Monkinetic Weblog

Nate updates his site!

Uh oh. My site thinks I'm not authorized to change system prefs. This is not good.

Oh, I SO hope this is true. I had a Newton 120 that I loved dearly, until the lack of rechargeable batteries and the size made it impractical for me. The handwriting recognition was lightyears ahead of the Palm's Graffiti.

In meetings all this week, and boy am I glad for the web.

Jon Udell on digital signatures

I'm only talking about... SHAFT!* *

Check this out, now.

This evening Redmonk.Net comes to you courtesy of the new Win2k notebook that my company got for me. Windows 2000 is very different in some ways. Mostly it's worse, though there's a bit more eye candy. I suppose it's more stable, but I haven't been using it enough to know yet.

Hey hey- it's my birthday! Yay for me! (29! gasp!)

Grreeeeetings!

"Pike" Still doesn't work from behind firewalls. ;-(

Pike

I am once again editing this site in "Pike". Yay! Now I have to review how to write rules, so I can get my rules set up right on this machine. (My iBook.) Rules are now working. Now that I'm in Pike again, it's like being in Frontier (actually, those in the know will make the case that I am in Frontier...) ";->". I have my HTML menu, and my outliner, and because I know how, I can customize Pike to do whatever I want it to.

Outlining your ear off

No doubt about it, outlining makes me a much more prolific writer. I find it so much easier to express myself in a structured editor.

Speaking of structured editors, I was describing "Frontier" to another developer this evening, and he just nodded the whole time, until I got to Frontier's outliner. Describing the process of editing code in an outline to him, I watched his face light up. I love that! I expressed to him, as I do to every developer I expound to, that if only I could get a scriptable outline code editor that would do syntax highlighting, I could stop IDE shopping.

Just to prove I could do it, I got Frontier talking via Applescript to Sun's javac the other day, and was writing Java code in the outliner, and compiling it in javac. Yum!

Resumes and Headhunters

I've had my resume up on my site for a long time. I'm not looking for a job, but I think of my resume as a publicly available doument, a reference of sorts.

Lately I've started getting emails from people I can only assume are headhunters saying they saw my resume online, I have skills they're looking for, and have a great opportunity for me if I'll contact them. Java is big (though if they looked closely they would see that my resume says JavaScript), as is eCommerce. The couple I actually talked to (they called me at work, no less) wanted to know all about what kind of work I'm doing, what tools I use, but were very slow to offer details about the opportunities they have to offer. Oh- I also blew off someone I thought was an annoying headhunter, but on reflection was probably just a desperate corporate recruiter.

I don't know what brings them out of the woodwork. Nothing has really changed for me in the last few months, that I can think of. Somehow I got on some recruiter's list, and they're all pitching me, hoping someone will get me to swing.

I've changed my resume, so it expicitly states that I'm not currently seeking a change of employment. My boss will be happy to hear it. Maybe it'll get them to leave me alone. But I doubt it.

Microsoft ".Net"

Chatting with Josh Lucas the other day, I wondered aloud (well, in print, er, IM) about "Microsoft"'s new ".Net" ("dot-net") strategy. I think this is a big chance for Microsoft to do some great, open, things for both developers and consumers.

The technology is there, to be open, and amazingly powerful. But it's also published, and visible. Lock-in will be harder - not impossible - but harder, no matter what Bill says. (Look about half-way down, for Bill's comment's about second-class citizens. He burns me up sometimes.)

But in typical MS style, the strategy may be too Microsoft-centered. Even the name breathes arrogance, presuming to usurp the ".net" top-level domain moniker for the name of the platform. Come on, guys.

I really want to use my domain. I own

, but I don't have a place to host it that either 1) has "Manila", or 2) is under my control so that I can do what I damn well please with it. Until I can find a hosting solution that meets those requirements, Redmonk stays here.

is currently hosted wiith Llamacom.com, a small hosting setup somewhere in Iowa I think. It's cheap, and I can ftp stuff there. But since I started using "Manila", I've been spoiled. So all my effort goes here, instead of there.

Being a good web developer without my own server, is so... embarassing. sigh.

I think if I ever wrote a CMS, the combination of "Frontier"/"Manila" would be my inspiration and model. I hope "Dave" would see that as a compliment. ";->"

BTW, "Dave" is a prolific writer. And I've never been hooked on a website like I'm hooked on "Scripting News". Thanks, Dave.

Cribbage Games: Steve:1, Jodi:2

Scrabble Games: Steve:3, Jodi:6

It's coming... Frontier for Linux. Rock On, Userland.

I'm sick-ish tonight. A headache and lots of tiredness is making blogging slow and groggy.

We're trying to get Allaire's JRun working on either Windows NT or Linux. We have a project that we want to use servlets for, and JRun seems to have a good reputation... but man, it's hard to get configured properly. We've gotten 2.3.3 working temporarily, then it stopped. De-install, try 3.0. 3.0 on Linux (Mandrake) is finally installed and sort-of working. The demo servlets run, but only in the default directory - not in any of the other directories the docs say will work. Of course, my test servlet won't run anywhere. Most frustrating.

It was very easy to get Suns Java web Server running, and get servlets working, but JWS is very limited, and doesn't run behind IIS, which is a requirement.

Manila Clipper is really cool. So is Manila Quoter. Both can be found here.

Web geek and proud of it: I just ordered a www sticker today. anyone having spent time in Europe will know where I'm from!

I totally want one of these.

Over in Wes's (Hack The Planet's) discussion group, David McCusker and several other people I'm growing to highly respect are making that DG a daily lurk for me. I am in awe of these minds.

For Jodi, who is researching technology and education sites:

This is a test...

Cooool. I've got Dreamweaver recognizing and icon-izing Frontier macros. It actually took about 5 minutes to figure out. Check it out here: "Macros in Dreamweaver".

Definite link of the day over on "CamBlog" today. SPAM!

More Al links:

The Weird Al portal. HAHA!

Weird Al on Napster (half way down). Now he's got the right attitude!

Aw, shucks

In response to something I wrote in this post, I got this response from Matt Neuberg, wise "Frontier" guru and Author of The Book. Yeesss!

Of course, I think I got it from "Dave". It's stuck with me.

WO!

"Jim" was at WWDC 2000 (I think?), and is all aquiver over WebObjects' new pricing, and I can't wait to hear what he has to say about it!

I've been editing this site with "Pike", and the "CamBlog" with "BLOGGER". Veeeeeery interesting.

Java, XML, etc

"Josh" and I have been corresponding about Java, Turbine, and webMacro. (See yesterday for links.) I'm hoping to learn a lot!

Eaaarrrly...

I love a good thunderstorm. But not on Monday morning. Bleagh.