Support |
¶
No telethons or fund-raising appeals. Just the suggestion that if you'd
like to support my web site at no cost to yourself, you can start using
my custom Amazon bookmarklets - see
my blog for details. (January 18, 2003) |
Book Mania |
¶ Yesterday, my kids got an e-mail from Amazon telling them
they could pre-order the new Harry Potter book for 50% off cover price
(UK only
- 40% in Canada,
nothing in the US).
I, of course, have no choice but to order. More in the blog.
Updated Feb 11: I see that Amazon
US is now offering a 40% discount. (January 16,
2003)
|
New Year Greetings |
¶
2003 has arrived and I'd like to wish you every possible success and
blessing for the coming year. (January 3, 2003) |
COMDEX: The mighty fallen? |
¶ I've not been to COMDEX here in Las Vegas for a few years.
This year it has a high throughput of delegates (around 120,000 according
to the organisers)
but that's a fraction of its former glory and today it can't even fill
the whole convention centre, let alone spill into the other convention
centres. Maybe the day of the PC as a forum for innovation are coming to
a close and this is becoming a (very large) niche? Also blogged.(November
20, 2002)
|
Colorado Software Summit Keynote |
 ¶ It's
always initimidating presenting to such a capable technical audience,
so thank-you to everyone who listened so attentively. The slides are
available for download via the Events
page. As ever I have found the conference excellent, and I would
be delighted to see any delegates in my discussion
group. (November 7, 2002) |
Now with Added RSS |
¶ Been having fun today. My blog is
now available as an RSS feed (click the orange button to the left to
get its URL) and to make that work with frames I have had to dig back
into Javascript and do some
programming again. There are some other signs of Javascript here and
there - you can now refer to pages directly using the form www.webmink.net/?page,
so if you want a bookmark to my clippings or
to the shop,
this is possible. All feedback welcome. (October 26,
2002)
|
Back in Action |
¶
Keep me away from the web for a few weeks and see what happens! My weblog is
stuffed with photos, links and opinions, it may take a while for the
backlog to subside I'm afraid. Please pay special attention to the item
on the European
arrest warrant, which on the surface presents a very worrying erosion
of rights in Britain. (October 21, 2002) |
India Encounter |
 I'm
always cautious allowing my travel writing out on its own, but a few
reflections and photographs from my trip
to India are now incautiously online. You can comment in my blog.
What isn't mentioned there is the warm welcome I received both at NASSCOM
and from the Sun staff - I am most grateful for both, thank-you all. (October
2, 2002) |
Locked In By Openness?
|
¶ We need to be constantly cautious
as we engage with Web services. They
offer
a fast-path to lock-in unless we stay
aware.
For example (and without any criticism
of
Amazon intended), if I create a program
that
relies on the new Amazon.com web service interface, I may be using an open technology in the
form of SOAP, but the data flowing through the service is in a format used only by
Amazon and reflects their business model
and world-view - indeed, it is their proprietary property. If, in the future, I wanted to use multiple
or different suppliers, I would have to rewrite
all my code to use the data format they preferred
(presumably using their world-view).
¶ The openness of SOAP does not
prevent
me from being locked-in to the vendor's
business
model, object model and data formats.
Indeed,
web services can provide a hyperdermic
needle
through which the foreign DNA can be
injected
into my systems. As an industry, we
need
more initiatives like UBL if we are to be free of vendor lock-in.
(September 25, 2002 & October 1, 2002) |
Rememberance
|
¶ My sympathies are with the losses
of many today. My own small thoughts are
in my blog rather than here. (September 11, 2002) |
What Made The Net Work?
|
¶ Dan Gillmor's article 10 choices that were critical to the Net's
success in Sunday's SJMN makes fascinating reading.
To my eyes the summary is that the design
philosophy of the Internet was self-similar.
The outward design was about creating a system
robust enough to 'route around' obstacles
and failures, so there is a certain symmetry
to the the way that choices were made that
avoided corporate or bureaucratic control.
Use of TCP/IP instead of OSI, use of Unix,
building on top of existing networks rather
than competing with them - all choices that
avoided the 'helpful' interference of established
bodies.
¶ The one factor Dan's source
Scott
Bradner seems to omit, however, is
the fact
that all the innovation was done without
the creation of intellectual property
barriers.
If the Internet was being created today,
there would be patent barriers to early
participation
and royalty hurdles to prevent competitive
deployment. If that had happened, the
'Net Effect' would never have happened.
¶ If there is one lesson we need
to
learn today as the next generation
of networked
protocols is created, it's that all
the work
on infrastructure needs to be done
in a restriction-free
zone. Even the apparently benign-sounding "Reasonable and Non Discriminatory
Terms" (RAND) being applied by patent
holders today will have the effect of constraining
participation to those able to escape the
terms (which are only 'reasonable' to their
authors). We need to insist now that all
infrastructure standards are either restriction
free or rejected - ideas where the right
to exercise restrictions is reserved should
be rejected at all costs in the infrastructure.
(September 9, 2002) |
Open Source on C|Net
|
¶ My article on Open Source is up on C|Net today - you can see the original
essay that got edited down here. (August 20, 2002) |
Crazy Prophet?
|
¶ Just another day in meatspace, with
a guy going crazy over junk (snail-) mail.
But it's a token of the boilover destined
for WAG-space (the world of the Web-Aware
Generation) if the flood of injustice towards
WAGs isn't stemmed. See my blog. (August 17, 2002) |
Web Services Book
|
¶ I wrote the foreward for a forthcoming
book on writing Web services in Java - see
Amazon (US|UK|CA) to pre-order a copy. (August 16, 2002) |
NewSpeak Made Real
|
¶ Is there a word for it? When, for
example, MSFT spots that everyone hates it
because it is the antithesis of 'open source'
and so creates an initiative pretty much
orthogonal to open source and gives it a
name like 'shared source'? Or when a lobby group seeking to protect
the threatened previous-century attitudes
of the established software industry where
consumers have no choices (epitomised by
licensing that asks you to sign away your money and
your right to choose for three years sight
unseen, called 'Assurance' without a blush
of irony) calls itself a name that makes
it sound like it's promoting 'software choice'?
¶ There has to be a name for this behaviour where instead
of changing your worst faults you seek to
redefine language and practice so people
call "bad" "good"? It's
so 'Brave New World', so NewSpeak. Maybe that's the word for
it - is there another? Tell me in my blog...(August 13, 2002) |
Homeward Commute
|
Seen off the coast of Ireland. Better
version
in my blog. (August 8, 2002) |
Sunset in Ireland
|
(August 6, 2002)
|
Mailing Lists
|
I have finally got a new mailing list sorted
out; please sign up here if you'd like to get notified when the blog
changes. (July 29, 2002) |
Words Mean What I Say They Do
|
The sort of comment that this analyst from Ovum makes really annoys me for its
shallowness. His assertion is that Microsoft
is "way ahead in Web services"
is based on the fact that Microsoft has lots
of tools for doing what they define as Web
services, and that he in the UK is able to
easily get hold of these tools. When I define
a term as "what I do best" it is
hardly surprising to find that I will be
the one doing it best, and right now that's
the level of the discussion. But there are
other, more objective measures. I'll not
assert (this time, anyway) that MSFT is either
ahead, behind or level on Web services, but
a definition that excludes enterprise openness
and choice, transactionality, content-level
interoperability and pretty much any other
criterion apart from availability of tools
for hacking is flawed and tiresome. (July 24, 2002) |
Blogging
|
I always wanted to be... a lumberjack. Experimental
blogging in progress watch this (active!) space. (July 20, 2002) |
Right to Roam
|
It's about time something was done about
mobile phone roaming charges; seems there's
EC action starting. Just to give an idea of the size
of the problem, I spent most of December
2001 and most of May 2002 in the US. The
first time I was using a UK-based Vodafone
GSM phone roaming; my bill for the month
was around $1500. The second time, I used
a US-based Nextel GSM phone for a similar
set of calls; my bill for the month was around
$400. It looks to me like there is a price
cartel among the GSM suppliers. High time
there was an investigation. (July 20, 2002) |
Gone But Not Forgotten
|
I noticed today the broadly ignored passing
of BizTalk.Org, - which as they explain on the home page
Microsoft has finally decided to wind up
in favour of xml.org. The delicious irony and instructive lesson
this provides may be lost on people who were
not involved in XML at the time, so I'll
refer you to a handy C|Net article which sets the scene.
BizTalk.Org was in fact an unneccessary
organisation,
started as a spoiler for the industry-supported
xml.org initiative that was being started
at OASIS by pretty much everybody else
(including
IBM, Sun,Oracle and others). The irony
is
obvious; finally, quietly, when hopefully
no-one is looking, Microsoft admits
it was
wrong and the idea of openness was
right.
But today, having learned its lessons
from
that failure, the tactic itself is
updated
and still in play. We can expect to
see repeated
use of the 'vendor-group-in-our-favour'
tactic
by them and their new buddy, IBM (I'm
Becoming
Microsoft) and we need to regard it
with
just the same caution as we did in
1999.
(July 19, 2002) |
How to Deal with the Press
|
I recently bought a collection of poems by
Wendy Cope called "If I Don't Know". Always the creator of the sort of
humourous poem that comes back a few minutes
later and catches you, she's captured some
key advice for anyone who has to talk to the media.
Recent experience connected with WS-I suggests
she is spot on. (July 16, 2002) |
Clueful and Informed
|
Janis Ian was one of the first musicians
to really touch me, with her song "At
Seventeen" (yes, quite a long time ago
now!). She has written a long and very well informed attack on
the stance being taken by the RIAA over digital
music, essentially saying that all Napster
ever did for her was increase sales of her
back catalogue. Real research, real evidence,
from the horse's mouth. (July 15, 2002) |
Save Internet Radio - YOUR Action Required
|
I believe that artists need rewarding for
their work, but the recent rates set by the
US Library of Congress for webcasting make
it uneconomic for "hobby" webcasters
to continue, and the heavy-handed consequences
of the RIAA's work mean that we'll see most
of the interesting internet stations off
the ether before long. If you live in the
US, you need to go right now to the Voice of Webcasters site who will fax your Senate and Congress
representatives directly for you - time is
short before the summer recess. The issues
are complex but shutting everyone down first
and having the discussion afterwards is not the way to go. (July 14, 2002) |
Quiet Tears
|
I've not know how to write about the death
of my friend Gene Kan last week. Tonight
as I finally plucked up the courage to delete
his alias from AIM, I wanted to cry. And
when I just read Steve Gillmor's tribute, I finally did. (July 13, 2002) |
StarOffice 6.0 Rocks (Impartially Speaking
:-)
|
Some of you will expect me to be a firm supporter
of StarOffice because I work for Sun. Nonetheless
I have to say I really like it - it's functional,
fast (on my machine at least) and effective,
to the extent that I've not bothered to install
MS Office file viewers. I'd encourage everyone
to try it - Amazon sell it or you can try
the open source package it's built on, OpenOffice.Org, which is almost identical but a huge download.
What triggered the comment? Discovering that
StarOffice is number 4 in the Amazon UK charts and number 19 in the Amazon US charts, even a couple of months after launch.
(July 8, 2002). |
Suggest Yahoo Users Reviewuate...
|
A favourite weekly read, NTK this week alerts Yahoo mail users that Yahoo
messes with your mail. In an effort to stop
script kiddies hacking their users, they
replace keywords in your mail without telling
you.. (July 12, 2002) |
Rebel Alliance
|
Wishing all my American friends (at
least
the ones in the USA) a happy 4th. One
day
you'll join the commonwealth... (July 4, 2002) |
One DVD To Bind Them
|
We're faced with one of the hardest problems
we have had to solve in ages. Do we wait
until November for the extended 4-disc DVD of Lord of the Rings with the extra
half-hour of action, or do we get the version as shown in cinemas in early August? Your advice welcome - please
use the discussion forum. (July 3, 2002) |
Wild Books
|
This looks fun - BookCrossing.Com is a "Where's George" site that encourages people to release
books into the wild with tracking numbers
to see where they go and what other people
think of them. I'm releasing a book today,
we'll see where it ends up. (July 1, 2002) |
Famous in Norway
|
Yes, it seems someone over there has heard of me. (June 19, 2002) |
Open Mobile Alliance
|
Yesterday, I participated in the launch of
the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA), a huge venture unifying the standards
forae and vendors associated with the mobile
industry. I'll be representing Sun on the
board of directors. The dynamics of this
will be interesting, to say the least - watch
this space! (June 13, 2002) |
Personal Books
|
There's a severe risk I may regret this,
but I am starting a reviews section for personal reading selections and kicking it off with a review
of a religious book. Felling two taboos with
a single move - let me know what you think.
(June 6, 2002) |
War Walking
|
I love my subscription to T-Mobile's WiFi
service in the USA, but why oh why don't
they display signs in the places that have
coverage? I now have to go out with my Zaurus
and its 802.11 card "war walking"
the streets of major cities looking for the
places (usually coffee bars) that have it
installed. When it works it's way cool but
knowing where to find it is just too hard.
(May 10, 2002) |
Presidents' Forum, New York
|
I had the pleasure of speaking to a group
of presidents of medium-sized businesses
in New York this week. The message I heard
loud and clear is that life is still hard,
survival rather than growth is the priority
and - for the IT world - the most important
message is "we've nothing to spend right
now unless there's a same-quarter return".
Attendees wanting my presentation can download it. (May 8, 2002) |
Towards a bug-free world
|
I have a hunch that, no matter how many days
MSFT closes down to search for bugs, it isn't
going to help much in the longer term. That's
not a matter of prejudice, either. It's based
on three points: the bloat of their codebase,
their closed source policy and the attitude
towards programmer independence. The codebase
size means no one person can envision it
all; closed source means that only they can
fix bugs and spot security defects; programmer
independence means use of pointers and other
bug-writing aids is left at programmer discretion
(at least, this is what customers are encouraged
to do). The best way to make code safe and
reliable is to make it modular, remove the
means by which bugs are written and then
make identifying them everybody's job. Which
means open source communities and safe programming
languages, not month-long shut-downs. (April 29, 2002) |
Spring is Sprung
|
Or is this summer? It's sunny in Southampton and warm enough to eat breakfast in the
garden. Poetry floods to mind. (April 23, 2002) |
Real Remedy Required
|
In his comments on the proposed remedies in the Microsoft
case, Bruce Perens is at his very best, cutting
through all of the misleading red herrings
and identifying the core of the problem in
trusting them with anything connected with
standards - "Microsoft introduces incompatibility
into the Microsoft version of the software,
and forces the public version of the software
out of the market because it won't interoperate
with the Windows version".
This is the truth that David Coursey
just
doesn't grok in his superficial and
sycophantic
("I also think Microsoft takes
customer
interest and feedback seriously and
modifies
its behavior accordingly") AnchorDesk item today; the toll-booth on the internet
that his colleague David Berlind warns about is not to do with anyone directly
charging fees, it is to do with a cartel
of monopolists shaping the competitive landscape
to exclude and/or damage their foes-of-the-day,
as is clear to anyone who has actually read
Berlind's recent series of articles.
We all need to speak out! The voices
of condescension
that belittle our efforts ("I'd
be astonished,"
said Steven B. Lipner, Microsoft's
director
of security assurance, "if the
open-source
community has in total done as many
man-years
of computer security code reviews as
we have
done in the last two months.",
Salon) may make us lose confidence, and the underlying
technical merits of their unilateral moves
("a move analysts say will help drive
adoption" ZDNet) may leave us struggling to point past their
magnanimity to their underlying motives, but we need to continue unabashed with the mantra of open standards and open
source in the hands of open communities.
(April 15, 2002) |
DSL at last
|
Finally I have a decent internet connection
in my home-office. It is so liberating to
not have to worry about how long I have been
online, and to be able to download my mail
even when people have sent 5Mb attachments
(something which should be a felony, in my
opinion). To cap it all, I also have some
web space included in the package so I am
gradually bringing my photos back online,
starting with the travel pages. We have also finally found an affordable
home for the family shop, which we're in the process of moving to
Pipex from the execrable service IBM referred
us to when they closed Homepage Creator.
(April 13, 2002) |
WWW for the Pedant
|
Not, of course, that any esteemed reader
is in fact a pedant, but if you need a handy
resource consider World Wide Words for your list. (April 1, 2002)
|
JavaOne Photos
|
I just found that some of the JavaOne
press
photos feature me! Here and here. I am building a JavaOne summary page too. (March 29, 2002) |
Breathtaking...
|
I've just been listening to the breathtaking
arrogance of Microsoft in a C|Net Radio interview by one of their staff. He talked about the
"shared source" (SS) scam they
are running where carefully selected groups
have their ability to independently develop
competitors to MS software poisoned by exposure
to licensed source code (Andrew Orlowski
at The Register understands...). The big problem with the SS is that
no-one can realistically do anything with the code except "debug
their own programs" - there is no independent
community, the touchstone of a useful open
source project, and the breathtaking arrogance
is in the assumption that people need to
see the source code to debug their own programs. No! People need MS code released
so that they can help fix the bugs and security-busting
misimplementations in the MS code, not their own! If there's no way to fix,
enhance or redirect the code, then SS is
nothing more than a patronising 'we know
better than you' attitude to the groups MS
are targetting with SS. (March 28, 2002) |
Haiku of the Week
|
The 'Found Haiku' detector at Oblamovka has noted that the GPL contains the following
verse:
When we speak of free
software, we are referring
to freedom, not price.
(thanks to NTK). You can get your daily news headlines as haiku too if you want.
(March 17, 2002) |
Without Comment
|
Sun is suing Microsoft; full details on Sun's
web site. (March 11, 2002) |
The Economy Rebounds
|
I have a proposed sure-fire indicator for
economic up-turn. Today I received four keynote invitations for the next three months.
That's more than I have received over the
preceding three months put together. The
economy is recovering... (March 4, 2002) |
Nice Notebooks
|
I'm a bit of a pen freak as you know but
my current rave is for Moleskine notebooks.
I found their quadrille (squared) paper version
in Waterstones last week and adore it. Small,
nice tough black oilskin cover, plenty of
pages just the right size, elastic fastening
loop, pouch in the back cover for receipts
& cards - for me, the perfect combination.
There are sources in the UK and the US (or here) that have them, I've ordered the new large-format
squared book. (March 1, 2002) |
Discussion Group Started
|
In discussion with John Ellis from Fast Company last night, we were exploring
the fact that the age of the web log is upon
us. John thinks blogs will replace media
editorials in the medium term [actually,
see his correction in the group...] , and
while I'm not sure I agree with this I do
agree with his observation that they've become
a major forum for inventing the future. I'd
been thinking on the plane yesterday that
I ought to start a mailing list for the webmink
web site and the two thoughts converged in
a Yahoo group. All your observations - insights, criticisms,
witticisms and out-takes - are very welcome,
and if it actually works then I'll try to
make a commentary/digest here. Join here. (February 27, 2002)
Andrew Orlowski's screed in The Register makes interesting reading on this topic
too. (March 3, 2002) |
Microsoft Remedy Showdown
|
It might seem that the US lawsuits against
Microsoft are a done deal but we're now into
by far the most intersting phase in my opinion.
For good background, see ZDNet's Remedy Showdown site. We can now say that Microsoft is a
monopolist because it's a fact of law, but
the real question is whether there is any
remedy that can make the world safe for principled
diversity so that software and systems can
find enough space and market to grow to maturity
without the jealous attentions of the industry's
largest start-up. |
The Biggest Standards Goof Ever
|
I was fascinated to find an article by 'father of COBOL' Bob Bemer (an IBM retiree)
explaining why IBM stuck with EBCDIC. |
What Will Happen Next?
|
I spend much of my time answering questions
about what will happen next in the field
of 'action at a distance', but I'm certainly
not on the same level as the futurists Ian Pearson and Ian Neild who have put together the
Future Timeline (published by BT Exact). There's a summary on Yahoo and a discussion on Slashdot. |
What Are Standards?
|
I've been exploring the question of what
exactly 'standards' are as part of recent
engagements. My best definition so far is
that a standard is a set of technologies
for which interoperability is defined and
where the people affected by changes are
not surprised by them. That would make a
standards body an enfranchised group of users
and implementors of the technologies. Still
thinking. |
Photo Hosting
|
I'm looking for a place to host my pictures,
all tips welcomed. I have to be able to use
the new site to host images in <IMG>
tags on this site as well as all the usual
photo sharing & printing things. For
now, I have put my Portfolio on Sony's ImageStation site, but they don't
permit image linking so I still need a better
alternative. |
Colorado Software Summit
|
The Colorado Software Summit has just published its 2002 Call for Papers - if you are a Java, XML or Web services
guru you should check it out, it's by far
the best technical how-to conference I attend
and in addition it's surrounded by a great
crowd of great people (see their Yahoo group to get an idea). The conference itself is
November 3-8 and I'd wholeheartedly recommend it. (March 1, 2002) |
Web Services
|
My article in Web Services Journal describes web services
as "plumbing." I keep coming back
to the view that web services is actually
a misnomer - they should be called something
like "net parts" (carefully avoiding
all the company names, although I notice
all the domains with those words are taken...).
Web services are actually the world of distributed
objects known and loved by generations (think
CORBA, RMI, DCOM and many more). This time, it's implemented
in a loosely-coupled way that's more light-weight
and understandable. But the real deal is
not the distributed objects but rather the
purpose to which they are applied, and like
all previous encounters the big issue will
be design. I feel another magazine article
coming on... (February 27, 2002) |
Photo Hosting
|
Sad to say, Photopoint has shut down. They
were the company that hosted most of the
photographs on this site, as well as providing
photo sharing and print services. It's very
disappointing that even with paid support
from thousands of members they still couldn't
stay open. |
Virus Protection
|
OK, folks, enough is enough. I have been
getting an interesting selection of e-mail
with viruses attached. Fortunately I have
Norton Anti-virus installed (US/UK) so none so far have hurt. But perhaps a
few more readers could do the same please?
And those of you who already have virus protection:
have you updated today?
|
Universal Instant Messaging
|
Paul Saffo said at "The Once and Future Web"
that to find the next big thing, just look
back 20 years. That would be - chat applications.
I recently found a new instant messaging
application that is truly great. It supports
AIM, ICQ, IRQ, MSN and Yahoo, it's feature-rich
and it's free. Visit Trillian for more details.
|
Anagrams
|
New Job Title: Henceforth 'Spin Shop Imp'.
Thanks to the Anagram Server. |
Irony Supplement
|
Are you getting enough irony in your diet?
The Ironic Times offers a regular weekly dose every Monday.
|
New Domain
(1/1/02)
|
The BIG news is that I have now moved this
site to its own domain - you'll now find
me at www.webmink.net so please change any bookmarks you may have
to point here (the old URL will also work
for now, as will webmink.com and webmink.org).Only just slightly smaller news is that
there's been a redesign over at the family shop (which pays for this site so I just have
to mention it....) |
Digital ID
(21-Dec-01) |
I am now a Thawte Notary. This means that,
if you have a Thawte Freemail digital certificate
(you can get one free of charge), I can verify your identity
and authenticate you online. To get a fully
authenticated ID you will need to visit several
notaries. For more information, visit my
new digital ID page. |
