Quote: Nine days ago was the one year anniversary of our incorporation of Six Apart (prior to that we were a LLC). In this last year, we went from two people working out of our apartment to a company of twenty-four.
Randy: Congrats to Six Apart. Now, if someone can find me a cool job (paid hobby), life would be perfect.
I got this non-subscribed newsletter email from Bill Gates. Hmmm!
As this month ends, IE was responsible for < 63% of the total hits. Down from 87% this month last year. The difference is almost entire made up of the growth in RSS readers.
- Netscape 8%
- Bloglines 2.5%
- SharpReader 1.8%
- Radio 1.1%
- NewsGator 0.5%
- FeedDemon 0.5%
- FeedService 0.5%
- Opera 0.3%
- RssBandit 0.3%
- NetNewsWire 0.3%
- nntp//rss 0.2%
- Feedreader 0.2%
- Mozilla4 0.2%
- PubSub 0.2%
Ever wonder how much the rest of the world pays. You'll need these functions to figure it out. You're still paying less than us CDNians and half of most of western Europe.
' Convert from US gallons to liters, and vice versa
Function USGallonsToLiters(ByVal gallons As Double) As Double
Return gallons * 3.785
End Function
Function LitersToUSGallons(ByVal liters As Double) As Double
Return liters / 3.785
End Function
As I'm currently evaluating a new email solution, this is of interesting to me. Now, if only I didn't hate Google for passing on RSS.
source evhead.
Quote: In a scene reminiscent of Somalia, frenzied crowds dragged the burned, mutilated bodies of four American contractors through the streets of a town west of Baghdad on Wednesday and strung two of them up from a bridge after rebels ambushed their SUVs.
Quote: Congratulations to Dave Winer for doing Scripting News for seven years (as of tomorrow).
Randy: Can it be that Winer has been blogging for seven years? The big weirdness is that the longest running blog was started on April 1st 1997, April Fools day? iBLOGthere4iMaFOOL?
Update: Long thought that Winer was the longest running blog, the truth is that Leslie Michael Orchard has been blogging since the April 1970.
Here's the WSDL, C# and an abstract implementation w/ documentation for PaSSAPI. This is a Request For Comments in order to first introduce and receive feedback for making this a great API.
Where did PaSSAPI come from?
PaSSAPI started as an idea of Dave Winer, which I stole from him when he didn't pursue further. Dave introduced the idea of Portable and Simple Syndication, which would allow RSS 2.0 element to be used w/in other XML grammars. Originally, Dave called the format PSS. I renamed it PaSS and released version 1.1 last December. PaSSAPI is an API built on top of PaSS.
How did I develop PaSSAPI?
PaSSAPI was developed entirely by writing a WSDL file that described the methods of MetaWeblogAPI and BloggerAPI. The first implementation is entirely in SOAP, but I plan to release an HTTP GET and HTTP POST version in the near future. I may also add methods and welcome suggestions.
Why not just use MetaWeblogAPI?
MetaWeblogAPI uses a great Web RPC called XML-RPC. Unfortunately, I wanted a protocol that worked equally w/ SOAP, HTTP GET and HTTP POST. By allowing use of SOAP, you can actually send PaSSAPI request over alternate transports like SMTP. XML-RPC is bound to HTTP. Also, XML-RPC method calls cannot be expressed in WSDL and I'm pretty upset at Microsoft and IBM for this failure.
Why not just use AtomAPI?
AtomAPI uses another great Web RPC called REST. Unfortunately, REST like XML-RPC is bound to HTTP and cannot be expressed in WSDL.
Is PaSSAPI competitive to AtomAPI?
Not really. I didn't take the time to incorporate the ideals of Atom into PaSSAPI. If you want to use REST and Atom syntax, then I suggest you continue to use AtomAPI, but if you want a lightweight protocol that works out of the box w/ existing tools, then you might want to consider PaSSAPI.
What do you mean by Works Out-Of-Box?
Any tool that sucks in WSDL can be made to work w/ PaSSAPI in minutes. Trying to do the same in WSDL incompatible technologies takes man-days, if not man-months of effort and is generally bug laden.
What do you mean by lightweight protocol?
By lightweight, I mean that the entire protocol is described in a 400 line XML file and requires very little code to implement.
What is down the road?
First, iM going to listen to the feedback, then I plan on incorporating some of the feedback into the API and finally I will start releasing tools, like C# and Java client and server interfaces.
iM experimenting w/ retrieving my kbcafe mail into Yahoo! mail in order to use the SpamGuard feature. This is a free service (not premium). I'll report on my successes. This also means, no more Outlook for receiving email, which iM pretty happy about.
Update: Got my RSS Validator email from Dave Winer and a daily digest of the syndication mailing list. No SPAM yet. Figures. When you want the SPAM, you can't get any.
Update: Okay, now I'm annoyed. I don't remember the last time I checked my Inbox and found no SPAM. Give me SPAM! Please!
Update: Okay, I got one SPAM. SpamGuard didn't catch it, but I reported it. A slow and unfortunate start.
Update: It hasn't blocked any SPAM yet. Doesn't seem to block SPAM from external POP accounts.
The next year, his first in the Ontario Hockey League, Bertuzzi missed the end of that season and the beginning of the next when he was suspended 15 games for kicking a Kitchener player.
The year after that, in his own locker room, for no apparent reason other than jealousy, he punched out teammate Jeff O'Neill, who at the time was Guelph's prized first-round pick.
In the NHL, Bertuzzi punched linesman Jean Morin in a 1996 scuffle and ended up suspended for three games before losing 10 more games to suspension for jumping the bench to attack a Colorado player in 2001.
I went to the registry of motor vehicles to renew my license. When I handed the clerk a check to pay for the license she asked for some identification. I pointed to the renewed picture license that she was holding in her hand.
:)
Something that I have been realizing more and more these days is the problem of proliferation of passwords. This has increased exponentially as more and more secure Websites come online. At the tipping point, people beginning to realize that capturing username and password combinations is more profitable than capturing email addresses. This is because the mundane user tends to use the same username and password on many systems. You can then steal someones profile and possibly access private information or even steal assets on the Internet. There are several possibilities that lead to this problem.
- An unethical employee @ an ethical company downloads the password database and begins exploring the use of those passwords on other systems.
- An otherwise ethical but financially troubled company begins exploring the use of those passwords on other systems.
- Unethical companies beginning creating new attractive communities that require password signup in order to acquire passwords.
My suggestion is to keep all of your financials off of the Web. Don't do online trading. Don't do online banking. Anything on the Web is fair game and don't think anything is secure. Use one set of passwords for all mundane Websites that don't have secure information or financials and don't use those passwords otherwise. Use many unique passwords for all Website that have secure information or finanicals. Don't use password aggregators period.
Quote: Probably an accurate source: Gates points to 2006 Longhorn release. Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates on Monday pointed to 2006 as the release year for the next version of Windows, code-named Longhorn.
source Alec.
--- Regular Season --- ---- Playoffs ----
Season Team Lge GP G A Pts PIM GP G A Pts PIM
1987-88 Ottawa 67's OHL 61 13 24 37 24 13 0 0 0 0
1988-89 Kitchener Rangers OHL 60 18 45 63 26 5 1 0 1 4
1989-90 Kitchener Rangers OHL 66 36 68 104 102 17 9 14 23 31
1990-91 Kitchener Rangers OHL 63 40 71 111 90 6 0 5 5 10
1991-92 Canadian National Team Intl 1 0 0 0 0
1993-94 Cornwall Aces AHL 5 0 0 0 0 -- -- -- -- --
Joey was a childhood friend of mine.
The Mission
LiveJournal.org is the "non-profit" wing of LiveJournal.com.
While LiveJournal.com, the site, relies on money from users to pay for the servers and bandwidth, the LiveJournal code remains free.
The Source
The LiveJournal source is available through CVS. More information on the CVS repository, including how to browse the source online and download it, are available at cvs.livejournal.org.
Changes to CVS are posted as they happen on the LiveJournal changelog.
Quote: These comments are for Steve. Steve I just want to apologize for what happened out there. I had no intention to hurt you. I feel awful for what transpired. For Steve's family, I am sorry that you had to go through this and I am sorry about, again, what happened out there. I am relieved to hear that Steve will have a full recovery. It means a lot to me to hear those..that that's going to happen. I want to apologize to Mr. Burke, Mr. McCaw, the Vancouver Canucks organization and my teammates.
To the fans of hockey, to the fans of Vancouver, for the kids that watch this game, I am truly sorry. I don't play the game that way. I am not a mean-spirited person. I am sorry for what happened.
- Randy: "I had no intention to hurt you." Ummmmm! Lie. There was motivation.
source Alec.
iM consistantly amazed at the recurrence of errors @ technorati. On occasion I've had the opportunity to discuss the problem at Technorati w/ Sifry and other Technorati staff. Their response is that they are having short-term problems that should be fixed in the next while. After six months of new versions of Technorati w/ recurring issues, I no longer have to wonder what the problem is. They simply have no idea how to scale their application.
Several months ago, I informed them of four major issues that I found in their application and they have not fixed any one of the four issues. In fact, one of the issues dates back six to twelve months and I've informed them of the problem on four or more occasions. Try login in using my username 'randymorin', any password.
Update: Now the positive. Technorati is indexing over 2 million blogs. Wow!
Quote: President Bush endorsed a constitutional amendment Tuesday that would restrict marriage to two people of the opposite sex but leave open the possibility that states could allow civil unions.
Randy: This is morally equivalent to not allowing woman to vote.
Quote: 724 Solutions (NASDAQ: SVNX; TSX: SVN), a leading provider of next-generation IP-based network and data services, today announced the final phase of initiatives to reduce its cost structure and to position the company to achieve profitability in 2004.
Randy: Hmmm, wonder who was laid off? They replaced Greg and joined the RSS tornado while I was in the south.
Quote: A "terrible, terrible thing" has happened in the past two years, he told developers here. The software industry has become so fixated on new specifications that it has lost sight of the fundamental goal: using XML to link software applications together. While some new specs that have been proposed are important and useful, others are too complex and still others will probably never be used, including some from Microsoft, he said.
Randy: Here we are a year later and nothing has changed. Now we're talking about REST instead of SOAP and still the applications remain non-existant. We are bogged down in spec-dom. Change the first sentence w/ "in the past three years."
iM going to spend a few days fixing up my blogging software. First, the software now automagically updates the archive.xml file. Next, I'll get the commentapi and trackbacks working. Maybe then bloggerapi and metaweblogapi and finally passapi.
Quote: Yafro is an online community brought to you by the guys that started HOTorNOT, Jim and James. You can create your free online picture journal using your camera phone or digital camera and share them with friends or make new friends too! Have fun!
Me on Yafro. Note: These pics are the tame ones. Really!
Ok! Ok! You want pics of Disney? I have some. Here's the pictures that were taken by myself and my daughter, w/ a $20 USD digital camera. The pictures are quite low quality. I might get my old digital camera repaired. Nah!
We spent a large amount of time hounding the characters for autographs.
Here's the kids.
Coming into my Website.
- base64 encoding
- base 64
- martha stewart's jail cell
- ping icmp
- base64 encoding algorithm
- my resume
- hipster.com
- C++ tricks
- buggatti
- how to ping
- base64
- spiral development
- sleep C++
- netmon ui
- string replace C++
- c++ hello world
- c++ ado
- oop concepts
- microsoft netmon
- Base64 encoding
- C# smtp
- stl string replace
- SMTP+filetype:pdf
- std::string replace
- ping ICMP
- pop3 howto
Sam Ruby has always told me to make concrete proposals on the Atom Wiki, rather than marking my opinion. As such, I intend in the next while to propose a new vote to replace the existing Atom format w/ RSS 1.0. From what I can tell, more than half of the active members of the mailing list have agreed w/ me that they would favor re-use of RSS 1.0. And u know who u r. I expect those votes and not the regular cower I see when confronted by the Atomic trolls. And u know who u r.
Update: I've added a prelimenary pro RSS 1.0 page to the Wiki.
Update: Cool, I got responses from surprising people. I think I have more support than I thought.
Update: The discussion has moved to the rss-dev and atom-syntax mailing lists.
This is an open letter that I'm drafting intended for the IETF in order to try to bring about a progressive Atom, instead of the current re-invent the wheel Atom that is being presented to the IETF. I hope to receive feedback in comments and via email from those who have opinions either way. Suggestions welcome.
Let's begin w/ an enumeration of the issues, why I think Atom is wrong.
- We already have RSS 1.0 and RSS 2.0, both of which are sufficient, why do we need Atom?
- Atom API cannot be implemented by software that doesn't support unpopular HTTP methods like PUT and DELETE.
- Atom API breaks current Web service interoperability by "Not being SOAP."
- Atom cannot be expressed in XSD or WSDL, two Internet standards.
- Atom does not build on existing standards, but rather re-invents the wheel where existing standards are already sufficient.
- Atom is more about the politics of dethroning David Winer, than moving forward.
- A large part of the Atom movers are the same people that tried to take control of RSS from Winer by introducing RSS 1.0.
- A large part of the Atom movers are the same people that tried to wrestle Weblogging APIs from Winer, i.e. Blogger API and REST Log.
- Atom is aggressively frowned on by a large portion of the Weblogging community.
- The Atom movement was started by an employee of IBM, is incompatible w/ WSDL and IBM has a copyright on the WSDL standard.
- The IETF chair may include an employee of Sun and co-inventor of XML who has constantly talked in favor of RDF and the Semantic Web, yet Atom does not re-use the RDF syntax.
What I'd prefer.
- RSS 1.0 or 2.0 over SOAP.
Please note this is not an attack against anybody, just my opinion, which is obviously different from those that I will mention in the letter.
Quote: After years of growing public concern about spam, President Bush signed into law the Can-Spam Act of 2003 (the Act) that went into effect on January 1, 2004. Unfortunately, a recent survey suggests that spam is even more widespread today than before the effective date of the Act. Is spam, thus, a necessary evil of life in the Internet age?
Be prepared for some talking about shit nothing from The Real Geek. Here's what's on my mind.
- I always thought the highways in the US were awful. That impression was because my sphere of influence was dominated by the highways in Buffalo and Detroit. Let me clarify that the highways in the US are nearly as good as those in Ontario, w/ the exception of Buffalo, Pittsburgh and Michigan, which are awful, especially Michigan.
- It's time to take a fresh look at RSS and Atom and maybe finish off PaSSAPI. Must catch up on the Atom mailing list and Sam's blog, which I just found has a new fresh look. I got quite a few emails telling me that SOAP was being removed from Atom. I haven't investigated yet, but that would be stupid.
- I need a job. Actually, I don't want a job, I want a paid hobby. Preferrably a well paid hobby.
- SPAM is horrific for dial-up access. I tried an AOL account and the SPAM was coming in faster than I could download it. Thankfully, I discovered WiFi broadband campgrounds or I'd have had to spend days catching up on my email. I also had to unsubscribe to all mailing lists that don't provide a daily summary, as they were cluttering my Inbox on the road.
- I have to move forward on my plan to feed two million soldiers, either that, or figure out how John Kerry can win. I saw a great bumper sticker, while in Florida.
... we were talking about the Baghdad blogger and Iraq 2.0.
Quote: Robert Scoble may well be one of the most powerful people in Redmond right now. "The Scobleizer," as he's known to his daily readers, writes a Web log, or blog, posting comments on topics that range from the world's largest pistachio factory to how cheap it is to eat in Shanghai. Mostly, though, he writes about Microsoft.
Randy: And you heard it here first.
iM in Dayton, Ohio today @ a KOA. My second experience w/ paid WiFi Internet access. Awesome, although expensive. There are so many services that you can't just sign up w/ one and get coverage everywhere. Each campground has it's own provider, although all KOA use one same provider. So, if you were to stay solely @ KOA's, of which only some, maybe half, maybe more have WiFi, then it might be worth the $15/month USD. You'd have to camp several days per month @ KOA's w/ WiFi for this to be worth the dollars.
900 kms on the I75 from south Atlanta, Georgia, thru Tennessee and Kentucky to north Dayton, Ohio. It was quite a day of driving. Tomorrow morning, it's 3 hours to the border, then 1-2 hours of Tunnel Bar-B-Q and 4 more hours to Brampton. I've been stopping at the Welcome centers and picking up (free) maps. Not that I don't already have all the maps, but it's fun.
Update: Woke up in Dayton, things look great. Beautiful morning. I'll be home later today. Temperature is well above freezing. iM hoping for similar weather in TO.
Does anybody know of a world leader who...
iM WiFi camping today, that is, iM at a campground that provides WiFi Internet access. Atlanta South RV Resort. Very cool!
- March 22nd - Magic Kingdom.
- March 23rd - Epcot and a bit of laudry. That's Bernie!
- March 24th - Last day @ Disney. Woke up in the morning thinking that I had camping reservations that night. Oops! A quick check-out and in and iM OK for one more day @ Magic Kingdom. Scored 146k on Buzz Lightyear game. Beat that! Last ride was "It's a small world."
- March 25th - Drove to McDonough, just south of Atlanta Georgia. A lot of distractions, including 3 constructions delays on the I75, a daughter throwing up and 2 gas stops ($119 USD).
Update: the Atlanta South RV Resort is a great camp, but the service was horrible. The reception wasn't very friendly and the firewood was pre-soak before delivery. Made for a difficult campfire. But a couple of great guys helped me out w/ some diesel fuel. Thanks go to Rick from Little Rock.
The Leafs have really put an effort into winning this years Cup.Quite proud of Quinn and Ferguson, but a little worried about chemistry. Hope it all comes together come playoff time.
G - Belfour, Tellqvist. Goodbye Kidd.
D - Leetch, Klee, Johansson, Berg, Marchment, McCabe, Kaberle.
F - Roberts, Sunding, Renberg, Mogilny, Antropov, Fitzgerald, Reichel, Nieuwendyk, Nolan, Domi, Francis, Tucker, Stajan, Ponikorovsky.
Quite a team!
Getting ready to join the real world in just over a week. Three weeks done, one to go. But in the meantime, more Disney fun.
- March 16th - Day off @ Walmart. Bought a new VCR to replace a broken one. Bought a cheap $20 USD digital camera. Pictures are awful, but my daughter loves it.
- March 17th - Magic Kingdom, of course. Went on Century of Progress. This is the second ride that I remember as a kid. The other, was Pirates of the Caribean.
- March 18th - MGM again.
- March 19th - Not another visit to Magic Kingdom. Finally got Snow White's sig. Ate @ Cinderella's castle. Watched the fireworks from the beach at Fort Wilderness.
- March 20th - Swimming at the resort and later tonight we'll be attending Fantasmic at MGM.
The kids are having a lot of fun. Looks like my email has been bouncing. If you sent anything important, then I likely had a full mailbox and it bounced back to you. Again, anything important should go to my cell phone, see resume.
Update: I downloaded about half my email today. That'll make some room. How did we ever do dialup?
Still in Florida. It's been a great second week.
- March 7th - Back to the hospital w/ Celeste. She was alergic to the medicine they gave her.
- March 9th - Went to Magical Kingdom.
- March 11th - Polynesian Resort Luau was amazing. I'd recommend to anybody going to DisneyWorld.
- March 12th - Laundry day. And guess what? The water went dry. Killed the whole day. Went to Walmart that night for some Bernadette time :) New neighbors moved in next to us from Tampa Bay. Their kids and ours played all day; kick ball, red rover, skipping, etc.
- March 13th - Signed up for AOL 45-day free plan. That's what iM using to write this update. Pumped 12 gallons of propane into my RV. Went to Blizzard Beach today, it was fun. Celeste was really excited in her bathing suit. Took some great pictures.
Here iM in Florida. It's been a great first week.
- February 28th - Made our way down the I79 to Wytheville, Virginia. Took the US19 shortcut, saved a lot of time. PA less Pittsburgh was extremely beautiful. West Virginia and Virginia too. We stayed at the Flying J in Wytheville.
- February 29th - Made our way down the I77 to Savannah, Georgia. The travel along US321 in South Carolina was really educational. Take it someday and you'll understand why. Stayed at the KOA south of Savannah.
- March 1st - Getting thru Daytona Beach was a three hour task. For a city that claims to be about the birthplace of speed, the travel was ironic. Hwy A1A along the ocean was extremely slow w/ motorbikes everywhere, it is bike week. We did check into Wilderness Campground at Disney late this night.
- March 2nd - We went to Sea World.
- March 3rd - Our Disney passes kicked-in, so we immediately made our way to Magical Kingdom. First, we went on Pirate's of the Carribean. Adelaine and Brayden didn't like it. Then Aladdin's magic carpet, the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse, watched the parade, it's a small world, met Ariel, Dumbo ride, merry-go-round, say the new 3D show and finally watched the fireworks.
- March 4th - Of course the baby had to get sick. So today we went to Typhoon Lagoon. I had one of those Turkey Legs. Interesting, but only once.
- March 5th - Made our way to a clinic where we spent most of the day waiting to find out that Celeste has a stomach infection that has been going around Disney. Now I'm at a coffee shop stealing Internet cycles :)
I had over 1000 emails, so my mailbox may have been full and some may have bounced. If you need to contact me, call the cell number in my resume. I emptied my inbox and will try to check it more often.