06

1. SCO v Linux Explained Using A _Dukes of Hazzard_ Analogy. RE: Linux.
2. End Of The Internet Explorer Era?. RE: Microsoft.
3. NoWhereGirl.com. RE: Comic Art.
4. The Simplified Spelling Society. RE: Writing.
5. Microsoft Makes FrontPage XML Empowered. RE: Microsoft.
6. The Joy Of Making My Own Blogging System. RE: My Blogging System.
7. Blogrolling And Commenting Working So Far. RE: My Blogging System.
8. Blogrolling.com Not For Me. RE: My Blogging System.
9. Quick Topic Responds. RE: My Blogging System.
10. No More MS IE For Apple Weakens IE Even Further. RE: Microsoft.
11. Finished Skeleton Of My Own Blogging System. RE: My Blogging System.
12. Computers Enable Procrastination. RE: Computers.
13. Maybe Bush Needs A New Haircut?. RE: Politics.
14. Blogging v Keeping A Private Journal. RE: Blogging.
15. Phone Whining. RE: Make It So.
16. Rent-to-Own. RE: Make It So.
17. Build Or Buy A Blogging System?. RE: My Blogging System.
18. Kateherine Hepburn Died. RE: zMisc.

2003-06-04t00:00:00Z | Link | RE: Linux.
SCO v Linux Explained Using A _Dukes of Hazzard_ Analogy

Short and sweet.

2003-06-08t00:00:00Z | Link | RE: Microsoft.
End Of The Internet Explorer Era?

After gaining near total dominance over the browser market, MS has just given everyone an excuse to switch over to another browser like Mozilla.org.

As part of the OS, IE will continue to evolve, but there will be no future standalone installations. IE6 SP1 is the final standalone installation.
-Brian Countryman, Program Manager in Internet Explorer for Microsoft.

2003-06-09t16:16:00Z | RE: Comic Art.
NoWhereGirl.com

NoWhereGirl.com. Online only comic. Good stuff, reminds me of Los Bros Hernandez.

2003-06-10t19:53:00Z | Link | RE: Writing.
The Simplified Spelling Society

I don't think any organization can force the way a language evolves, but their content is linguistically interesting.

2003-06-12t15:43:52Z | Link | RE: Microsoft.
Microsoft Makes FrontPage XML Empowered

This make FP look good. Now if only they would fix the various little bugs.

2003-06-12t20:30:16Z | RE: My Blogging System.
The Joy Of Making My Own Blogging System

Ooh, this is so fun! So much so that I've practically stopped playing WarCraft III. I don't have to pay, rely on, or be restricted by someone else's blogging software. I get to choose the best features from the different blogs I've visited.

• Permalinks. I've decided to use the pound sign (#) for permalinks. HTML uses # to concatenate bookmarks to URLs, which is usually how a permalink is referenced. # is also very short.
• Timestamps. I've decided to use IS0 8601 for all my dates and permalinks. Who could ask for an easier to generate GUID? ISO 8601 sorts well as plain text, I don't even have to instantiate a Date object.
• Links. I'm going to have to get used to using fully qualified URLS (instead of relative URLs) when referring to my own site in these blogs.
• Category. I'm going to denote the category of each post with Re: (Regarding). It's concise and even clearer than #.
• Comments. I might make my own system or use a service (like how BoingBoing.net uses QuickTopic.com). Or perhaps I don't want the noise of comments and I'd rather have people just email me?
• Trackbacking. I have no ideas on trackbacking yet.
• Insta-Google searches. No way! You lazy bums can look up stuff yourselves with copy paste. Plus most users have some funky searches anyway. (Dang! An insta-Google search for me places only as high up as the 3rd page. This should change because until this week, I had "georgehernandez.com" on my pages but no "George Hernandez".)
• Titles. Yep, I'll bold them and make them the first sentence of the descriptions.
• Descriptions. Of course I'll have summaries. I'll try not to run on, and on, and on, and on.
• Blogrolling. Easy enough: I've been listing links for years, but I'm not yet convinced to the worth of a blogroll. I'm still checking out if it is worth using a service like BlogRolling.com. Dunno so far it seems a little big-brotherish.
• RSS. I've decided to go with RSS 2.0 ala Userland. Their description of the RSS 2.0 schema was in plain English as opposed to some funky BNF notation.
• zMisc. The next steps are to actually set up the system to make the current RSS file and use it to generate the front page. The system should also archive the RSS XML and use the XML to generate the archives for the permalinks.

And then I can finally get back to focusing on the content of my site instead of its mechanics. With my luck some other innovation will come up that will perk my interest too. Sometimes I seem more concerned with procrastinating than doing anything else.

2003-06-13t04:09:59Z | RE: My Blogging System.
Blogrolling And Commenting Working So Far

BlogRolling.com was free and really easy to set up. So easy that I could've hand coded the links myself. I suppose that the point to using them is that it puts me on their list. Also people who use their services would find it easy to blogroll me, i.e. if they run across my site and liked it enough. I'll let this run for awhile especially since I don't expect to modify my blogroll often.

QuickTopic.com was free and really easy to set up. It works like a charm. I like how as an administrator I can check to see which posts (or topics in Quick Topic parlance) are getting comments (or posts as per QT) and when. Their service also provides some data as to the popularity of topics. There are however several issues, which I will email to Quick Topic.

• The topics list is sorted by latest post. It would be nice to be able to sort it by other fields such as topic name or number of posts per topic.
• It's nice that we have the option to be emailed if a topic receives posts, but you have to do this for each topic. Is there an option to have an email sent whenever any of my topics receives a post/comment at all?
• If months from now I decide to get rid of a topic in Quick Topic, then what will the the script in my blog return? Will the script err? Will it keep the last number of comments or will it show that there are no comments? Will the comment link deactivate?
• Why doesn't Quick Topic mention their bookmarklet on their site when it is pretty clearly linked to on BoingBoing.net?

I suppose if I made my own commenting system or used one that's part of a blogging system, it would be much easier. However, Quick Topic is still an excellent system.

2003-06-13t15:44:47Z | RE: My Blogging System.
Blogrolling.com Not For Me

Bloggrolling.com works as advertised but it is not customizable enough for my taste. I prefer to do a quick and dirty restructure by hand over their interface. Would I have gotten more people to link to me if I had used them? I may never know.

2003-06-13t21:07:26Z | Link | RE: My Blogging System.
Quick Topic Responds

Steve Yost of Quick Topic (Internicity Inc.) answered my email right away. I like that. I'm disclosing his response because I specifically stated in my email that it was part of my blog.

I have empathy for his response. Everyone needs to make a buck to put food on the table. It's a common scheme that everyone (EGs: Hotmail.com, BlogRolling.com, Google.com) does these days: Offer a basic product for free but provide an option to upgrade for a fee.

As it stands, it is not worth the labor to comment all my posts via QuickTopic.com. The cost is a small factor. I would pay maybe $15 buck annually. More importantly, I don't have the time to read all the comments. I hate threads full of inane comments. If a post is important enough to someone, then they will go through the effort of emailing me. Thus my policy is that if I start getting emails on particular posts, then I might start a comment thread.

2003-06-15t05:42:57Z | Link | RE: Microsoft.
No More MS IE For Apple Weakens IE Even Further

Microsoft will not develop Internet Explorer for Macs anymore. I'm definitely seeing a downward trend for IE when this news is combined with the recent news that MS won't work on a stand alone version of IE for Windows.

2003-06-15t22:09:31Z | RE: My Blogging System.
Finished Skeleton Of My Own Blogging System

I now have a functional blogging system!

• I put up some notes on the layout of my posts, but I think the output should be pretty clear. Just for fun, I included the xsl I used too.
• There is a debate about whether to implement the description element of the RSS with either entity encoded HTML or CDATA. It's easy enough to do it either way but I went with entity encoded HTML because that's what the RSS 2.0 specs call for. I imagine there will be further discussion on this given the dangers of descriptions in RSS.
• Arrrgh! I'm still wishy-washy about whether to implement comments and trackbacking. While I definitely don't think that comments are dead, I feel that I must stick by  with my noise reduction excuse. For now, only my front page posts will have comments.
• I don't think my home grown blogging system needs a user interface since I'm the only user and it's so easy. Here is the basic process:
  1. Make my description in my WYSIWYG tool.
  2. Copy the HTML code back into the WYSIWYG tool to create entity encoded HTML.
  3. Paste that into my local and archived RSS files.
  4. Publish my site and validate the RSS files via Feeds.Archive.org/Validator (their validator gives much better feedback than Aggregator.Userland.com/Validator).
• I'm considering whether or not to have my archives accessible by category. This would be neat because posts already have a category element and my content will probably fall along the lines of the directory structure of my Web site.

Except for that last bullet (which I consider extra credit), everything is good to go. I can stop procrastinating and get back to making content!

2003-06-18t19:53:38Z | RE: Computers.
Computers Enable Procrastination

A computer is like a black hole for procrastinators. There is always some thing that you “need” to do before you get on to your real task. Here is a short list.

• Weed out the links that have crept into your Favorites list. Rename and organize them too. Doing this will lead to links which lead to more links and so on. Let's call this step “perpetual linking”.
• Weed out your email. Let it pile up for a while. You'll have to reply to stuff and often times there's more perpetual linking. You can also have yourself continuously interrupted by having your email client set to notify you each time you get an email. Get into heated email flame wars.
• Instant Messaging can obviously lead to a whole series of interruptions. Especially if you do something stupid like publicly post a link which allows people to IM you by simply using an HREF of ymsgr:sendIM?YourYahooID.
• Catch up on several message boards. Subscribe to several. Get into heated email flame wars.
• Browse the Web. Check the latest news and tech news. Take notes. Bookmark stuff for future procrastination. Perpetual linking.
• Perform computer maintenance like scan disk, virus check, empty temporary folders, etc. A favorite is sorting through, reorganizing and renaming files and directories in your system. It's worse than a sock drawer!
• If you run a Web site then there are an infinite number of tasks such as writing, rewriting, restructuring, setting up systems, making media. Do goofy things like change all the dates on your site to conform with ISO 8601 formatting!
• Blogging is a rich procrastination resource. Now you have to check your news aggregators, the blog indexers, and directly visit certain blogs. And now you feel compelled to enter stuff into your own blog. You can also get more interruptions by setting you commenting system to notify you of all comments. And, of course, all this also leads to more perpetual linking.

There is a lot more I'm sure. Also don't forget the non-computer methods of procrastination—they are even more powerful. Here are two tips.

• Work is probably the best (worst?) procrastinating device. Lets say you have to do task A. Simply delay task A by doing tasks B, C, D, etc. Or even better make task A dependent upon someone else doing task B: that way you can just get back to goofing off on the computer.
• Watch kids. They are the masters of procrastination. Their devious little minds work on cracking that nut of how to procrastinate ALL THE TIME. The implication here is that managers who are also parents will be the best one to neck-step on procrastinating employees.

Happy procrastinating!

2003-06-18t21:58:55Z | RE: Politics.
Maybe Bush Needs A New Haircut?

I would like nothing better than to ignore politics, policies, and politicians. I didn't care what Oliver North or Bill Clinton did as long as everyone was doing his/her job and there were checks and balances in place. That's basically what I did until 9/11.

Since then the Bush administration has inspired me to move from apathy and skepticism to distrust and skepticism. Maybe I'm reading the wrong stuff. Or maybe my internal image of Bush is so tarnished, that it is hard to improve it. Here are just a few of the more recent damning links.

• A collection of WMD quotes by the administration plus many many viewer comments.
• Bush's former NSC man Rand Beers sticks it to Bush.
• Bush is neglectful at counter-terrorism.
• Pathetic attempt to defend Bush's intelligence. Sadly this was from the Republican column at WatchBlog.com. Personally I don't think Bush's intelligence is the issue.
• Pathetic attempt to defend Bush's truthfulness. Sadly this also came from a Conservative source.

Can anyone send me links that will help me see Bush in a better light?

2003-06-23t12:43:22Z | RE: Blogging.
Blogging v Keeping A Private Journal

There are different reasons for journaling or blogging. Here are a few:

• A work log is useful for indexing key events on a job or project.
• A news blog may be used to provide news or status info to a community.
• A column may be a form of rhetoric, literary expression, or entertainment.
• A private journal may be a self-conversation.

A blog is good for all of the above but it has problems when serving as a private journal.

While the content produced by a blogger may appear to be a private journal, the content is public, and, more importantly, the content is unavoidably tainted by the author's knowledge of the presence of the public eye. In contrast, the author of a more genuine private journal is purer if the author uses discipline to block out the knowledge of the possibility that someone else may read his or her content. A genuine private journal will never be seen: such a thing must be immediately destroyed after production.

I write this because of the importance of being earnest. I have years worth of private journaling where I tried my damnedest to be entirely honest with myself. When I wrote, I sometimes imagined that in the future I'd look over  my notes as if I were looking in a photo album that had snapshots of what I thought and felt. Will I ever publicly post any of that? I don't know. What concerns me is that because of blogging, it is harder to keep out of my mind the possibility that what I write will be publicly posted. Thus all my content will forever more have an unavoidable veneer.

For me that is the end of an era. A familiar grand old tree has fallen silently in my woods.

2003-06-27t15:22:24Z | RE: Make It So.
Phone Whining

My old phone died 2 weeks ago. It died almost exactly at the end of my 2 year contract with Verizon which included credit for a new phone provided I renew my contract with them. Is it coincidence that products wear out when warranties expire? Or do manufacturers have a pretty good idea on how long it takes for a product to die from normal wear and tear? Who knows. I'm guessing keeping my phone in my pocket while I gave my kids baths had something to do with my phone dying.

In any case I went to Radio Shack and they replaced my phone with a Samsung SCH-a310 Tri-Mode phone.

The phone looks sleek and all but I do have several complaints:

• No timer. This is my strongest complaint. I used the timer all the time. EG: “Kids when my alarm rings in 5 minutes, we're going!.” When they make a new phone, they should add new features but they shouldn't remove excellent features. They have a countdown timer but it is tied to “events” and it take way to many clicks to use.
• Alarm sucks. I suspect that they figured the alarm could double as a timer. There are two things wrong with that.
  • If you have a daily alarm, then using your alarm as your timer wipes out your scheduled alarm.
  • The alarm window doesn't display the current time for reference. If I want to set a timer to go off in 15 minutes, I have to make sure I remember the current time before I get to the alarm window, and then I have to do a little mental math to calculate what time I should set the alarm.
• Calculator only goes to 2 decimals. That is so pathetic.
• Opens with difficulty. It doesn't open with one hand easily. I hope that with use, the case will flip open more easily. It should work just as easily as Captain Kirk's old communicator.
• Ring options lame. It provides a bunch of “musical” ring options. I would like more options for regular rings.

Otherwise it is a fine phone. Here are few things I like in particular:

• The flip lid. My old phone had the keys exposed I like the keys covered.
• The keys have no ink. The writing on my old phone were getting rubbed off. The writing on the new keys are integrated and they glow.
• Good phone book. I like the ability to organize numbers by category, and how each person has multiple numbers. The phone book is both as simple and as comples as it needs to be.

I can't really complain about the phone not having a built in digital camera, PDA, and a full alphanumeric keypad (instead of multi-tapping and T9), because then I'd have to pay more money for something like Handspring.com's Treo. I'm sure I'd find things to complain about on that too! (It needs a flip lid).

2003-06-27t16:44:37Z | RE: Make It So.
Rent-to-Own

I think major movie rental places like Blockbuster.com should implement a “Rent-to-Buy” program. Here is a copy of an email I sent to Blockbuster:

You guys should implement a “Rent-to-Own” policy for DVDs. It would increase both your rentals and sales of DVDs.

In your current system a person can rent a movie X for say $5 or buy it for $25. In my “Rent-to-Own” system, a person can rent the movie for $5, and if they like it, then they can buy it for $19 more.

Customers who'd like to buy a movie but are not 100% certain would then go try it out at Blockbuster rather than out right buying it at Amazon.com.

If you people like this idea please contact places like Blockbuster, but please, please give me credit for the idea!

BTW: I'm changing a portion of my Web site from “Invent” to “Make It So”. The old section was a list of things that I felt “they” ought to invent. The new section includes that plus it also whines about things makes suggestions for improvement.

2003-06-27t16:48:32Z | RE: My Blogging System.
Build Or Buy A Blogging System?

I will try to use this blog to track the development of my own blogging system.

• Comments. Currently I use QuickTopic.com to implement comments. However QT themselves said that QT wasn't intended for commenting on blogging systems. I can see how a blog's comment's can easily become unmanageable with QT. I'm afraid I need my own commenting sub-system. Probably something involving collecting comment text from users, connecting the comments to the guid of each post, and then aggregating the comments. I don't care about fancy features like enabling users to format their content or make urls that the users enter clickable.
• Post archiving and accessing. I definitely want this feature. I am envisioning centralizing the xml of  the posts, and then using XSL to extract and aggregate posts. I would access to the posts via several ways:
  • By category  and/or time period.
  • Pages with multiple full posts.
  • Pages with individual posts.
  • Pages with one line summaries of posts, where each line links to its full post, i.e. “thumbnails”.

I've been avoiding the “Buy v Build” question. Clearly there are blogging systems out there that implement many of the features that I want to implement on my own blogging system. Here are my issues:

• Will their system be flexible enough to handle my urge to structure and rearrange? My own system would be infinitely flexible. My back end would change on my schedule instead of theirs.
• Certainly some of their systems must have quick and easy interfaces. How much is that worth to me? I could make a system as complex/easy/quick as I'm willing to invest time and effort in.
• Would I have full control of my data? I have full control of my own data.
• What if the company that owned the blogging system went down? They'd probably be bought out and then I'd have to pray that the new company would have migrations paths to the new system because it would be foolish to maintain two different systems.

My main intent is to make my content. The technology is merely a means to this goal. It's sort of fun to develop my own blogging system, and describing the process of making the system is itself content. However system development, like many things, is susceptible to project scope creep, and my time is worth money too.

2003-06-30t16:26:08Z | Link | RE: zMisc.
Kateherine Hepburn Died

Katherine Hepburn died yesterday, 2003-06-29t18:50Z, Sunday.

Such sad news. Must focus on the good life she lived and remember to live life myself.