By John Gruber
WorkOS launches auth.md — an open protocol for agent registration.
Linked List: November 15, 2006
Wednesday, 15 November 2006
- Zune Review at Engadget ★
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Ryan Block, in his comprehensive Zune review for Engadget:
Never before have we done so much device plugging and unplugging. When you finish adding files to your Zune, you can’t go back and drop in more. You cannot interact with your player until you unplug it, and plug it back in. While it’s plugged in you can’t interact with it; with the Zune there’s no such thing as listening to music out of the player and charging via the sync cable at the same time. We couldn’t play music off the device through the application, either. When your Zune is plugged in, your Zune is absolutely nothing but plugged in.
- Haiku Vector Icon Format ★
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Haiku OS, an in-development project to recreate the BeOS as an open source OS, uses a vector image format for icons, specifically designed to make them small and fast-to-load.
- Airlines Say ‘Not So Fast’ Regarding iPod Integration ★
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Air France and KLM are saying the iPod integration is a maybe, not a done deal.
- Zune Doom ★
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Glenn Fleishman in TidBITS:
Also, let me add that music exchanged among Zunes will cease to play after three days or after it’s been played three times. This includes music, podcasts, and other files that are specifically licensed for unlimited reproduction or trading, such as music distributed under a Creative Commons license that doesn’t allow post-release encryption of the sort that Microsoft wraps around it for these transfers.
That’s an interesting observation: When the Zune adds DRM to Creative Commons licensed media files, it’s doing so in contravention of the license.
- NBC’s Today Show Compares Zune Against Old 4G iPod ★
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Side-by-side comparison on NBC’s Today Show compares the Zune against the old 4G black-and-white screen iPod that debuted back in 2004.
- Vector vs. Raster: The Fool’s Game ★
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Stephen Deken also disagrees with Hockenberry on the use of vector art for icons, but the nut of his argument seems to come down to this:
In the long term, a better approach would be to develop a specialized vector icon format. (No, SVG isn’t it. It’s worse than PDF in verbosity.)
Arguing for a new vector format optimized for iconography is not the same thing as arguing that vector art should be used for distributing higher-resolution icons today.
- Lilt ★
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Pat Nakajima on Lilt:
On top of the fact that Lilt performs a relatively worthless function, it performs it in a rather hideous manner. The Apple Human Interface Guidelines are painfully eschewed in favor of an interface that looks like a cutout of a Macbook Pro poster. The window itself doesn’t behave how you think it should, which makes it no surprise that the app doesn’t really work the way it says it should.
- Resolution Independent Bullshit Meter Off the Charts ★
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Well, Christopher Lloyd certainly disagrees with Craig Hockenberry w/r/t using vector art for resolution independent icons.
I think if you really want to refute Hockenberry’s argument, though, you’d have to produce top-notch vector icon files that compare well size- and quality-wise to bitmaps.
- Zune Not Yet Compatible With Windows Vista ★
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Funny, but Vista isn’t actually shipping yet.
- The Daily WTF: Fisher Price Technology Integration ★
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Anyone with a job like this really ought to just quit.