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January 28, 2003

The integration question for web apps

I don't agree with all of it, but there's some excellent ideas about the future of web app integration in this comment on Dave Hyatt's Surfin' Safari blog:

Might I suggest a more broad framework for web applications (http://www.ibiblio.org/jimray/blog/archives/000129.html)? WebCore is fantastic, but it can be so much more than just libraries to parse HTML and Javascript. Create a central repository for bookmarks, the web cache, cookies, preferences, and passwords locked on the keychain. Make it all open and build an SDK that third party developers can use. Make it all tie in to .Mac.

When I bookmark a site in Safari, it should be added to the WebCore bookmark file, then seek out an RSS file as well. That way, when I open up NNW, if an RSS feed is present, the site that I bookmarked is subscribed to in NNW. If I read a blog entry in Safari, NNW should be able to read the WebCore cache and know that I've already read it and mark it as read. When I go home, my computer should synchronize my WebCore bookmark files over .Mac. Or just synchronize a subset or bookmarks that I define. I should also be able to subscribe to other people's public bookmark files like iCal files.

This alone will help users feel like they're having a cohesive web browsing experience. Yes, they'll be using several applications to use the web, but they'll all be tied together. This is the most Mac-like approach I can conceive of.

Posted by Jim Ray at January 28, 2003 12:13 PM

This nails the whole "Sherfari" question IMHO. Instead of a uber-app, what is really wanted is the continuation of Unix and Mac tradition - small sharply-focused tools that can be deeply integrated to make aggregate tools. I really like the idea of being able to sync session state to .Mac. Also the subscription to bookmark files, though what I'm interested in is mainly bookmark synchronization. Without having to edit a central bookmark file somewhere - I want to be able to use key shortcuts when I'm running through a stack of pages that NNW opened for me.

What also might be interesting would be temporary bookmarks - bookmarks that I want up for a while, because I'm going to read them in the next few hours or days, but that I probably won't want around permanently. I often find stuff like this hanging round in my bookmarks menu months after I put it there. Designating a tempmark would keep it around for some finite period before it was purged from the bookmark file. Kind of like clearing /tmp, or the pre-System 7 Trash emptying at shutdown.

Posted by John at 11:21 PM |

emacs emacs emacs

Why I became an Emacs user:

I have to be honest; I was driven to Emacs purely by ideology. But I stay with it because there is nothing else like it. You may see what I mean if you follow my journey briefly.

Posted by John at 10:16 PM |

Cabin fever and the long haul

I spent some time today messing about with bikes, strapping a twofish bottle cage to the top tube of the Brompton, washing out a bunch of water bottles, thinking about adjusting stem height on the Riv. I am itching to ride, and the cold has been driving me crazy. For whatever reason, be it spoiled by the past 2 mild winters, I hate the cold this year. I feel creaky and inflexible and any time spent outside right now seems like too long. For the first time in my life I have some understanding of why people retire to Florida from here. I've been reading the BromptonTalk and iBob lists, and I really want to get out on the road. Even if just to get to work and back. This month and February are the Wednesday of the winter - it's all plodding endurance.

Posted by John at 8:57 PM |

January 23, 2003

Today in elisp

Noodling around, I went from 



(defun keys (al)

  "return a list of the keys of an alist"

  (let (r '())

    (if (eq nil (cdr al))

	(list (car (car al)))

      (setq r (nconc (list (car (car al))) (keys (cdr al))))

      )))



(keys '((foo . bar) (bar . foo) (jumpin . jiminy) (holy . moly)))

(foo bar jumpin holy)
to 


;; or, far more simply:

(defun keys (al)

  "return a list of the keys of an alist"

  (mapcar (lambda (l) (car l)) al))



(keys '((foo . bar) (bar . foo) (jumpin . jiminy) (holy . moly)))

(foo bar jumpin holy)
Yeesh.

Posted by John at 5:26 PM |

Template changes

Scripting News

RSS 2.0 has a neat feature that allows an item to link to comments about that item. Content tools and aggregators can support this feature, allowing people to comment directly from the aggregator.
I've added this to my RSS 2.0 MT template. It's a pretty simple change: add 

<MTEntryIfAllowComments>

    <comments>

        <$MTCGIPath$>mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=<$MTEntryID$>

    </comments>

</MTEntryIfAllowComments>
somewhere inside the item element in the template. This generates a URL that takes you to the comments form for the post. Note that this does not embed existing comments in your RSS feed - it 's just the URL for the post's comment form. Would be cool to see NetNewsWire support this. Knowing Brent, he probably already has implemented it.

Posted by John at 4:44 PM |

January 18, 2003

Technical difficulties

I don't seem to be pinging blo.gs for some reason...want to see if this shows up. Update: ok, back in the flow.

Posted by John at 2:21 PM |

Keep your enclosures off my aggregator. Or something like that.

Scripting News

A feature request for anyone doing an RSS aggregator. Watch for enclosures. When you spot one, make note. If you're running at 2AM (a configurable time) download all the enclosures you've found, and put them in a folder on the local hard disk. Present them to the user when he or she arrives in the morning. This way large media objects, songs and movies, can be transmitted overnight using the network defined by RSS. This idea came from Adam Curry.

Actually, please don't. If I want "large media objects" I'll go get them by clicking on a link. I'm happy to use the network defined by TCP/IP, and I'm willing to download things in the background in real time. That way I, the user, stay in control, and RSS doesn't get used for multimedia spamming. Thanks for listening.

Posted by John at 11:02 AM |

Safari cookies

I use blog.s to keep track of blog updates (as well as the excellent NetNewsWire), and the only thing, aside from a lack of tabbed browsing, that was keeping me from using Safari as my main browser was that I couldn't get it to hold a login cookie from blo.gs. I kept getting a message that I was logged in, but I didn't have cookies enabled. This am I finally had a little time to look at it, and discovered that Safari was saving the cookie with a path of "/login.php", rather than the "/" path that Mozilla and other browsers used. Editing the cookie (using a tiny app called "Safari Cookie Cutter") solved the problem.

The cookie listing should be editable. I clicked on the path in the blo.gs cookie line expecting to see a rename rect appear, and was surprised when it didn't. I'll be clicking the bug button on this one.

I'm going to look round some more, but does anyone know where Safari actually keeps its cookies? My initial poking around turned up nothing. It's probably something really obvious.

Posted by John at 8:55 AM | | Comments (1)

January 12, 2003

Safire don't play that

Here's my first couple nominations for blogoisie slang I don't want to hear in 2003:

hi-zoot and woot. As in dumbest. neologisms. ever. Stop it, now, please.

By the way, I'm calling dibs on blogoisie right this very minute. Whoops, sorry, just googled it and there's already at least 4 results. OK, I'm at least getting in on the ground floor. Would the blogoisie be the D-list?

Posted by John at 7:06 PM |

January 9, 2003

This is your brain on oil.

TV Ads Say S.U.V. Owners Support Terrorists

But some local affiliates say they will not run them. At the ABC affiliate in New York, Art Moore, director of programming, said, "There were a lot of statements being made that were not backed up, and they're talking about hot-button issues."

Statements without accompanying proof serves as the very basis of advertising. I see no reason why these should be an exception. Is the objection that you can't possibly mean to say that SUV owners are in the same category as drug addicts? But, but, I have a flag decal.

Posted by John at 1:09 PM | | Comments (1)

Winter biking

Chicago Bike Winter -- Tips for Winter Biking

I have been trying to get motivated to start commuting again in the face of some pretty crappy weather and roads around here, and I am finding this page for Chicago Bike Winter to be a source of excellent tips - the main one being that winter biking really requires nothing so much as the determination to do it. (Well, a bike is helpful as well.) I rode a lot last winter, and it's really not so bad - you get pretty warm as soon as you've been riding a bit. It's just getting over that first inertial impulse. I'm a little nervous about riding in NYC on wet pavement (my latest excuse), but I think I may try taking the Brompton in tom'w.

Posted by John at 12:20 PM | | Comments (2)

A bike for every American

A stimulus plan to get America rolling again

The Morse economic stimulus plan is straightforward and simple. Every man, woman and child in the United States would receive a government check for $1, 000. Now that's a stimulating chunk of money.

The catch: you have to use it to buy a bicycle. This is an economic program I can far more enthusiastically support than the elimination of stock dividends.

My favorite quote from the article:

"Detroit will love that," quipped UC Berkeley economist Alan Auerbach when I floated this notion, which he immediately dubbed "the Critical Mass Plan."

Posted by John at 12:13 PM | | Comments (1)

Anti-Celebrity

Excellent article in the Morning News about Joseph Mitchell, a New Yorker profile writer who wrote stories about the quirky New York eccentrics who inhabited the city before it became a mere playground for the rich and uninteresting. Any of his work serves as a gentle, affectionate antidote to the kind of looka-me snark of oh, Gawker f'r instance. Good article, and even better if it gets you to read Up in the Old Hotel.

Incidentally, I got to meet Joe Mitchell. He did a signing at Coliseum Books, where I then worked, and he signed my copy of Up in the Old Hotel. A wonderful classy man.

One other thing: I could have sworn I saw another article somewhere on Mitchell entitled Joe Mitchell's Secret. Can't remember where though.

Posted by John at 10:38 AM | | Comments (2)

January 7, 2003

Let's get our terms straight

So, is it an alBook?

Whatever it is, I want one.

Posted by John at 3:41 PM | | Comments (2)