Tuesday, October 30, 2001

So, Groove has a fresh new web site, to go along with the announcements. And (hey!) they're quoting me!

Hugh Pyle, 1:36 PM #

Sunday, October 28, 2001

Webslice - "Who's that mysterious man in black?" (Jeff posts a picture of his boss...!)

Hugh Pyle, 12:00 AM #

Saturday, October 27, 2001

Dan Gillmor interviews Tim Berners-Lee about MSN and Web standards. Excellent. It also made me begin tidying this site (vowe had prompted me to tidy up pinboard's HTML a long while ago - now overdue!). Hmm. Mustn't use BLOCKQUOTE in the blog; block quotes would be better done with CSS anyway.

Hugh Pyle, 11:37 PM #

New PC. Task one: fix the display.

Hugh Pyle, 8:31 PM #

Friday, October 26, 2001

Doh. There's been a typo on the cabezal homepage for the last couple of months and nobody told me! The perils of running a very small business.

Hugh Pyle, 11:35 AM #

Thursday, October 25, 2001

Here's an interesting report from the Microsoft PDC.
There are some pieces I don't agree with - eg "All of a sudden Microsoft's position in the client market doesn't look so bleak" (I saw Microsoft's position in the client market being completely entrenched over the past few years of "thin-client" focus, where thin-client is really a misnomer for "nothing-but-Microsoft-browser-tech-client").
But, overall, .NET is now delivering a thoroughgoing broadside against Sun. More broad than I'd expected. C# and the CLR is a direct attack against Java and the JVM; Java-compatible-language .NET is "embrace and extend"; the .NET server pieces are working against J2EE; and Web Services is explicitly making a reality of Sun's mantra that "the network is the computer". If I were Sun I'd be seriously worried at this point.
Where does Groove fit into this strategic picture, though?

Hugh Pyle, 2:54 PM #

Ancient history resurrected thanks to web.archive.org. This is over five years ago - makes me feel old!

Hugh Pyle, 9:11 AM #

Tomalak turns up a couple of excellent, related stories (yet again - how does he do it?!), about the power of synchronisation (2). Whois eversync.com? (grabbed during their domain-reg spree a couple of years ago)...

Hugh Pyle, 8:55 AM #

Wednesday, October 24, 2001

Old friends: trec seem to be doing well enough - in the current climate, that's quite an achievement!. Does their website tell you what they can do for you? (Not sure. If not, give Gareth a call and tell him!)

Hugh Pyle, 12:07 PM #

Tuesday, October 23, 2001

Stop watching TV. Go to PopTech instead. (Did I already say that? And, is Michael Schrage really that young?)

Hugh Pyle, 9:16 PM #

Occasionally, Dave Winer impresses me with his perspicacity. Mostly he's full of shit. (Sorry for the negative note here... but since promising to put me in his killfile he's unlikely to read personal email, and I still have to say this). Here's a whole paragraph, so I can't get accused of quoting out-of-context unless he edits it post hoc.

Then I heard a report about the IRA and Sinn Fein. I thought to myself "Poor Irish terrorists, they're not getting their fair share of the attention." Then I had a terrible thought. Maybe in the future the terrorists will compete to destroy pieces of the US to get CNN to tell their story and put their leaders on TV. Maybe Ireland wants to start a competitor to Al-Jazeera. What better way than to export some of your terror to the good ole US of A?

Go figure. Is this just Dave trying for the highest ignorance density ever? Or are all Americans like that?

Hugh Pyle, 8:36 AM #

Monday, October 22, 2001

Robert X Cringely:

...With Groove's p-to-p technology a strategic component of the .NET strategy, it now seems Ozzie is planning to take a leaf from the Bill Gates book of management and step down as CEO to be Groove's Chief Software Architect. If you want a shot at the CEO gig, I'd be happy to pass on your résumé...

Well, they know my number, but that phone hasn't rung yet...!

Hugh Pyle, 8:30 PM #

The Military-Nintendo Complex

In America, children are being drafted into war at about the age of seven. American military actions resemble high-tech electronic games while on our own soil we are witnessing another war: The soldiers are children, the battlegrounds their schools, and their engagements resemble the same violent electronic games that train our military and "entertain" our children.

Many games are indescribably obnoxious, and I've been out of the gaming world so long I didn't realise they're proud of shit like this. (WildTangent is a great visualisation engine but that is no excuse).

Hugh Pyle, 12:35 PM #

Stop watching TV. Go to PopTech instead.

Hugh Pyle, 12:05 PM #

Sunday, October 21, 2001

Lots of Flash fun - open source.

Hugh Pyle, 3:07 PM #

Thursday, October 18, 2001

Paranoia

Hugh Pyle, 9:35 PM #

Good day today at UserSphere. My presentation is online (.ppt, .pdf).

Hugh Pyle, 9:32 PM #

<grin/>! (via BoingBoing)

Hugh Pyle, 9:27 PM #

Wednesday, October 17, 2001

The brilliantly designed gullibility vector virus seems to have struck Ian Tucker at The Observer - proving you should never trust what you read in the papers...

Hugh Pyle, 8:53 AM #

Friday, October 12, 2001

Craig Burton: "[Novell's] iFolder revolutionizes Internet Storage" It's a neat system; the "last mile" of usability makes a huge difference.

Hugh Pyle, 2:25 PM #

Viant (June 2001), "The Copyright Crusade". Detailed without being thoughtful.

Hugh Pyle, 2:10 PM #

Tuesday, October 09, 2001

Dan Bricklin: "Copy Protection Robs the Future"

Hugh Pyle, 10:00 PM #

Monday, October 08, 2001

Heise news: Peer-to-Peer-Groupware Groove in neuer Version 1.2

Tools von Drittanbietern sind nach dem Update zum Teil nicht sofort lauffähig. Davon ist zum Beispiel das Pinboard von Cazebal betroffen, für das es mittlerweile ein Update gibt. Die Tatsache, dass ein Update der Plattform die Erweiterungen von Partnern in Schwierigkeiten bringt, ist auf den ersten Blick ziemlich beunruhigend; Hugh Pyle von Cazebal erklärt jedoch, dass er einige interne APIs verwendet hat, die noch nicht endgültig freigegeben waren.

...sure enough. Groove R1.2 now cleans up so many APIs there's little need anymore to use "internal" system calls, so that excuse will go away soon...

Hugh Pyle, 8:32 PM #

Wednesday, October 03, 2001

Date for your diary: UserSphere, Oxford, 18th October. I'll be there speaking about Groove...

Hugh Pyle, 1:11 PM #

The Peter Drucker Interview: "I was a securities analyst 70 years ago in London, so I can say that no financial man will ever understand business...". Superb stuff.

Hugh Pyle, 11:29 AM #

Now the RIAA have KaZaA (FastTrack, MusicCity, Grokster) in their sights.
(Separately: Vidius, the company employed by RIAA to analyse these peer networks, has an "interesting" approach to security. Its contact page says, "DUE TO HEIGHTENED SECURITY, WE ARE NOT MAKING PHYSICAL ADDRESS AVAILABLE AT THIS TIME"...!)

Hugh Pyle, 10:18 AM #

Monday, October 01, 2001

For some reason, Virtual Voodoo amused me hugely.
I came across this browsing away from David Reed's thought-provoking GFN presentation (long QuickTime movie).

Hugh Pyle, 11:37 AM #