b.cognosco
Where leaping to conclusions is my primary form of forward motion.
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Holy Shit! Transparent Aluminium Really Exists
Have I Told You Lately...
Five Rules For Running A Conference Panel
What Can Venture Capitalists Do For You?
Can We Get Socially ORL?
Video of Tool Use in New Caledonian Crows
Feds demand more security for online banking
Is Truth More Important in Web Advertising?
The Road Ahead
I-Worm/Mytob Clogging the E-mail System
Friday, October 21, 2005
Qumana Support For API's Questionable
This is a prelude. More to follow.In March of this year I was impressed with the ideas behind a new product called Qumana, which billed itself as a writing tool for bloggers. For many reasons, I think such tools are of growing importance and really wanted to see how Qumana worked. I installed a copy and immediately hit a snag. It seems Qumana has an idiosyncracy that keeps it from working with my host software, Conversant. In short, to communicate with a blog host Qumana needs to get and store a blogID. The space Qumana allows for this ID is just 15 characters. If your blogID is more than 15 characters Qumana truncates the data and throws up - giving no idea what the problem is. In March my host developer and I identified this problem, notified Qumana, and tried to work with the product manager for some resolution. But despite repeated attempts we didn't get any.
This past week Qumana released version 2.0 with lots of new advertising features, but without bothering to fix this limitation. We have again reported it and have, to date, received only the most cursory and noncommittal response. Qumana claims to support All Blog Hosts who support the major blog APIs. Well, Conversant has full support for all three major APIs, but Qumana doesn't support it. AFAIK, the API's don't specify how long a blogID should be, so this is not really an API issue - it's a reasonableness issue.
What is reasonable? Every other blog editor I've used - MarsEdit, BlogJet, ecto, w.bloggar, etc. - didn't have a problem with this. So I'm thinking that a 15-character limit is unreasonable (I didn't realize people still wrote software with such small hard limits for system variables anymore.) Conversant isn't like most weblogging systems. Here the weblog isn't the entire site, it's just one part of a site. and there can be more than one weblog on a given site. In fact, a single Conversant system can host thousands of individual blogs, as it's designed as a group publishing system and not a simple blog host. To limit the blogID to 15 characters is, well, dumb - as evidenced by the fact no other blog editor does it.
More importantly, what is a reasonable response from a software company that promotes itself as a "pro blogger" tool? At minimum, I think it's reasonable to expect that someone at the company spend a half-hour to validate an issue we have investigated thoroughly, invested significant time in, made multiple efforts to explain, and know beyond doubt Qumana is breaking. Then make an up/down decision on whether they want to fix it and let us know. Qumana doesn't owe us a fix, but they owe it to all their customers to be forthright when one raises a legitimate issue against their claims of support and compatibility.
As I said at the top, this is a prelude. This is my second run at this problem because I think the workflow ideas behind Qumana are important. I didn't say anything about it publicly the first time, but now I'm getting frustrated. So far I have not seen the kind of follow through that a pro blogging tool needs. I will post updates here as the situation evolves.
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
Holy Shit! Transparent Aluminium Really Exists
I remember transparent aluminum from the 1986 movie Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home where Scotty talked to a Mac mouse and transparent aluminum helped them save the whales, and thereby the world. Most science fiction has some basis in reality, I guess I just figured it would take a little longer. Time flies [via BoingBoing]
Transparent armor
David Pescovitz: The US Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base is testing a new kind of transparent armor, clear aluminum aluminum oxynitride, that can stop hardcore .30 and .50 caliber armor-piercing bullets. From a press release:ALONtm is a ceramic compound with a high compressive strength and durability. When polished, it is the premier transparent armor for use in armored vehicles, said. 1st Lt. Joseph La Monica, transparent armor sub-direction lead
"The substance itself is light years ahead of glass," he said, adding that it offers "higher performance and lighter weight."
Traditional transparent armor is thick layers of bonded glass. The new armor combines the transparent ALONtm piece as a strike plate, a middle section of glass and a polymer backing. Each layer is visibly thinner than the traditional layers.
ALONtm is virtually scratch resistant, offers substantial impact resistance, and provides better durability and protection against armor piercing threats, at roughly half the weight and half the thickness of traditional glass transparent armor, said the lieutenant.
Have I Told You Lately...
Just how much I hate Outlook?Filed under "Productivity - lack thereof"
Five Rules For Running A Conference Panel
Tony Pierce leaves a recent blog conference with some rules for running a successful panel. These apply to almost everything. Cant think of where they wouldnt help even the funny hats.
- blogging conferences should have extention cords and outlets just as available as chairs
- panels should be limited to one moderator, two panelists, a three minute intro, a twenty minute discussion, and a ten minute q & a
- anyone who takes the stage needs to come prepared with a joke
- blogging conferences should have really good wifi capable of handling all the bloggers in the room
- everyone should have to wear a funny hat on the last day of the panel
What Can Venture Capitalists Do For You?
They can get you partnerships and exposure like this, even when your business is fundamentally broken. |The upside is that maybe, just maybe, this sort of exposure will force the T-guys to fix some of the more visible problems with their service.Washington Post Incorporates Technorati Links
While reading an article in the Washington Post this morning, at first I ignored the boxes to the right that provided additional sources. But then my eyes fell upon the familiar green Technorati logo.
Turns out, the Washington Post links to the weblogs that refer to their articles by incorporating Technorati data. Cool.
[UPDATE] Ah, and it works too. Because I wrote this entry, I showed up on the Washington Post's website. How long before we see spam blogs trying to exploit this? Ads in the Washington Post for pills etc.
Can We Get Socially ORL?
Radio Userland product manager Steve Kirks proposes a new nickname for this weeks geek topic, OPML Reading Lists. I know lots of people hate OPML because Dave Winer thought of it, but I like it (Id love to see a real outliner for windoze that used it) and I like the idea of a standard way of publishing reading lists.
Nick Bradbury of FeedDemon/TypeStyle/NewsGator fame explains a little more what ORL is about:OPML Reading Lists need a nickname
OPML reading lists (an OPML file containing links to selected XML syndication feeds) are the hot topic this month and personally, I'm tired of typing all of those letters. So, in the grandest tradition of the blogosphere, let's find a good way to shorten those words. I'm proposing ORL pronounced "oral". Usage: Person A: "I need new stuff to read. Got any recommendations?" Person B: "Download this "orl" file into your aggregator?" Person A: "What's an aggregator?" Person B: "<SIGH>" ORL isn't the prettiest name, but if I pick something, someone else might make a better stab at it. I'm going to start tagging these types of post with ORL, too.
Then I read where the indomitable Judith Meskill at the Social Software Weblog has finally, unbelievably, indisputably had enough of entering all her stuff into all these different services (I actually felt this way the second time I did it. Judith must have done it hundreds of times.)In a nutshell, the idea is that you'd subscribe to an OPML document which contains a list of feeds that someone is reading, some organization is recommending, or some service has generated (such as "Top 100" list). Changes to the source OPML document would be synchronized, so that you're automatically subscribed to feeds added to the reading list. Likewise, you'd be unsubscribed from feeds removed from the original OPML.
So I have to ask, isn't there a path here for ORL to capture a "lifestream" that populates all these things and just fills them in as we hop from one container service to another? Now, I know we have FOAF and LOAF and RDF and BFD and whatever, but theyre all so freakin complicated I cant deal with them. OPML I get maybe because it gets rendered as a human-readable outline but I get it. I dont know how this stuff works so maybe its all just so-o-o-o-o-o much more complicated than someone like me can grasp. But Id be happy for people to tell me why ORL cant begin to do what Ive described.Swagroll lists and shares your stuff again
I caught a glimpse of Swagroll last week and saw it again on Emily Changs excellent eHub list of Web 2.0 apps and figured Id mention it here. Why didnt I mention it last week? Well... Im of the same mind as Stowe Boyd -why do I feel like Im doing a lot of work Ive already done elsewhere? Add books, music, movies, and more to your own swagroll - my god, do I have to? Again? Didnt we do this already with Delicious Monster? Havent I done this in iTunes? Havent I done this on Amazon? On All Consuming? On Netflix? I have zero desire to do any of it all over again. Zero. [...]
Terry Frazier at 10:53 AM
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Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Video of Tool Use in New Caledonian Crows
Check out this cool video of a New Caledonian Crow deciding she needs to make a wire hook to retrive something.Introduction to tool use in New Caledonian crows
New Caledonian crows (Corvus moneduloides) are known to make and use complex tools in the wild (Hunt, 1996; 2000). We are investigating the cognitive and neural correlates of these natural tool using abilities in a colony of captive crows (the photo shows our first two subjects - 'Abel' and 'Betty' [on the left]; sadly, Abel died of old age in August 2002).
In the wild, the crows make a wide variety of tools from a number of different materials, and we have found that they will also readily do so in captivity, even with unfamiliar materials. They usually remove the leaves and side branches from twigs, and also make tools from other bits of material they find, such as their own moulted feathers (by removing the barbs), cardboard (by tearing it into strips), and leaves. They are even able to use techniques which would not work with natural materials to manufacture a tool for a particular task. We (Weir et al., 2002) found that Betty was able to bend a piece of wire to form a hook, which she then used to pull a bucket containing food from a vertical tube (see movie in panel on left; for more movies, see Photos and movies).
Feds demand more security for online banking
It's become apparent that US banks are simply not going to act on their own to increase security in online banking. Despite the absurdity of using nothing more than a 7-character pasword to protect a person's entire asset base, that's all BankofAmerica has in place. Even though I've written several letters to them complaining about the dangerous lack of security I've never gotten so much as a "how do you do" in response. It's about time regulators actually did something for us instead of to us. [via Freedom News Daily]HoustonChronicle.com - Feds demand more security for online banking
Associated Press BOSTON Federal regulators will require banks to strengthen security for Internet customers through authentication that goes beyond mere user names and passwords, which have become too easy for criminals to exploit.
Bank Web sites are expected to adopt some form of "two-factor" authentication by the end of 2006, regulators with the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council said in a letter to banks last week.
Terry Frazier at 7:05 PM
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Is Truth More Important in Web Advertising?
I’m a Blogjet user, and I like it (this post was created in Blogjet.). This tidbit (found via Jack Vinson) is an interesting little commentary on how our expectations for truth in advertising are increasing. It’s no longer that we just don’t like being lied to (we never did,) but now it’s a matter of “just how stupid do you think we are?”Lies laid bare, fast
Someone is claiming to be the only WYSIWYG blog editor and buying AdWords to prove it. Dmitry Chestnykh, the creator of BlogJet, found something entertaining. Competitor is a liar? The power of telling the truth.
There’s a competitor to BlogJet. I won’t call its name but it has something to do with rockets and posts. One more hint: it costs $150.
I’ve noticed it when I typed "blogjet" in Google and found its AdWords ad that claimed: "Faster than BlogJet". ...
The guy just doesn’t get the nature of the Web and the power of blogs. If you don’t tell the truth, somebody will notice it and blog about it. Then somebody else will see the post and blog about it. Then everyone will be blogging that you’re a liar. Do you want this to happen? No? Tell the truth.
I use BlogJet for authoring, and the company has also created a targeted ad Qumana too. Google for BlogJet or Qumana to see the offending ad. The same thing happens at Lycos, AskJeeves, About, but not at MSN or Yahoo.
The Road Ahead
A group discussion on what trends will most shape our lives in the future. Participants include the usual suspects - Tim O'Reilly, Esther Dyson, Moby, Malcolm Gladwell, Mark Dery, Clay Shirky, David Brooks - but it's still interesting. Some excepts (out of context):TIME Magazine - The Road Ahead
We assembled some of the smartest people we know to identify the trends that are most likely to affect our future. What we got was a fascinating discussion about religion, technology and politics and why no one's golf scores seem to be getting any better.
[...] MOBY: I know a guy in Barcelona who has started a company to develop algorithms to determine whether a song is going to be a hit. It analyzes music to figure it out--and they're selling it to the record companies, and it's quite effective. If you expand on that, there's no reason you couldn't have your own personal search engine that understands your taste and can instantly analyze music based on a whole bunch of different, very subjective criteria to determine whether you might like it. [...]
[...] GLADWELL: One of the big trends in American society is the transformation of the evangelical movement and the rise of a more mature, sophisticated, culturally open evangelical church. Ten years from now, I don't think we're going to have the kinds of arguments about religion that we have today. [...]
[...] DERY: The democratization of available avenues of possibility is always phrased in market-friendly terms. It's about purchasing power--the cornucopia of options available to those who can stuff their shopping carts and proceed to checkout. How many options were available to those who were marooned in New Orleans? [...]
Terry Frazier at 2:31 PM
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I-Worm/Mytob Clogging the E-mail System
I-Worm/Mytob is running rampant today. I've gotten about 100 infected e-mails from customers, even my travel agent. Thankfully I keep my AVG Anti-virus package and firewalls updated. This is such a hassle, and windoze is so crappy. When am I going to get a Mac? Terry Frazier at 10:08 AM
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