April 2007 Archives
I just took a first and all-too-brief look at Panic's new Coda application. Coda bears the simple tag line of One Window Web Development, and aims to consolidate a familiar litany of applications used by web developers:
So, we code web sites by hand. And one day, it hit us: our web workflow was wonky. We’d have our text editor open, with Transmit open to save files to the server. We’d be previewing in Safari, running queries in Terminal, using a CSS editor, and reading references on the web. “This could be easier,” we realized. “And much cooler.”
Coda has integrated that familiar workflow into a single app. My quick look included making sure that it could get to my web server using Secure FTP, read files from the site (which it does speedily), editing html and css, and previewing html files. I'm sure it's got a lot more in store, and I look forward to further explorations.
Technorati Tags: osx, coda, coding, web-development
Something I read the other day (maybe it was this post in TechCrunch) pointed me towards Tumblr, which says:
Tumblelogs are like blogs with less fuss. Tumblr is your friendly and free tool for creating tumblelogs.
which got me thinking about what you really need a blog service to do and what makes it easy to post?
Despite my best intention to use my blog to post insightful and well-thought-out original writing, most of the time I'm posting a quick comment, or a link to a cool site or video, or a picture, or quote. While much has been made of the "blogosphere as a conversational medium, I receive very few comments since I've required TypeKey authentication for comments (to defeat comment spam), and trackback is hopelessly broken.
So tumblr's interface, which makes it supremely easy to post a small text snippet, a photo, quote, link, conversation, or video link, makes a lot of sense to me. If anybody asks me now where they should turn to start blogging, I'll point them to tumblr first. This makes a whole lot more sense to me than Twitter, which I'm still having a hard time getting.
Technorati Tags: blogging, tumblelogs, tumblr
I don't know if it's just me, but I'm having a very hard time getting to any Google URL this morning from my Comcast connection at home. Not having a hard time with other network locations.
Some sinister plot, Google problems, or just network configuration issues somewhere in the cloud?
It sure makes me realize just how dependent on Google I've become!
I'm trying to use Outlook (2007) more as my mail and calendar client, but I'm finding it frustrating.
I've got both an Exchange account and an IMAP account set up, with an Exchange address book and an LDAP directory for looking up addresses. I can't figure out how I can get Outlook to search the LDAP address book automatically for names entered on the To: line as I compose an email.
And when I specifically go over to the Address Book search screen, the LDAP searching algorithm seems broken - for instance, if I search Jack Hoffman, I get no answer, but if I search Hoffman, I see he's listed as Jack D. Hoffman. Other email clients don't have this problem.
And one more minor nit - I, like most people I know, tend to sort my email so that the newest messages appear on top. Then I scroll down to where the unread messages start, and work my way up to the newest. Apple's Mac mail app knows that if I've got messages sorted that way it should move up when I delete the message I'm reading. Outlook, by contrast wants to move down, which necessitates two or three more key presses for each message. Multiply that by several hundred messages a day and it's not so trivial as it seems.
Are there some configuration options I don't know about that can fix these issues?
There's an interesting couple of posts in Hooman Radfar's Widgify blog about how some of the assumptions behind the original generation of portals (it's hard to create and aggregate web content, users aren't familiar with the web, etc) may no longer be valid. New technologies such as AJAX, microformats, and Web Services make more dynamic environments possible.
So via convergent evolution, everyone seems to be driving towards a similar information architecture that supports users:
1. Aggregating data and web services
2. Keeping some of this junk private
3. Sharing with the ‘right’ people across networks and devices
4. Oh yea, and making it collaborative at every step (social networks!)
I call this information architecture the Social Aggregator. If the value proposition for the portal was, “we aggregate content for you to consume,” the value proposition for the Social Aggregator is, “we give YOU tools to aggregate, create, and share content.” My buddy Marc Canter calls this concept the DLA, or Digital Lifestyle Aggregator.
Regardless of what you call it, it is a pretty damn powerful concept. And, it is here to stay.
Both of these are worth a quick read:
I was never a sports fan of any sort until six years ago my son, at age 3, decided that baseball was something he liked...a lot. Now that he's nine his ardor has cooled somewhat as his attention has been absorbed by soccer, and fencing, and legos, and his game boy, and the wii, and, and, and...
But in the meantime, I've become a baseball fan. And sometimes, in the spring, when the season is young, even a Seattle Mariners fan can have hope. Like tonight, when Felix Hernandez held on to a no-hitter into the seventh inning pitching opposite the heralded Dice-K and the Boston Red Sox, after the Mariners got whupped 14-3 coming off of four days off due to being snowed out in Cleveland. Mariners win 3-0. Sweet!
I just tried the release candidate for the next generation of Mozilla's Thunderbird desktop email program. Tbird 2 has some nifty new features, including tagging, phishing detection, and a nifty little popup summary display of recent message information when you hover over a folder with new messages.
Perhaps one of the features that will be most appreciated is pre-configured setups for reading Google Mail and .Mac mail, though Thunderbird doesn't appear to see tags on Gmail messages (probably because it's not part of the metadata that the antiquated POP protocol supports - maybe that will change when/if Google adds IMAP access). I also like the little toggle on the folder display that hides the folders that don't contain unread messages - it's almost as handy as Pine's Incoming Folder collection (a ridiculously useful concept that I can't believe hasn't become commonplace in all email programs).
I still bemoan the lack of a real IMAP expunge command - you still have to "compact folders" to get rid of messages that have been marked for deletion.
And I have gotten completely hooked on the way Apple's mail program knows that when you have messages sorted with the newest at the top, if you delete a message the cursor should move up to the newer message on top (if there is one) instead of down to older messages. I haven't seen other mail programs emulate that simple, but smart, behavior.
At any rate, it looks like this is a solid advance for a popular desktop email client. On a related note, Wired has an interview with Thunderbird lead engineer Scott MacGregor where he talks about the continued relevance of desktop email clients:
Wired News: With seemingly every aspect of our data moving toward online apps and away from the traditional desktop model, why is Mozilla still interested in a desktop e-mail client?
Scott MacGregor: We believe the Thunderbird experience is better for moderate to heavy e-mail use. It's much easier to process incoming mail -- anyone who's had to use web mail on vacation to deal with dozens of e-mails can testify to how tedious it can be.
Roger that, Scott!
Technorati Tags: email, mozilla, open-source, thunderbird
I don't know about you, but I don't understand much about colors and how they interact, and when I'm working on web pages that want to look spiffy I never know how to pick colors that work well together.
This Sphere thingy on the Colorjack site looks like it will help a lot!
I'm pleased to see that my UW colleague Jim Loter is blogging again. Jim's an engaging writer as well as a smart and witty fellow.
Welcome back, Jim!
Technorati Tags: blogging, colleagues
Lots of people are commenting on Yahoo!'s announcement that they will begin offering unlimited email storage beginning in May.
That's nice - but my recent experience with Yahoo! mail was the discovery when I went to log in that they had declared my account inactive and deleted all of my mail. They said it was because I hadn't logged in in four months or longer. This despite the fact that I regularly log in and use Yahoo! instant messaging, using the same account name and password.
You'd think that a company that can offer unlimited mail storage, as well as one that makes their authentication available as a single-sign-on facility could notice that a user is logging in to their account on a different Yahoo! service before deleting all their mail.
When I complained to Yahoo! the answer I got was:
Once an account has been de-activated, it is not possible for the Yahoo!
Mail team to retrieve any previously stored information.
Yahoo! Premium Mail accounts do not require access to protect from
dormancy or possible de-activation.
Not very helpful, to say the least.
I for one, won't be relying on Yahoo! mail for anything I really care about, not matter how much storage they're offering.
I've been way too busy to blog much lately - but I have every intention of doing more soon!
In the meantime, this should be of interest to folks working in the identity management space around the Northwest:
****************************************************************
UPCOMING CAMP MIDDLEWARE WORKSHOPS IN PORTLAND, OREGON
CAMP Shibboleth: Flexible Web-Based Authentication and
Authorization * June 25-27, 2007
http://www.educause.edu/camp072
Advanced CAMP: Scaling Secure Collaboration * June 27-29, 2007
http://www.educause.edu/camp073
****************************************************************
JOIN US FOR MIDDLEWARE WORKSHOPS offered by Campus Architectural
Middleware Planning (CAMP) this summer in Portland, Oregon.
LOW EARLY-BIRD RATES END MAY 29--register now to save money.
CAMP SHIBBOLETH: FLEXIBLE WEB-BASED AUTHENTICATION AND AUTHORIZATION
(June 25-27)
* OVERVIEW--This CAMP will offer concrete practice and real-world
experience from institutions running Shibboleth in production for
controlling access to both on- and off-campus services. Participants
will learn the answers to questions such as:
- What is Shibboleth and how does it work?
- What is the business case for it and how can I sell it on my
campus?
- What is the migration path to support intercampus Web SSO in the
future?
- How much identity management infrastructure do I need?
- How can I use Shibboleth to simplify my application deployment
and maintenance?
* AUDIENCE--higher education IT managers, project managers, middleware
architects, and systems analysts involved at a technical, management,
or stakeholder level in supporting Web-based services.
LEARN MORE and REGISTER TODAY at
http://www.educause.edu/camp072
* NEW TO IDENTITY MANAGEMENT? Consider attending the nontechnical,
preworkshop seminar, "Introduction to Identity and Access Management:
The Big Picture," 8:30 - 11:45 a.m. on June 25.
http://www.educause.edu/camp072/12930?product_code=camp072/sem01
ADVANCED CAMP: SCALING SECURE COLLABORATION (June 27-29)
* OVERVIEW--This exploratory CAMP will bring together experts from
across the research and education community to identify, clarify, and
coordinate next steps to support collaborative activities within and
among organizations. The focus will be on identity and access
management services, such as federated authentication and
group/privilege management, and their integration with applications
and application suites.
* AUDIENCE-- Central campus IT strategists, technology architects, and
those in related leadership roles.
LEARN MORE and REGISTER TODAY at
http://www.educause.edu/camp073
OTHER MIDDLEWARE RESOURCES
* Get started with identity management
http://www.nmi-edit.org/
* View NMI-EDIT's Enterprise Directory Implementation Roadmap
http://www.nmi-edit.org/roadmap/dir-roadmap_200510/index-set.html
* View NMI-EDIT's Enterprise Authentication Implementation Roadmap
http://www.nmi-edit.org/roadmap/draft-authn-roadmap-03/
* Access PROCEEDINGS from past CAMP meetings
http://www.educause.edu/camp
* Browse RESOURCES and sign up for E-MAIL ALERTS on middleware
http://www.educause.edu/Browse/645&PARENT_ID=285
* Subscribe to the Net@EDU Identity Management Working Group mailing
list
http://www.educause.edu/IdentityManagementWorkingGroup/928
* Learn more about the NMI-EDIT technical development lead by the
Internet2 Middleware Initiative
http://middleware.internet2.edu
CAMP SPONSORS
CAMP is sponsored by the National Science Foundation Middleware
Initiative-Enterprise and Desktop Integration Technologies (NMI-EDIT)
Consortium: Internet2 and EDUCAUSE. Additional support was provided by
the National Science Foundation OCI-0330626.
