Jonas Beckman

What happens when you choose new, open or save from the File menu in a distributed xml editor? I have this problem right now, in the early stages of designing a new application.

There are many others thinking about this in a more general way. For instance, yesterday Dave Winer posted a nice white paper called Bootstrapping the Two-Way-Web. He basically says some of his products are nice ways to explore the concepts of web-based writing. And they are - I am exploring them already.
But does SOAP or XML-RPC cover enough bases? Some people on the xml-dist-app mailing list wonder why Winer doesn’t use WebDAV. Here is his reply.

Using XML for object persistence can be easy - for very simple object structures.
But documents can be more complex and are usually harder than this to persist.

Here are 13 reasons why data and document retrieval are not the same.

Brief summary of a tricky subject. A lot more can be said about it.

XML Editors: Allegations of Functionality in search of reality

This article is old, but there has been no dramatic change. While basic XML-editors are becoming better, we are still waiting for the market to mature. Developers can already get by, but average users don’t have much to choose from.

Microsoft has great plans for XML - but this article argues that some of them are likely to be harmful.

I can add some personal experience: don’t ever use Word to edit an HTML-document if you want to use it somewhere else again!

Friday was a fantastic day: I slept for a long time, did some work and then went swimming. It felt really good - all these weird infections have kept me out of the pool for weeks, but now I’m back. A quick sauna was followed by afternoon coffe with a very special old friend - after which I had my regular massage.

It’s now just past midnight. Me and Aila both fell asleep after dinner and woke up a little while ago. We have both been working hard with many different things - it’s time to relax a little.

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Susan went to IKEA yesterday, as part of her home improvement. Is this globalization in practice - or sneaky Swedish cultural imperialism?

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Alwin has another bedside story. And just got an amen from our resident buddhist priest - who has briefly slipped out of hiatus to reveal the true meaning of Blivet.

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Radio Userland is cool - I have now stopped using Word for outlining. Word’s outliner was the only feature I really depended on, so I am now free to ignore it as a writing tool. I still need a very easy way to export to Word - but I’ll find one.

RU is very cool - but I still love clicking “edit this page” and just type away. That’s how I almost always start today’s post. Simplicity is king!

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XML.Com: XML Protocol Reference. Overview of the most important technologies and initiatives in the XML protocol area.

Link via the Soap weblog

Comparison between some low-end Content management systems. Several links about Manila, Blogger, Conversant etc. There is room for lots of variety in this category.

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Saturday morning at Eriksdalsbadet: there was only one pool for public use (a swimming championship used the others). But we got in early, before the unusually mad saturday rush. Our papers from Vansbrosimmningen came yesterday - the countdown has started.

I found Jaron Lanier’s one half of a manifesto intriguing - now there are some interesting replies and Jaron has further comments. Link via TimesShadow

We’ll have a quick lunch now, then go meet some friends - someone has an exhibition at Kulturhuset.

I can’t talk about what I’m working with right now - it’s very frustrating.

Zeldman is depressed because his mother died - and writes a fantastic and very funny little story about it. Justin Hall chose work over his girlfriend until she left - it would be sad if it wasn’t so much fun to read.

Me, I don’t write very much right now. No one has died, my girlfriend hasn’t left, there is plenty of interesting work… but I’ve been sick, my sleep is still extremely irregular and I suddenly feel shy even about writing here. But I don’t worry about it: speaking briefly, or not at all, is a valuable discipline.

I think a little fear is useful when you diclose yourself - otherwise it’s not really important. And I am full of love and gratitude for those who do it well.

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There is a new version of Amaya, W3C’s web browser/authoring tool. Some interesting ideas for collaborative writing there. Link via DangerousMeta. Garret has a very wide range - do drop by and see if you share any of his interests.

BTW - Visual Studio.NET Beta 1 is out. Link via Scripting News.

The Zen TV experiment.
Last night I unsuccessfully tried to re-read Suzuki’s Zen and Japanese culture and watch yet another Lexx re-rerun… but this experiment is more interesting.

James Vornov just added a photo of himself to his recently re-designed site. Have a nice time in Amsterdam!

Greg Franklin keeps doing high-quality weblogging: interesting subjects, few words.

Susan, unsurprisingly, had more amazing photos yesterday.

Sometimes I just look at Jörg’s pages.

Martin and Garret are right: looking at all those weird search results can be spooky. But we have only ourselves to blame

Well, it’s been rush-rush time for a while. And today another new project found me - it will be fun and pay well, too.

But it’s time to slow down a little and clean up. And start weblogging a little more here again - I haven’t had too many links for some days.

I wanted to write about "personal infrastructure" - but was too tired. I will, though.

I’ll use RU live today - no fancy rendering, just a master outline and lots of links. It’s a first small step towards what could be a very interesting way of making presentations. It’s a home crowd, mostly developers, so I hope they won’t mind some rough edges.

The outline lives in my cloud right now (here is a HTML-version), but it’s all Swedish - I’ll post a translation when I have the time.

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It went well. At first, I was a little worried about losing the audience - most of them turned out to have no XML background at all. But everyone went along and some eyes started shining really bright.

There were technical glitches: the projection machine slowed down the mouse - it felt like working under water. That stopped me from really showing off how quickly I can use my material with RU. And it was difficult to run online tutorials, so I couldn’t help the newbies as much as I wanted to.

But overall, lots of fun. I’m too tired now, but will post updated files tomorrow - this will only get better!

It ain’t over till it’s over: Florida recount underway.

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I am trying to to confirm the technical setup for a presentation tomorrow. But everyone is hard to reach today.

Meanwhile I am looking at XMetal 2.0, which seems more and more interesting for some of my purposes.

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Another midnight run: I have to do a presentation tomorrow on a borrowed laptop. Setup is a bitch - and the presentation is still finding it’s shape. But I know my subject and like the audience, so it’s a worthwhile struggle.

But there is no time for any fancy rendering right now: I’ll switch between a master outline in Radio Userland and linked web sites. Just like browsing over my shoulder at work - for an audience of developers that will work just fine.

In another country, there is an election tonight.

Plenty of websites cover it. The Scripting News discussion group is looking for exit polls… so far they are not doing better than confirmed reports. Besides, Swedish media has every kind of coverage you can ask for: TV, Web, chat, phone boards, continously updated maps… everything except genuine personal interest.

And that pretty much describes me, too. I am not American and therefore won’t vote - but this depressing spectacle will affect me and everyone else in the world, and probably not for good.

Since I am up working anyway, I keep this window open and the TV on (in another room - I never cared much for TV, anyway ).

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It’s raining outside and the wind is getting worse - maybe the storm is coming, after all?

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My, this election is close! I’m still awake, it’s now morning in Sweden and only Florida is left.

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Well, that’s it. In this not-so-clear choice between bad and worse, worse won a triple-slam - and now “dignified” politicians from both parties are on TV, congratulating each other for having such noble professions and practicing their best lies about working together.

To quote HST: Jesus, what a bummer!

It’s early Monday: I’m editing outlines with RU and gearing up for some presentations later this week.

Some Groove messages from the weekend are getting through - I haven’t been online for a while, but will be later tonight. It’s still hard to accept invitations, though. Don’t know why yet, but only those sent via mail have worked.

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Here is a story about a publisher who should have thought harder:
Treaure trove looted. Setting yourself up for a boycott in a niche market consisting of students and highly educated professionals is stupid and bad for business.

Scripting News links to two moody articles: Mood radio and PullThePlug.com. To me there is a common theme: some people try to make new things, while others just look for new things to exploit.

Sometimes it’s difficult to keep the right balance between extreme hacker paranoia and couch potato stupidity; greedy people really are conspiring round-the-clock to exploit other’s vulnerability. And it takes a lot of energy to keep aware - but it’s not impossible.

Humans are fragile but very hard to stop from loving and playing.

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Got a nice call from my friend Olov, who moved into his new house today - we’ll see if it’s still standing after the French storm gets here