Here's a test of the new HTML include for River2 

I'm playing with a new build of OPML/Windows 

It works very nicely!

I built it on my machine.

Credit where credit is due 

It was very gratifying to see Twhirl support Identi.ca yesterday. They got some glowing press for it, but let's make sure a fair amount of the credit goes to the two companies that went for compatibility and helped create what's beginning to look like a standard -- the Twitter API.

First, to Twitter for having the guts to put an API on Twitter, and making it open and clonable. And second, to the team it Identi.ca who made complete compatibility the goal, so much so that you just need to change the address in a client and everything "just works." My initial testing showed that they did attain that level of compatibility, and it was confirmed by the experiences of the developers.

When people say they don't care about APIs, they miss the point that if developers do it the right way, as these guys did, then compatibility is not a competitive issue, users have choices, and products compete on virtue: performance, features and economics, not lock-in. It's the exception not the rule in the tech business that APIs and format compatibility is respected by the vendors, and it should be celebrated when it happens, as it did here. 

This is something indented another level underneath! 

First, to Twitter for having the guts to put an API on Twitter, and making it open and clonable. And second, to the team it Identi.ca who made complete compatibility the goal, so much so that you just need to change the address in a client and everything "just works." My initial testing showed that they did attain that level of compatibility, and it was confirmed by the experiences of the developers.

Bravo! Everybody who made this happen. Good show. ""

Future-safe archives, again 

I was on a cleanup and backup binge today, and came across a folder on one of my disks entitled Trade Secrets in a place where it didn't belong. I did a search on my LAN and found it was my only copy, not just here, but on the net too.

I had made a point of blogging about this folder in October 2006, that much showed up in Google, but the folder was on a machine that I shut down some months later, and it pointed to a folder on the new owner of the IP address's machine. There was no evidence of the files anywhere on the net.

So I'm rescuing it again. Back shortly with more info.

The links work again.

http://secrets.podcatch.com/ is the folder.

And http://secrets.podcatch.com/tradeSecrets.zip is the archive.

But this highlights something. Even when you make an effort to make something permanently available, less than two years later, it's gone again.

If we want the web that we're creating to last, we're going to have to be deliberate and systematic about it. It's not easy.

Time for an EVDO sidegrade 

One of the benefits of writing this blog is that when it's time to make a technology decision, I get advice from the best informed most opinionated and smartest people in the business -- you!

Anyway, last year I got a Sprint EVDO card for my MacBook laptop. It was probably the wrong decision, I figured the card version would be faster, but then I wanted to use it with my new Asus EEE PC that of course just has USB.

So the question is this...

What should I get to replace the card?

I want something that works with both Mac and Windows. USB-based. Reasonable price and performance, for the occasions that I'm out of range of wifi but want to connect to the net.

Here are the products the 3GStore is recommending.

1. Sierra Compass 597 USB Modem.

2. Sprint Novatel U720 Rev A USB Refurbished Upgrade.

3. Cradlepoint CTR500 Cellular Travel Router.

I think they all look pretty interesting esp #3.