Linked List: June 2004

Wednesday, 30 June 2004

Geek Patrol Interview with Arlo Rose 

Arlo Rose:

People keep bringing up Desk Accessories. Desk Accessories were just mini applications accessed via the apple menu. The idea behind K is not so much about the basic Widgets as it is about empowering people to easily create their own and this is the key part that Dashboard duplicates.

So, by this logic, it’s OK for Apple to provide an API for desk accessory-like things, but it’s not OK for them to be easy to develop.

Ian Hickson on the State of Web App Development 

Ian Hickson, in an excellent post on the state of web app development:

The first public demo of a Web Forms 2.0 page was actually a very high profile demo, though I highly doubt that anyone present actually realised they were looking at it. It was during Steve Jobs’ keynote speech at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, during the Safari RSS spot. If you look at the top right of the screenshots of Safari showing an RSS feed, you’ll see a little slider control. That, my friends, is a Web Forms 2.0 <input type="range"> control.

Apple Releases Rendezvous for Windows, Linux, Java 

Apple:

Rendezvous technology is now available on Windows 2000 and XP. This preview release includes full link-local support, allowing Windows machines to discover advertised HTTP and FTP servers using Internet Explorer.

They’ve also released versions for Java and for Linux/BSD/Solaris.

Mozilla Scriptable Plug-Ins 

The Mozilla Foundation:

Apple, Macromedia, Opera and Sun Microsystems join in push to modernize plugins and create a richer web experience

Apple, Macromedia, Opera, Sun, Mozilla… hmm… seems to me there used to be another company that wrote web browsers…

2004 Apple Design Award Winners 

Freeverse’s Big Bang Chess, Panic’s Unison, and Pixelglow’s GraphViz are big winners. Macromedia Contribute and Freshly Squeezed’s PulpFiction also win.

(Via wafer, via iChat.)

Tuesday, 29 June 2004

Coudal Partners Redesign 

Coudal.com redesign. Beautiful colors, logical layout, and outstanding typography (Times is the new Georgia). So very much attention to detail.

WWDC Keynote Webcast 

There was no live stream, but the webcast is now available.

Tiger Support for Boy Bands 

From Apple’s page describing the UNIX-level improvements in Tiger, under “HFS and Command-Line Support” (emphasis added):

Tiger provides a standard, Darwin-level API for managing resource forks, filesystem metadata, security information, properties and other attributes in a consistent, cross-platform manner. For example, common UNIX utilities such as cp, tar and nsync can properly handle HFS+ resource forks.

No word yet on whether The Backstreet Boys will also handle resource forks. Or rsync for that matter.

Monday, 28 June 2004

Weblog Server in Tiger Server is Blojsom 

The included weblog server in Tiger Server is Blojsom, a Java weblogging tool inspired by Blosxom. (Which is cool because there’s a Markdown plug-in for Blojsom.)

Watson Sold; Moving to Java 

Dan Wood has sold Watson to an unnamed “large company” (apparently Sun?), and is helping them create a new version in the form of a cross-platform Java app.

Brent Simmons on Safari’s RSS Integration 

Brent Simmons:

The RSS reader in Safari is not a full-featured newsreader, at least from what I could tell by the demo. For instance, it doesn’t appear to remember what items you’ve read or tell you how many unread items you have. And some of the other features that it does have—such as RSS searching—are coming in NetNewsWire 2.0.

So… even with Safari’s RSS reader, there is still a need for newsreaders that do more. (Much more.)

Tiger Unveiled 

Safari RSS, Dashboard, Automator, new search technologies, new graphics technologies.

Sunday, 27 June 2004

kottke.org Redesign 

Nice. Feels very much like a refreshed version of the old design, which is always difficult when completely redesigning a long-standing site. XHTML/CSS/etc. My only gripes:

  • The right-hand column contains significant content only on the home page; on the interior pages, the layout feels unbalanced, leaning left.
  • The distracting little photo atop the right-hand column on the home page.
This Should Keep Redmond Busy 

Apple’s Tiger promotional banners at WWDC, very much in Microsoft’s face. It’s fun to see Apple market aggressively, even if only at a preaching-to-the-choir venue like WWDC.

(Via wafer, via iChat)

Ihnatko on AppleScript Studio 

Andy Ihnatko, in The Mac Observer:

AppleScript Studio reminded me that writing software is creative and energizing and exciting.

(Via MDJ 2004.06.21)

Saturday, 26 June 2004

Infinite Jest 

Mark Hall, in an uninformed “Apple shouldn’t be so secretive” opinion piece in Computerworld:

Fingers must also be pointed at 1 Infinity [sic] Loop, the company’s Cupertino, Calif., headquarters. Like its pretentious address, Apple’s haughty attitude simply annoys people.

You’d think that if you’re going to make fun of Apple’s “pretentious” address, you’d at least get the address right.

Mojavi – an MVC framework for PHP 

Trenton Davies with a nice introduction to Mojavi, a Model-View-Controller web app framework for PHP. (Cocoa is a Model-View-Controller app framework.)

Friday, 25 June 2004

‘Hoefler Type Foundry’ now ‘Hoefler & Frere-Jones’ 

The Hoefler Type Foundry has changed its name to Hoefler & Frere-Jones. (The DF logo is set in Hoefler’s Champion Lightweight.)

Yet Another Win/IE Security Exploit 

BBC:

In its round-up of the threat the Internet Storm Center bluntly stated that users should if possible “use a browser other then MS Internet Explorer until the current vulnerabilities in MSIE are patched.”

Infoworld:

Microsoft Corp. acknowledged Thursday that Internet Information Server (IIS), a component of the Windows 2000 Server, and holes in the Internet Explorer Web browser are being used in widespread attacks that are compromising Web pages and using them as launching pads for malicious computer code.

Joe Clark: More Safari odds ’n’ ends 

Joe Clark’s extensive wishlist for Safari improvements.

Matt Neuburg Reviews Word 2004 

Matt Neuburg, in TidBITS:

AppleScript support has been rewritten from the ground up — a massive undertaking, and an extremely welcome change. A great proportion of Word’s capabilities (perhaps all of them; time and experimentation will tell) are now exposed directly to AppleScript in a natural manner. This truly splendid improvement will completely change the way Word fits into people’s workflows.