Sunday, January 20, 2002

SOA: Services Oriented Architectures

Buzzword alert: SOA is a new term being used to describe applications built using web services. A conference on SOA's is being planned for June 2002.

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Radio Userland: Search Solution?

Today's Assignment: I'm looking to add a search capability to my Radio UserLand weblog site. What's the best approach?

Userland offers a search engine for Manila sites but it's not obvious that same approach supports Radio sites. To start with, there are no prefs settings for search in Radio.

It seems that there might be two types of searches that need to be offered: 1) a quick local search of my Radio site on my desktop and 2) website search of my hosted Radio site. I'd use the local search to quickly locate items I'd like to refer to while creating new postings. The second search would be for users to use.

For the first search, there's probably a macro somewhere in Radio that I could use to accomplish the search. After all, as I understand it, the pages all reside in Radio's object database. We'd need to expose this on one of Radio's pages -- perhaps by adding Search as a new item in the top menu that runs across the very top of the page.

For the second search, it's understandable that Userland would want something very lightweight so that their hosting servers don't get bogged down when somebody invokes a search. Maybe Google Site Search is the way to go -- since the radio.weblogs.com site is already being regularly monitored by Google?

[ Comment? [] trackback [] 8:45:22 AM Pacific   ]

Apple Upsurge?

Tim O'Reilly notes that Apple iBooks are now the most common laptop seen at the O'Reilly Conferences. I've been noticing how Unix/Java developers are rapidly adopting Macs running Apple's OS X as their development platform. Apparently the combination of the Macintosh interface with a full fledged Unix platform is "very cool" for developers.

I was speaking with another friend on Friday who told me about a group of developers he knew who had to change locations as part of a new assignment. They were running Apple Titanium laptops with OS X and also had Sun desktop machines. They left behind the Sun desktops when they moved to their new locations -- the Apple laptops were all they needed!

I've also noticed a lot of Radio UserLand activity by Mac users. Don't know what the actual statistics are, but it sure seems like more than 5% of the Radio users are Mac-based. (5% is Apple's usual market share.)

[ Comment? [] trackback [] 7:49:55 AM Pacific   ]

Radio Userland: Template Changes

I made a couple of changes to Radio's templates yesterday. Details logged in a story page I've started for that purpose.

While the page looks better with these changes, I'm still not happy. It seems to me there needs to be a better "demarcation" between stories on the page. Now the only indication is the timestamp at the end of the story. I think we need something better.

I think what I'm looking for would also include a permanent link to the top of that particular story -- sort of like the little hooked arrow that Dave uses on Scripting News. Maybe it already exists and I just don't know how to use it?

[ Comment? [] trackback [] 7:29:30 AM Pacific   ]

Today's News Stories

Amazon may hit "profitability" milestone. [Seattle Times]

"The chatter among Seattle's elite cocktail parties began during the holidays: Amazon.com, they whispered, had reached the profitability milestone it set almost a year ago. Not only that, it had hit the mark two months ahead of schedule."

Dan Gillmor: The Next Frontier -- Web Services. [San Jose Mercury News]

In the end, Web services are inevitable. The technology makes too much sense.

Apple tries hard to keep a secret. [San Jose Mercury News]

Why does Apple keep things so quiet, and how? It turns out Apple's motivation for keeping secrets comes down to two things: survival and marketing.

Loans that turn a home into a cash flow. [New York Times]

"The reverse mortgage requires no financial, credit or medical reports, yet promises to put tax-free money into the hands of its borrowers. And borrowers can remain in their home without having to repay any of the loan until they sell, move out or die."

Silicon Valley's Underbelly. High-tech's temp troops: Overworked, underpaid, essential [San Francisco Chronicle]

[ Comment? [] trackback [] 7:25:11 AM Pacific   ]