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Gmail Mass Email Deletions [December 29, 2006]
Michael Arrington (and others) reported yesterday on a problem with GMail as described here: Gmail Disaster: Reports Of Mass Email Deletions. Regardless of how this incident ultimately turns out, and without assigning neither blame nor praise to Google or anyone...
The Veteran Newbie, But Is It Legal? [August 22, 2006]
I always find it amusing when someone who has been deeply immersed in one area of technology, suddenly "discovers" a completely new area of technology and starts acting like a complete newbie. I'll christen it "The Veteran Newbie Effect." Dave Winer is certainly an experienced veteran of the tech industry, but I think that he's been so completely absorbed by RSS and blogging and podcasting for the past several years that he's vastly underinformed about many other areas of the industry, such as mobile Internet access. What Dave has done with the software he created is interesting because it's an approach that hasn't been done before, it's just not necessary. More importantly though, I wonder if it's legal. I think that what he's doing is taking multiple content streams from one source, stripping out the graphics if any, and republishing them from his own server under his own domain name. If that is in fact what he is doing, isn't that a copyright violation? And isn't using a domain such as nytimesriver.com a trademark violation?
IE7 Backward Compatibility a Red Herring [August 16, 2006]
Microsoft's claiming of the need for backward compatibility in order to justify not being standards-compliant is a red herring. Thanks to the rise in popularity of Firefox and Safari and Opera over the past few years, there are very few websites in common usage that are written specifically to run on IE6 and that break in the other major browsers. I can't remember the last time I encountered such a page. Oh, yes I can: it was Microsoft's own Windows Update site! Regardless, Microsoft needs to stop making excuses and fix all their bugs and get their CSS support at least up to the same level as the other 3 browsers. Anything less will fail to reverse the erosion of IE's market share.
Intel Sheds XScale Processor Unit [June 27, 2006]
There are basically two ways of looking at this: (1) is that Intel has yet again lost patience with a strategic investment that it has made that hasn't immediately yielded at multi-billion dollar revenue stream; and (2) is that Intel has plans to migrate it's x86 architecture down into a mobile form-factor, and it wants to rid itself of a competing architecture before it does so.
WebVisions 2005 Wrapup [July 19, 2005]
I went to WebVisions 2005 last Friday, and while overall things were terrific, I was a little disappointed with some of the sessions. The problem was that many of the sessions that I attended were dominated by the questions and the needs of the newbies, with the result that not much time was spent on the "Vision" part of WebVisions. I think the answer is to reorganize the agenda so that there are clear introductory sessions for the inexperienced, and more meaty sessions for those of us who are more advanced.
Gnomedex Wrapup [June 27, 2005]
Scott wraps-up Gnomedex 5.0 by discussing Microsoft's RSS support in depth, with a little bit on Adam Curry's BitTorrent support, and Dave Winer's OPML Editor.
Intel Inside...Apple? [June 23, 2005]
A number of people have recently asked me what I think about the Apple/Intel deal. This has been flogged to death on the net already, so I’ll just add a few brief observations. Apple is beginning a 2-year transition from...
Cory Doctorow a Liability to EFF [March 31, 2005]
EFF spokesperson Cory Doctorow debates Google's Autolink feature on IT Conversations. Doctorow was disrespectful, rude and ineffective, but also seems to be advocating the position that authors should have no right to have the integrity of their work respected, which is a fundamental principle of copyright law. If the EFF no longer respects the rights of authors, then I can no longer support the EFF.
IE7... Don't Get Excited Just Yet [February 15, 2005]
Microsoft reversed their position today, and announced that there will be another stand-alone version of Internet Explorer, to be released independently from the next version of Windows. This is generally good news, but web developers shouldn't get too excited just yet. So far, the only things that Microsoft has talked about changing in IE7 are some security bug fixes and possibly adding some end-user features such as tabs. Conspiciously missing from the official pronouncements are any mention of bug fixes and standards compliance for the rendering engine, the very things which give web developers headaches and ulsers.
Copyright Cartel Strikes Again [August 30, 2004]
I saw an item on Scripting News this morning about software which captures songs off of XM satelite radio and saves them as MP3 files on your PC’s hard drive. The software, Nerosoft TimeTrax, enhances a $50 XM accessory called...
So Far, So Good [August 25, 2004]
The conversion from Radio Userland over to Movable Type has gone very smoothly so far. There’s no support or directions from Six Apart for importing from Radio, as there is for a few other blogging systems, but I found a...
Life's Too Short [August 13, 2004]
I started this weblog last year, because I wanted a place where I could publish my thoughts and analysis on various topics related to my interests, hobbies and profession. I chose to use Radio Userland as my blogging tool because...
Still exploring the guts of Radio Userland [February 25, 2004]
Still exploring the guts of Radio Userland. I had hoped that I would be able to effect the changes I desired simply by modifying the template files which are completely user-visible. Unfortunately, some of the macros that the templates invoke...
I'm poking at this puppy [February 19, 2004]
I’m poking at this puppy a little bit at a time. I got the Rogers Cadenhead book on Radio, and so far it does a very good job of describing the details of how Radio works. I’ve moved the site...
TrotterNet has moved [February 19, 2004]
TrotterNet has moved to its own server, at http://trotternet.com. Come check it out....
Another shot at it [February 18, 2004]
Well, I’m going to take another shot at actually writing this blog. When I first started this enterprise last year, I was appalled at the quality of the HTML that was emitted by Radio Userland. Its the very worst ‘tag...
Going on hiatus for a while [April 6, 2003]
I know that nobody is reading this right now, so this is addressed to posterity. I haven’t posted in about 6 weeks because things at work have gotten WAY busy, and it’s likely to continue that way for a while...
Concerning NewsMonster [February 20, 2003]
Here is a copy of the rather lengthy comment that I posted on Ben Hammersley’s weblog concerning a discussion about a new news aggregator product called NewsMonster: I haven’t tried NewsMonster yet, but based on the discussion, it appears that...
Tables really are evil [February 13, 2003]
Dave says: Last year on this day I asked if tables are really evil. Now one year later, I long for the simplicity of tables, … If it ain’t broke, dont fix it. The trouble is, it is broke—it being...
Software Success Has India Worried [February 13, 2003]
Software Success Has India Worried. Is the United States going to start turning its back on outsourcing, the lifeblood of India’s software and services industry? By Saritha Rai. Remember the hue and cry over expanding the H1B visa program a...
TiVo criticised for "invading privacy" [February 13, 2003]
TiVo criticised for “invading privacy.” TiVo, the tapeless TV recording system, causes a row in the US after it automatically records the Discovery Channel. I really, really want to own one of these devices, but this is exactly the kind...
I just re-posted my first entry [February 11, 2003]
I just re-posted my first post from a few days ago. Not content to simply install Radio and just use it, I managed to delete my first post this morning. Quite simple to do, actually. I installed Radio on a...
Hello World [February 7, 2003]
Hello World. I’m a programmer by training, so I had to start that way. My name is Scott Trotter, and I’m the Executive Producer and Technical Director of Paris France, an award-winning interactive media (a.k.a. web site) design shop located...