Linked List: March 4, 2005

Friday, 4 March 2005

Newsweek?! Fucking-A. I need a better publicist.

LinkBack is an open source framework for Mac OS X, produced by Nisus, The Omni Group, and Blacksmith. The idea is that it provides something similar to the old Publish-and-Subscribe mechanism from System 7, where one app can embed the content from another in a frame, and you can double-click the embedded content to open it for editing in the original app. E.g. you could put an OmniGraffle illustration in your Nisus Writer Express document, then later on double-click the graphic to open it in OmniGraffle for editing.

It’ll be interesting to see if something like this can take off, given that it’s a community project rather than an official Cocoa framework from Apple.

(It’s also a weird name — when I think “link”, I think web. My first thought was that “LinkBack” was some sort of alternative to TrackBack.)

Judge Rules in Favor of Apple in Subpoena Case ★

Dawn C. Chmielewski, reporting for The San Jose Mercury News:

In a case with implications for the freedom to blog, a San Jose judge tentatively ruled Thursday that Apple Computer can force three online publishers to surrender the names of confidential sources who disclosed information about the company’s upcoming products.

This is an important case, and if it stands, a significant victory for Apple. But it is not about “the freedom to blog”. It’s only about the freedom to republish trade secrets regarding upcoming Apple products.

Sam Ruby: Yahoo Search and Iñtërnâtiônàlizætiøn ★

Yahoo Web Services don’t accept UTF-8 input, but yet produce UTF-8 output, but they don’t actually tell you that it’s UTF-8. Sam Ruby is right: Yahoo should standardize on UTF-8 for both input and output.

[Update: Looks like Yahoo has fixed it already. Nice.]