcenter.
CNN: Gingrich to resign as Speaker of US House.
Friday, November 06, 1998
We want to do a project with the famous science fiction author Douglas Adams, and are looking for an experienced Frontier programmer in London to work with us.Jeff Veen's VML demo.
It wouldn't surprise me if Netscape redirects links from this site too. For the full story see Techweb. Hey, Netscape should stay out of the business of judging websites. After all, every website has a developer they could piss off. I hope Microsoft, who is considering a similar feature, is watching carefully.
Netscape: What's Related FAQ.
Robert X Cringely: Why the nerds are upset. The contest is real, it's about developer mindshare. Not the developers who are already working on Linux-based product, the ones who will, in the future, be working on Linux. Microsoft, without developers, is just Microsoft.
If you have MSIE 5/beta 2, check this out. If you visit an XML file it pretty-prints it and it behaves like a read-only outliner, with expand and collapse.
Here are some demos of the VML features in MSIE 5/beta 2.
Thursday, November 05, 1998
Eric S. Raymond gets another Microsoft memo.The second Microsoft memo without annotation.
The first Microsoft memo without annotation.
News.com quotes a Microsoft rep, speaking today, saying that this could be the second in a series of leaked memos.
Information about anonymous remailers.
A one-line script that sends semi-anonymous email.
ABC News: Action Figure Shocks Minnesota.
How IronDoc is different from Bento.
David Letterman: Top Ten Jesse The Body Ventura Campaign Slogans. "Vote for me, or so help me god, I'll pile drive you."
XMTP maps MIME/SMTP onto XML.
The Obvious: A Standard for Site Organization.
ZDNet: iMac momentum stalls.
In other news, Scott McNealy is bashing Microsoft.
ComputerWorld: Publishing and Macs.
I didn't know that Douglas Adams had written a non-fiction book on endangered species. It's also a CD-ROM.
Jigsaw: W3C's open source HTTP server for Java.
News.com: Netscape digs into IE5.
SJ Merc: Microsoft buys LinkExchange for $265 million.
Wednesday, November 04, 1998
DaveNet: How a Windows Developer Thinks.Laurence Rozier: W3C DOM Implementation using FreeDOM.
Tim O'Reilly's open letter to Microsoft.
News.com: Microsoft rebuts Apple testimony.
MSIE 5 reports: InfoWorld, Wired.
Jetty is a Java HTTP server.
W3C: Scalable Vector Graphics.
Updated: suites.slideshow.
The answer to yesterday's puzzle about getting JavaScript code in MSIE5 to talk directly to our server database will build on the XML support in MSIE5 and in Frontier.
More info about the MSIE XML object model.
Tuesday, November 03, 1998
DaveNet: How Microsoft Thinks.A great quote from Ken Olsen, former CEO of DEC, about Unix, from 1984. Maybe he should have been more enthusiastic about Unix?
Question: Is there a way to talk from JavaScript directly to Frontier, using MSIE5?
News.com: Symantec's Norton 2000 1.0. Y2K desktop tool scans everything looking for trouble.
News.com: Microsoft to call Apple.
I'm clearly going to get 18,000 pieces of mail today telling me that MSMQ is Microsoft Message Queue.
Dan Gillmor: Microsoft wary of open source.
In an attempt to preserve my sanity, I wrote a little script that removes Eric Raymond's comments from the Halloween memo.
Frontier 5: How to serve Frontier .wsf pages from IIS.
Mother Jones' ongoing coverage of the Microsoft anti-trust trial, by Cate Corcoran.
Wired: W3C seeks to clear the fog.
TidBITS: Could Apple be pulling the plug on Hypercard?
Monday, November 02, 1998
Here's a guestbook app running in Frontier, accessed thru IIS on NT 4.News.com: Linux a threat to NT. This isn't really news.
To anyone from Microsoft, is the document referred to on this page for real? If so, could you send me a copy via email so we can read it without someone else's markup?
XML.COM reviews ICE.
Clue of things to come. We're now running an IIS web server on Windows NT 4.0 and have Frontier running behind it, as a plug-in, receiving all requests that end with .wsf. We'll be releasing the plug-in soon, perhaps later today.
A major Frontier 5.1 verb gets documented. We're starting to catch up with ourselves.
Reminder: You can download the DocServer database and keep it updated with futuristic push technology.
Bernie 2 emulates the Apple ][ on the Mac.
when.com launches.
NY Times: The first major email trial.
InfoWorld: Sun plans to make Java ubiquitous. "Sun is missing the boat [on tools]. They don't have the scripting, the server-side support," said J.P. Morgenthal, president of NC.Focus.
What is IronDoc? Sounds like Bento.
Back issues...
Check out Scripting News -- October 1998.
|
This page was last built on 11/17/98; 5:33:42 AM by Dave Winer. dave@userland.com |