[Attention conservation notice: This post contains little of actual value.] I spoke with Jeffrey Zeldman today. (I just have to say it again—I spoke with Jeffrey Zeldman today!) A client is evaluating technical vendors. One of the prospects wrote a strong proposal, really kind of in-your-face for this small northern New England college, but she […]
May 2, 2006
An Anti-Traction, Mobility Denial Material
New Scientist describes a patent for a “riot slimer.” Riot police or troops would wear a back pack with three cylinders – one containing compressed air, another filled with plain water and a third containing a supply of very dry, finely ground, polyacrylamide powder. A nozzle, resembling a shower head, would blasts two separate jets, […]
May 1, 2006
.NET on OS X?
Can someone confirm this rumor I heard last night: Microsoft is porting the .NET runtime framework to Mac OS X. [Note: Currently just a rumor!] If this is true it’s a pretty big deal. With Apple currently offering dual-boot software to run Windows XP on Mac hardware, and the likelihood that they will offer virtualization […]
April 30, 2006
Disintermediation Denial
Dumbest move this week™. Microsoft and The New York Times unveiled software on Friday that would allow readers to download an electronic version of the newspaper and view it on a portable device. With Microsoft’s new Windows Vista software, to be available in January, virtually any newspaper, magazine or book can be formatted into an […]
April 22, 2006
More Hell for Web Developers
Dave Hyatt, chief architect of Safari and WebKit, outlines a proposal to solve the “high-DPI” problem: Consider a Web page that is designed for an 800×600 resolution. Let’s say we render this Web page such that the pixels specified in CSS (and in img tags and such on the page) map to one pixel on […]
April 5, 2006
N-Dimensional Web 2.0
Many people are trying to define “Web 2.0” – what it is, what it means, how to build Web 2.0 apps, what makes a company a Web 2.0 company, etc. All of those efforts fall short, because Web 2.0 is n-dimensional. Web 2.0 is “reflecting more complex multivariable situations.1” Today I learned of a new […]
March 21, 2006
In Case You Were Wondering
Do you happen to know if there’s wifi available in the Lebanon Coop? There is not. I have asked for it a few times over the years. Being board president doesn’t pull any weight on this, believe it or not (due to a personality-minimizing governance structure which is long-term good and specific-issue annoying).
March 19, 2006
Official Phone of 37signals & Ruby On Rails
The next Internet trend: Ruby and Rails geeks buy the Motorola PEBL phone because David and Jason both raved about it. Less Phone, that sort of thing.
March 13, 2006
Server Down?
That’s the sort of email subject line people like me dislike seeing first thing in the morning. After verifying that, in fact, the servers are unreachable, suddenly you have a fire drill. Whatever morning plans you had are shot. Yoga? I don’t think so. Finish that systems diagram from last night? Maybe later today. Instead, […]
March 12, 2006
Mail Bombed
Notio is getting emailed bombed, or something. In the last couple of hours I’ve received over a thousand emails like this: From: Philomena Astle (Every return address is different.) Subject: Re: POtharamacy news (Lots of variations on this.) Hi, Do you want to j O l V f E d R r P k A […]
February 21, 2006
Three Things About Pivot
Very exciting. Chris Boone wrote a brief review of my website management system, PivotCMS. [Man, do I need to do some marketing work – the product far outshines the marketing, especially the currently-lame website.] He calls out three important design decisions we made early on, and learns how they impact his day-to-day work with clients. […]
January 31, 2006
What Google Knows
John Battelle, author of Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture, asked Google: 1) “Given a list of search terms, can Google produce a list of people who searched for that term, identified by IP address and/or Google cookie value?” 2) “Given an IP address or Google […]
January 30, 2006
Microsoft ftpd Madness
So, to transfer files between computers there’s this protocol called FTP – File Transfer Protocol. It’s been around forever, and on dozens of different Unix operating systems when you do a directory listing it looks something like this: -rw-r–r– 1 187 6358 Jul 18 2005 index.html Then along comes Microsoft. For some reason, this return […]
January 17, 2006
Path Finder and Web Inspector
We interrupt this stream of musical sub-texts to recommend some Mac power-user software. Path Finder 4 is a fantastic Finder replacement, providing a more intuitive and powerful file management and navigation application. For starters, tabs in the Finder window – how cool is that? If you want the gory details on what’s wrong with the […]
December 23, 2005
Ruby on Rails Bootcamp at Big Nerd Ranch
During the first week of December I traveled to rural Atlanta to attend the Ruby on Rails Bootcamp at the Big Nerd Ranch. The Ranch isn’t a place, exactly – more like a concept. In the US, they rent an executive retreat lodge 1-2 weeks per month, where 18 students take single rooms in a […]
December 23, 2005
Chaotic Growth
Michael Arrington tackles the Web 2.0 definition: Web 2.0 is not a marketing slogan. It is the slogan of a people’s army. Our army. They are words that help us explain the explosion of conversations on the web, and justify our enthusiasm for innovation. Web 2.0 is why I came back from my exodus at […]
November 25, 2005
404 Page as Micro-Narrative
I wish all “page not found” (error 404) pages were as good as this one: http://kinkless.com/articles/category/kgtd/ Especially on the web sites I maintain!