May 10, 2004

Command Line Frontend to MovableType

I must have missed this, but back in December 2003, Johann Schmidt released the latest version of MTshell, which as the subject says is a CLI for MovableType.

“MTshell is a perl program which allows you to maintain your Movable Type blog from a command line prompt. If you’re a Linux/Unix user and run an instance of Movable Type on a server which you have shell access to you’ll probably be interested.”

May 6, 2004

Adobe Designer 6.0 preview

As expected, Adobe has come back at MSFT’s InfoPath with the preview release of Adobe Designer 6.0

Jon Udell of course is spot on with a review in his blog of Designer, which can also be found in this weeks print edition of Info World:

From Jon: “Despite evident weaknesses, the Designer/Reader duo offers two key strengths: digital-paper fidelity, and a ubiquitous runtime. Using the free Reader, I was able to fill out a Designer-built form, print a high-fidelity copy for my records, and post its XML data to a Web server. No matter how the future of e-forms unfolds, that’s going to be a popular scenario.”

May 3, 2004

Boot. Play! Retro-style

Give that old PC a new life by turning it into a retro gaming console with the KnoppiXMAME Live CD Linux Distro.

“KnoppiXMAME is a bootable CD/DVD image with hardware automatic probing and configuration for playing MAME games. No games are included, but they can be added to the ISO image, as well as new versions of X-MAME, gxmame, and the Linux kernel”

Of course you’ll need to legally obtain a few MAME ROMs, but you knew that anyway ;-)

April 30, 2004

More on E-mail for Everything

Ironically, the week my InfoWorld subscription seems to have lapsed in the renewal process, Jon Udell, in his latest column, makes some of the very same points I mentioned yesterday regarding the bastardization of email for file sharing.

Jon writes:

“It drives me nuts when people send me multi-megabyte files as e-mail attachments. Don’t they know a better way?”
…
“E-mail is a poor file-transfer solution in many ways, but it makes perfect sense to users. An e-mail with an attachment compresses notification and delivery into a single step.”

April 29, 2004

Stop Using Email to Share Files

It is increasingly vexing to me the way email is the defacto standard for sharing files. The reality is that email was never designed for sharing files.

It is an all too common occurrence in a corporate setting where multi-megabyte PowerPoint and Excel files get slammed around to numerous recipients on a distribution list with disparate versions shooting back at the sender and no easy way to consolidate the flow.

April 28, 2004

Google and Flash Index Friendly

As some of my friends can attest one of my long-standing gripes regarding the usage of Flash has been its inability to be indexed by search engines.

I suppose that argument is now moot since I just read that Google is now indexing Flash files (via Outer-Court and The Unofficial Google Weblog).

I still at times have problems with the usage of Flash. I suppose it’s more so now the miss-usage of Flash when it does not add any extra value over what a simple text description or graphic would accomplish.

April 26, 2004

Big Blue Tiki Masala

This doesn’t seem like a spicy chicken dish to me…

“IBM is set to unveil an upgraded version of its enterprise-level search technology. Code-named “Masala,” the new software is an improvement on Big Blue’s DB2 Information Integrator released last year. It is expected to enable simultaneous search of the Web, internal applications and corporate databases … and will be released in beta in early May. The full release is slated for the third or fourth quarter. ”
…
“By allowing corporate personnel to search a number of different content sources simultaneously, Masala could be effective in many different scenarios. Sales representatives, for example, could use it to learn about prospective clients by searching internal enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, as well as information available on the Net.” (Via NewsFactor)

April 23, 2004

Lance 6.0 Beta

New York Times article on the technological advances going into Lance Armstrong’s equipment for this year’s Tour de France

“This is a mathematical model,” he said, noting that other factors affect performance. “A rider could have a bad breakfast.” (Link via Lockergnome’s Tech News Watch)

April 22, 2004

InfoPath Hands-on Training

MSDN posted this week a series of InfoPath 2003 SP-1 Training Exercises for the recent preview of InfoPath 2003 Service Pack 1.

I haven’t had time yet to run through the exercises, but they seem to be a good primer for anyone interested in utilizing InfoPath. (Thanks for the link Martin!)

April 21, 2004

OneNote 2003 Service Pack 1 Preview

MSFT made a preview of OneNote 2003 SP1 available yesterday.

In addition to being able to “Record video notes”, there are a number of other niceties too — like for example inserting documents from other Office programs into OneNote and the ability to share OneNote sessions in real time.

IMHO, OneNote is a wonderful environment for aggregating and now sharing disparate information.

Yet, there’s still no mention of MSFT opening the file format.