Today Joel Spolsky wrote Please Sir May I Have a Linker? which starts as a rant on the lack of a linker in .NET but brings up some valid issues about the need for end-users to install the .NET framework. Over time, more and more users should have the framework, especially as it starts being bundled with Windows. But, Joel raises a good point about the frequency of framework updates which might require continuous updates by users. At Palm, we faced a similar problem with Palm Desktop 4.0 which required a minimal version of Internet Explorer (we were using the…
Now playing wth Vegablog which is a blogging client for Palm devices. Testing by writing this post from my Tungsten C over 802.11 wireless. It’s missing a few features like category handling and editing of existing posts, but works well and seems like a good starting point. Link: “www.bitsplitter.net/vegablog/(www.bitsplitter.net/vegablog/)”:www.bitsplitter.net/vegablog/
Recently I needed to clear off some old PC hard drives and searched for a useful utility. I found SDelete (for deleting individual files and clearing unused disk space) and Darik’s Boot and Nuke (for erasing entire drives).
The recent discussions about how strict aggregators should be when reading invalid or ill formed feeds (e.g. RSS or Atom) brought to mind an idea: an automatic service that checks your feed for validity and send e-mail whenever it finds a problem. The service would be an aide to web site authors, alerting them to any problems with their RSS/Atom feeds. Rather than authors manually checking their feeds with the feed validator, the service would do this for them automatically. Rough thoughts on some of the details: Web front-end for sign-up, including feed URL, e-mail address, and frequency of checking…
I’m still using Bloglines as my aggregator and have found it quite useful. Yesterday they released Bloglines for Connected PDAs which is a version optimized for small devices. If you connect to the main page (www.bloglines.com), it will automatically redirect to the mobile page if it detects a PDA browser. I tried it on my Tungsten C (802.11) and Tungsten T3 (Bluetooth) and it worked well in both cases. The PDA-optimized pages are really fast, in part because the icon for each channel has been removed, meaning there are practically no graphics to download. Sample screenshots are shown below. …