http://mcmanus.typepad.com/grind/2005/06/aspnet_20_vs_ru.html
My next ASP.NET 2.0 question has to do with its support for client script and asynchronous postbacks (aka "Ajax"). Will it be there out of the box and will it work with all browsers? (I ask because of Curt’s story in ONLamp.com on "Ajax on Rails".)
http://www.hicksdesign.co.uk/journal/jeremy-is-right-tiger-underwhelms-except-for
I have to come out and agree with Jeremy, Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger is a little underwhelming. I’ve been using it for 8 weeks now, and overall, I’m not as wowed as I was with the Jaguar>Panther upgrade. Sure, there are a lot of improvements, but I’ve not found a use for Dashboard and Spotlight, the supposed major features. I’m still missing uControl’s virtual scrolling, and haven’t found any suitable replacement. Thats a sore point.
Dashboard takes a while to ‘kick in’, as you watch the widgets load slowly. I think this is still yet to reveal its usefulness, as a lot of widgets are things like ‘Amazon Search’. Hmm, referrer fees are wonderful thing aren’t they? Even the Transmit widget isn’t that useful. Why use that when I can just drag files to a dock or finder sidebar icon? It also seems to use up CPU unnecessarily, and since turning it off with DashOnOff on my powerbook is improved. Those widgets that I actually use (Calculator and currency converter) I have bookmarked in Safari, and open them in a tab. (To do this, ctrl-click the widget, and open the main .html file found inside).
To be honest, I still prefer my neat little Stattoo.
Spotlight is nowhere near as quick to use as Quicksilver (although, to be fair, I find the fact that it indexes text in PDFs quite useful). The jumpiness of its search results are annoying to say the least.
I think there are sleepy features that will reveal their usefulness over time, such as Automator, but until then, the one thing that has made me glad to upgrade is Safari 2. Not only for its new features (little things like undos in textareas), but for its RSS Reader. I had very low expectations for the in-built RSS reader, despite really wanting a browser+RSS solution. I’ve now found myself using it all the time. Its convenient, feeds are synced along with my bookmarks, and it suits my style of reading perfectly. I always prefer to view the actual content in the browser, using RSS readers as little more than a notification of updates. It also seems to cope well the 250+ feeds that I subscribe to – no speed problems at all.
Admitting this makes me feel very guilty though, as if I’m personally dissing Brent Simmons or David Watanabe.
I’ve had a few questions about how I use the RSS feature, so I thought I’d just quickly outline what I do. In my bookmarks toolbar is an ‘RSS Feeds’ folder, in which there are sub-folders for ‘Mac’, ‘Music’, ‘Design’ and so on. This means that each sub folder has a ‘View all RSS articles’ command at the bottom its menu, which means I can view feeds together, or just in 1 category. New feeds are set to be coloured red, and sorted by ‘new’. Finally, I’ve hacked the appearance to be little less vanilla. I love the fact that that I can do it all within the browser.
In fact, there is only one drawback I’ve come across. Sometimes it takes two goes to get the RSS feeds displayed. Click ‘View all RSS Articles’ once – nothing. Go back and do it again, it works fine. I’ve also seen this happen on individual feeds, but there doesn’t seem to be any reason or reproducible steps to it. Has anyone else found this? Its odd, but I find that I can put up with this (and hopefully its a bug that’ll be fixed in the future).
So thats the way it is now, at least until NetNewsWire gets even more browser features…
Google to Offer Payment Service
To Compete With eBay’s PayPal
By KEVIN J. DELANEY and MYLENE MANGALINDAN
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
June 17, 2005 7:54 p.m.
Google Inc. this year plans to offer an electronic-payment service that could help the Internet-search company diversify its revenue and may heighten competition with eBay Inc.’s PayPal unit, according to people familiar with the matter.
…
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111905141149263168,00.html?mod=djemalert
http://te.3leafdev.com/2005/06/blogs_and_boein.html
For all of you who are afraid to blog for fear of corporate responsibility you should check out the following blog:
http://www.boeing.com/commercial/777family/200LR/flight_test/
Boeing is apparently feeling free to talk about the going on’s while test flighting WD001 (otherwise known as the release candidate 
) of the new 777-200LR.
There is a lot that could go right or wrong in a blog like this especially when the test pilots themselves are doing the talking.
But it does allow them to get out some things in a more direct way than they might otherwise:
"What we’re doing is testing the edges of what an airplane can do - the corners of the flight envelope. One of our philosophies on the 777 program - and what sets Boeing apart from Airbus - is that we have "envelope protection."
WD001 in the desert sun last week at Edwards Air Force Base.
We want to make sure that the airplane can safely handle flying right at the corner of the envelope, so to speak, if for some unexpected reason, one of our customers needs to do something with the airplane that they wouldn’t normally do."
This ought to be some very interesting reading…subscribed.
http://texturadesign.com/archives/the_next_blog_business_summit.htm
The next Blog Business Summit will be in San Francisco, August 17 - 19. A Blogging 101 seminar has been added to the event. The speakers and sessions will be announced as soon as they’re finalized. I’ll be speaking about design, blogging business, and just hanging out in San Fran.
http://texturadesign.com/archives/spacebound.htm
The Seattle PI reported on our shipments to NASA earlier this week. Jeremy Wagstaff of the WSJ picked it up, as did Oyayubizoku, and Coudal.com. It’s remarkable really and I’ve paused during the week to think about the “little clip that could.” If it does fly, and we’re hoping for “all systems go,” we’ll post on more of the story and roll out some marketing around it.
http://texturadesign.com/archives/it_was_a_dark_and_stormy_blogging_night.htm
I posted on the Blog Business Summit about the book I’m writing with Erin Kissane and Steve Broback. I announced it during my keynote in Colorado. Getting it published took a lot of time and hard work and I’m sure that’s just a precursor to the actual writing of the book, which is expected to include 2 levels of Dante’s Hell (level 1 was the proposal). I’m waiting for the “crazy, sexy, cool” title to hit me in the shower, or during a bike ride, and thinking about all that needs to be written.
The back story to the book is over a year old when I started talking with Molly, Zeldman, Carrie, et al., and finally Michael Nolan about writing a book. Several versions, proposals, and discussions later, New Riders agreed to publish it and so here it goes. From chapter 1: “It was a dark and stormy blogging night … .”
http://www.thatindigobook.com/PermaLink,guid,bdb61323-0ca6-41ec-8f95-3aa7129f7125.aspx | Comments
The .Net Rocks show does Indigo yet again! Michele Leroux Bustamante, who has an interesting mixture of J2EE (BEA) and Microsoft talks about her experiments with Indigo and interop.
http://www.thatindigobook.com/PermaLink,guid,ce429ff2-1f70-42a9-aa25-4da52441186e.aspx | Comments
Scott Woodgate doesn’t shy away from the hard questions. When I met him after one of his BizTalk presentations, I asked him what Microsoft product and technologies should I (as a Consultant) recommend for Integration solutions? It went something like this:
Brian - “Everything at Microsoft is about integration. For instance everyone wants to use webservices. Sql does, Biztalk does, ASP.Net does, WSE does, Indigo does, even Office does – when will they standardize on Indigo!!! Hopefully in my career lifetime. So exactly what product do I recommend for my clients? Biztalk? Sql Integration Services (replacement for DTS)? Host Integration Server? Indigo? Let me confuse you even more. Yes, Biztalk adapters can use Indigo - eventually. Sql Integration Services can use the Host Integration Server provider just like any other provider. But how do these things help me Integrate to different platforms like Weblogic or Websphere?”
Scott thinks: “this guy is crazy!”
Scott smiles and says: “Yeah I see your point. We need to provide best practices and advice for this.”
Scott has responded with a Whitepaper on Understanding Microsoft’s Integration Technologies! He describes it as:
“This whitepaper is a collaborative effort between members of the MSMQ, “Indigo”, SQL SSIS, SQL SSB, SQL Replication, Host Integration Server and BizTalk Server teams.”
http://thenonbillablehour.typepad.com/nonbillable_hour/2005/05/a_brilliant_ide.html
Jeffrey Phillips, writing in his Thinking Faster Blog, has a great idea to make meetings better. He calls it Just in Time Meeting Attendance:
Rather than show up for a meeting and sit through the entire thing, demand that the meeting have an agenda and that the facilitator or leader of the meeting stick as closely to the agenda as possible. When the parts of the meeting you need or want to attend are complete, get up and leave. I know this may sound a bit rude, but is it really worth your time and your sanity to simply continue to sit in meetings where stuff is being discussed that a) is not relevant for you b) you don’t have anything to add to or c) you could care less about?
Many of us stay in meetings where there’s little left for us to do simply out of fear that leaving will be interpreted as lack of interest or for fear we’ll get assigned stuff if we are not there to defend our turf. But that’s not the best use of your time, now is it?
Imagine holding a meeting where the agenda was tight and you could enter or leave as you were needed. Imagine being confident that you could enter a meeting 30 minutes after it started, show up just in time to deliver news or listen to the part of the meeting you needed to, and then leave when there was no real reason to remain. That would be true just in time meeting attendance.
I absolutely love it!