Quote: Mustatea was Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of Research and Development at Opencola, where he introduced various development processes and accelerated the company’s time-to-market through technology innovation.

Randy: Funeral at 6.

My wife got me a personalized license plate for the motorhome. You can make your own, but they won't be as real as mine.

Quote: Novell and the Mono project developer community is proud to announce the release of Mono version 1.0, an open source implementation of the .NET framework for use on Linux, Unix, MacOS X and Windows system.

Randy: This is great. No more .NET vendor lock-in.

Haacked: Randy says I miss the point because one of the senators has a nephew on the way to Afghanistan. However, for the record, the reason we went to Afghanistan is NOT the same reason we went to Iraq. Even the administration (when they try to get their story straight) will admit to that somewhat. Secondly, Moore does mention in the movie that one congress person has a son or relative in Iraq. I wish he had interviewed that person, but the fact that he didn't interview this one person out of the 433 (active) members of the House and 100 senators does not make the scene pointless.

Quote: A small social-networking software company has filed suit against Google, claiming that much of the source code behind orkut.com, the search engine's popular social service, was stolen by a former engineer. In its lawsuit, Affinity Engines, based in Palo Alto, California, said engineer Orkut Buyukkokten illegally took the code that he had written for the company -- which he co-founded -- with him when he joined Google. Affinity Engines also claimed that Buyukkokten promised Affinity Engines that he wouldn't develop a competing social-network service for Google.

Randy: That's exactly what Google needed in the weeks approaching their IPO. Oops! Just one problem, Orkut sucks! It's in the same lame social networking category as Friendster. If you are going to steal something, then you should end up w/ something cool, like Tribe or Yafro.

Scott is the founder of Feedster and has a great blog called The FuzzyBlog. I think he would make a great addition to the RSS advisory board.

David Winer: About the Michael Moore movie, Farenheit 9/11. I haven't seen it and I don't plan to. I'm an American before I'm a member of any political party, and I have more invested in the intelligence of our decision-making process than in any one decision. I'd rather re-elect Bush than elect a president based on Moore's politics.

Yesterday on NPR they played an excerpt where he confronts members of Congress and asks if they would send their children to fight in Iraq. What a ridiculous question. No parent will say yes to that question. You could have asked that question on the Capitol steps during World War II and they still wouldn't say yes. See how this cheapens the question of whether we should be in Iraq? In a smart world, we wouldn't be there, but it isn't because Congress people won't say yes when confronted by a camera crew.

Moore is the worst of American politics, an opportunist, an anti-intellectual.

Vote no on Moore.

Randy: Amen!

Julie Leung: Bill Gates, if you blog, here's what I'd like to know...

• What do you do to enjoy a summer day: do you walk barefoot in the grass with your daughter?
• When you see a homeless person, what do you think?
• How do you stay sane? Is it roses in the blender? Or jump roping as a family in your kitchen?
• Where have you seen something beautiful this week?
• What is a strange story from your childhood? Or a funny retort you've told someone on the street?
• Have you ever loved and lost a pet...and been surprised by your grief?
• Which concepts have you taught your children by using various vegetables at the dinner table?
• How did it feel to feed your baby sweet potatoes for the first time?
• What did you read today that made you laugh?
• Does your wife ever ask you for a booklet of coupons so she can use one to get you off the computer? ;-)

Randy: I'd love to have Julie interview Bill.

Troutgirl: As most of you probably know, I've spent the last six months working at Friendster. I have not managed to release any code in that entire time. Finally on Friday we launched a platform rearchitecture based on loose-coupling, web standards, and a move from JSP (via Tomcat) to PHP.

Randy: The site is very snappy. Much better. Congrats! And w/ PHP.

Update: Sloowwwiiinnnggg Dddooowwwwnnnnn! Good old PHP. Took less than 24 hours to slow Friendster down worse than ever. Record time.

Musings of a VC in NYC: A great post from the RSS blog on various people's RSS wishlists. My favorite is the family photo RSS feed. That is a killer idea.

Randy: Here's my wishlist. Things I wish I'd get off my ass and do.

1. Create a separate blog @ http://www.kbcafe.com/rss/ dedicated to RSS, not the format, the bigger thing.
2. Add Wiki-editing and linking capability to my blogging software.
3. Fix up my commentapi and trackbackapi.
4. Create pages on this new Wiki capable blog for installing an RSS feed w/ the various blogging systems.
5. Finish my Atom Paces. Why the hell do we call them Paces?
6. Finish the Atom WSDL.
7. Permalinks for individual comments.
8. Ability for end user to delete/edit comments, current session only.
9. Remove referrer tracking from Web thread.
10. Better comment tracking (I hate comment SPAM).

Dan Fernandez: One of my favorite features of C# Express is the built-in RSS Screen saver Starter Kit.  If you’ve never built a screensaver before, or if you have never written code that uses RSS, then you’ll find the RSS Screen saver a great way to start programming.

Source: Scripting.

Randy: C# Express is M$FT new zero cost development environment.

Musings of a VC in NYC: I finally got around to seeing the movie. It is gratuitous, slanted, and the consummate hatchet job. It's everything that the Michael Moore hating critics have said it is.

Randy: Poor guy. He's been Mooretified.

Quote: Canadians went to the polls in a federal election on Monday with a firm warning from election officials: Please do not eat your ballots. "Eating a ballot, not returning it or otherwise destroying or defacing it constitutes a serious breach of the Canada Elections Act," Elections Canada warns on its Internet site.

Randy: Sorry, I was hungry, couldn't think of any candidates worthy of a vote and then I spilt my beer on it :)

Carrie: So I'm browsing msn and up comes this crazy canary ad which brings me Here. Very cool, very sharp. The things is I've never really thought about shopping for my boyfriend online. But since I'm on eBay, and I've used Amazon, and yes I have even ordered my contacts online, I thought why not just try using Lemontonic. So I did, and I joined.

Randy: Carrie's blog is one to read. Pretty hot! If you are looking to get in the mood, spend five minutes on her blog. Titled "Lipsticking". Subtitled "The cliche twenty-something chick living in the city writing about her everyday life".

Randy: Much appreciated. But this reminds me, maybe I should update that plan-of-action.

Quote: Microsoft® Exchange Intelligent Message Filter provides advanced server-side message filtering designed to combat the influx of unsolicited commercial e-mail, also known as spam or junk e-mail.

Randy: Kill SPAM! Dead. This is a free download from Microsoft that plugs into Exchange 2003 to get rid of that pesty junk mail.

In the spirit of elections, let me announce that iM pursuing a spot on the RSS advisory board. You can help me get on this board, by sending an email to the existing members of the board, informing them that iM a good choice or a bad choice. Your choice!

Craigslist Vancouver: I clicked on that dumb Lemontonic online dating site - of course the "Try Now!" option only led to a required profile that you create before nosing around the site. That's par for the Internet course, so no big deal, but it really offended me that the "What I Think Is Sexy" section again featured a menu of the most pedestrian, boring possibilities with no way to write your own in. Have we really become that predictable and boring? Or am I just jaded?

Randy: Nice to see one's work trashed. Builds up the confidence.

Aljazeera: The US occupation authority has officially transferred power to an interim Iraqi government in a move greeted with a mixture of scepticism and hope in the still-occupied country.

Randy: Congratulations to all Iraqis around the world. You are on your way to democratic self-rule. Persist and you shall be rewarded.

Definition: Presenting facts objectively without editorializing or inserting fictional matter.

Oleg: This (Fahrenheit 911) is the most objective documentary on Bush there can be. Lies produce more "lies". He is an illegitimate president to begin with, who took us to an illegitimate war for illegitimate reasons and lied to us. It is very simple. There is nothing to lie about. That is the truth!

Quote: Electronic payment service Dexit Inc. has filed a final prospectus with Canadian regulators for an initial public offering worth up to $25-million.

Randy: On 2003 revenues < $2k. Amazing. Tell me again that it's not 1999 all-over-again. I met w/ Dexit earlier in the year. They seem quite professional, w/ many wearing Dexit-ware to work and all others in suits. I doubt I would fit in. I showed up in un-tied running shoes.

Winer: When you've written something strong and personal, before posting, re-read it and pause for a few moments. Re-read what you've written and imagine that someone said what you've said, about you.

Randy: On a couple occasions of late, I've been told by the target of my remarks that I flamed them. Reviewing my comments, I clearly did disagree w/ them, but nowhere did I resort to insulting them. I think this is the line between a flame and disagreement. You can't call every disagreement a flame. When I re-read my statement before posting, I often look for insulting remarks on my part. This usually cuts the essay down to half its initial length :)

Source: CBC.

Randy: iM just glad that Chretien guy lost. The final results has the Liberals w/ 135, the NDP w/ 19. That's 154 or exactly half the parliament. This is not strong enough to keep the Liberals in power for long and I suspect another election is closer than 4-5 years aways.

Tim: We need to crystallize and refine and clarify and write it down so that any literate human can write it and any competent programmmer can implement it and no commercial interests can hijack it. That’s all.

Source: Scripting.

Randy: This is a must read for every Atomite.

Shelley: I do know myself better, Randy. And I know what’s better for my site. And I know the events that led to me ‘growing up’, and realizing that the F-Word might hurt some child someday was not of these events.

Randy: Vote for me, my name is Dick Cheney. I'll divert government money to my company while keeping down the morality of the nation.

An often employed strategy for excluding the non-privileged. Simply follow up each action of the target non-privileged by a question or new unknown policy. When they answer the question or follow the new policy, then ignore them for a bit or introduce them to another new question and/or new unknown policy. Eventually, they give up and you don't have to worry about including them.

My greatest personal experience w/ bureaucratic quagmire came about when I was trying to get a GST number (a CDNian sales tax) for my personal self. I called every morning before I set off for work and usually stayed on the waiting list for half an hour before hanging up. After a week or so of this futile exercise, I decided to find out where this office was. I looked it up in the blue pages and to my surprise, they were located across the street and up the road about two blocks. I walked over to the office.

Entering the office, I could hear the phones ringing off the hook. The office was wide open, so I could see everybody was busy drinking coffee and talking to their neighbour and that nobody was actually answering the phone. I understood now that my calls were truly futile.

I approached the front desk, but nobody paid any attention to me. After waiting for a bit (let's say a minute), I questionned "Is this where I get my GST number?" Somebody finally took notice and gave me a form to fill out. I was in a hurry, quickly filled out the form and waved it at the coffee drinking public servant. The person took the form from me and put in a IN box, then returned to their personal conversation. The form sat in the IN box (the only such form) for a good 15 minutes while everybody continued to ignore the phones and converse openly w/ co-workers. I questionned again, "Is anybody going to process my form?" The person who helped me earlier, asked one of the workers to handle my form. This second person, took the form back to their desk, placed it on their desk, then proceeded to walk very slowly back towards me. They walked past me and continued onto the washroom where they spent the next 10 minutes.

I persisted and eventually, I had a GST number. Persistance, often overcomes bureaucratic quagmire.

Today is election day in Canada. I won't be voting, iM anti-politics. I use to be a local policy director in the Progressive Conservative party. Since then, I've been jaded by the corruption of politics. Now, I refuse to vote. I've tried to get myself re-interested, but to no avail, iM always disappointed.

In fact, a few years ago, I joined/tried to help my local member of provincial parliament. I signed up for his endless SPAM and took endless nerving phone calls from everybody he gave my phone number too. I even contributed cash to the party. When I asked how I could help, they told me that I could cold call people in the riding.

Quote: Weinreich wants to provide other candidates and nonprofits digital tools to duplicate Dean's online success. Beyond Spitzer, whose Web site is scheduled to go online in a few weeks, Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-Manhattan) has also signed up with I Stand For. And it runs the Web site of Air America, the new liberal talk radio network.

Weinreich, best-known as founder of sixdegrees.com, a Silicon Alley forerunner of popular social networking sites such as Friendster.com and Tribe.net. He sold sixdegrees to Youthstream Media Networks in 2000 for $125 million.

Andrew Grumet: Late this week I'd come to the conclusion that some of my RSS-related activities would soon encroach on other, non-negotiable commitments. It was time to simplify. Among the negotiable commitments, I'm a little sad to say, was the RSS advisory board. While Dave's announcement gave me pause, the factors informing my decision remain constant. Therefore, I am hereby resigning from the RSS advisory board.

Randy: It's a time to act firmly and swifly.

After about a one year escape from Neopets, my daughter, Adelaine has shown renewed interest. I tried reactivating her accounts, but w/ no success. I even tried to create new account for her, but w/ little success. I've tried on two separate occasions in the last week and it seems that Neopets is dead. In particular, I can't login using my usual passwords on the old accounts and can't get the passwords using 'forgot password' feature. Nor can I get activation emails for new accounts.

They also have CAPTCHAs. How do I explain this to my 6 yr old daughter? Frustrating.

Winer: There's a vacancy to fill on the RSS Advisory Board. I just had a talk with Rogers about that. Do you have any suggestions? Send him an email, or send one to me. It's mostly advocacy, helping people get their feeds up, answering questions, trying to helping users.

The Archives: I asked Randy Charles Morin what he would do if he was on the RSS Advisory Board, and, no surprise, I got a thoughtful and upbeat response.

The Archives: And to Randy thanks for the good juju you've been spreading around.

This is an example of why I don't like soccer that much. 2 of 3 quarter-final games decided on penalty kicks.

Now, don't get me wrong. I would love to see regular season NHL games decided by penalty shots. Why? Because they are exciting, just as penalty kicks can be exciting. And most imporant, they control the length of the game, allowing the fans to hit the sack at a reasonable hour. But, if the Stanley Cup was decided on penalty shots, then I'd call it a fraud.

What's wrong w/ a Golden Goal? I guess scoring in soccer is so infrequent that they are afraid to let them play until such a goal. They just might play forever.

Ronald P. Reagan: One thing that Buddhism teaches you is that every moment is an opportunity to change. And we will have a moment in November to make a big change.

Randy: Ronald P. Reagan is the late President's son.

A massive thread (20+ comments) has developed on AR15 that discusses my post on Stephanopoulos v. Michael Moore.

This is great! This is all about the power of blogs. I post. That post gets picked up here and there. Next thing you know, I've influenced the world. Hopefully, for the better.

Today, I tried to bring along the next version of Juice. Also trying to satisfy Sam. But, iM off to pickup a suit, in Oshawa, visit the parents.

One of my readers, u know who u r, has requested category feeds. iM thinking about two new spin off blogs, one for all things RSS and another for all things RV. That'll increase the "blog for the sake of blogging" that is my primary blog, iBLOGthere4iM.

For our 10th anniversary, which ended 2 hours ago, my wife and I watched hairspray at Princess of Whales Theatre. The first 9-10 scenes were extremely good, but the ending 3-4 scenes were overly predictable and bland.

Vanassa, the teen heroine is spectacular w/ a powerful whiny (in a good way) 60s voice. She never dyes her hair blue, so don't hold your breath.

I also bought the wife a box of chocolates and a card. DimSum dinner before the show was at King's Garden. A great night!

Dave: I've decided to resign from the RSS Advisory Board, effective July 1.

Randy: It's a time to act firmly and swifly. I believe if RSS remains in the hands of Harvard, that it will die a slow death w/out Winer around. Let's move the specification to another body. A body that has the resources to promote the specification. No, not W3. What other options?

Quote: Bill's blog won't be all business, either. He's expected to share personal details such as tidbits from recent vacations, according to tech pundit Mary Jo Foley's Microsoft Watch newsletter. Citing unnamed sources, she reported yesterday that Gates is about to start blogging "real soon now."

Soure: Scripting.

Randy: I can see it now. Bill telling us about his motorhome trip down the West coast. Stopping at Sea World and Disney. Roasting marshmellows by the campfire. It'll be all so warm. Maybe I can write the entries for him.

Source: Dave Walker in my comments.

Quote: Touting his program to rehabilitate ex-offenders in Cincinnati on Monday, President Bush put his arm on Tami Jordan's shoulder and called the convicted embezzler a "good soul" and an "inspirational person." [cut] But now that (Tami Jordan) she's off parole, she hasn't paid a cent of the remaining $310,000 in restitution, the Morins said.

Randy: This Morin says "I wish I could steal $100ks and be praised a good soul and inspirational person when I don't pay it back."

Source: Smartpatrol.

Quote: When you think of Toshiba, you might think of notebooks, but fuel cells? Never. Well at least not up until now. Toshiba claims to of made the worlds smallest fuel cell to date.

Randy: Hmmm! My laptop needs a new battery.

Quote: Radio host Rush Limbaugh lied about a recently released report by the 9-11 Commission: He falsely claimed that the report confirms Vice President Dick Cheney's claim that September 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta may have met with an Iraqi intelligence officer in April 2001. Limbaugh directly contradicted the report while purporting to summarize it.

Randy: This is very troubling. American politics seems to be about who can lie the most. Good luck w/ the future of your country. All Michael Moore and Rush Limbaugh supporters should be barred from CDNian airwaves, radio or tele.

Rush, I've got a few words for you. Though shall not lie. Another commandment down the drain.

Update: I'd have respect for Bush if he said Rumbaugh is an idiot. I'd have respect for Kerry if he said Moore is an idiot. No respect.

Quote: Vice President Dick Cheney blurted out the "F word" at Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont during a heated exchange on the Senate floor, congressional aides said on Thursday. The incident occurred on Tuesday in a terse discussion between the two that touched on politics, religion and money, with Cheney finally telling Leahy to "f--- off" or "go f--- yourself," the aides said.

Source: TalkLeft.

Randy: Vote for me, my name is Dick Cheney. I'll divert government money to my company while keeping down the morality of the nation.

Quote: To describe this film as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the level of respectability. To describe this film as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the excremental. To describe it as an exercise in facile crowd-pleasing would be too obvious. Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness. It is also a spectacle of abject political cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of "dissenting" bravery.

Randy: The truth is finally coming out. Unfortunately, this is the worst time. Just as Kerry takes a good lead in the polls, Michael Moore makes the left look like a bunch of dishonest, sinister, cowardice liars. Good job, you may have cost Kerry the election. For those on the left that backed Michael Moore, even though you knew him to be dishonest, you are about to receive your just.

Update: Polls are already showing Kerry is slipping as the Michael Moore movie is released. Slipping even though this is the first poll that shows Americans believe that Iraq is a mistake.

Quote: Toronto will become home this weekend to what's being touted as the first retail computer store devoted exclusively to Linux-based products.

Source: Oleg Dulin over Yahoo! MSGer.

Randy: iM starting a contest for when the storefront will close down. The close will be official one month after the first close date where all intermediary days it remains closed. I'm betting on January 28th 2006.

So, tomorrow is the 10th anniversary of my marriage w/ my wife Bernadette. I'm taking her to see a show. Any other ideas? I'm always at ends on how to show my wife that I appreciate the life she's given me.

• We met in 1988 at the University of Windsor Clark Hall Halloween party.
• I was suppose to attend the 1987 party, but was called away for a meeting. I was to attend as a member of KISS, Ace as I remember. A friend, Steve went in my place and met Bernadette that night and fell in love w/ her. He told me a lot about her, but Bernadette didn't like him and they never hooked up. I didn't realize this was the same Bernadette when I met her a year later. I only realized this months after we first met when Steve, Bernadette and I reunited.
• We married in 1994.
• Bought our house in 1996.
• Children in 1998, 2000 and 2003.
• She retired from the rat race of accounting when we had our first child.
• She graduated in 1992, I didn't leave university till 1993.
• She hates my logo picture at the top right. She thinks I look like a geek.
• She hates having her picture taken. So this is the best I have on the blog.

iM the happiest person in the world. Thanks to Bernadette.

Quote: NewsGator Technologies, Inc., a leading developer of content aggregation tools and services, announced today that it has closed a round of funding with Mobius Venture Capital. "We are thrilled to have Mobius Venture Capital as an investor," said Greg Reinacker, CEO of NewsGator Technologies. "This funding is a necessary step to deliver on our vision for products and services in this market much more quickly." The funding will be used to accelerate the development process for the NewsGator product line, as well as expand the marketing and corporate sales groups.

Source: Scobleizer.

Randy: Congrats to Greg Reinacker. You can divide up the money in two ways. Lots for marketing and sales and maintain your development team size. Lots for development and go bankrupt in two years. Or at least that's my experience.

Quote: Yahoo on Wednesday began blocking Cerulean Studios' Trillian software from communicating with its instant messaging service in its latest step to fence its popular client from third-party integrators.

1999, when Microsoft launched MSN Messenger, the software allowed users to communicate directly with AOL Instant Messenger users. AOL, then the largest IM network, blocked MSN. The two companies proceeded to play a game of cat and mouse for months, until MSN finally said it would no longer access AOL to protect customer "security." But when AOL acquired Time Warner in 2000, regulatory bodies and competitors brought back the MSN Messenger block as further evidence of the online giant's unfair practices.

Randy: Yahoo!'s move is illegal, especially since they already provide a white-list based SPIM blocking mechanism. They would be better off patenting their next generation protocol and using that patent to fend off piggy-backers. Such a move, would be unpopular w/ the geeks, but then, so is the current move.

I've seen bugmenot before, but it really didn't interest me. Dave Walker has shown me that they have a bookmarklet  that makes registration advoidance almost trivial. Thanks Dave!

Making your Movable Type entries full content is very easy. Simply add the following line to your MT RSS template of choice.

<content:encoded><![CDATA[<$MTEntryBody$>]]></content:encoded>

A resulting template might look like the following.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="<$MTPublishCharset$>"?>

<rdf:RDF
  xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
  xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
  xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/"
  xmlns:admin="http://webns.net/mvcb/"
  xmlns:cc="http://web.resource.org/cc/"
  xmlns="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/"
  xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/">

<channel rdf:about="<$MTBlogURL$>">
<title><$MTBlogName encode_xml="1"$></title>
<link><$MTBlogURL$></link>
<description><$MTBlogDescription encode_xml="1"$></description>
<dc:language>en-us</dc:language>
<dc:creator></dc:creator>
<dc:date><MTEntries lastn="1"><$MTEntryDate format="%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S" language="en"$><$MTBlogTimezone$></MTEntries></dc:date>
<admin:generatorAgent rdf:resource="http://www.movabletype.org/?v=<$MTVersion$>" />
<MTBlogIfCCLicense>
<cc:license rdf:resource="<$MTBlogCCLicenseURL$>" />
</MTBlogIfCCLicense>

<items>
<rdf:Seq><MTEntries lastn="15">
<rdf:li rdf:resource="<$MTEntryPermalink encode_xml="1"$>" />
</MTEntries></rdf:Seq>
</items>

</channel>

<MTEntries lastn="15">
<item rdf:about="<$MTEntryPermalink encode_xml="1"$>">
<title><$MTEntryTitle encode_xml="1"$></title>
<link><$MTEntryPermalink encode_xml="1"$></link>
<description><$MTEntryExcerpt encode_xml="1"$></description>
<dc:subject><$MTEntryCategory encode_xml="1"$></dc:subject>
<dc:creator><$MTEntryAuthor encode_xml="1"$></dc:creator>
<dc:date><$MTEntryDate format="%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S" language="en"$><$MTBlogTimezone$></dc:date>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[<$MTEntryBody$>]]></content:encoded>

</item>
</MTEntries>

</rdf:RDF>

Tell me if I missed anything, I'm not a regular Movable Type user.

I can't reply-to or forward my email tonight. Not pleased.

Early today, I sent an email (or formmail) to the latimes.com.

They responded.

We appreciate hearing your views on registering for latimes.com and have taken note of your reluctance to do so.

Please let us further explain that, in being a free site which offers award-winning news and content in high demand, it has become more and more important for us and our advertisers to understand who our audience and readers are.

Site members may also easily "opt-out" of us sharing or selling any of their information with third-parties.  Please see the last box at:

https://www.latimes.com/services/site/registration/show-createprofile.register

The income question also has an "I prefer not to say" answer.  We hope you'll re-consider registering so that we may continue to provide in-depth and wide-ranging news on our heavily-visited Web site as well as other content and advertising that matches your preferences.

Take care, and thanks for your interest in our news content and additional features.

I think AOL has the same "opt-out" option. Didn't help.

Update: I got a further reply from latimes. They just don't get it.

Some great stats for any Web designer on the browser wars. I doubt these stats account for RSS, which is read by smaller growing alternate browsers, most of which fall into the category of RSS reader.

Highlighs

• Moz+Netscape is 13.4% now.
• Opera is at 2.3%
• Windows XP/2000 now above 80%
• 38% still use 800x600 resolution and lower
• 35% still don't use 24+ bit color
• 8% have Javascript disabled

Quote: MediaLive International, Inc. today announced that COMDEX® Las Vegas 2004 has been postponed in order to reshape the event with the cooperation of information technology (IT) industry leaders. COMDEX® 2004 had been scheduled to open November 14, 2004, in Las Vegas.

Randy: The tech fallout continues? Or is this the end? COMDEX Toronto use to be the biggest IT event in TO. I rarely attend anymore. Neither do my friends.

Quote: Microsoft is lining-up to be Toyota's principal F1 sponsor.

Source: Scobleizer.

Scoble has also revealed that M$FT is preparing to launch "some really cool stuff coming next week that hasn't been leaked yet."

Randy: Not to spoil Scoble's surprise, but M$FT has decided to buy Atom from the IETF and RSS from Winer and merge them into a new standard called CDF2. You'll see ;)

Quote: Get the hell out of my way, I'm coming through.

Randy: Makes me want to move further away from TO and much further away from NY. I couldn't imagine being this impatient and callous. On the other hand, this was me, only a short decade ago. Relax. Tomorrow will come.

Quote: It's a global economy -- so quit whining about outsourcing. India's booming middle class has $420 billion to spend. Here's how to grab your share. [cut] Sharma, who answers phones in a South Delhi industrial park for a U.S. Internet service provider. She earns more than $9,000 a year, 19 times the average Indian wage.

Randy: I like this. Quit complaining and turn a negative into a positive.

Must have Web developers toolkit.

Source: StuffAndThings.

Randy: I love these. Some pretty powerful Javascript here.

Dave Orchard: It shows how to use WSDL for describing RESTful applications, and a significant number of design issues and shortcomings.

Randy: WSDL! REST! Can M$FT give me an ETA?

• A friend of a girl Hussein dated in high school visited Egypt and bought a book there about Afghanistan.
• Rudyard Kipling foretold of the connection in a letter to a friend in Muncie, Indiana. And Muncie has a known Muslim living there.
• Both Hussein and Bin Laden have been known to shout vile epithets at Norwegians.
• Satellite photos indicate an Al Qaida training camp has been set up in Iraq that's training thousands of recruits to be Elvis impersonators of mass pelvic gyration.
• Looking at pictures of either man causes the exact same output of 2.4 cups of piss to run down Richard Perle's nude-colored pantyhose.
• After finishing a bowl of strawberry banana Jello™, Condoleeza Rice noticed the remaining bits of red gelatin had arranged themselves in the shape of a boxcutter knife, which subsequently jiggled, then lunged a slice of banana at her, demonstrating 'the proof was in the pudding'.
• They had the definitive proof in a secret report but Cheney's toy poodle, Jorge, ate it.
• Iraq is an anagram for Qari, which sounds like Kerry, which suggests a man by that name is a double agent of Hussein's.

Yet Asimov's reductionist approach to human interaction may be his most lasting influence. His thinking is alive and well and likely filling your inbox at this moment with come-ons asking you to identify your friends and rate their "sexiness" on a scale of one to three. Today's social networking services like Friendster and Orkut collapse the subtle continuum of friendship and trust into a blunt equation that says, "So-and-so is indeed my friend," and "I trust so-and-so to see all my other 'friends.'" These systems demand that users configure their relationships in a way that's easily modeled in software. It reflects a mechanistic view of human interaction: "If Ann likes Bob and Bob hates Cindy, then Ann hates Cindy." The idea that we can take our social interactions and code them with an Asimovian algorithm ("allow no harm, obey all orders, protect yourself") is at odds with the messy, unpredictable world. The Internet succeeds because it is nondeterministic and unpredictable: The Net's underlying TCP/IP protocol makes no quality of service guarantees and promises nothing about the route a message will take or whether it will arrive.

This need for people to behave in a predictable, rational, measurable way recalls Mr. Spock's autistic inability to understand human emotion without counting dimples to discern happiness or frown lines to identify sorrow. It's likewise reminiscent of scientology, which uses quantitative charts of personality traits, such as "lack of accord" and "certainty," to help people become 100 percent happy, composed, and so on.

Ken pointed me to some more Feed Validator issues. Unknown fact about RSS 1.0 is that it does not allow markup in title and description.

Another unknown but interesting RSS 2.0 fact is that it specifies the comments element must be the url of the comments page. The spec could be little more specific here, but I think it's clear the author meant a Web page. Although, the author is sometimes thinking further ahead than I.

Quote: Dan Kaminski, the Jedi master of packet-level hacking, has figured out how to tunnel ssh over DNS, a stupendously weird and cool feat. Ever been at an airport or coffee shop with WiFi that redirects you over and over again to the same captive portal page no matter what you do? With Kaminsky's tool, you could circumvent any captive portal that allows DNS to slip through. Here's the presentation he gave at the LayerOne conference in Los Angeles.

Source: John Henson.

Randy: I had lunch w/ Cory over a year ago and he told me about this. I thought to myself, "That doesn't make any sense. Why would you tunnel over DNS." Cory thinks about a year ahead of the rest of us.

Dave: Is that an addiction. Hmmm. Maybe it is, but if so it's like breathing air. I don't plan to give this one up.

Randy: When I return home after a long weekend of camping or even a long day at work, the first thing I do is open her up. Yes, it's an addiction that I enjoy too!

Further on the topic of RSS that is also Valid XML, I have created three test cases. The first test case is valid XML, which I stole from the RSS 0.91 specification. The second test case is invalid XML, where the externally referenced DTD is 404. The third test case is invalid XML, where the XML does not match the externally referenced DTD.

You can test these w/ the following C#.

using System;
namespace ConsoleApplication1
{
class Class1
{
void Validate(string s)
{
   try
   {
      System.Console.WriteLine("==========");
      System.Console.WriteLine(s);
      System.Console.WriteLine("==========");
      System.Xml.XmlReader reader = new System.Xml.XmlTextReader(s);
      System.Xml.XmlValidatingReader validator = new System.Xml.XmlValidatingReader(reader);
      validator.ValidationEventHandler += new System.Xml.Schema.ValidationEventHandler(this.ValidationEvent);
      while (validator.Read()) {};
   }
   catch(System.Exception e)
   {
      System.Console.WriteLine(e.Message);
   }
}

public void ValidationEvent(object sender, System.Xml.Schema.ValidationEventArgs e )
{
   System.Console.WriteLine(e.Message);
}

static void Main(string[] args)
{
   Class1 c = new Class1();
   c.Validate("../../test1.xml");
   c.Validate("../../test2.xml");
   c.Validate("../../test3.xml");
}
}
}

Quote: The world witnessed the dawn of a new space age today, as investor and philanthropist Paul G. Allen and Scaled Composites launched the first private manned vehicle beyond the Earth’s atmosphere. The successful launch demonstrated that the final frontier is now open to private enterprise.

It has become obvious to me that XML Validation is not a goal of the Feed Validator. This is extremely confusing to me, but none-the-less, the proprietors of the Feed Validator have made that clear to me in a recent private conversation. An XML format validator that doesn't actually do XML Validation.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not insisting that we create DTDs for RSS and Atom. But when a feed specifically references an external DTD, then surely it must validate against that DTD and surely that DTD must exist.

Update: Accoding to the logs the Feed Validator now does XML Validation. Thanks Sam.

Framework is one of those words, that when you hear it, you have three choices.

1. Run away
2. Laugh
3. Become a sucker

It seems that I've been FARKed, but if I click on the referrer links, iM asked to login and even if I create an account and login, it still asks me to login when I click the referrer links. If anybody has any idea what was said, then I'd mucho appreciate. I assume it's related to the Cory DRM crap or Moore stupidity.

Update: Seems to be some kind of ploy to get bloggers to buy a subscription to TotalFark.com and start linking to their paid service. I guess I'm high enough on the radar now to be annoyed by such crap. Whatever. That's the last time I mention fark.

Joi Ito: Cory's excellent drm rant which he presented at Microsoft Research has now been wikified to allow people to comment and add to it. Excellent.

Randy: I put a link to my response on the wiki.

This is the best interview I've ever seen. In it, Michael Moore asks "Why weren't the questions asked?" Stephanopoulos asks the questions of Michael Moore.

Moore says: Well, at the time, when we interviewed him [Mark Kennedy], he didn't have any family members in Afghanistan. And when he saw the trailer for this movie, he issued a report to the press saying that he said that he had a kid in.

George responds: He said he told you he had two nephews.

Moore says: No, he didn't. And we released the transcript and we put it on our Web site. This is what I mean by our war room. Any time a guy like this comes along and says, "I told him I had two nephews and one was going to Iraq and one was going to Afghanistan," he's lying. And I've got the raw footage and the transcript to prove it. So any time these Republicans come at me like this, this is exactly what they're going to get. And people can go to my Web site and read the transcript and read the truth. What he just said there, what you just quoted, is not true.

Then George airs Moore's own tape where Kennedy specifically tells Moore that he had a nephew there. He used his own evidence against him to prove again that he, Michael Moore is the biggest liar on the face of this planet. Michael Moore's complete incompetence is helping to re-elect George Bush.

I assume Michael Moore was just joking.

I tried to put TribeCast on my blog. It doesn't work.

Quote: The PayPal-enabled ASP.Net Commerce Starter Kit gives you a quick, easy head start for creating effective e-commerce sites. It contains all the code you need for basic shopping functions, plus handy examples and complete documentation.

Source: James Geurts.

Cory: Greetings fellow pirates! Arrrrr! I'm here today to talk to you about copyright, technology and DRM, I work for the Electronic Frontier Foundation on copyright stuff (mostly), and I live in London.

Randy: All the doors of my car have locks. I assume they are useless. In fact, I rarely lock my car doors. But when I park my car overnight in a parking garage, I lock the doors. Breaking into my car when the doors are locked is quite easy. You just smash the window. So, why do we bother putting locks on cars? Because, if we didn't, then the pirates would go around breaking into every car. By putting a lock on the car, we don't prevent break-ins, we discourage break-ins and occasionally we lock ourselves out of our own cars.

DRM will discourage piracy, not prevent it. That's not a bad thing.

Quote: Making mass e-mailers identifiable is the first step toward curing the epidemic of spam, said Vint Cerf, one of the architects of the Internet. Cerf, who co-created the TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) of the Internet and now works as chief corporate strategist for MCI, delivered opening remarks Thursday here at the first inaugural Email Technology Conference. The chief topic of debate at the conference was spam. Cerf said that standardizing methods for authenticating e-mail senders would ultimately lead to successful filtering--technologies that many companies that attended the conference are developing.

Randy: Now, imagine I'm not an existing user of the email. I'd like to get an email address and send some email. Or am I a SPAMmer? Identity verification cannot stop SPAM.

A great place to take the kids in TO. At Woodbine centre. Ya, that's right, next to the ponies and slots.

My favorites...

1. When an employee is in your office to talk with you, don’t hesitate to answer your phone.
2. Criticize people in public. Don’t worry whether the criticism is direct or tacit. It’ll have the same effect.
3. Be stingy with your thank you’s. After all, they just make people feel like you should be paying them more money.
4. Ask people to do work outside of their job description.
5. Hold lots of meetings and make sure they have an unfocused agenda. Allow the conversation to meander aimlessly, permitting one tangential comment to give license to the next. Never cut off a rambling participant and if anyone has a good idea, compel that person to assume responsibility for a new committee to pursue the idea. End each meeting with no action items.
6. When scheduled to meet with an employee or with a group of employees, be late. Sometimes very late. Hey, the meeting can’t start without you, right?

Question: Lately I've been hearing a lot about WS-Security. What is it, and how is it different from other security standards?

Question: Is it possible to generate an ASP.NET Web Service class from a WSDL document? Is this approach better than simply starting with a class and letting ASP.NET generate the WSDL?

Anwers.

Quote: Madonna has changed her name to Esther as part of her ongoing support for the Kabbalah religion.

Randy: As part of my own religion, the I hate non-fermented sugar religion, iM officially changing my own name to "The Real Geek who Blogs because he is."

Shawn Wildermuth: "Unfortunately .NET just makes it much too simple..."

Randy: I like simple.

Quote: A privately-developed rocket plane will launch into history on June 21 on a mission to become the world’s first commercial manned space vehicle. Investor and philanthropist Paul G. Allen and aviation legend Burt Rutan have teamed to create the program, which will attempt the first non-governmental flight to leave the earth’s atmosphere. 

Randy: Le awesome. How much and where do I get a ticket? Assuming of course they fly a dozen safe missions before iM scheduled to burn up in the atmosphere.

I didn't hear anything about this for quite some time until BoingBoing posted it today. Now, iM excited.

Quote: The United States Postal Service will lease a fuel cell vehicle from General Motors Corp. to deliver mail in and around the nation's capital, according to a joint agreement announced today.

Source: Oleg Dulin.

How many Bush administration officials does it take to screw in a light bulb?

• One to deny that a light bulb needs to be replaced.
• One to attack and question the patriotism of anyone who has questions about the light bulb.
• One to blame the previous administration for the need of a new light bulb.
• One to arrange the invasion of a country rumored to have a secret stockpile of light bulbs.
• One to get together with Vice President Cheney and figure out how to pay Halliburton one million dollars for a light bulb.
• One to arrange a photo-op session showing Bush changing the light bulb while dressed in a flight suit and wrapped in an American flag.
• And finally, one to explain to Bush the difference between screwing a light bulb and screwing the country.

Source: The Stakeholder.

for the guys.

Quote: Nine-time champion Martina Navratilova said Wednesday she has accepted a wild card to play singles at Wimbledon for the first time in 10 years.[cut] Navratilova, 47, played singles at the French Open last month.

Randy: Wow!

Quote: You need a class that has only one instance, and you need to provide a global point of access to the instance. You may also want to make sure that your solution is thread safe.

Source: Luciano Evaristo Guerche.

More: Another more elaborate singleton thought.

Quote: The testers on the Windows team were going through various popular applications, testing them to make sure they worked OK, but SimCity kept crashing. They reported this to the Windows developers, who disassembled SimCity, stepped through it in a debugger, found the bug, and added special code that checked in which you could still use memory after freeing it.

Randy: I got a better idea. Report the error to the software dev company and don't fix it in the OS. Get the software company to provide a fix that is shipped w/ the upgraded OS.

I remember working on a version of FSP where we required Reuters access from Solaris. We purchase ordered the Reuters SDK for Solaris at the beginning of the project, but management held out buying the license because Reuters was a big investor in our competition. Eventually, we got pretty close to the deadline and I told them they had to order it or we couldn't deliver this feature. They ordered it. It shipped. It was a joke. We found out at the last minute that the SDK was inadequate. We pushed Reuters for one that worked and a month later they delivered another version that didn't work either. Eventually 3-4 months after the original deadline, we got a version that worked and were immediately able to produce a functional Reuters/Solaris extension to our product (FSP).

I guess the lesson is that if you provide the tools only weeks before the deadline, then you're likely going to end up w/ a new deadline. Oh! This story happens at least twice per year on any project I've worked on. And more than twice more often than not.

Quote: Atom Publishing Format and Protocol (atompub). A new IETF working group has been formed in the Application Area.

Randy: IETF makes it official.

Six hair dryers in one.

Dear Randy,

I am subscribed to you feed, but since I read it from office, I am not confortable reading your posts since all of them show your photo/logo on them. Would you mind scaling it down to 49 x 33 pixels which are the size most of other RSS feeds often use?

Hope you understand my request.

Randy: You know u r ugly when...

Mena: We made these revisions based on what people have told us they wanted to see:

• There are now no limits on the number of weblogs you can create with a paid license of Movable Type. The free license remains limited.
• All paid options include support directly from us, through our online ticket system.
• Our licenses are perpetual, meaning there are no annual subscription fees. Larger commercial licenses require a 20% maintenance fee after the first year if continued support is desired.
• Paid licenses will include free updates and bug fixes. For example: 3.x release are free to any 3.x licensee. Paid licenses are also eligible for discounts on major upgrades to the software, so 3.x paid licensees will receive a discount on 4.x versions of Movable Type.
• All of the pricing mentioned below is the standard price, so the numbers published on our site are no longer introductory pricing.
• In the next couple of months we are planning a general release of Movable Type 3.x with compelling new features, which will be a free update for Developer Edition users.

Free doesn't look so good today.

Quote: A major cock-up at Akamai has seen the world's biggest websites vanish from view for two hours today.

Randy: That would explain why I couldn't get my email earlier today.

I've always wanted to belong to a club.

The new BoingBoing looks great in Moz, not so in IE.

Lies, damned lies and statistics.

...why not just have a vote pro or con IETF/W3C? There's an enormous amount of energy being spent on the Atom mailing discussing whether their should be a vote on the question of IETF versus W3C. The concensus seems to be that IETF would win the day anyway, so why bother w/ the vote? I think Kerry's gonna win too, so why bother w/ the elections?

It seems pretty undemocratic to say you would've won anyway, so why bother w/ the vote. The powers have decided that consensus in Atom-land is now officially over. Are they afraid they will lose the vote?

Interesting facts: A W3C working group would limit one representative from each company, including IBM.

Glassdog: In retaliation, Microsoft's HotMail service will begin offering Spammers free email service on the terms that they don't Spam HotMail addresses but they do go out and fill up all those free gigs their competitors give away with useless crap. (Complete lie. Good idea, but complete lie.)

Randy: A funny worth repeating.

For the boys.

Yahoo! Mail now has 100 MB free and a new look and feel.

Update: Yahoo! Mail seems to have broken shortly after the new release. I can't even read my email now :(

Update: The breakage was temporary, I have email again.

Today, it was cleanup and document the WSDL day, as per Asbjorn's request. Here's the latest and much cleaner AtomAPI in WSDL.

• WSDL
• External XSD
• WSDL and XSD together
• ASMX example
• ASMX code
• C# client code

Source: Scripting.

This is the most misleading article on syndication to date. Following are some obvious errata.

• "a newer format called Atom, developed in 2003 by IBM researchers" - Although I give Sam a lot of credit, others not employed by IBM also contributed, like me.
• "Instead, the website continuously scans itself for any new postings and automatically updates a small file called a feed" - Funny.
• "Atom also allows any comments that are posted to a blogging site by readers to be syndicated, unlike RSS, which only allows the blogs themselves to be sent out as alerts." - I wonder where they got this idea? I have a comments feed in RSS.
• "And the bigger companies behind Atom could start charging users to implement it for them, he (Winer) says." - And they could charge for RSS also.
• "He (Winer) suggests that the two standards merge to form a single standard that could be approved by the IETF." - I wish, but now understand the stubborness of the proponents make this impossible.

UserFriendy.org has a comic strip about blogging today. I like the message when you try to link thru to their strips. Click thru to view the strip. While you are there, check out the previous week's cartoons, also mostly on blogging.

Source Accordion Guy.

Quote: Why are more and more people getting their news from amateur websites called blogs? Because they're fast, funny and totally biased.

Randy: I think the article failed to pick up on the most attractive part of the Blogosphere. That is, currency. Daily print news is often dated (12 to 36 hours). The Blogosphere is a lot more like Radio, very current.

Sijin Joseph: I have written a macro that autoincrements the build number of the AssemblyVersion.

Randy: Some related code.

using System;
namespace IncrementBuild
{
   class Class1
   {
      static void SetBuildNumber(string filename, string version)
      {
         System.IO.StreamReader stream = System.IO.File.OpenText(filename);
         string s = stream.ReadToEnd();
         stream.Close();
         int i = s.IndexOf("AssemblyVersion");
         int j = s.IndexOf("(\"", i)+2;
         int k = s.IndexOf("\")", i);
         string old = s.Substring(j, k-j);
         s = s.Replace(old, version);
         System.IO.StreamWriter writer = System.IO.File.CreateText(filename);
         writer.Write(s);
      }

      static void Main(string[] args)
      {
         string version = "1.0.1.1";
         if (args.Length >= 1)
         {
            version = args[0];
         }
         Class1.SetBuildNumber("AssemblyInfo.cs", version);
      }
   }
}

David Winer: The doctor says "You're a computer guy, right?" I said I was. "What's the word you guys use for seeing something?" I asked if he meant visualize. "That's it!" he exclaimed.

"Now I want you to visualize yourself as a smoker." Since I had been trained in meditation, I thought I was about to be deprogrammed. Okay, I'm visualizing.

"You're dead!" he said and started laughing.

What do you mean? I asked. "People like you who keep smoking are usually dead within three years," he explained. Gulp. Somehow, in all the doom and gloom it had never really sunk in that I had almost died. If I had waited another couple of weeks to deal with this, well, I don't even like to think about it.

Anyway, that was the moment. That was when I decided to stop smoking.

Randy: Two years w/out smoking. This is better than SOAP and RSS combined. Life. Congrats Dave!

It seems that Apache Axis requires that you wrap all input messages w/ an empty part. Otherwise, it blows.

C:\Program Files\axis-1_1>java samples.integrationGuide.example1.MyWSDL2Java C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\Soap\AtomApi.0.3.1.wsdl
java.util.NoSuchElementException
        at org.apache.axis.wsdl.toJava.JavaStubWriter.writeOperation(JavaStubWriter.java:777)

This means, the current WSDL for Atom is not Axis 1.1 capable. Further, it looks like they may not fix this going forward as the bug was resolved, but incomplete.

The solution is to put an empty element in the GETIn message.

<message name="GETIn">
   <part name="GET" element="atomtypes:GET"/>
</message>

Source: SQL Junkies.

I asked to be listed. I was twice awarded as an MVP and once turned down the award (the third receipt).

The NHL announced the award winners and all-star teams. iM more than disappointed w/ the roll of winners.

• Brodeur won on past accomplishments, not the current season. The same could be said of Niedermayer. Luongo and Chara deserve the awards.
• Tortorella won because he's American, as per my previous assertion; Americans always win in a close vote. 
• Raycroft won because of a loophole in the rules for goaltenders' qualifying as rookies.
• Aucoin and Gonchar deserved much better voting, I cannot believe McCabe was chosen to the 2nd all-star team in place of Aucoin.
• Sundin and Nash also received lesser votes than they merited.

My next step w/ the Atom WSDL is to figure out "What to do?" w/ schemaLocation. The attribute is generally ignored, which gives me three options.

• Omit - Don't provide a schemaLocation. Forces user to specify, but some tools don't allow external user provided references.
• Relative -  Provide just the filename w/out path, that is, the external XSD should be in the same folder as the WSDL. Some tools ignore this, while others ignore relative, but accept fully qualified URIs.
• URI - Provide a URL. Where to host? A lot of tools will ignore this regardless.

Update: I create a new version of the WSDL that doesn't require the external XSD.

qUOTE: Caps lock's only purpose is to get accidentally pushed, which means I have to push it again to disable it. 

Randy: Have u ever tried holding the Windows key and pressing D, E or F?

Quote: Archaeologists have dug up a thousand-year-old padded bra in Inner Mongolia, China, a news report said on Thursday.

Randy: I assume this voids any padded bra patents.

This album was produced long ago and 500 copies were pressed. It is being re-released because of the base player's recent popularity. Who is it? Note the URL and title r a giveaway.

Source: BoingBoing.

Just working on some Atom stuff.

• Latest Atom WSDL
• External syntax XSD (for API not feed)
• Running Web service and description
• Code behind the running service

I externalized the WS-Security. I changed the WSDL target namespace, but that didn't help me much. I think my choice of using the same namespace as the syntax wasn't smart of me. I'll try again w/ Chris' suggestion of http://purl.org/atom/ns/wsdl#. But iM off to the grocery store to load up the empty fridge. I'll address the namespace thingy later today.

Update: All fixed up and ready to go, w/ all of Chris' suggestions. I also somewhat tested it w/ Wsld.exe, works fine.

Update: Danny Ayers pointed out that the WSDL didn't work w/ WSDL2OWL-S. I fixed this in the WSDL.

Quote: "A salary cap is not going to be part of the plan going forward," Goodenow told Toronto newspapers on Thursday. "That means there won't be a start of the season and there may not be a season [at all] next year. We are not going to do a cap and we are not going to do a percentage of revenues. The owners set the scale of salaries for the players and that is the marketplace. It has always been that way for the past 75 years or so and that is the way we are going to go forward with it."

David Winer: I just did my first audio Morning Coffee Notes.

I've always wanted to address Chris' Rants' "Some thoughts on the AtomAPI WSDL" rant. In his blog entry he looks at a few issues related to the Atom WSDL at AtomEnabled.org. Let me start by enumerating his issues.

1. As per the WS-I Basic Profile, item R2004, a defintion should not use xs:import to import a schema whose document root is not xs:schema.
2. WSDL target namespace is http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/http/.
3. WSDL redefines WS-Security.

The first item is troubling to me. I think the intent of the profile here was to prevent using the xs:import to import external wsdl definitions, not internal schema definitions. But, if you read the text correct, Chris is obviously right. I'm going to ask mnot (one of the author's of the Basic Profile) to clarify the intent here.

I agree on both 2 and 3 and will modify the WSDL as per Chris' recommendation.

Update: I fixed the O and o on my keyboard this morning. Thanks for emailing me all those o's so that I could cut and paste them.

Today, June 10th, is my son, Brayden's birthday. He's 4 yrs old. Happy Birthday! 

More: Brayden, his sister Adelaine and myself went to Chuck-E-Cheese, which made it a near-perfect day for Brayden. Celeste, my youngest daughter and her Mom didn't attend, as Celeste has contracted chicken pox.

Tim Bray: I’m pretty sure that for business-oriented applications of syndication—and there’s going to be lots of them—Atom will be a more compelling choice; tighter spec, SOAP-friendly, and so on.

Randy: SOAP-friendly. Tim is the greatest. He's drawing a line in the sand and telling everybody to come join him on his side. Let's do it!

Marc Andreessen: When I've had a few beers, I sometimes point out that Netscape existed from 1994-1999, and browsers haven't changed much since 1999 -- interesting, hm? :-)

Tim Bray: Today the IESG met and approved the creation of an IETF Atom Working Group. [cut] They looked at the commentary on standards orgs in this mailing list, and [cut] 35 different people had posted 20 or more messages.

Randy: I guess I rank in the top 35 Atomites and contributed to their acceptance into the IETF. I suspect Dave was in that list of 35 and Asbjorn in the top 10, maybe 5.

Personally, I am glad Atom is going the route of the IETF. I didn't see the W3C w/ their history of RDF as a good choice. I also had one reason why I wanted them to go W3C (a personal reason), which I believe was the sole reason why Atom ended up in the IETF, rather than the W3C.

Quote: Martin St. Louis of the Tampa Bay Lightning won the Lester B. Pearson Award as the NHL's most outstanding player Thursday. The other finalists were goalie Roberto Luongo of the Florida Panthers and Joe Sakic of the Colorado Avalanche.

Randy: Deserved. Sundin should have been one of the finalist.

A few years ago, I remember my daughter 4yrs old at the time dancing w/ him during Disney's Magical Kingdom parade. My greatest Duck memory. What's yours?

Source BoingBoing.

Note: The link in this article may bring you to a registration page or advertising. You should be able to click back and onto the link again to escape it.

CHARLES WYCKOFF: Hello.
KEVIN B. WYCKOFF: Hey, Dad.
CHARLES: Huh. Well damn, boy. We just had your funeral today.
KEVIN: Yeah I know, I heard.

Source: thatyellowbastard.

I don't know what I'm doing to deserve so many hits. I'm up to nearly 15k hits/day this month. Up from less than 9k last month, 6k the month before that, 4k the month before. I have to implement more bandwidth throttling. I'm going to throttle the RSS by increasing the TTL on older entry specific comment feeds to once a month.

My guess is that people love reading crap.

Some of my readers have started a Ronald Reagan Memorial in the comments of an entry I created long ago related to Reagan's daughter, Patti Davis. Feel free to participate.

Quote: In a one-to-one match with John Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate, Mr Bush lags by seven points. Asked who they would vote for if the election were held today, 51 per cent choose Mr Kerry against 44 per cent for Mr Bush. A similar poll in March showed Mr Kerry ahead by a 49-46 per cent margin.

Randy: Hurray!

Quote: ... with Father's Day approaching, Google Inc. is experimenting by promoting its own shopping site ahead of other online search results and ads. [cut] For example, when computer users typed the phrase "Father's Day gifts" into Google earlier this week, Froogle often came up as the first listing. [cut] In another recent practice that is drawing criticism, Google manually altered the mathematically generated search results [cut] so that the first thing coming up in a search under ads was a link to Froogle. In this case, Google did not identify Froogle by name, choosing instead to label the result under the heading "Product Search Results." Only when users clicked on the link did they find it led to Froogle.

Randy: Google's approaching IPO is changing their philosophy. Don't be evil.

Quote: The Hockey Hall of Fame selection committee scored a hat trick Wednesday with the announcement that defensemen Ray Bourque, Paul Coffey and Larry Murphy would be inducted into the wonderful shrine to the sport come November.

Randy: Ray Bourque was my favorite player while growing up. I even wore #77 in my later years (20's).

This is my latest work in progress for the Atom WSDL. My older one is here. The one currently used by everybody is here. I realized that the WSDL has been forsaken and doesn't work anywhere, so I'm applying some new effort to get this back on track.

Update: The most recent WSDL is now found here.

I've been trying desparately to find a Atom API server implementation that actually works. I can't. Every implementation is flawed in so many ways that I can't move forward anymore. Is anybody having any luck w/ this? The only working client I've found is Atom.NET, where the author has taken the time to find all the flaws in the server implementations and code around them. Unfortunately, that's not what I wanted.

Beyond the Atom API not working at all, the Blogger Developers Network blog is also out of service. The permalinks r broken.

Please HELP!

Atom.NET Dude: You're right about the WSDL -- if this just worked, I wouldn't have had to do anything at all ;-)

Randy: Imagine a world where you don't have to write client proxies. This world includes WSDL.

Update: MSXML Dude lives in this world too.

MSGing (Yahoo! flavor) w/ Ken MacLeod last night, I came to realize that the weakest part of the case for RSS is MetaWeblogAPI. The reasons are several-fold. I will enumerate and describe thru the day.

1. Atom API - iM not enamored by the Atom API. I find it complex that you have to autodisco many entry points. I also don't like the fact that it's XSD unfriendly and WSDL incapable. Regardless, some people really like this REST thing and view it as superior to XML-RPC, which iM inclined to agree w/. Sorry RSS Dude.
2. Same data model, but not the same XML schema - As much as RSS Dude likes to say that MetaWeblogAPI and RSS 2.0 share the same data model, they do not share the same XML schema. This means, I have to write separate code for each.
3. XML-RPC - I hate XML-RPC. It is way too verbose. SOAP and REST turn that verbosity off.
4. Blogger API - MetaWeblogAPI is an extension of Blogger API, which has been deprecated. This really shouldn't matter, but it's difficult to market an API that is based on another deprecated API.
5. WSDL - Both Atom API and MetaWeblogAPI are WSDL incapable. This may change in WSDL 2.0. In favor of Atom.

RSS 2.0 can succeed on its own, but I think a complimentary Weblogging protocol would help its case. MetaWeblogAPI is not that protocol.

Update: MSXML Dude doesn't like MetaWeblogAPI  either.

Atom.NET Dude: Another inconsistency between the major platforms. Blogger uses local time for posts. TypePad uses UTC. Fun! I also updated the API a touch (sorry, added a parameter, but you can put "null" in there if you want) to allow adding categories to posts ... although this is TypePad-specific for now, there was no really good way to separate this out, plus Blogger doesn't care if you want to add a category, it will just ignore it. Note, though, that TypePad does not seem to return the category to you. Anybody have a contact there?

Quote: Google is considering renewing support for the popular RSS Web publishing format in some of its services, CNET News.com has learned, marking the latest twist in a burgeoning standards war over technology that could change how people read the news.

Source: RSS Dude.

Glaz Dude: Our friend Karl Dubost is asking himself two good questions... Do URLs have a meaning? Should URLs be readable?

Randy: Readable URLs are a crutch. <a href='url'>url</a> <a href='url'>description</a>

Yet Another Syndication Dude: Anyway, I’ve been increasingly puzzled by the hits I’ve been getting for syndication feeds that went dark two years ago. It seems there are a plethora of sites still trying to pull them down. LiveJournal, for one. If you’re building such an application - and many of you are - do you fancy putting in a test to check for good old http status codes, and changing your database if you find a 301, a 303, a 307 or a 410. Call me a standards-nazi all you like, but it’s costing me money. Ok, rant over.

Randy: The acronym nazi stands for National Socialist German Workers' Party. I find it funny that historians refer to the nazis as fascist, not socialist.

My keybard has a malfunctining key. Guess which ne? iM cpy pasting that letter in all ther places.

Patent Abstract: A method, apparatus, and software are disclosed for assisting a software developer in managing tasks to be completed by providing a task list as a unified location for developers to locate errors and warnings in code, as well as specify user-defined tasks. The task list is updated in "real time" as the developer completes tasks and generates new tasks.

Randy: I think I want to be a patent junky.

Have terrorist? Will crush. This bulldozer is a monster used in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Quote: Blogging is officially no longer a geek-dominated domain — a geek being defined by convention as a nerd who drools and a nerd being defined as one who tittered at the pun on "domain."

Randy: Way cool article in the Star on blogging.

Source: Accordion Dude. Accordion Dude also has some great Opencola pics on his blog today.

XML Dude: Per Godwin’s Law, the syndication technology debate is over. Good enough, it was getting kind of lame.

Randy: Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!

Question: Who won?

I finally bit the bullet last night and realized that SafeNet SoftRemote was more problem than value. Running the uninstall, I got a very nice splash screen, followed by a progress bar and finally an error. The uninstaller is gone, but the software remains. All of the problems remain and all the value is gone. Arggg!

My next thought was to install Linux and get rid of this stupid Windows thingy. I woke up and remembered that all my software doesn't run properly on Linux. Frustrated, I finally realized that everybody is an idiot including myself. Time to write my own OS :)

All day, I've been getting the following error from Orkut.

Server Error

The server encountered a temporary error and could not complete your request.

Please try again in 30 seconds.

API Dude has discovered Funky Atom.

Source: XML Dude.

XML Dude: Speaking as a veteran of a few standards processes, I observe the recent flurry of proposals [on the Atom mailing list] for this, that, and the other with considerable concern. One of the best ways to kill a new standards technology is to add just a few too many good ideas so that the spec takes longer to build, is harder to understand, and harder to implement. At some point, to get this sucker out the door, we're going to have to drop a sharp pointy blade that will cut off a few ideas that might have been real good. It would be good for our mental health to all acknowledge that this will happen and that occasionally, less is more.

Randy: Less is More is currently a very popular term in CDN as one of our major breweries is using it in its advertising. On topic, I think everybody agrees w/ XML Dude. They want their important proposals to be considered and all others thrown away.

RSS Dude: There were three groups at Microsoft, one working on WebDAV, another working with Allaire on WDDX, and a third working on SOAP. Anyway, if this were a horror movie, we'd say They're baaaaack, about the WebDAV folk. Amazingly, they're talking about retrofitting weblog APIs to be part of WebDAV. What an stunningly stupid step backwards.

Randy: There's SOAP, WebDAV, REST, XML-RPC, ... Too many protocols that want to be the same thing. Unfortunately, just as RSS Dude doesn't understand WebDAV, I don't understand REST or XML-RPC. Others claim not to understand SOAP.

Congratulations to Dave Andreychuk, x-Oshawa General and captain of the Lightning who secured his spot next to Lanny MacDonald in the Hockey Hall of Fame. And congrats to Brad Richards, who until this last month, has been playing his entire career (including juniors) in the shadows of his teammate (Lecavalier).

FYI, if anybody tells you that the call at the end of the game was correct, then they don't know anything about hockey or are too biased to form an opinion. Note who made the call and the previous calls that cost the Flames the Stanley Cup. The Flames and this series will undoubtedly go down in history along side the 1999 Buffalo Sabres.

I put a Yahoo! MSGer Presence icon in the right sidebar. I had removed it months ago as Yahoo! MSGer had fallen behind and I wasn't using it much anymore. Not anymore. The latest version of Yahoo! MSGer is better than MSN MSGer.

Atom is simply too complex for the average developer. This is now being pronounced as organizations like Google release streams of broken Atom Web services.

In Google's latest implementation of Atom, they are creating Atom entry elements w/ no namespace. Any client who is expecting to find the entry w/in the Atom namespace will be surpised to find this obvious problem. And since this error occurs on the POST (also PUT) method, it is highly likely that anybody is having a good time programming to Blogger's Atom Web service.

I discovered this flaw while stepping thru the Atom.NET code and posting to my Blogger test blog. The author's of the Atom.NET implementation were also aware of the flaw, as they programmed around it by anticipating the exception and trying to parse the returned POST entry otherwise.

Further, reading thru the Atom.NET code reveals that most methods have Typepad or Blogger specific code. Zero interop. In fact, the sample code has a variable bTypepad in order to avoid semantic differences between the two implementations.

Great complaining, but what's the solution? WSDL and SOAP. If you properly specify your SOAP Web service in WSDL and follow the guidelines of the WS-I Basic Profile, then you'll be halfway home before you know it. Not that it's easy to write a good WSDL, for instance, the WSDL on the AtomEnabled site really sucks. Of course, I don't expect this complaint to convince anybody to use SOAP, the Atomites are stuck on REST and seem prepared to die rather than give up their baby.

That said, part of the problem lies in the fact that the Atom API is extremely vague on a lot of issues. This vagueness is being interpreted differently by the various implementers and this is leading to the interop HELL. As such, I'm going to move forward w/ my PaceInterop proposal.

Update: I just re-read the AtomEnabled WSDL again. HACK! This is what happens when a bunch of Python developers try to create a protocol description.

Quote: The software giant has decided that a forthcoming update to XP will not work with the most widely pirated versions of its operating system. [cut] Microsoft has worked out the 20 most pirated product IDs and SP2 will not install and run on any copy of XP bearing one of those numbers.

Source: Evidence Dude.

Randy: I find it funny that some say that Microsoft is pissing on the Net by tyring to prevent piracy (an illegal activity). Go Microsoft Go! Piracy prevention leads to higher software developer wages. Thanks.

Ponyboy: That Mark Pilgrim guy is some kind of asshole.

Randy: It looks like the glassdog blog is going to offer up some interesting topics.

Quote: Ronald Wilson Reagan, the 40th president of the United States who launched the modern-day conservative political movement with the "Reagan Revolution," died Saturday. He was 93.

Randy: Reagan lived a great life. He was long-lived, had a large family, President of the United States for 8 years, was a great American cowboy and he blew several $trillions on an 8 year spending spree. I wish I could get a guarantee to live that long and see my own family grow up.

Update: It's great hearing all the Reagan stories, springing up across the blogosphere. More links on Reagan follow...

• rotten.com
• ronaldreagan.com
• whitehouse.gov
• ronaldreaganmemorial.com

I think this quote from Reagan is his most true self: I had a ball on the way to the plate and there was no way to call it back. So, I had Augie foul this pitch down the left field line. He fouled for six minutes and forty-five seconds. My voice was riding in pitch and threatening to crack - and then, bless him, Curly started typing. I clutched at the slip. It said: 'Galan popped out on the first ball pitched.

Something I wrote on Julie's blog: When Reagan was president and I was a teenage, I thought the world of him. I didn't understand politics. I was CDNian, not American. I grew to dislike him later in life. But today, I'll remember that teenager that envied him.

Then there's Rich Little doing Ronald Reagan.

This weekend my family is staying at Santa's campground.  Visiting Cleveland's House and maybe we'll stop by and see St. Nick himself.

If you don't know where these are located, then use the Road Map of Ontario. Santa's camground is located West of Bracebridge and Cleveland's House is in Minett.

See u online late Sunday night.

Quote: A 52-year-old welder nursing a grudge against the town fathers and driving a bulldozer converted into a war machine ripped the heart of this high-country ranching town from its foundations Friday.

Randy: It only takes one a-hole to destroy something great.

Linux Today Founder Dude: I founded and managed Linux Today in 1998, bringing it up from nothing into the most powerful and large Linux news website in the world, in less than a year. I am now calling on the Linux community to boycott my creation until its current owners stop accepting money from Microsoft to publish blatantly anti-Linux/pro-Microsoft ads.

Randy: What? I don't need to comment to make this funny.

CDNian funny!

Source: Tom.

The Stanley Cup Finals almost every year pits a great team against a cinderella team. The cinderella team has never won. Yet!

I remember when the NHL league office clearly bent the rules to allow the Dallas Stars to defeat the Buffalo Sabres. Lather, Rinse, Repeat. This year's playoff is being widely officiated in favor of the Lightning. Please tell me that if Dingman would have cross-checked Iginla in a similar fashion that he would have received a suspension. Everybody knows otherwise or is in denial. Further, today's game is being dominated by the Flames. But trying to defeat both the Lightning and the reffing is difficult.

Update: The Flames won regardless.

A couple weeks ago, I installed this new VPN software so that I could do some remote work from home. The installation wasn't too painful, after a few dozen security warnings where XP repeatedly advised me against installing the software, I then received a couple error boxes and finally the installer simply hung. That's the good part.

I lost all network connectivity. I rebooted. Nothing. I started an investigation and found that this software had completely taken over IP connectivity. I found that it had implemented a engaged firewall w/ a dictionary of security policies. I disabled this and IP connectivity slowly returned.

Now whenever I restart my laptop, I'm awarded a 5 minute IP connectivity penalty. That is, I can't connect to the Internet for the first 5 minutes or so after the restart. But eventually, the Internet engages and I'm now typing this blog entry to advise against anyone else making the mistake of using this software.

Two of my co-workers have also installed the software recently. One lost a day of work as he struggled to re-establish IP connectivity. The other had to re-OS his computer.

Quote: A method and system are provided for extending the functionality of application buttons on a limited resource computing device. Alternative application functions are launched based on the length of time an application button is pressed. A default function for an application is launched if the button is pressed for a short, i.e., normal, period of time. An alternative function of the application is launched if the button is pressed for a long, (e.g., at least one second), period of time. Still another function can be launched if the application button is pressed multiple times within a short period of time, e.g., double click.

Randy: Microsoft has patented the mouse button double-click.

RSS Dude: Six Flags has the greatest TV commercial on the air. [cut] And this is one smart company. I went to their website, and there in big spot in the middle of the page it says "Click to see our new commercial." And so I did. Happily, it's the same one that was so mesmerizing on TV, and it's just as amazing on the Web.

Randy: My son was only recently introduced to Six Flags. He, of course, refers to it as the Batman show.

"Remember we went camping and they had the Batman show?"

I think we'll be dancing w/ the bald guy again before the summer's end.

Quote: In terms of what we could in a year, we could see percentages in the upper 90s.

Randy: I use to read all my SPAM as entertainment value until this year. According to Yahoo! Mail, iM getting about 200 per day and this accounts for less than 80% of my email (I subscribe to a few mailing lists that are quite busy). If that were to increase to the upper 90s, then that could translate to 1000 per day. Thanks to Yahoo! Mail (free), I won't have to read most of these.

Source: Corante and SuicideGirls.

From FastCompany.com.

1. Personal Responsibility.
2. Simplify Constantly.
3. Understand Breadth, Depth, and Context.
4. The importance of alignment and time management.
5. Leaders learn constantly and also have to learn how to teach.
6. Stay true to your own style.
7. Manage by setting boundaries with freedom in the middle.
8. Stay disciplined and detailed.
9. Leave a few things unsaid.
10. Like people.

Source: jwz.

My annual family trip to Clevelands House is this weekend. Shall be fun. I'll be staying nearby at a campground. It's a charity gold tournament. I won't actually golf - something I have done in year, which is weird considering I use to help run a golf league and had a 15 handicap. That's what happens when you have three kids (no time for golf).

Camping options...

• Glenwoord Park, Port Carling
• Butterly Lake Tent & Trailer Park, Glen Orchard
• Gullwing Lake Park, Bala

This one is for Dave.

Quote: Everything a non-tech user needs to know about RSS 2.0.

Randy: A Website for users of RSS 2.0. No techies allowed :)

Scoble Dude: Oh, and everytime I meet an IE team member in the halls (which is quite often) I grab them by the shirt, give them a nugie, and ask them when they are gonna support standards.

The IE team, by the way, is interacting with anyone who drops by on Channel9's forums.

Finally, there's a Wiki where people are keeping track of feature requests for the next version of Internet Explorer.

Nokia has a photo blogging tool!!!

Crane Dude: PHP is a convenient language for rapidly prototyping simple dynamic websites. [cut] For more experienced developers, though, the language’s simplicity rapidly turns into complexity, slowing down the development process. These developers are the ones who have the skills needed to build large and/or complex websites; using PHP for such sites therefore tends to be a net loss. This tendency is reinforced by PHP’s lack of the linguistic features needed to promote working on large software projects. If your project is at all large or complex, it may be better to look elsewhere when choosing an implementation language.

Source: Dashing Dude.