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 If you want an idea of what the Instant Outliner is, check out this excellent survey by Hutch Carpenter.
Very quietly, and I mean very quietly I've been working on rounding out the features of the latest OPML Editor-based implementation of Instant Outlining. This one is a keeper, I think -- more so than the previous releases. The realtime updating code is pretty good. Based on long-polling and mailboxes. It works even if you're logged on at more than one location. Even if they both have the same IP address. There's now a follow-unfollow paradigm, so not everyone is hooked in by default with everyone else. It...
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 A fascinating post on Ars Technica on the Twtiter implementation of OAuth.
It confirms a concern I had. Since the OPML Editor is open source, and it supports Twitter's implementation of OAuth, I didn't see what good it did to pass around "secrets" in the source code. But I did what I was asked to do. I wasn't watching the developer mail list closely so I didn't see the discussions Ryan Paul mentions. The more I read about what Twitter is doing these days, the more I see the shift away from developers and toward internal development. When people "argue" with me or have a "difference...
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Another in an endless series of test posts.
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Yesterday I reported that the apps that I thought would drown in the Oauthpocalypse were still alive. I don't usually like the death metaphor when it comes to software, but -- these guys are now really, officially, seriously and permanently dead.
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You know it's not so bad riding mid-day in the middle of a heat wave. For one thing, most people stay indoors, so the path isn't crowded. The first half of the trip is great cause there's a powerful tail wind. I fly! The return ride is a great workout cause there's a huge head wind. I crawl. My legs burn. But always, the breeze actually keeps me cool. I think it would be worse if there was no motion in the air. 
In any case, after a morning of dealing with stupid uncooperative servers, there's nothing like pounding the pavement with my bike, which I absolutely...
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We lost two-plus hours this morning as I scrambled to rebuild the scripting.com server. A mysterious outage. I tried to reboot the server over and over, and it wouldn't come back. So I created another instance, but kept making mistakes with AWS. Then after fretting and thinking of a million other ways to do it, I sat down with pen and paper and wrote down, step by step, what I thought would work. Then I did it. It worked.  Moral of the story, there are no shortcuts possible. You must pay the piper. And as Jerry once sang, so wisely: I know the rent is in arrears. The dog has not been...
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 Further examination of Apple's new social network reveals more problems.
To review from last night's post: 1. It's awkward, at least, that it runs in iTunes and not a web browser. There's no Back button, no way to copy the address of a page and share it outside of iTunes. Also if it were just a website we'd be able to access it from an iPad now, not some time in the future. 2. There's no way to Like the song you're listening to. In other words there doesn't seem to be any integration with the music-listening app, even though the social network is embedded in it.
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I've got iTunes 10 installed, and have signed up on Ping. My handle is "scriptingnews." You're welcome to follow me. To be clear, they didn't give me a choice of name. That's the name I chose when I got my first iPod or whatever got me logged into their store the first time. (I don't remember.) I never would have chosen to be scriptingnews on a social network. Not at all obvious how to change it, if I can. Here are their first recommendations. They bear absolutely no resemblance to any music I listen to or people I know. Obviously this is very very early days for Ping. 
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 This is really puzzling.
The OAuthcalypse came and went, and the apps that it should have killed, the ones that use basic authentication, are still running. Two examples: dwcodeupdates and friendsofdave. The only explanation I've been able to come up with is that they made exceptions for these two accounts for some reason. I felt I had to document this. So, it is documented. Any theories welcome. (That aren't paranoid or paranormal.)
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 Ping is Apple's big announcement today. The one that they'll be adding new stuff onto for years and years. The other announcements are just continuations of threads they started long ago. This is a new thread.
They call it a social network "for music." But it won't be "for music" for very long, if it even is just that at startup. It'll be Apple's social network for PR. It'll be Apple's social network for TV. It'll be Apple's social network for developers. It'll be Apple's social network for Steve Jobs. All of Apple's stores will be on the network, so there will be a location angle.
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I can't imagine there are many people who read this blog who are not tuned in, with Safari running on a Mac or iPhone or iPad, wondering what Uncle Steve is going to pull out of his hat. http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/1009qpeijrfn/event 
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 I've never participated in a hackathon, so I can't tell whether they produce anything or not. I'm assuming that at least some of the readers of this blog have been to one or more.
What's it like? What kind of software is produced? Is any of it useful? Were any commercial products hatched at hackathons? Were any of them successful? My intuition says that they're pointless exercises. I have at times gone on retreats with the idea of emerging with something useful or marketable, but I have to say the big leaps in software that I've seen or taken part of, come with steady daily work, when...
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Scorcha is NY-ese for "hot!" Yeah it's the hottest summer in history. A climate-change denier adds "that we know of." Yes, there is a conspiracy. Back in the late 1800s some liberal limp-wristed Obama-lovers wiped a whole decade off the record. Why? Because it was much hotter than this summer was going to be. They just knew it. And they did it to piss off the idiots of the 21st century. Glad we got to the bottom of that one. Anyway.... 10.84 miles. 56 minutes. When it's this hot, even if it isn't a record, you slow down and take it easy.  Link Email item
First a caveat, as far as I know DailyMile might take a CycleMeter KML file as input. However, if it doesn't... It should! That's basically all I have to say. A little detail. When I go for a ride, when I reach the starting point, I get out my iPhone and reset CycleMeter. When I stop to rest, I hit the Stop button. When I resume the ride I hit continue. When I'm done, I hit Done. At that point it sends me an email with a link to Google Maps that opens a KML file it generates that contains all the info about my ride. I just signed up for DailyMile, which seems...
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Got out real early today cause it's going to be another scorcher. Even at 7:30AM it was in the 80s. But it was a great ride. 50 minutes rolling, 10.33 miles. 6-minute break at turnaround at 99th St. Little or no breeze. 
The river was glassy. PS: I joined dailymile.com. Wonder if they accept KML files as posts?
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 Gruber commented on my very brief post on Apple's boycott and how even a user can see it's not working. There's no dispute. You come across lots of stuff, movie trailers, corporate fact sheets, bike route maps, even press releases -- in Flash. You or I may not like it, but the theory that Apple's lack of support for Flash would force them to convert, well that isn't working. That's all I said.
Gruber, however, reduced it to the same old boring battle-to-the-death between two titans, in which us little guys are mere spectators. Sorry but that just isn't how I view it. My perspective is...
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 Tomorrow at 8AM Pacific, Twitter will do something that will befuddle many end-users.
http://blog.twitter.com/2010/08/twitter-applications-and-oauth.html I can't think of a precedent, a time when a platform vendor deliberately broke so much application software. It's possible that it's happened and I don't remember, but I find it hard to believe that I would not have heard of it. So much app breakage would surely make a loud sound! Twitter says it will mean improved security. I think it means for sure fewer user-hours spent with apps not developed by Twitter, Inc. Some of my apps will die tomorrow. For example, FriendsOfDave...
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As an iPad user I can tell you without a doubt, it isn't working. I see new Flash content several times every day when I catch up on the news with my iPad. This isn't stuff that's going away, it's new stuff that creative people are publishing. New stuff, not legacy stuff. In other words, they know we can't see it on the iPad and they went ahead anyway. Sorry.
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He was shot after listening to this song. http://ou.rs/5.mp3
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 When I wrote a positive review of The Big C, a number of readers told me I should check out Breaking Bad, for a more interesting take on a TV series written around the death of its main character. So I did. I've now watched all three seasons of the show, and while some of it was very hard to watch (how could the characters be that stupid or mean), the last season was terrific. Right up there with The Wire for artfulness and acting. All the characters are interesting, none of them are simple or one-dimensional. The music is great, and the New Mexico desert...
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First, it's probably not a good idea to ride before eating, but I didn't want to wait because I figured it would get pretty busy on the trails today as it was yesterday. But about 1/2 hour into the ride I started feeling unusually depleted. Who knows what the reason is, but I think I'll pack some nuts or candy for future rides. Even so, it was a fast ride. 13.4 miles, 1 hour 6 minutes. 
Once again I checked-in at the turnaround point on Facebook. Thinking about getting an iPhone 4 mount for the bike. Also thinking about a heart-rate monitor. They have
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 I read this piece on TechCrunch about ageism in tech and nodded my head all the way through.
Facing facts, I've been sidelined in tech for quite a number of years. No one offers me a place in new startups. When I was younger things were a lot different. If I can't get into the game, I can't imagine there's much chance for most other people in their 50's to play a role. Which is really fucked up. It's probably the reason why we keep going around in the same loops over and over, because we chuck our experience, wholesale, every ten years or so. 
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Today's ride was in prime time, and everyone was out on bikes, rollerblades, boards, walking, running, you name it. And everyone was hogging every inch of the road, including my bits of the road. Lots of near-misses, cars driving in the bike lanes, and people walking and riding four a-breast. Tomorrow's ride will be at dawn. Let's see if I can get some of the road for myself. Even with all the michegas, I did some serious mileage. Feeling really strong and good. It's hot weather, but heat is very good for riding. And the sun was shining in a very California way, and the Hudson was shimmering and humming with kayakers,...
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The map. 51 minutes. 9.5 miles. Light wind, made it up to the turnaround point in 25 minutes, non-stop. Short rest. Came back non-stop. I'm going to need a longer ride tomorrow, this one is too easy. Maybe up to 125th and back. 
New riding shorts. These are much more sheer, they feel wicked! New practice: Check-in on Facebook at the turnaround point. If you're in NY today, get outside. It's one of the 10 nicest-weather days of the year, for sure.
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