Recently in Administration Category

I'm out in San Diego for this year's Emerging Technology conference. It's great to be here again. Last year I got to attend a bunch of different conferences as both a speaker and observer. ETech stil remains my favorite because of the ecclectic mix of talented people who speak, attend and, most importantly, interact. This year is at larger location. It still sold out.

I'm doing some reporting from the scene for O'Reilly. My first post is up already. More to follow. Master of Mayhem Robert Kaye is also making posts there too. For more conference coverage look here.

If you are attending and see me in the halls be sure to say hello.

I finally got around to upgrading myself to MT version 3.2. Yipee. Many pent up weblog posts have now been unleashed. For reasons I don't understand I've been shy about hitting post.

In case you where wondering I haven't vanished, but I have been taking some time off from here. I'm also horrendously behind in my answering my email.

A few weeks ago I was feeling rather dull and uninspired about writing. When I looked back at the archives for the past month or so it was confirmed. I'm much more interesting then that. (Really I am.) So I need to make some changes and shake things up. What better way to hit the reset button then to purge my system with some time away?

I'm heading off for a few days of vacation with my family tomorrow. When I get back I hope to wrap up the big project I've been wrestling (another reason for not writing as much) and start with a fresh outlook here.

Joking aside. After 12 hours of being on the go I have made it to the ETech conference – in the physical sense only, the mental part of me should be here in the morning.

I've create a separate weblog, tima@etech2k3, where I'll be doing on-the-scene weblogging throughout the conference for those who are interested and cannot attend – or are attending and are wondering what everyone else is thinking. (My new Apple Powerbook and the conference WiFi network is great.) It has its own RSS feed here for those who want to follow it with their aggregator. I'll be publishing stream of conscience notes and commentary throughout. I prefer the term on-the-scene as opposed to real-time. (Its not real-time because you can't see what I'm typing immediately – though I will publish multiple versions of the same entry often.)

After making my first post to my ETech weblog and as I was writing this Sam Ruby happened by the table I was sitting at. Cool.

I'm off to SF for O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference on Tuesday. I'm going against the grain this year by taking my laptop along, blogging in realtime, and taking digital photos of people. If there's a box, I am out of it. If you're attending as well, stop by and say hello...I'll be the guy with the laptop and digital camera.

Time to join the herd from NYC.

No, I'm not dead. I've just been heads down in many things that has taken me away from blogging here. What time I have in front of a computer, I've been focusing on finishing off the many projects I've started. Overhauling my site to finally get it in order has been on my list for a very long time. Today I finally start doing something about it. Please mind the dust while we work to serve you better.

I just learned that no one has been able to post any comments to the TikiText beta forum I setup. I failed to select them as open before posting. (How embarassing!) Fixed. My apologies to Todd Larason and anyone else I inconvienced. I really want feedback – constructive criticism and feature requests.

I'm catching up on my weblog reading. Jon Udell posted a response to a message I sent him pointing out that he should use XML's CDATA rather then entity encoded HTML content. (Also known as HTML-escaped content) He goes on to quote the mod_content (an RSS 1.0 extension module) specification allowing for this technique to used. (Good point. Missed that.) Userland's 0.92 format document also states that entity-encoded HTML is permitted. He concludes "clearly entity-encoding fits best with current practice. But I agree that CDATA is more desirable for a variety of reasons."

It may be the current practice, but its one that needs to change. The reasons are many if you're a content publisher or developer:

1. Unnecessary file "bloat"
2. Non-standard XML encoding
3. It can be prone to error
4. CDATA requires less processing

Unwittingly, I was just as guilty of not encoding my RSS as I should. MoveableType's default RSS templates use entity encoded HTML. Tonight I modified those templates and CDATA encoded my RSS feeds. If your newsreader can't handle my feed, please let me know. I am told that some aggregators do not handle CDATA encoded descriptions. If you have trouble reading my feeds now, please let me know.

My entries have been so thin lately because I've been with my family on vacation. This post is a quick "catch up" on most of the entries I would have noted if I had the time.

Information Week featured an article on blogging on its front page. "Are You Blogging Yet?" does a pretty good job. It’s exciting to see the use of blogging in business being discussed in a major industry publication like this one. I thought their description of Weblogs was pretty bland and lacked the eloquence or spirit that others like Meg Hourihan have captured in their articles.

The good people who run BlogRoots (which includes Meg) and are the authors of the forthcoming book "We Blog: Publishing Online with Weblogs" have published one chapter on Using Blogs in Business for free online here.

The NY Times asks "How do I set up a Weblog of my own?"

Reuters (via CNET) published a piece on "floppy TV" technology. This is similar to the "electronic ink" I highlighted not too long ago. This is really exciting to me because display technology has been the lagert in the computing space. While the prices have dropped over the years, my monitor has only gotten larger and it still adds quite a bit of expense to desktop systems. The dropping prices of flat-panel LCDs is helpful, but a replacement for my 19inch monitor is more expensive then a loaded desktop system.

The O'Reilly Open Source Convention (OSCON) took place in San Deigo last week. Dan Gillmor blogged his observations and notes the most interesting of the OSCON blogs is the collective one found here using the TrackBack feature introduced in the latest version of MovableType. Incidentally Ben and Mena Trott presented at OSCON. Of note was their avocation of TrackBack in other weblogging systems. Gillmor posted a summary of their presentation here.

Ben Trott: My Favorite Features in Perl 6.

As expected Userland and Salon announced the launch of Salon Blogs. Dan Gillmor writes:

As expected, Salon and Userland have launched Salon Blogs. I believe this could turn into a pivotal moment in the growth of blogging as a media/journalism format of great value and authority.

Congratulations, folks -- you're breaking new ground.

I agree. I'm happier to see clean, readable and well-designed templates being generated by Radio. Not to knock the good people at Userland because I'm not much of a designer myself, but the default templates that Radio use are an eye sore. Too many damn table cells that don't print so well. (Yes blogs are an online medium, but some of us do use it from time to time because paper is still the most portable information device around.) I know they exist, but not by default.

RealNetworks announced an open source streaming media platform project called Helix. Of note is its indended support of Ogg Vorbis the open-source, royalty free audio format that could eventually challenge the MP3 format. Bruce Perens discusses the reasoning of Real's move in this article on CNET.

A highly controversial bill has been introduced into congress that would allow authority to secretly hack consumers if they are caught downloading copyrighted material illegally. Dave Winer and Dan Gillmor, amongst others, weigh in with their outrage on the absurdity of this bills notions and the lengths the entertainment industry are going willing to go to protect their pampered arses.

I've been a bit lax about posting to my weblog, but I haven't given up and I haven't lost interest. OK -- against the grain of my A+ personality I did try and relax over a long July 4th holiday. Despite my best efforts to take it easy, I've been quite busy researching and experimenting with a number of things that are sure to be the source of many future posts here. Before I return to my regular blogging habits here is a little bit about what I've been working on:

> I've been studying the latest version of MovableType (MT) and considering the potential utility for a number of plugins that the latest version supports. Yesterday's announcement of MT-Meta is just the beginning (I hope) of many more. I still remain intrigued by the notion of applying blogging tools and techniques to other realms such a knowledge management.

> In my quest to develop an "outboard brain" be more efficient and organized in my own personal knowledge management, I've been experimenting with MovableType and Jon Udell's Quick and Dirty Topic Mapping scripts, but neither are exactly what I need. I'm an "infovore" that tends to collect a lot of knowledge in the form of bookmarks to interesting editorials and weblog entries in addition to how-to articles. Much to my dismay, my virtual desktop is litered with a labrnyth of directories and URI shortcuts. I also have reams of printed content from when I maintained 2 desks that is sitting in piles and boxes around my home. Ideally a need a hybrid of browser bookmarks and a weblog where I can keep a list of links with meaningful titles, categorize them in a topic map and optionally attach an entry of my own if warranted. (Incidentally developing MT-Meta came out of this endeavor.)

> To this same point, I've also been experimenting with different news aggregators. I've gone through several in my test (see Jon Udell's article on the topic for a sampling) and haven't found one that suits me. Currently am experimenting with Rael Dornfest's blagg with blosxom because its server-based and I can control the organization of newsfeeds -- albeit it more manually then I'd like. Recently Robert Rainwater released an RSSFeeds plugin for MT that my has some promise also.

> I've been working to revive a 6+ year old IBM Thinkpad 365X laptop to serve as a portable Internet access terminal. (My current employment status has left me without a laptop and the means to drop the ~$2k for a new one.) I've made good progress, but didn't finish the job in time for said holiday. The modem failed on me and only having a floppy and parallel port Iomega ZIP 100 drive (No CD-ROM) has added to the challenge.

Its been quite insightful to recall how much faster and easier setting up a system used to be. I also estimate that 50-75% of what I do on a daily basis with my desktop workstation can be achieved on this revived ancient laptop. I tend towards server-based solutions through a browser or lightweight client which makes this possible. Its not that I don't believe the power on our desktops should be better leverage -- I just believe that generally speaking our desktops are overpowered for what is really needed. Without I can say I miss the high-resolution of my 19" 1600x1200 display of my workstation and that memory is going to be an issue. (The 365X is already maxed out at 40MBs.)