Categories
Diversity Technology

Coders-only-club strikes again

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Catching up on reading tonight, I stumbled over the following at Mark Pilgrim’s:

 

On a side note, remember that flap just before the holidays about the Coders-Only Club? Well, look at it this way: some people have strong opinions about the way computers should work. Other people have strong opinions about the way computers should work, and back them up with code. It seems obvious to me which people deserve more attention. Maybe that’s just me.

Since this was addressed to little ole me, I thought I should respond.

What can I say Mark? I don’t throw a lot of code around here abouts, primarily because I’ve been saving most of it for the book. Hard as this is to believe for some folk, especially employers in St. Louis, writing a computer book is quite difficult. Especially writing a book on a specification that’s changing, constantly, and working with technology that’s in beta — if I’m lucky.

However, as additional credentials, you all can help yourself to the resume in the upper left-hand corner and take a peek; you’ll see that I’ve thrown my mind around a line or two or 100,000 of code.

It also seems to me, though I am getting older and my brain’s been rattled a tad by the falls, as if I have thrown out code a time or two in this weblog, including a new version of RDF/RSS and other odds and ends. Seems to me that most of technical gentlemen hereabouts didn’t take all that much notice of the little woman and her bits of code. Kitchen things.

(Hey! Isn’t SOAP a kitchen thing?)

Seems to me that some people have put me into a box and are now wrapping that box with a bow and then dismissing me without due consideration, because I don’t put code into this here weblog. But you know, I really don’t like bows, and I really don’t like being clapped into a box. And I really haven’t mastered the skill of pissing standing up so I’ll forgo pissing contests if you don’t mind.

If, and when, I put code out at this site it will be because I want to, for fun, for interest, to help others — not to ‘prove’ something to anybody. And if you want to get into a debate, then you all might want to consider judging a person on the merit of their words, not the elegance of their regular expressions.

Categories
Just Shelley

Trying to save the gooseneck lamp

More detail than ‘Out’…

I fell on the ice last week and hurt my lower back/hip area. It’s been getting progressively worse and today, when I tried to walk around the gentle, flat Tanglewood Trail at Powder Creek, I fell again. Except it was 70 F, and clear trails and I didn’t slip as much as take a step, feel something very unpleasant, yell out “Ow!”, or something to that effect but perhaps a bit stronger, and kind of folded in on myself like a budding flower changing its mind.

What’s worse is that I can’t sit at my desk for more than 20 minutes without some really interesting sensations that kind of make me want to take the gooseneck lamp by the side of the computer and bash it against the desk a 100 times or so.

Right now I’m jury rigged up in bed with pillows and what not and I can access the computer (thank you wireless!). But this only works for an hour or so before the goosenecked lamp starts to look mighty tempting again. This is really tedious.

Sporadic connectivity until body behaves in such a way that gooseneck lamp is no longer in danger.

Categories
Burningbird

Out

Sorry to rescind my offer to take screenshots of your weblogs with Safari. I’m
going to be out of touch for a while, and won’t be checking my email, or this weblog.

Others will be willing, I’m sure, to take screenshots for those of you interested.

Categories
Technology

Apple’s open core

As happened last year with the Macworld conference, you might as well bag writing about anything else because this week will be Apple, Apple, Apple.

Two big stories — a newer, longer TiBook and Safari, Apple’s entry into the browsing market.

I liked some features of the new TiBook such as the backlit keyboard, which I think is one of the best ideas I’ve heard with a laptop; I know I wish I had this with my TiBook. However, I’m less impressed with the length of the TiBook — 17 inches. My 15 inch works nicely, I drag it about the house and everywhere I go with no effort. All that extra length with the new TiBook does is make it too long for most computer carry bags. Heck, it’s too long for most laps.

What Apple needs to do is incorporate all the other goodies into its 15 inch model. Including the airport, Bluetooth, the graphics card, and that nifty backlit feature. That would be a tasty morsel, and I’d be putting up a PayPal donation button to have you all buy it for me.

And the Titanium PowerBooks are still the sexiest computer on earth.

An even bigger story is Apple’s release of the new Safari browser, which I don’t think is a huge surprise, was it? The best place to get a re-cap on all of the excitement is over at Mark Pilgrim’s. He did a nice first review of CSS support within Safari, and links to others who also reviewed the browser. Better yet, everyone else interested has linked to him and they’re all showing up in his referrals. Sticky Strand technology hits again.

I tried Safari and didn’t have too many problems. My weblog is quarked, which makes sense — automatic resizing of table columns that don’t contain any data, such as my outer columns, almost always looks bad in beta browsers. I also tried the browser on my more markup savvy weblogging neighbors such as DorotheaJonathonAllan, and Mark and their weblogs look great. I guess there is somthing to be said for all that they’ve been trying to teach us this last year.

If you don’t have a Mac OS 10.2 equipped machine, holler and I’ll take screenshots of your weblog with the browser and email them to you so you can see for yourself how your pages look.

Despite of all the hooflah about the TiBook and Safari, I was more interested in seeing additional examples of Apple’s unique and successful blend of open source technology paired with commercial interests. Steve Jobs has an uncanny ability to mix the two and have it work. Timothy Appnel captured the essence of Safari and it’s impact on open source when he wrote:

 

Apple’s use of the Konqueror/KHTML rendering engine as opposed to Mozilla Gecko is a bit controversial (or more accurately intruiging), but in the long run will be beneficial to the space. Instead of one open source engine, developers will have more choice and the inheritent flexibility that two different efforts provide.

I agree — two open source engines are better than one. I know it’s going to be a hassle, and we have yet another browser we have to test against with our web pages. However, competition is good — do you want to be stuck only with IE?

The browser’s interesting, and the computer’s sexy, but the top story for me is Apple’s release of an X11 Windows system for Mac OS 10.2. It’s based on the XFree86 project, just like XDarwin, the most popular X11 for Mac OS X at this time. Again, an effective blend of open source and commercial use, and increased competition among vendors.

Apple may have added entries for both the browser and the X11 markets to their stable, but they left the barn door open and anyone with a keyboard and an inclination can trot in and hunker down at the same oat bin.

Categories
Weblogging

Welcome back bird of a feather

Few things could have cheered me up more this week then to hear from my old friend Chris, otherwise known as the great Stavros the Wonderchicken, terror of weblogging and MetaFilter, both; and to read that he’s started his weblog again.

Welcome back my friend. We Birds need to stick together. Kick butt, and take no prisoners.