Sunday 3 February 2002

Useit.Com: Avoiding Commodity Status. However, industrial design is not the main road ahead for computers. Improved software design is much more important. This does require some thinking, and it's not Steve Job's strategy, but I believe that software innovations are the main way to differentiate both high-tech products and websites. [Tomalak's Realm] Quote : 'Much has been made of the flat-panel display on the new iMac, but the use of anti-aliased typefaces in Windows XP is the true revolution in screen design this year.'       What's all this about? Am I missing the point here? Is the writer trying to say that there's something different about the way XP uses anti-aliased type compared with the Apple implementation in OS X, or is he claiming that XP 'pioneered' its use? Perhaps it's the former, since there's a very strange statement to the effect that XP's anti-aliasing isn't possible on CRT monitors. I'm confused!       Leaving aside the gratuitous sideswipe at Steve Jobs, the article comes across as wooly in its thinking -- e.g. turning on Clear Type saves the user $2,000. Huh? 10:52:43 PM  Your view

So, here's my first try at including a pic in my weblog using the great My Pictures tool. This is by way of honouring my friend Carl who today successfully completed his journey through Myst III--Exile. I hate him! I still have quite a way to go before anyone will honour me. 9:34:16 PM  Your view

So, today I decided to experiment with web-serving on OS X. I had no luck before any time I tried switching it on in Sharing preferences -- the button just went grey and stayed that way. But then I got interested again when I spotted links to the O'Reilly 4-part series on Apache. I went there, still had no joy with the On button, and then eventually spotted in following Comments that others were having the same problem. The solution turned out to be a change of file name somewhere in the OS X upgrade process. Getting dirty with the Terminal sorted this out, I hit the Start button again -- and everything was suddenly AOK!       I messed around a bit with the Apache setup, familiarising myself with where things are, and then decided to follow up on another Web link which I'd taken a note of for this very occasion. I signed on with dyndns.org and registered a more meaningful dynamic DNS domain name. But . . . My setup is that I'm using AirPort to share an ADSL connection between my three machines. This works fine, but it seems to be causing some communication problems with the outside world. (As an aside, I'm experiencing difficulties uploading to some FTP sites, and I still have to figure out if this is caused by limitations imposed by my ADSL provider or by login problems at my FTP ISP.) Anyway, whether using my machine's IP number (which, since AirPort only reports a 10.0.X.X local number, I had to find through dyndns.org again -- using their excellent IP checker) or my newly-registered domain name I just couldn't manage to contact my new server.       Trying to narrow down the source of this problem, I kept two of my machines connected to AirPort, turned off AirPort on my server machine and switched it to dialup: and suddenly, as if by magic, I got through to my server perfectly. So, after all this, I'm both happy and sad. It's great to establish that OS X's built-in Apache setup is functioning, but it's very exasperating not to be able to get through to it if I'm connected on ADSL.       I'll update my experiences as they transpire. 8:59:05 PM  Your view

When computers learn to talk. Big investments from the likes of IBM, Microsoft and Sun are convincing some analysts that Web services will soon be a reality. But significant hurdles remain, McKinsey experts say. [CNET News.com] 'By using a set of common protocols and standards, these applications will permit disparate systems to "talk" with one another--that is, to share data and services--without requiring human beings to translate the conversation.' What concerns me here is the reference to 'common protocols and standards', especially when I see that Microsoft is involved -- after all, MS's record on standards is far from good, isn't it? 11:34:27 AM  Your view

US 'ready to go it alone'. One of President George W Bush's key security advisers says the US is prepared to act alone to protect itself from terrorist attack. [Adam Curry: CurryDotCom] Judge, Jury, Executioner all in one? No country has the right to conduct itself along these lines. 11:27:05 AM  Your view

		© Copyright 2002 Jim MacCormaic . Last update: 29/09/2002; 06:01:06 am .