Archive for September, 2003

I stumbled across the "L Company" mentioned on a couple of RSS feeds I subscribe to. Their products sounded interesting (a 17" notebook, and a 45" flat panel display), so I checked out their website. Welcome to Bizarro Apple. The site is an attempted 100% knock-off of another well known website. Except, these guys just... »

I was just iChatting with someone, and the topic of Macromedia Breeze came up. I suggested it would be cool if Keynote could do that kind of thing, and he dryly mentioned that, since it’s just XML, why couldn’t it? So, I’m poking around, trying to see what it would take to turn a Keynote... »

I've mentioned Pachyderm a few times, and hinted at it more than that. So, what is Pachyderm, and why is it interesting? For starters, take a look at some sample projects completed using Pachyderm 1.0. Pachyderm is a project started by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, out of a need to create some kick-ass... »

We just heard official notification that Pachyderm was given the green light! That's such good news. We're going to be working to make it easier to make really high-end aggregate learning objects... I'll post more tomorrow... »

I’ve had 6 video conferences today, using iChatAV and iSight. Coolest thing ever. When I got the iSight, I honestly didn’t think I’d actually use it - I figured “Hey, cool toy. Sure is shiny!” and assumed it would sit on a shelf somewhere. Now, I find myself plugging in the camera right after the keyboard,... »

I just tested installation, configuration and operation of CAREO on an unnamed, still-in-beta operating system. With the installer, it took me all of 5 minutes to get all the bits in place, running a new instance of CAREO and ALOHA Server. This included copying the disk image over from my TiBook, running the installer, and hand-configuring... »

Great quote from Rick Jelliffe on the xml-dev listserv (found via a pointer from Tim Bray - thanks, Tim!): Any sufficiently monolithic technology is indistinguishable from spaghetti. Once a large technology is made from sufficiently intertwined parts, there is no way to order an exposition of it such that strongly-connected ideas are always close together. Spaghetti doesn't... »

I just came across this introduction to webobjects, on rentzsch.com. Quite good, actually, giving nice clear descriptions of the architecture and design of a WebObjects app, and how that differs from other typical web applications. »

Interesting piece on OSOpinons.com on the difference between Open Source and open standards. People often get caught up with the promise of open standards, and confuse that with the purpose of Open Source. To me, the real goal isn't Open Source. That's a means to an end, often enabling and facilitating adoption of open... »

I've just posted a document I'm working on, proposing a solution to storing thumbnail references, as well as various other formats of the same learning object, within a single LOM metadata record/document. The Coles' Notes version is this: We need a place to store locations for thumbnail images for a learning object, as well as... »