News and commentary from the cross-platform scripting community.
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Mail Starting 3/4/98 | |
If there are any Mac enthusiasts still out there, take heed of how Apple is treating its Newton/Emate customers. Just days after announcing the termination of the Newton, Apple pulled the plug on its entire Newton site: http://newton.info.apple.com. This flatly contradicts their press release:
From: lpowell@machinecode.com (Lee Powell);
Sent at Tue, 3 Mar 1998 11:29:48 -0800;
How Apple Treats Its Customers"Apple will continue to market and sell its current inventory of MessagePad 2100 and eMate 300 computers, as well as to provide support for their installed base of users."
Today's Mac users may feel reassured by Apple's/Job's vows to support Mac OS8, but how much support do you expect to see after Rhapsody finally ships? Face it Mac users: Apple is dead - Jobs is just prepping you for your future role as captive beta sites for Next OS development.
I've been thinking about how to implement multiuser functions on Frontier and I think I have some ideas that point to a direction where you could go.
From: vitorcon@redeglobo.com.br (Vitor Conceicao);
Sent at Wed, 04 Mar 1998 14:36:25 -0300;
MultiUser Functions for FrontierUserland focus right now is XML over HTTP right? So why not use it to implement multiuser funcions?
The setup could be like this:
One central server running Frontier on port 81 and another Webserver on port 80, all the people working on th site would use Frontier on their local machines configured so that upon startup it would make a request sending the username/password to the central server and receiving an XML with all the setup and to-do list for the user.
Then the user would make all his work (designing templates, importing images, writing text or even writing scripts) in a local subtable mimicking part of the server tree.
Then the user would thru some menus send all his work thru XML to the central server that would render and publish to the directory where the Webserver is reading.
FCGIs could be used on the same central server on port 81 like you already use today.
Well, these are just some ideas I had this week and since we were talking about multiuser I thought you'd like to hear.
Good luck with everything, and let's work so that XML gets thru all this hype with something concrete.
I listened to the entire broadcast of the Senate hearings (my first time using Real-Audio... what a fantastic experience!) and was very disappointed, though not surprised, that the entire show was nothing more than an attempt to show Microsoft as being an evil that must be valiantly fought against.
From: jmaxlow@pcs.cnu.edu (James R. Maxlow);
Sent at Wed, 4 Mar 1998 12:36:35 -0500 (EST);
Re:"Gates and the Senate"What struck a cord with me were two things in particular, though. First, there was some discussion as to whether or not any given company could displace Windows with a new operating system... and it was generally concluded by everyone on the panel save for Gates that it could not happen because no sane venture capitalist would finance such an effort... but the idea that hit me was, "What about Rhapsody?" Now, I am not claiming that Rhapsody will replace Windows... but the anticipation of this OS seems to indicate to me that there *can* be competition, on some significant level, in the OS market. Yet the only mention I heard of anything Apple related was that its 3% market share was inconsequential to the discussion.
The second bit that *really* bothered me is that when attempts where made by a Senator (unfortunately I don't know his name) to either "call off the dogs" from Bill Gates, or to steer the discussion to issues such as encryption or other important computer industry topics, Senator Hatch and his crew dismissed such efforts out of hand or gave them a passing comment then moved back to their intent to demonize Microsoft.
So, although Hatch declared the meeting to be a fact-finding exercise, it seems that he was very selective in the facts he was looking for.
My name is Bruce O'Leary, and I'm a longtime Mac fanatic and scripter starting with HyperCard 1.x. I currently reside outside of Boston in Maynard, MA, home of Ric Ford and his Macintouch web site. Like Ric, I work from home, but that's another story.
From: Boleary@aol.com (Boleary);
Sent at Wed, 4 Mar 1998 11:49:08 EST;
Request for PresentationI'm writing as both a Frontier 5 newbie (although I've been aware of Frontier for a long time) and as a member of a Boston-based Intranet special interest group. The SIG meets monthly to discuss Internet technologies (a very broad term!) as they're applied to intranets, and we schedule speakers on various topics for every meeting. Our members represent companies such as Allaire (publisher of Cold Fusion), Fidelity Investments, NEC, BiT Group, APC (the UPS people), Dataware, Virtuflex, MIT, Boston University, GTE Internetworking, and many of the small web host & design firms in the Boston area.
At last night's meeting there was a broad consensus that we should cover the topic of XML soon, and I immediately thought of you and Frontier 5. I think it would be wonderful if we could get a knowledgeable soul to demo/talk about Frontier 5 and XML, especially since it's a cross-platform product.
We are strictly a volunteer group, and have no funds for anything (it's a task just getting people to pitch in for food!), so any speaker who came to talk about Frontier would be on their own, unfortunately. But I think this would be an awesome opportunity to get the word out.
If you could recommend someone in the Boston/New England area who is well versed in Frontier 5 and XML, I would greatly appreciate it.
The URL below could be the first XML document in French language ! (It is very similar to yours. Thank you for the inspiration.)
From: Fabrice.Mesple@francophonie.org (Fabrice Mesple');
Sent at Wed, 04 Mar 1998 17:16:16 +0100;
First (?) XML document in French languagehttp://www.francophonie.org/liaison/xml/Breves.xml
The news are updated every night at 23:59 GMT+1
Is Vignette the only system able to understand this language by now ? Is there an efficient way to check the syntax of XML documents ?
In response to Rory O'Connor's piece in today's SJ Mercury-News.
From: davep@netco.com (Dave Polaschek);
Sent at Wed, 4 Mar 1998 09:38:22 -0600;
Re:"Senators rake Gates over the coals"I don't agree that Bill Gates lost. It's a good teaser, but the people questioned by the Senate, with the lone exception of Stewart Alsop agreed that there should be no new legislation in this area. Getting Jim Barksdale and Scott McNealy to agree with hi in public is a major victory for Bill Gates. In balance, Gates did better than I expected, and scored some points with the Senators. Not a lot, but a few. I don't know if I could call it a victory overall, but it certainly wasn't a loss.
On the other hand, you were correct that most of the Senators were not friendly toward Gates. Dianne Feinstein sounded almost shrill to my ears at one point, quoting a source who said that if Microsoft weren't reined in, it would mean "The end of Silicon Valley as we know it in two or three years". I think this may be a perception among some companies in the Valley, but there are also a number of entrepreneurs who welcome the chance to take a bite out of Microsoft's pie. Until recently, Netscape was among that crowd. Scott McNealy, along with Larry Ellison, continue to say that they're going to replace Windows with Network Computers. No mention was made of this at the hearings, and I was disappointed that Gates didn't manage to mention it in any of his answers, but I have to agree with Gates that competition is, for the most part, alive and well. As a software developer, I count on that fact.
To finish with a bit of personal opinion, I think it's possible that Microsoft has engaged in some anti-competitive practices. I also think that existing anti-trust law is sufficient to stop these anti-competitive practices, a point made by Mr. Gates during the hearing yesterday. I have to agree with the gentlemen on the panel that additional legislation is not what is needed at this point, but I fear that we'll see new laws restricting the software industry before this is over. To my mind, that's the big danger and the big story.
