Remote Home Management Tool Released “Intel Labs said the software will enable wireless phones and handhelds to control home networks using Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) technology, which enables PCs and smart devices to automatically connect with each other and share information. The toolkit integrates UPnP technology into wireless devices, enabling to control compliant devices… Continue reading Remote Home Management Tool Released

Serious computer people need several machines; computers are much less costly than time. [Mark Bernstein]

Adaptive Path interview of Marc Rettig. Adaptive Path talks with Marc Rettig, former Chief Experience Officer at Hanna Hodge. Marc is one of the leading thinkers in the field of user experience design. He was among the first to apply behavioral research techniques to web design projects. These days he's teaching at Carnegie Mellon University.… Continue reading Adaptive Path interview of Marc Rettig

New 7 Wonders “Nearly everyone is familiar with the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Now Swiss adventurer Bernard Weber wants us to think about the new seven wonders – the wonders of the modern world. His website, new7wonders.org, allows you to peruse a list of around two dozen “modern wonders” (“modern” being a relative… Continue reading New 7 Wonders

Reference Is Better Than We Thought “The point is that in prior studies of reference service, accuracy has usually meant some number of judges scoring ten or 20 so-called typical questions on a scale ranging from “completely answered” to “not answered at all.” The results of these studies, unfortunately, are all too familiar: half-right reference… Continue reading Reference Is Better Than We Thought

Weblog Bookwatch. “I thought it would be interesting to see which books are being mentioned most frequently on weblogs. Weblog BookWatch keeps track of weblogs that flow through the recently changed list at weblogs.com and searches for links to Amazon.com. Then it looks at the ISBN in the link's URL, and counts the link as… Continue reading Weblog Bookwatch

This week's special report from Businessweek is about The Corporate Net. Unfortunately, I don't have time to read these right now, but they (and the others I'm not listing) might be of interest to you. Business' Killer App: The Web – “No, this isn't Dot-Com Delusion Act II. It means adding a couple of points to… Continue reading Businessweek

Yahoo finance is a great webapp.  It gets more traffic than all the other financial sites combined (CBS marketwatch, CNBC, etc.).  It's so good (or at least it was), that most of the brokers on Wall Street use it instead of their internal systems.  However, it is (like most of Yahoo's services) so full of ads now it's… Continue reading unusable

Greg Smith has an excellent demo app that combines Filemaker Pro and Manila.  It also works with Radio on the desktop. >>>As we said, this is a Manila site but, importantly, its full 'database driven' functionality can be equally deployed within Radio Userland on your own desktop! All you need is the 'webservice macro' (a… Continue reading Greg Smith

Desktop webservices and composite applications.  One of the most exciting aspects of desktop webservices is that I can build pages on my desktop that automatically aggregate data from across the web and from webservice enabled corporate applications.  This is effectively a personal portal that could include search (Google) of the Web/LAN/desktop, financial info from a place… Continue reading Desktop webservices and composite applications.  One of the most exciting aspects of desktop webservices is that I can build pages on my desktop that automatically aggregate data from across the web and from webservice enabled corporate applications.  This is effectively a personal portal that could include search (Google) of the Web/LAN/desktop, financial info from a place like Yahoo finance, corporate sales data, corporate financial data, corporate inventory data, news (RSS),  and even data from peer web services (data entered or auto-aggregated by co-workers in a structured format — contact lists, bookmarks, calendar entries, spreadsheets, etc.).

Better yet, I have complete control over the presentation of that data.  With a little programming effort, I can incorporate business rules (with tools that can be automated for me) that do things for me based on that data.   I could also attach a post button to all the data I collect so its easy for me to share it with co-workers via my weblog.  It puts me in control. 

This is the ultimate composite application.  A borg that consumes all others.  I don't want to learn or interact with hundreds of different websites or application specific clients.  I want it all on my desktop, running in my browser, where I can modify, manipulate, and publish it. [John Robb's Radio Weblog