mnot’s Web log

Design depends largely on constraints.” — Charles Eames

Monday, March 29 2004

Python Just Got a Whole Lot Cooler

OK, so I know they’ve been around for a while, but I haven’t really got into Python’s metaclasses until just now, because I’ve been… well… busy. This excellent presentation about...

Behind the Scenes at Your (very) Local Music Store

Aaron Swartz has started to document the iTunes Music Store; this is a good example of a non-browser, cross-platform application reusing HTTP. It would be interesting to see the interface...

Sunday, March 28 2004

Growing the Web

Ian Hickson is thinking about client-side technologies (scroll down a bit). Some of his ideas resonated; Sortable tree views and list views with rich formatting. Do a search on eBay,...

( 2 comments )

Tuesday, March 23 2004

XGrid and BEEP

I just stumbled across Apple’s new preview of XGrid, their ad hoc clustering technology. It’s got lots of cool features, like discovery via Rendezvous (aka ZeroConf), a job control dashboard,...

Monday, March 22 2004

Thoughts on a Suburban Nation

Interested in living in actual communities, rather than subdivisions or “pods”? Tired of spending most of your life in a car? I’ve been getting a lot of books from the...

( 2 comments )

Wednesday, March 17 2004

Outage in the Web: Server Configuration

In an otherwise excellent article, Jon Udell blames the lack of one-click subscribe in syndication formats on lack of vision; How users will interact with the formats and APIs is...

( 11 comments )

Wednesday, March 10 2004

Google Spam Redux

Someone calling themselves Scott Wiseman has started sending messages to the HTTP-WG mailing list. Although anyone has a right to make on-topic posts to the list, Scott is stretching it;...

( 2 comments )

Sunday, March 7 2004

The Problem With Infosets

An interesting issue poked its head up at the W3C Technical Plenary last week. XML Protocol (known as SOAP to mere mortals) is defined in terms of XML Infosets —...

( 3 comments )

Friday, March 5 2004

The Powerbook is Dead; Long Live the Powerbook

I’ve just got back from a two-week business trip, during which my 15” Titanium Powerbook showed increasing signs of shaking off this mortal coil. Specifically, the bottom 1/3 of the...

( 1 comment )

Monday, March 1 2004

Atom Theme Song?

This just popped up on the iTunes “new releases” list. I think we’re going to see some Atom-related products called “Tomato.”...

( 3 comments )