Category Archives: uncategorized

From Evan Williams, via the Blogger Developer Network: We will not be implementing or supporting the Blogger API 2.0… Well, thanks for telling us now. We are moving away from XML-RPC… and toward SOAP. Doh! Just when I finally had my half-baked XML-RPC stuff working really well! Dang. Interoperability… Well, OK. I must admit that this would be nice. But I don’t see why it can’t be done with XML-RPC. Why force all of us who make blogging clients learn, test, and implement a new protocol?

Brent Simmons agrees. And I’m with Brent. I may not like it, but there are pragmatic reasons to support it: customers. They’ve paid for a tool and they expect it to work. It’s my job to make it work.

Jake Savin of Userland chimes in as well: Will it be worth it? Will what we have at the end of this process be better than what we already have? I don’t have a crystal ball, but my fear is that we developers will have a large amount of work to do if we want to support this decision, and that the benefit to our users will be negligable. Well said, Jake.

Here’s another link to Ben Trott’s article on Why We Need Echo.

It’s a scary world when Dave Winer sounds like the voice of reason.

Frequency Pro.

More words: I’ve cleared the first major hurdle. That’s good and bad. It’s good because it’s one less hurdle that needs to be jumped. It’s bad because now I can see the remaining hurdles more clearly, and there are several more than I expected.

Here’s hoping for a fall beta, but no promises.

In the meantime, if you’re interested in a beta Frequency 1.2, let me know!

David compares Dave Winer to Batman (the Dark Knight Batman). I don’t know that it’s a comparison I’d draw. It’s true that Dave Winer seems to have little time for niceties these days, but I wouldn’t draw the same comparison. I’d be hard pressed to say what comparison I’d draw, though.

Echo is a new blogging API/format being kicked around. Read more here. Blogger’s behind it, the Trotts are behind it (the Movable Type people), and even Dave Winer is (grudgingly) behind it, so long as personality issues can remain separate.

We were on the way to Jen’s parents’ house for lunch today, as is our Sunday custom, when we were suddenly rear-ended by a Kia. We pulled off the road and soon realized that the driver behind us, the one who hit us, wasn’t at fault. Rather, it was the Ford behind him, who slammed into him so hard that his license plate number can be read backwards on the front of her car.

We were idling when we were hit. The light was red, so we had stopped. The Kia behind us was back a healthy distance from us as well. Then out of nowhere – BAM!

For the record, no one was injured. Grace, Jen and I are fine. The driver of the Kia and his passenger are fine, although the poor guy was driving his sister’s car for the first time. The woman who hit the Kia was fine, but visibly shaken up, understandably. Jen and I offered to drive her home since she seemed so upset, but she felt she could make it. Her car was leaking antifreeze, but she didn’t have far to go, maybe a mile, so we all figured she’d be OK.

While we waited for the Kia driver’s sister to arrive, we chatted rather amicably. It was definitely the kindest collision I’ve ever had to the pleasure to be involved in. The driver of the Kia, who looked about 18 or 19 and was as polite as could be (“Sir” and “Ma’am”), told me he had just gotten back from overseas; he was a Marine. I asked if he was in Iraq, which he was. He was on leave and waiting for his next assignment. I shook his hand and told him that I appreciate everything that the armed forces do for us. I was glad to have that opportunity, and I think he appreciated it. He told us that he was borrowing his sister’s car, since he had sold his before going into the service, to go to church and then take his friend home afterward. Turns out he goes to church right down the road from our house, and knows the drummer on the church’s worship team, who was with us at the retreat we went to in January. Small world.

The Kia ended up with some damage to the front and back, but not as extensive as the damage to the Ford, which will probably be quite expensive to fix. My wagon has a couple scratches on the rear bumper, which seems to be looser than it ought, but nothing major otherwise. I happened to have a digital camera with me (leave it to me to bring a digital camera and forget my cell phone) so I took some pictures of the damage.

As the Kia driver’s sister pulled into the parking lot, he looked at us and said, “I need your help. Please tell my sister this wasn’t my fault. She didn’t trust me driving her car, but you guys all know this wasn’t my fault.” We vouched for him.

Grace mentioned several times later today that she really didn’t like getting hit by that car. Jen and I could only agree.

House guest has returned to her parents. We made the custody exchange at church this morning. Grace is noticably less stressed; she is quite unused to competition for Mommy’s and Daddy’s attention. Overall, the visit went well. House guest was generally well-behaved, as was Grace. Their interaction, however, often left something to be desired.

ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI.

(I’m almost sorry I posted it. Almost.)

Version 1.2 beta 3 for Mac OS X is in my testers’ hands. Now for Classic and Windows. Version 1.2 has some big stuff in it. You could probably figure out one new feature by realizing that I’ve switched to MovableType. 🙂

Click here for the full story, or at least our small part in it. You just never know where a career in educational technology will take you.

For example, I’ve been on more roofs since starting my current job than in all the prior years together.

And leave a nice comment for David, since he’ll be away most of the week at NECC. At least, that’s what he says.

Tried iChat AV video conferencing today. It was very smooth. There was a bit of a lag, but nothing intolerable. David and I just plugged a digital video camera into the FireWire port and we were up and running, video chatting with Joe (who is actually not competing with Mike for the most neglected weblog award). Very cool.

What we didn’t know, however, since it was the first time we tried the new camera, was that the camera was in “demo mode.” A few minutes into the chat, we were sepia-toned. Then black and white. Then negative. Then… well, you get the idea.

The surprising part was quickly the whole experience degenerated. Within ten minutes, we were holding up action figures and other objects to the camera, just to see what it would look like. Robbie the Robot attacked Joe for quite some time. But Joe wasn’t worried; he had Boba Fett to defend him.