Category: Uncategorized

1. Search engines like the word Microsoft
2. People like Microsoft and Dinosaur in the same phrase
3. Putting the names “Dave Winer” or “Robert Scoble” in any post raises its visibility

Worst kept secret on the net is now out — Yahoo! has purchased Flickr. [here and here]
Guess I should get either a decent mobile phone or a digital camera…

And I am so &*^*&^*&^ clueless that I didn’t even know that Flickr was

1. Canadian
2. From Vancouver

Well, if I can’t cheer for the Canucks, it’s good to have someone else to cheer for.

Doug Kaye, the guy who wrote my favourite book on Web hosting, just grabbed himself a new 15″ G4 Powerbook. [here]
I am turning green out here…Donations and sponsorships are gratefully accepted!

Yesterday, Scoble noted (and I validated) the idea that the browser is less and less relevant for those of us on the bleeding-edge.
In the blogs that I read, people access information:

• Via mobile phone
• Via PDA
• Via data aggregators
• Via IM
• Via e-mail
• Via personal interaction

Web sites are now targets of information, not providers of information. I increasingly hear of new ways for HTTP(S) to be a conduit of information, not limited to the browser.
Port80 is used by so much more than it was designed for. Extensible browsers attempt to lock customers into the old way of approaching this information. The decade-old paradigm is disintegrating.
My main Web access is through FeedDemon. I use my browser to write, check e-mail and check my server stats. This is very different from 2 years ago, where in lived in the browser.
Two years from now…where will I be spending my online time?

I chose this one because the “H” comes from a British Columbia License plate. Heh.
Very Cool. Play with it here!
Found by Peter Davidson.

Ohhh…this one is classic! [here]

“You can search the hard drives of other computers on your network with Google’s new desktop search. I followed the instructions on the site and I was able to search through my roommate’s computer. Quite a scary bug in one of Google’s fastest growing programs.”

YIKES!

I use a major Northeastern US bank. Today is the second day in a row that they have effectively been unreachable through their Web interface.
From the customer service rep I talked to last night, I got the feeling they lost their backend and have had to re-build it from transaction and rollback logs.
And today, their system is swamped.
Not a good scene.

As the Web moves toward the delivery of services, I have been ruminating on the continuing importance of browsers.
Scoble writes:

Oh, well, back to my RSS news aggregator. That’s where I spend 90% of my Internet time now anyway. Are you still using a Web browser? Good. I’ve been telling audiences that those of you still using Web browsers are wasting your time. I think that Opera might be more concerned by that.

I agree. I use Firefox to handle large applications, such as my employers interface, and my blog editor, but beyond that, it has become less and less important in my everyday online life.
This is the trend. HTTP and HTTPS will be the vehicles to deliver this data. Web servers will become more and more important, but as transformation and application servers for back-end data, not as presentation and image servers.
This is a long-term trend. But it also explains things like the decline of Slashdot. Although they have had an RSS feed for a long time, their bleeding-edge readers found that Slashdot was no longer bleeding-edge. Information is flowing faster and in a more personalized manner through aggregator, desktop and online.
I agree with Scoble (something that happens infrequently): the browser war may be irrelevant. The Web Application era has begun.

I am sitting here listening to Warren Zevon.
And then I remembered this gem. Hunter and Warren. Watching the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
The world is a lesser place without all three things.

I like the way Hakon Wium Lie thinks. He and the Web Standards Team have come up with a browser ‘acid test’ called ACID2.

I seriously hope the the MSIE7 team takes up the challenge. No designer should have to design for a browser; they should design to the standards.