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New user? Wednesday, March 15, 2000
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Wired: Mattel Sues Over Blocking Hack. Two awesome programmers cracked Mattel's CyberPatrol censorware product which was written by not-so-awesome programmers (hackers, if you will).
One of the uber-programmers, Matthew Skala is a subscriber to the VLUG mailing list which I also subscribe to. He lives in my home town of Victoria. We went to the same University. This is strange, I'm not used to this kind of thing happening in my back yard! There's been a lot of talk about this ridiculous situation on the VLUG list. Go Matthew Go!
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Dave Winer pointed to a nearly 3 year old DaveNet piece about Apple today. Here's a funny (to me anyway) quote:
"Cancel WebObjects, it's too confusing, grabs too much of the spotlight from the developer community, and it represents an insignificant revenue opportunity for a company as large as Apple."
LOL! The reality, nearly 3 years later: WebObjects has been the crown jewel of the NeXT deal (well, everything in the NeXT deal was a crown jewel, from the software to the people) and WebObjects brings in the 2nd most revenue to Apple on the software side. Only the MacOS itself brings in more money. Even though Apple gave WebObjects NONE of the spotlight.
WebObjects is the best tool for doing serious highly-scalable and highly-maintainable web application development on the market. It captures the awards and the biggest customers. (US DoD, and the US Postal Service, for example. Adobe. Toshiba. Toronto Dominion Bank. PASBC. 
)
Dave Winer responds with a Steve Jobs quote: "If I were running Apple, I would milk the Macintosh for all it's worth--and get busy on the next great thing. The PC wars are over. Done. Microsoft won a long time ago."
And that's exactly what he did! They milked the MacOS for all it's worth, and they got busy on the next great things - iMac, Desktop Video, and Mac OS X. And they're still milking the Mac for all it's worth -- now it's called Carbon. There's still life in them APIs!
Microsoft may have won, but when the DOJ verdict comes through, Apple will have yet another opportunity. MacOS X for Intel. (including Carbon) According to a highly snickered at sources, that's what Apple's up to. Since most of Carbon already runs on Intel in the form of QuickTime for Windows (and thus the logic isn't tied to the PPC or the MacOS ROM toolbox), and the rest of OS X has been running on Intel for over 5 years in the form of OpenStep and Mac OS X Server, this isn't as unbelievable (technically speaking, anyway) as it sounds!
(cough) I linked to PASBC because I was a member of the team that made it!
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Hilarious! Go to MacOSdaily.com and watch the "Video of the week". This guy reminds me of Steve Jobs so much I could hardly pay attention to what he was saying. (hint, don't bother) Except, he doesn't cough like Steve does, he... clicks. One step at a time, oh intellectual one!
Anyway, I kind of liked MacOS Daily (MOSD... their acronym, not mine!) in its old incarnation, so I hope the new one will be good as well.
PS: At least it's not MOSR
Tuesday, March 14, 2000
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Scripting News: "One idea we've been interested in for quite some time is HTML email, so perhaps Firedrop would make a good test case. As you know Manila sends HTML email to subscribers that request it. I know their VCs well, and they know me. From what I've seen it wouldn't take long to build a server app that does what Firedrop does."
Well, I'm not sure exactly what FireDrop does with HTML email from the screenshots, but Conversant's "conversations" (AKA discussion groups) can be configured to act as two-way mailing lists and NNTP newsgroups which can contain HTML.
Here's a great example, on the free-conversant.com support site. A web page, submitted via Netscape Communicator's HTML e-mail client, showing rich text and an aligned image.
True WYSIWYG e-mail to the web. Anyone can use this, even your CEO!
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StarNine: WebStar for MacOS X!
There is a WebObjects adaptor for WebStar which makes it possible to use a WebStar server with WebObjects applications.
Seeing as how StarNine was bought by ACI US yesterday, a company that appears to want to compete with WebObjects with their 4D database product, I'm uncertain whether they'll tout that ability of Web*.
Update: From the 4D and WebStar FAQ:
8. Does this mean WebSTAR Server Suite will no longer support FileMaker Pro?
ACI fully recognizes the importance of third party vendor support for the WebSTAR product range and has no current plans to discontinue WebSTAR's compatibility with any products that it presently supports.
Apache comes pre-configured to run WebObjects apps on Mac OS X Server. I'm not sure if WebObjects will come with Mac OS X, but I'd be (pleasantly) surprised if it did.
Monday, March 13, 2000
have browser, will travel
Run, don't walk, and check out Macrobyte Resource's new Internet Groupware system, Conversant!
Create a free Convesant site there, and try it out. It oozes features... Conversant rocks!
