IPublish.com
Time Warner Books' IPublish.com is "a combination publishing house, bookstore, writing school, online writing community, talent search show and lecture hall all in one."
April 2001
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April 30, 2001
Survivor II Winner?
I don't watch the show, but I find it interesting that the winner of Survivor II may have leaked... but CNN and other media won't report it. "Everyone wants to do it," one exec said, "it will just come down to who has the guts to do it first."
Readerware
I may be too much of a packrat, or if not that, too much of a collector, but I have found some very cool software called Readerware . I can now use my CueCat barcode reader to swipe all the ISBN bars on my many books and come up with a database of my library. Have already finished my skinny DVD collection using DVD Profiler.
Rednecks versus Goodyear Blimp
Drempels
Drempels makes colorful, swirling, hallucinogenic patterns that resemble a hurricane or tornado. It normally runs in your Windows background or "desktop", replacing your old still-image wallpaper with gently-animating visuals.
April 28, 2001
Reading Between the Lines: Lessons from the SDMI Challenge
Reading Between the Lines: Lessons from the SDMI Challenge: When a team led by Princeton Professor Edward Felten accepted a public challenge by the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI) to break new security systems, they did not give up their First Amendment right to teach others what they learned. Yet they have been threatened by SDMI and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) to keep silent or face litigation under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Professor Felten has a career teaching people about security, yet the recording industry has censored him for finding weaknesses in their security. USENIX regularly publishes scientific papers that describe the weaknesses of technologies, but they are chilled by RIAA litigation threats.
April 27, 2001
Chinese Hacker Activity to Increase?
An advisory warning from the National Infrastructure Protection Center reports that "recent events between the United States and the People's Republic of China" could escalate into attacks against U.S. Web and mail servers late this month and into May:
This communication is to advise network administrators of the potential for increased hacker activity directed at U.S. systems during the period of April 30, 2001 to May 7, 2001. Chinese hackers have publicly discussed increasing their activity during this period, which coincides with dates of historic significance in the PRC: May 1 is May Day; May 4 is Youth Day; and, May 7 is the anniversary of the accidental bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade.
To date, hackers already have unlawfully defaced a number of U.S. web sites, replacing existing content with pro-Chinese or anti-U.S. rhetoric. In addition, the NIPC previously reported on an Internet worm named "Lion" that is infecting computers and installing distributed denial of service (DDOS) tools on various systems. Analysis of the Lion worm's source code reveals that, when illegally exploited, it sends password files from the victim site to an email address located in China. For more information on the Lion DDOS tool, refer to NIPC Advisory 01-005.
The Shocking Death of Reddy Killowatt
TVparty presents The Shocking Death of Reddy Killowatt: "Reddy but not steady - PG&E declares bankruptcy when Mr. Killowatt's insatiable need for power leads to public blackouts and no-shows. The utility giant has gone from encouraging consumption to selling customers on using LESS of their product."
April 26, 2001
The Problem with the Webbies
A Reuters story identifies my biggest problem with the Webbies, and most other US-based awards:
Choices by the 350-member International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences put an overwhelming focus on English-language, U.S.-centered sites, defying the very notion of the World Wide Web, and the fact that a growing majority of Web users live outside the United States, and prefer sites in a smorgasbord of languages.
The sites nominated are great, really, but they are also overwhelmingly American.
Server-side scripting languages
Server-side scripting languages: "Still can't decide whether to use PHP scripts, Perl CGIs, or Java servlets for your next Web development project? This article will help you decide by providing a side-by-side comparison of the functioning source code of all three languages. The three simple example programs provided take you from the most basic server-side scripts through object orientation to a simple Web storefront presenting product information to a user. Reading this article will give you a good idea of the difference between these three languages, and a better idea of which one is right for you."
April 25, 2001
Remote Collaborative Authoring Resources
Remote Collaborative Authoring Resources: "This page contains a list of papers and Web sites on the topic of collaborative authoring, with an emphasis on remote collaborative authoring."
WCMS Project Approved
Our project at IDRC, to create a Web content management system using an open source platform, was approved yesterday. This is something I have been working on formally for about eighteen months, and informally for more than two years. Steve Song asked me today whether or not I was relieved; I am certainly happy, but there is a lot of work to be done immediately, and the challenge is to keep focused on the task at hand while still being aware of the long term. We will finally, after four years here, have a Web team that should be able to manage the Web sites and facilitate content creation in ways that haven't been possible before. I think we will be building some interesting things.
May 1st Reboot
You may have noticed the tranquileye cover page has been replaced by an introduction to the May 1st Reboot, an international relaunch of web sites by authors and creatives working within the field of Web design.
As a collective event it makes a manifest demonstration of the very idea of community. It is, quite simply, an indeterminate group of designers subscribing to one event in order to publicise their work at one specific time across any number of different locations. And it is in that sense that it is most interesting to us, and by extension to those involved in or entering the world of Web Design online.
My expectation is that I will be presenting a new spring-themed tranquileye.home design on May 1st, even though the weather is still a bit too winter-themed for me here in Ottawa. I also hope to finally make available, at the same time, a collection of essays about making the Web.
Philip Greenspun on ArsDigita Bust-Up
Philip Greenspun has a very revealing narritive about the founding, growth, and his departure from open source CMS vendor ArsDigita. This should be required reading for anyone doing an Internet start-up.
April 24, 2001
xBlog
xBlog: "Visual thinking linking" doesn't quite sum up one of the best Web strategy blogs out there.
April 22, 2001
Quebec City Summit
Paul Knox, Globe and Mail, on the Quebec City summit: "The gestures — the promise to release the draft FTAA negotiating documents and televise part of the summit — were too little and too late to head off protest. One would hardly expect Mr. Chrétien to move the summit elsewhere. But as things stand today, these images of inchoate frustration and visceral repression are the legacy of Quebec City."
micro projects
Donors Fund Global Micro-Projects Online: The Virtual Foundation is a unique online philanthropy program which supports grassroots initiatives around the world. According to Reuters, the foundation has so far raised about $90,000 for projects, including health-care in Nepal, preventing desertification of farms in Kyrgyzstan, preserving the indigenous culture of the ToWana in Indonesia, and sustainable farming in Hungary, to name a few.
April 21, 2001
virtual community still too noisy
Virtual Community still too noisy: An inevitable discussion has broken out on Camworld's Content Management Systems listserv concerning signal-to-noise ratio. Particularly frustrating to list members is quasi-spam from CMS vendors who enthusiasticly promote their products. Writes list member Brandi Jasmine: "I have moderated lists myself, and it always amazes me to see this come up over and over and over again, and each time it's like the list figures it's stumbled into some unique problem. It's so "un-unique" it even has its own light-bulb joke" which you can find at her site.
Atlas of Cyberspaces
The Atlas of Cyberspaces: "These maps of Cyberspaces - cybermaps - help us visualise and comprehend the new digital landscapes beyond our computer screen, in the wires of the global communications networks and vast online information resources. The cybermaps, like maps of the real-world, help us navigate the new information landscapes, as well being objects of aesthetic interest. They have been created by 'cyber-explorers' of many different disciplines, and from all corners of the world... Some of the maps you will see in the Atlas of Cyberspaces will appear familiar, using the cartographic conventions of real-world maps, however, many of the maps are much more abstract representations of electronic spaces, using new metrics and grids. The atlas comprises separate pages, covering different types of cybermaps."
April 19, 2001
Newspro now online
You might not have noticed, but I am now running the tranquileye weblog using the combination of Newspro and the wonders of XSSI. On Sunday, after having carefully cut and paste and cleaned up a year's worth of entries and news items into the Newspro flatfile database, and having set up the include on my homepage, it was inevitable that something would go wrong, and it did, in the form of fried settings file. An hour later, though, everything was back to normal.
I am very impressed with the flexibility and extensibility of Newspro. There are a number of third-party add-on modules for everything from checking spelling to sending out email noifitcation to a list when news is added. Greymatter may be prettier and certainly works fine, but for what I want to do Newspro is the bomb.
There is still work to be done. My archives, which run back to the winter of 1993, have not made their way into the database, and it will take some weeks to wade through them. I also have to find some happy way of getting the two <br> tags Newspro inserts between paragraphs converted to a single XHTML <p />.
April 18, 2001
The Merchants of Cool
PBS Frontline: The Merchants of Cool: "They spend their days sifting through reams of market research data. They conduct endless surveys and focus groups. They comb the streets, the schools, and the malls, hot on the trail of the "next big thing" that will snare the attention of their prey--a market segment worth an estimated $150 billion a year... They are the merchants of cool: creators and sellers of popular culture who have made teenagers the hottest consumer demographic in America. But are they simply reflecting teen desires or have they begun to manufacture those desires in a bid to secure this lucrative market? And have they gone too far in their attempts to reach the hearts--and wallets--of America's youth?"
April 16, 2001
trellix licenses blogger
I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner, but Trellix has licensed Blogger.
April 15, 2001
ramone
Joey Ramone is dead, and only 49. "They changed the world of music. They rescued rock and roll from pretentiousness and unnecessary adornments," said Arturo Vega, the Ramone's longtime artistic director.
April 13, 2001
7 Principles of Universal Design
Nicky Danino at SitePoint.com on 7 Principles of Universal Design: "Technology provides many different ways of working with computers. For example, we should not assume that everyone is using a mouse. Computer software (if it is well designed) provides an alternative that allows the user to perform each operation via the keyboard. A website should have the same capability."
Goopy Geer's Rare Cartoons Page
Goopy Geer's Rare Cartoons Page, "the rarest cartoons known to man and beast."
maps to imaginary places
A good intro article on maps of imaginary places by Stephanie Faul. On my first trip to the British Museum, in I suppose 1980, the map gallery had a display of such maps, many quite old and obscure. I bought a book that described them, but I have lost it somewhere. The subject has always fascinated me, for fairly obvious reasons.
April 12, 2001
xml for weblogs
The pile of books beside the bed get higher and higher. And what happens when you throw a party, and no one comes?
April 10, 2001
The genius of documentation
Let me write that down: The genius of documentation, from David Walker: "For almost all Web developers, documentation equals dullness. Thus few Web projects get properly documented. Which helps explain why so many fail."
