Disqus - Latest Comments for Michael Mahemoff

Re: Slacker, the real iPod killer?

Michael Mahemoff — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 05:14:37 -0000

Podcatcher? It would be a shame not to.

Re: Invert the Web

Michael Mahemoff — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 13:17:40 -0000

Very interesting. It would be nice to see a TiddlyWeb-driven proof-of-concept of this universe. It would be nice to see a proof of concept based on TiddlyWeb and OAuth.

Re: TiddlyWeb for the Impatient

Michael Mahemoff — Fri, 22 May 2009 09:40:02 -0000

Useful notes.

I made some notes for installing easy_install, a prerequisite for these steps.

http://softwareas.com/easy_install-prerequisite...

Re: Tools Together

Michael Mahemoff — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 18:56:55 -0000

Chris, the "small things, loosely connected" argument makes sense here, and as an aspiration, that's a sensible architecture. I think we can break down Web UIs for TiddlyWeb into 3 categories:
* Client-driven - typically a Javascript web app, TiddlyWiki or otherwise, making RESTful calls.
* External server-driven - Django, Rails, Java, whatever server making server-to-server calls to TiddlyWeb
* Tiddlyweb-driven - A server somehow embedded in TiddlyWeb

While I appreciate the principle, I do think right now the third option is somewhat more appealing than the second option.

The main reason is that web frameworks like Django and Rails assume derive their considerable agility from making certain assumptions about the underlying persistence framework. The more you deviate from the typical case, the more these frameworks become cumbersome to deal with, and in unchartered ways.

There are probably plugins around that will deal with RESTful services in some way, but they won't be at all TiddlyWeb-specific. I can't, for instance, point to a bag and say "build me the few lines of code that will let people admin that bag". It's conceivable such a framework could exist, but it's not there today.

The other aspect to consider is deployment. If one is building an open-source framework with TiddlyWeb, which will have to be distributed and deployed by others, there is an additional pragmatic force in favour of keeping it all in the same unit and server, which must be balanced against the cleaner approach of separating concerns.

Re: need a name...

Michael Mahemoff — Sun, 26 Jun 2005 12:32:54 -0000

Hi Phil,

How about a bit of street ... PhatMix. (As long as you code it in Grooovy :-).

Omnivat ... OneUniverse ... FatFusion

Jamie, how about "allofdat", "donttouchdat" >:-D

Re: need a name...

Michael Mahemoff — Tue, 28 Jun 2005 00:13:13 -0000

"Stew" or "Casserole" are also gloopy but maybe less tripe? eg DataStew.

Re: 2006/10/18/youtube-could-be-hit-by-european-broadcast-rules/

Michael Mahemoff — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 14:06:24 -0000

This is odd regulation, and maybe a bit embarassing for the EU if it goes ahead. Doesn't look good when combined with the recent Google decisions in Belgium (the kind of thing that I thought was resolved in 1998) and the confusing European search engine initiative (Quaero).

"The reasoning is pretty simple: the Brits think that forcing video-sharing sites to seek licensing would prevent UK entrepreneurs from building the next YouTube or MySpace."

Yes, and the benefits are broader than just building video sites or even dotcoms. All the Gootube press has been about replacing TV, but the online video trend will have a far broader impact on society and the economy. Right now, it's hard to see that because the stereotype is a geek watching videos on his desktop monitor or squinting at a video ipod. Soon, though, it will be easy enough to watch it on a normal TV (Apple ITV, Nintendo Flash-enabled browser) and probably other dedicated wifi monitors that will come out, as well as improved wifi portable players.

For example, imagine the impact on research when a lab can immediately distribute video of an experiment to other researchers around the world. Also, the political implications of projects like webcameron, which currently seem like gimmicks to many. And then there's the Jon Udell lawnmower example - the vast majority of products or services, quite outside of IT, can benefit from instructional video, which is far more accessible than a boring old manual. A lawnmower company can show people how to use the lawnmower, troubleshoot it etc, a bank can show people how to use their website, an open-source project can show people how to get started (the legendary screencast by DHH is one reason Rails really took off). There's probably lots of other applications people haven't even considered yet.

Point being, many many sectors of society will gain from this (sorry but it truly is a) revolution, not just a couple of silicon valley boys closing out their mortgage, which is mostly how the gootube story has played out in the mainstream media.

Content regulation must be based on blacklisting in this day and age - after all, that's worked fine overall for the web over more than a decade. Forcing every publisher to sign up to a whitelist would be a major step backwards at a time when everyone else is charging forward. Classic under-utilisation of available resources.

FWIW I personally couldn't care if people call me (as a blogger) "amateur", "professional", or "the weather". Anyone who lumps all bloggers together is on the wrong train - it's not 2002 and blogging is just a tool people on the net use for whatever purpose. It would be like saying web users are geeks or mobile phone users are yuppies, which made for some fine humour in 1995, but a bit beside the point 5 years later.

Re: 2007/07/28/web-development/

Michael Mahemoff — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 14:11:06 -0000

@Cameron Thanks for the AjaxPatterns link.

@Rey Right on. JQuery is a fine product and a contender for the "best" all-round Ajax framework right now. In particular, the team has done a great job with documentation (http://jquery.com/), which I value a lot in a web application. I frequently use this third-party API browser for JQuery - http://jquery.bassistance.de/api-browser/.

Another website perfect for a Mashable list is Colourlovers http://www.colourlovers.com/. Social networking for colour lovers everywhere.

Re: thoughtbot is filled with vim and vigor

Michael Mahemoff — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 18:31:00 -0000

+1 rails.vim for bringing vim to prominence in the rails community over the past few months.

@Shadowfiend Have you tried :set scrolloff=999 ? Then it’s always centered, which I like, so no need for zz and scrolling micro-management. (It also frees up “z” for other macros.)