September 2000 Archives

HP has an API called Jena for manipulating RDF in Java. I’m definitely going to check this out.

Ever the outliner enthusiast, I downloaded Omni Outliner. It’s not half bad. Not to mention that it runs on one of my favorite OSes. ;-)

For those of us running Apple’s new beta OS, Stepwise is your source for the useful, cool, and interesting applications we need.

Jim Roepcke’s got his copy of Mac OS X, too, and posted his first message from the Uber-OS.

The first post from… Mac OS X Public Beta! Oohhh, yesss!

I’ll post more later, but… Damn! This is nice.

I’ve been thinking about RDF again, this time as a means of describing relationships in software design. Business Processes, UI Screens, Participants, Database Tables - these all become resources, and the properties show the relationships between them. A Participant Uses a UI screen, a UI Screen Implements a Business Process, Participants Perform Business Processes… My analyst co-worker is drooling.

Mozilla on RDF.

XNS, or eXtensible Naming Service, is an XML+agent technology. Using XML is great, but XNS seems to have patented the agent technology (idea?) used with the XML. I think this will actually hinder the adoption of what seems to be an otherwise interesting idea. If we have to license XNS’s agent patent in order to write compatible applications, then why use XML in the first place? I’m going to watch this one. [via Good Morning Silicon Valley]

MacAddict has an article on swiping the dev tools from Darwin and installing them on the OS X Public Beta.

“This is frighteningly close to the thin line that separates geekery and madness.”

Mmmmmm, madness.

(Via “HBWT”) Microsoft has changed its pricing on Windows licenses, going after the lucrative “what-you-do-with-it-after-we-sell-it-to-you” market. It effectively doubles the price of the OS for small to medium businesses, and oh, and it’s going to make them another $11 bn in revenue.

This is the link. I’m putting it here so I can find it later. This article is about XML, but it contains this high-quality quote re: the MVC architecture:

“Full-fledged MVC apps can have one other attribute: they can be event-driven. That is, when the user interacts with the application there is an event at the system level; controllers sense that event. Then, based on the controller’s interpretation of the system event, the Controller manipulates the API exposed by the Model to effect a change in the Model’s data. The Model, in turn, propagates a program-level event to all registered Views, and those Views then jump into action and look back to the Model to update the display of information for which they, and only they, are responsible. This enables MVC apps to be loosely-coupled and to be very effective, flexible and robust.”

This article also goes into some other model-twisting ideas about XML, contentr, documents, and programming. I like it. I really need to get out more - I’m missing things like this I should have seen earlier.

You can see how much here.

This is me, this weekend, in the garage. Notice, if you will, the Lava Java t-shirt, a gift from grateful coffe-house owners in Hawaii after I designed a new logo/packaging scheme for them for a design school project. (This shirt bears the previous logo. Full disclosure: they never used my work, after all.)

This shirt is 7 years old, has survived several rock-climbing trips (during one of which it was used to protect a rope and ‘biner), and is my most comfortable, most beloved t-shirt.

Been looking into RDF again… there’s gotta be an app in there somewhere. A problem I see is that sometimes metadata is used to define data… something it isn’t equipped to do efficiently. At a later time I may try to backup my statements, but not on the few hours of sleep I’m running on now.

Sorry about the orientation on some of these… I haven’t had time to clean them up.
Jodi scraping paint in the Trunk Room (it’s a Victorian term)

The Trunk Room

The new wall and closet

Inside the new closet

Window frames dry after painting

Man with Fire.

Happy, is Man with Fire.

Fire! Fire! Fire! Hehe!

I’ve got a bunch of pics from this weekend, working on the house and such… I’ll get them uploaded a bit later.

The first of the pics are up:

“Weekend Images: Steve And Torch”

“Weekend Images: I can see clearly now”

“Weekend Images: Closets and Trunks”

Yeah, here I am in Baltimore, after getting up at 5:00 this AM… yuck.

Wheatus - Teenage Dirtbag

Seth and crew just landed a big one.

“On Friday morning, I received the phone call I’ve been waiting for since May. A huge prospective customer, one of the largest companies in the world, finally decided to approve a large project proposal and has already opened a purchase order.”

I’m really glad to see Macrobyte getting Conversant some exposure. This is a world-class system, that deserves the attention.

"to the man behind the curtain." Actually, do pay attention to the loads of webloggers who got together to participate in a fine bouquet of net community.

This was a looooong weekend. And I don’t mean the number of days.

I spent the weekend giving blood, sweat, and pain to my 90-year-old Victorian house, which I love, and hate, alternatively. OK, the blood really went to the mosquitos, but the sweat and pain went to the house.

I finished rebuilding the most water-damaged window in the house - a project I started enthusiastically last weekend. It took a long, back-breaking time with a torch and putty knife to heat and scrape the layers of lead-containing paint from the wood (wearing a respirator, of course), then sanding, filling with wood putty, priming, and finally two coats of Victorian White. Times that by two sashes, the casement, and 9 stops (the strips that hold the window together) and it equals one tired, achy Steve.

I was just reminded that the Common Log format does not include domain-name reverse lookups. I am really out-of-touch with my servers. I haven’t looked at a raw server log since leaving Germany in April ‘98, when I used to read over our Free-BSD server’s Apache logs. Sigh

Architosh has a good article covering their first look at Mac OS X.

After signing up for the (hopefully) hugely sucessful “Behind The Curtain” project, I wasn’t able to get ahold of a camera for either day. Although I now have a camera I could use, and could still take and post photos, they would not be from the correct days, and that’s the whole ponit. So, I’ve decided not to participate. I hope we’ll do this again sometime.

They Have it, we want it. Yeeeessss. I signed, you should too.

Three Doors Down - Kryptonite

“If I go crazy will you still call me Superman?”

I ordered this today. Status: “Being Assembled”. I know it’s a beta OS, but really… “Hurry up, compile faster! Customers are waiting!”

Someone named Dave made a complete medievil village out of Legos. Very nice! (Via Brian)

This will be my last post on http://redmonk.editthispage.com/.

I finally got Redmonk.Net hosted on a server with a content management system on the backend, hosted by Macrobyte Resources, on their Conversant internet groupware application.

Many thanks to “Dave” and Co. at “UserLand” for hosting Redmonk.Net all this time. Manila’s features have made my weblogging life wonderfully easy.

So why move to Conversant?

Conversant is an amazing, powerful application. It is, truly, more than a content management system. But it is also, truly, a great content management system. The depth of features provided by Seth Dillingham and crew is astounding. I’ve been using it for two weeks now and I’m still discovering how powerful this application is.

Yes, I’m gushing. Deal with it. “;->”

So, today I roll out the new Redmonk.Net, complete with it’s proper url, new look and feel, and new features. Come on over!

It’s coming!

Apple Licenses Amazon’s 1-Click(TM) Nonsense

This is surreal. I keep looking for the bogus URL or date to tell me this is an April Fool’s joke or something. Can they take this seriously?

This is foolishness… what was Apple thinking? More accurately, what was Steve Jobs thinking? Was Steve Jobs thinking?

A good article about new technologies that are Internet, but not Web. (Via “Bump”)

Gratuitious Recursive Link.

This will be my last post on http://redmonk.editthispage.com/.

I finally got Redmonk.Net hosted on a server with a content management system on the backend, hosted by Macrobyte Resources, on their Conversant internet groupware application.

Many thanks to Dave and Co. at UserLand for hosting Redmonk.Net all this time. Manila’s features have made my weblogging life wonderfully easy.

So why move to Conversant?

Conversant is an amazing, powerful application. It is, truly, more than a content management system. But it is also, truly, a great content management system. The depth of features provided by Seth Dillingham and crew is astounding. I’ve been using it for two weeks now and I’m still discovering how powerful this application is.

Yes, I’m gushing. Deal with it. ;-)

So, today I roll out the new Redmonk.Net, complete with it’s proper url, new look and feel, and new features. Come on in!

Conversant now has event calendars! Way to go Macrobyte!

Today is the second day of Behind The Curtain, A Day In The Life Of Webloggers.

I’m participating - you can check out a sort-of-live version on my webcam.

DW, re: Manila: “We use the tools, we’re sick of how awful we are, but we also know that they’re the best that are available anywhere. What a conundrum.”

I’ve been using Conversant for a week. I’m sorry Dave, but Conversant trumps Manila in every way except for initial ease-of-use. After a week I know where to find almost everything I need right now, and there’s more power to be found when I’m ready for it.

On Being A Geek

Per Rob O.’s recomendation, I ordered Jon Katz’ book “Geeks” (From Barnes and Noble) and started reading it tonight. My wife just finished “Microserfs” , by Douglas Coupland, and loved it. She’s already started again. Why mention Microserfs? Because like “Geeks”, “Microserfs” deals with what makes me tick.

I loved “Microserfs”. Douglas Coupland’s writing is personal, funny, ironic, and touching, all without going completely overboard. As a longtime nerd many things in Coupland’s book touched a nerve in me.

Katz’ “Geeks” is turning out to be a whole different experience. “Geeks” takes the clean-LEGO world of “Microserfs” and rubs off the shine, exposing the pain and isolation of not fitting in, as well as the triumph of being indispensible to a new world of communication. Coupland’s “Microserfs” is a novel, “Geeks” is simultaneously an expose and a manifesto, part reality-based television and part Declaration of Independence.

I’ve only gotten through the first two chapters in “Geeks”. I think I’ll have more to say later, but for now,

Ciao

—Steve

Seth, of Macrobyte and Conversant fame, also known to some as “The Optimizer”, breaks a personal record. Way to go Seth!

Major Kudos go out to Seth Dillingham and Macrobyte Resources, makers of fine content management systems and groupware for the web gourmet.

Well, on my machine, http://www.redmonk.net/ points to this site. Woohoo! Thanks to Macrobyte and Network Solutions.

Of course, I still have to edit the site at http://www.free-conversant.com/redmonk/, since the cookie isn’t converted yet…

I’ve spread the template around the site a bit… Now I’m squashing GUI bugs and finding the remnants of old tempalte lying around.

I’ve also got some images from my work cam that I’m going to spread around.

My name is Steve Ivy, and I run redmonk.net. I’m a web developer by trade, formerly of U-Haul, Compass Technology Management, CBN, and ArtLab Europe. My unofficial title could be web architect, designer, and Conversant/XML/R.E.M. evangelist.

I discovered the web back in 1994, when Mosaic was really cool. The office I worked in as a graphic design production assistant was next door to the local ISP. I convinced the owner to get an account. To grind out a cliche: The rest was history. [I should clarify: I was not at all involved in the development of Ethicom’s site. Pity- it’s a nice site. -)]

In 1996 I found myself in Germany working for a great design studio, ArtLab Europe. I knew that the web thing was going to be big (honest!) and again convinced my boss (Thanks Joseph!) to let me do some investigating. Soon I was neck deep in FreeBSD, BBEdit, perl, and the Bare Bones Guide To HTML. We quickly found ourselves with a rock solid FreeBSD-based web server internally, and we transformed ArtLab into a graphic design and web design studio.

I also discovered UserLand Frontier in 1996. For a long time it was like discovering sliced bread. Check out Frontier here. Since then I discovered WebObjects, and I’ve been spoiled for web development ever since. Go Apple, go Apple, go Apple…

In 1998 I stumbled onto XML; totally by accident, even before there was an XML.com. ArtLab was working with a client who was transforming XML-stored content into PageMaker-compatible markup and delivering it, simultaneously rendering a website. The penny dropped, and it’s been a crusade of mine ever since, much to the annoyance of several groups of co-workers to date. Well, no one’s perfect.

I’m certifiably crazy about Mac OS X. You should be too.

I am a rabid, ok, maybe not rabid, but really really fan of R.E.M.. I missed seeing them in Hamburg, Germany when Bill Berry had something pop in his head, and darn it, they decided to skip some shows. Imagine that.

Should we talk about the weather?

So what do you do on an evening that you’re bored and don’t know what to do? Why, build a Mac Plus out of LEGO, of course!

image for site

is coming along well. Conversant’s style sheet editor is great. The form interface takes a lot ofthe guesswork out of “what do I put where?”

This is a test page. This is test content.

Doc Searls has an article on Jabber, an XML-based chat client and server, in the Sept. Linux Journal. Looks like good, technical reading.

Resetting Templates.

This is great. I want a copy of that chart.

sorry about the mess. i was editting temapltes when i broke them. still trying to fix it.

I love seeing what others are doing on the web. At the main Free-Conversant site, MacroByte has a list of other sites that are using Conversant. Check ‘em out! You may learn something too!

MacFixit, resource extraordinaire for Mac in trouble, has started a Mac OSX page. Here’s to all you black belts out there: Welcome to the future, and don’t give up!

Anyone doing Java development and need a good resource on OO design? Try this PDF. Trust me.

Soulwax - More Than This: “Working hard putting the skin on baloney.”

From Apple’s OSX Public Beta - Extreme Internet page:

“We’ve integrated WebDAV into Mac OS X in innovative ways, making it easy to access WebDAV servers from the Finder like any other file server and giving applications the ability to open and save documents to the web.”

I love seeing Apple embracing all the right standards. And I still love seeing them creating ones, too.

Hi- if you want to see me at work, check out my webcam. See ya round the ‘net!

Update: link OLD. broken. sorry.

XMLMag:

“The important thing about XML is that it means that your software can be replaced. Now this may not sound like an advantage, unless you work for a software vendor who’s being sued for antitrust, but it actually is an advantage for everyone. Because users have choice, there are fewer reasons for them to wait. And we can have diversity. Not only will there be desktop editing tools for Windows, but there will be equivalent tools for people who use Macs. Maybe someday Unix will be a great writing platform, or maybe something revolutionary and wonderful will come along that no one has ever heard of that you’ll want to use to edit your Web site. In the software business you never can tell what’s coming next, and with open interfaces the new things can easily be compatible with the old. “

I’ve been selling this idea for 3 years - Dave says it well.

I know the look and feel on this site isn’t as… “interesting” as the one on my usual site, http://redmonk.editthispage.com, but give it time. I’ll be redoing this site shortly, and I may even move redmonk.net here. Who knows?

Well, I made it through the night without another dose of Vicodin… I guess there are advantages to not having a nerve. <grin>

Garret over at array and Susan Kitchens (2020 Hindsight) are organizing “Behind the Curtain” - a ‘24-hours’ project documenting the lives of the webloggers - yours truly included.

mmmm, feeling good.

I’m home from the dentist, one incisor’s nerve poorer, and just took my first dose of Vicodin. If you’ve ever been on Vicodin, you’ll know that I’m expecting to lose interest in typing soon, so I’m going to post while I can.

If you’d like, here’s a nice FAQ about Vicodin.

This is a Lego Mac Plus I created some months back. It’s been a fixture on my NT machine ever since. I got my first Legos at age 4, and was an avid builder until my late-teens. Even now when I get a chance I pull out the small box of several hundred Legos (those that survived my childhood and that of my two brothers) and have some fun.

UPDATE 2005-03-01: New image, as the old one was lost in the site move.

I am dead tired. My bout with dental pain last night drained me, on top of depriving me of three hours of much needed rest. Concentration is difficult.

“Nate” and I spent 5 hours one night building this… LEGO rocks.

I’m using Conversant’s builtin NNTP server to post this message. NNTP isn’t a complicated protocol, but it’s rare to see this level of integration in a Content Management System. Hats off to Seth Dillingham and Macrobyte Resources for their work and creativity.

Interesting conversation with “Jim Roepcke” about writing CMSes this morning on AIM. Lots of issues involved - more than most people realize.

Conversant is pretty powerful. Confusing at times, but powerful. I changed templates on this page, now I get a weblog editting form on my home page. Yay!

Day two on the new Redmonk Conversant-powered weblog. So far my day sucks, starting at 2 am this morning when I awoke with a throbbing pain in a tooth. It kept me up til almost 5 am. So now I have an appointment for a root canal this afternoon. Ugh.

So how’s your day going?

Welcome to my new conversant site. Ok, it’s actually an old site. I started this site a while back when looking into conversant, and here I am again!

—Steve

Go Here.