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New user? Tuesday, March 30, 2004
Stiffing developers feels good?
Submit Response: Quicksilver vs. Launchbar
Even for someone who isn't a raving open source evangelist, this feels pretty good."
Feels pretty good? Why? How can knowing you contribute essentially nothing (not even good intentions!) to the very people who make your computing experience a simple and pleasurable one (except for Apple) make you feel good?
I continue to register shareware programs that I use, and continue to feel good doing so. Funny that he mentions donationware as something different than shareware. ;-)
It's not a surprise that Jack is not a programmer, nor are the site's other contributers.
When I find Jack's art journalism work I'll remember to use it thoroughly but not support it in any material way. Obviously Jack will understand completely and feel good about it.
Oh, and for the record, I like Launchbar better. I'm guessing its developer likes me better too, considering I've paid for two licenses and referred more than I dare try to remember.
Wednesday, March 24, 2004
Wewease Wahjah!
BBC News: Python film to challenge Passion
I set up a Smart Group in Shrook 2 to find items containing Python, Zope or Plone. It was a nice surprise this morning to find this story about Monty Python's The Life of Brian returning to theatres. :-)
Rexx and Decimal Arithmetic
In days gone by I was a REXX programmer writing shareware scripts on OS/2 that interacted with the SOM-based Workplace Shell. (RIP)
/.: Rexx Is Still Strong After 25 years
I was a little embarassed to see I had never heard of Decimal Arithmetic though, which is very cool.
Dave grew up too, and so have I
I think this is the nicest (as in, most polite/caring and least inflammatory) essay I seen from Dave Winer (on the topic of software) since probably '97. I wouldn't have expected this a year ago. Go Dave!
Dave Winer: The baby squirrels grow up
That ought to be on DaveNet.
When he talks about the people who reported bugs and cheered the new features, who loved too much, who were angry about the changes at UserLand in 1998, I was one of those people. I was very angry at the time, because I loved Frontier, more than was healthy.
I nearly fell into that trap again with WebObjects, but after my experience with Frontier I was better prepared, not as easily fooled into loving software and becoming emotionally attached to its journey.
It's comfortable participating in an open source platform and community. If something doesn't happen, or something doesn't get done as well as I think it should have, I have only one person to blame. Me. And I have so many other responsibilities that take priority over a software platform that my expectations are far more realistic than they would have been a few years ago.
Lately I've taken further steps towards growing up, and ironically it means being a kid again for a while. I'd love to say more about it, but the time isn't right yet. Soon though.
Plone 2.0 released
plone.org PR: Plone 2.0: The Most Productive Content Management System
Congrats to the Plone team for finally pushing the baby out the door. :-) We all went to the Plone conference in October of 2003 thinking 2.0 would be released there. Then we went to COMDEX thinking it would be released there. Then when Plone went to Jupiter we all thought that was 2.0. And then the snow sprint in Austria. But now, finally, it's released, when it's ready.
On to 2.0.1! :-)
How to get your shit together in 10 easy steps
Design Observer: Michael McDonough's Top Ten Things They Never Taught Me in Design School
Thanks to Rafe for posting this link to his weblog.
Tuesday, March 23, 2004
Paul Everitt's oxygen/XSLT demo
If you've ever wanted someone to hold you hand and show you the absolute basics of XSLT, Paul Everitt is here for you. Turn up your speakers, and make sure your Flash plug-in is ready. :-)
Narrated demo of XML/XSLT with the editor
Thanks Paul!
Kuro5hin member switches to Zope
Kuro5hin: Switching from PHP to Zope/Python
A pretty good set of reasons for switching. I don't think someone needs to completely abandon PHP though. There are scenarios where using PHP is better than Zope, simply because Zope is generally slower than PHP.
Use the right tool for the job. Zope is the right tool for the content management job. PHP is good at pushing dynamic pages out fast. And Zope is a good way to make fast PHP pages, because after all, PHP pages are content, and your Zope CMS is a good way to manage those. :-)
Shrook 2: NetNewsWire has company
I installed Shrook 2 today. I had low expectations, and I'll admit the only reason they were low was because the web site was rather unprofessional looking.
Even if the site had been a thing of beauty, this app immensely EXCEEDED my wildest expectations! Shrook 2 is truly awesome software. It has a number of features that are truly incredible, like Distributed Checking (which means you get updates way faster without added bandwidth burden on the RSS feed servers), Smart Groups, the ability to flag (mark) items, and the ability to view the web page the item points to right in the app (it uses WebKit).
Oh, and you can have multiple Shrooks have synchronized subscription lists and read-status of items. That alone is a killer feature. At the bottom of the File menu is an "Import from NetNewsWire..." command. It worked perfectly and seemed to do its job instantaneously on my PowerBook G3 500.
I love NNW as well, but Shrook 2 meets my needs better. I've always wanted to be able to mark RSS items and share my RSS item database over more than one computer. I'm going to give Shrook a thorough evaluation over the next few days, and if it is stable, I will be registering the software.
I never thought we'd see a better RSS reader for OS X than NetNewsWire, but IMHO, Shrook is better. In the long run I hope it ends up being a positive thing for Ranchero rather than a negative thing, but I wouldn't be surprised if I'm not the only person that switches in the short term.
