February 2004
Feb. 2, 2004
How to manage smart people (via) Tips from an ex-Microsoftee
RSS native parsing NOT in the next Firebird. It was a misunderstanding
Writing comedy for the BBC (via) Tips from the beeb
Browser Support 2004. Dave Shea’s supported browsers
Feb. 3, 2004
Thesaurus Protocol (via) Query thesauri with XML and HTTP
Macintosh Info. Ted Leung’s tips for OS X
Continuations Made Simple and Illustrated. Yeah right...
Feb. 4, 2004
Ned Batchelder: Showing C header structure. Using Python to maked other languages less painful
Magnatune, an Open Music Experiment (via) “We’re not evil” makes good business sense
I’ve sold out!
What can I say—the lure of the mighty dollar proved too much. I’ve just made my first post to my new client-side scripting blog over at SitePoint, as a paid columnist.
[... 244 words]The return of the Spong Monkeys
Via Eric Meyer, at least I’m not the only one selling out. Joel Veitch’s infamous Spong Monkeys can now be seen in two TV ads for Quiznos sandwhiches: We love the subs and Take a buck off (Quicktime movies). It’s nice to see such awesome and uniquely British talent recognised at a global level.
Stalking the wild PVR... Sam Ruby’s experiences with Debian and MythTV
Christians boycott Amazon for selling smutty books published by Christian publisher and sold in Christian Bookstores. Tony Bowden ran the The Jack Chick WWW Archive! in a former life
ACCU Conference 2004. UK conference with a Python track
Mooncalf: Thuffering Thuccotash! Andy redesigns, in a pleasing shade of green
The myth of RSS compatibility [dive into mark]. Sometimes I think Mark’s raison d etre is to upset Dave Winer
Download a RealPlayer version that doesn’t suck (via) The BBC link to a special version of the player, sans spyware and other gristle
Eastern Standard Tribe. Cory has a new novel out. I think I’m actually going to buy this one.
Google Guide (via) Great for friends and relatives who need to improve their search skills
Feb. 5, 2004
Apple—Trailers—Boundin. Pixar’s latest, with dancing gophers!
Using encryption and digital signatures in Mail (via) I’m still considering switching to Mail.app from Thunderbird
London Slang. Because my co-workers didn’t know what “taking the mick” meant
Hot Links
The thing I love about RSS, and by extension web services, is that they allow people to take publically available data and combine it in ways never thought of by the originator of the feed. The internet is awash with examples of this, from useful services such as Feedster to useless amusements like I despise you and your so-called taste, the most insulting extension of the Amazon API I’ve seen to date.
[... 249 words]Feb. 6, 2004
Electoral Services (via) It turns out UK secret ballots aren’t so secret after all
PHP Community Site (Coming Soon) (via) Still shaping up; volunteers welcome
Basecamp. New hosted project management solution from 37signals
Marvin Walks (via) Video footage of the prototype Marvin suit for Hitch-Hikers the movie
Blair may blog the next election (via) Unfortunately, spin and blogging just don’t mix.
The dangers of PageRank
A well documented side effect of the weblog format is that it brings Google PageRank in almost absurd quantities. I’m now the 5th result for simon on Google, and I’ve been the top result for simon willison almost since the day I launched. High rankings however are not always a good thing, especially when combined with a comment system. A growing number of bloggers have found themselves at the top position for terms of little or no relevance to the rest of their sites, which in turn can attract truly surreal comments from visitors from search engines who may never have encountered a blog before.
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