Microsoft have released two websites just recently: one that barely works and one that doesn’t actually do anything at all.

The first is live.com, some sort of portal that seems rather like start.com, though Robert Scoble, Microsoft’s chief apologist, claims there will be more to it than that. At the moment though, it doesn’t work with Firefox. Joel Spolsky gives it a thorough spanking.

The second is officelive.com, which appears to be an attempt by Microsoft to head off the potential competition of Web 2.0 style applications, presumably by offering online services that MS Office currently lacks while still tying users into the core desktop applications. Either way, all you can do at the moment is register an interest.

There are a couple of issues to be debated around here. One is the current fad, which is to release stupidly early beta versions of software, which I assume Google is partly responsible for. Is there some sort of credibility to be gained by having beta releases floating around at a really early point? Possibly – the other factor might be that these companies are getting a whole load of free testing being done, and with the growth of blogs and accurate searching via Technorati and the like, it’s all very easily collated.

Secondly, if Microsoft is taking a turn in this direction, then it must be pretty worried. Maybe the constant rumours of a Google powered OpenOffice have got Bill Gates and co. a little worried. But the ease of sharing and collaborating on documents across the net is becoming a number one priority for software makers, and this will have interesting affects on all sorts of things, not least the way people work. Soon, people working from home, given a fat enough broadband connection, will be able to do everything that someone based in the office can – and they can be anywhere in the world, and using any operating system. Maybe Microsoft try and use their web services to tie users into their existing platforms, but they would be unlikely to succeed long term.

The key to all this is the creation and acceptance of an open standard for documentation formats, to ensure that peope can work across all services, so that it doesn’t matter what application or site someone is using: the file can always be opened.

• Phil B: I want to…
• Dilbert’s blog
• Nextaris – Pretty much lets you do anything with your files online

Two in two days! You are so lucky.

• Tony Finch: Frustrated by Thunderbird
• The Guardian: You can judge a person by their book covers

I love these posters. The sheer awfulness of the puns they employ never fail to make me smile.

This was taken on my cameraphone (hence (lack of) quality) in Warwick.

Haven’t done one of these for a while. Sorry!

• Joel: Something Rotten in AdSense
• CyberJournalist: Top 10 Reasons for Reading a News Site
• Google Base Was Sort of Live
• Phil Bradley asks which blogging system he should switch to

Palimpsest’s Book Group is reading two H.G. Wells books at the moment. Being a skinflint, I thought I would download them from Project Gutenberg, a library of free books available in ext format, and sometimes HTML.

The two novels are:

• The First Men on the Moon
• The Sleeper Awakes

The trouble is that often the HTML option isn’t there, and the text files are formatted with hard line breaks, which means that the lines break at that point whether it needs to or not. So if you load them into a word processor and change the font and text size to get the page count down for printing, the results look terrible.

Surely, I thought, it must be possible to automatically remove these line breaks, somehow? I asked in various places:

• Palimpsest’s Ono No Komachi suggested using EReader, but that costs money!
• The guys at South Cheshire LUG had a go at producing some Perl to convert the text files – but they didn’t quite work, and I don’t have a linux box to run these on yet
• Blixa on Palimpsest came up with some VBA script for MS Word to reformat the text, but it doesn’t quite work either, and it involves Word and VBA (but is very clever)…

All to no avail!

Until Carfilhiot suggested a tool called GutenMark, a command line tool for linux or Windows which takes the text file and reformats nicely it to HTML. It is released under the GPL, so it should be possible to have a look at the source and see if it can be persuaded to produce just text files, though it may be possible to cut and paste from the browser to a text editor to see what results from that.

Carfilhiot has hosted the reformatted versions of the Wells texts:

• The First Men on the Moon
• The Sleeper Awakes

Excellent – and the copy-and-paste to text file seems to work too!

Been listening to Radio 4 and the Today programme on the way into work recently. This morning’s news was full of interesting stuff:

• Galloway accused of Senate ‘lies’ – I am no fan of Galloway’s, but I do find it surprising that the Seante Committee has come out with these statements without further interviews with ‘Gorgeous’ George.
• Africa Aids orphans ‘may top 18m’ – and one report stated that the life expectancy for a male in (IIRC) Zambia is 30. 30!
• EU mulls wild bird import freeze – Apparently this was suggested and agreed by most EU states in March this year. the only country to explicity say ‘no’? The UK. Brilliant.
• Overweight job hunters ‘lose out’ – no wonder I can’t get a job nearer home! Reminds me of one time I was being abused for my rotundity, and I accused my adversary of being fattist. “No, Dave,” he replied. “You’re the fattest.” Bastard.

The Guardian asks whether the content in Wikipedia is worth all that much, and gets some experts to judge some entries.

The founder of the online encyclopedia written and edited by its users has admitted some of its entries are ‘a horrific embarrassment’.

To be honest, I would never dream of using Wikipedia as a serious research tool. If I want a very quick rundown on something, though, it’s fine. Would be interested to find where Jimmy Wales mentioned this ‘horrific embarrassment’!

edit: Aha! The article than began all this was by Nicholas Carr, titled The amorality of Web 2.0. Wales then responds:

I don’t agree with much of this critique, and I certainly do not share
the attitude that Wikipedia is better than Britannica merely because it
is free. It is my intention that we aim at Britannica-or-better
quality, period, free or non-free. We should strive to be the best.

But the two examples he puts forward are, quite frankly, a horrific
embarassment. [[Bill Gates]] and [[Jane Fonda]] are nearly unreadable crap.

Why? What can we do about it?

So there we have it…unless we let Andrew Orlowski have his usual rant against ‘Wiki-fiddlers’, in the Register:

Encouraging signs from the Wikipedia project, where co-founder and überpedian Jimmy Wales has acknowledged there are real quality problems with the online work.

Criticism of the project from within the inner sanctum has been very rare so far, although fellow co-founder Larry Sanger, who is no longer associated with the project, pleaded with the management to improve its content by befriending, and not alienating, established sources of expertise. (i.e., people who know what they’re talking about.)

Meanwhile, criticism from outside the Wikipedia camp has been rebuffed with a ferocious blend of irrationality and vigor that’s almost unprecedented in our experience: if you thought Apple, Amiga, Mozilla or OS/2 fans were er, … passionate, you haven’t met a wiki-fiddler. For them, it’s a religious crusade.

I recently joined Screen Select, an online DVD rental store. I had previously been a member of Amazon’s effort, but I cancelled as I was bereft of a DVD player for a few months. I pay £12.99 a month for an unlimited number of DVDs, and I can have 2 at home at any one time. To be honest, I rarely have two at home, it’s more the case that one is, and that the other is being either returned or sent out to me. Means we manage to get through quite a few films, which is good given that TV is so rubbish these days.

Here’s what we have had so far:

• Alien – Though the DVD was apparently the Director’s Cut, a studio release that Ridley Scott hated, it also featured the original version, which I watched. It’s visually stunning, claustrophobic and tense, and gripping from the very start. But it isn’t scary is it?
• Supersize Me – Entertaining bit of corporate America bashing. The science is all a bit dubious though, isn’t it, and the message obvious, at least for sane people.
• The Big Lebowski – Loved it. I am now tempted to change my Palimpname from Wavid to ‘The Dude’.
• The End of the Affair – Found this strangely unlikeable.
• Spiderman 2 – Even more stupid than the first one. Enjoyed it, but felt thoroughly ashamed of doing so.
• Hitchiker’s Guide… – My other half liked this more than me – she thought this might be because she hasn’t read the book for 10 years, while I re-read it all the time. It was ok, I guess.

This has been ripped and edited slightly from my Film List on Palimpsest.

Both Scoble and MJR have referred to Jakob Nielson’s tips for a well designed site, which is actually presented as a list of mistakes.

A lot of the stuff in here prompted me to change the layout of this site.

Have uploaded and slightly modified a new style. I wasn’t unhappy with the last one, but was concious that it was completely non-standards compliant and very graphics-heavy.

The other advantage of this one is that it goes against the annoying blogging grain of only using three-quarters of the screen. Font size might be a bit big, mind.

So, I am going to give this a go for a while. Let me know what you think!

Interesting debate on IE vs. Firefox on Palimpsest.

We have done loads this weekend. I was taken over with a real desire to get out into the fresh air, and fortunately we have tonnes of it around here. Here’s some photos of the places we went – more on my flickr page.

On Saturday, we visited Whittington Castle, which is remarkable for being run not by the National Trust or some large organisation, but a community trust set up by those who live nearby. A great project.

On Sunday we headed deeper into Wales. This is a small stream running between two buildings at William Morgan‘s birthplace at Tŷ Mawr, which is a National Trust site now.

Morgan was the chap responsible for writing the first Welsh language bible. The photo below shows the house where Morgan spent his formative years.

I have always been a self-taught bodge job type of web designer, and nothing I have ever designed has passed the w3c validator test.

So, I decided recently, just as a technical exercise, to try and create a site which was both reasonable to look at and standards compliant, using XHTML strict and a CSS style sheet. I also wanted to make the site as small as possible, so not using any graphics.

It took quite a bit of work, and most of this was my own fault in being lazy and reusing a CSS template that I had stuck on my hard disk for a couple of years.

Anyway, it was a useful exercise and the finished result looks alright, and is standards compliant, so I guess I reached my goal there.

In truth the whole stylesheet needs to be gone through and re-written to get rid of a lot of bloat, which I either left in because it didn’t break anything, or just commented out.

MyPimp is an online personal information manager, using the latest flashy ajax technology that many of the Web 2.0 apps are using, like Writely, for example.

Interestingly, when using it with IE, a big message in a red box appears at the top of the page:

The browser you are using is not currently supported by MyPIMP. All development and testing of the site has been done using Mozilla Firefox. Using any other browser may prevent some features of the site from working properly (some may not work at all). We will add support for other browsers in the future! It’s just easier to focus on one browser at a time, especially one that follows web standards. For more information and a free download of Mozilla Firefox please click here.

They aren’t supporting Internet Explorer! This would have been unthinkable less than a year ago.

Saw a strange thing on logging in to Gmail this morning:

And here’s the explaination:

We have been involved in a dispute regarding the Gmail trademark in the UK. Another company has claimed rights to the Gmail name. We have tried to resolve this dispute through negotiations, but our efforts have failed.

We are still working with the courts and trademark office to protect our ability to use the Gmail name, but in the meantime, we want you to have an email address you can rely on.

The Gmail Team is dedicated to offering the best email service to our users. Our email service stays the same no matter what the logo is or what follows the @ symbol. This change lets our team focus their time on continuing to bring you excellent service.

…

What if I’m a UK user who already has a Gmail address? Will that address ever change?

Unfortunately, we don’t know. We would love to say that your address will always remain the same. But the trademark issue is still unsettled, and unfortunately, we cannot predict what the other party or the courts might do here. You can always use your same username with an @googlemail.com address to avoid this issue later on. But trust that we will do the best we can to make sure your email address won’t ever have to change.

I immediately invited myself back to Gmail (or Google mail, or whatever) and tried to register davebriggs@googlemail.com and couldn’t, so obviously the last sentance is true.

Still, this is very confusing. Why didn’t they just call it Google Mail in the first place?

Reader is the new RSS aggregator from Google. And I am rather sorry to say that it is rubbish.

It uses a lot of the java technology that works so well on Gmail, and alright on the personalised home page. But Reader just seems unfinished to me – no make that barely even started. Fair enough, it is in beta, but it is genuinely more-or-less unusable.

It does allow you to import an OPML file of your subscriptions with another aggregator, so I did this with my large collections of feeds from FeedDemon. This process took a long time, which I guess is fair enough. But the problem is that it doesn’t keep the categories, so you just end up with this mind-numbingly long list of feeds to browse through.

edit: it does in fact retain the categories, but not in the default ‘Reader’ screen.

The browsing through itself is absurd, as from my brief play last night, you have to scroll through your feeds in a tiny little window using little buttons that give a lovely smooth scrolling effect but which take forever to actually get anywhere.

I think this tool needs a lot of work before it even comes close to services like BlogLines.

John Naughton links to Writely, an online word processor.

This is the sort of thing I have discussed earlier, that Google could provide after their link up with Sun, using the OpenOffice.org applications as a base.

This might be useful for something I am working on, where three people are editing the same file. At the moment it is a Word file being emailed around, and obviously version control can be a nightmare.

The Writely folk also maintain a blog.

Über-blogger Robert Scoble is switching his blog from Typepad to WordPress. The new site is here. Note to self: subscribe to new feeds…

He has chosen the Connections theme, which is the one I use here as a base template.

So, the announcement has been made and it is kinda vague at the moment.

Today, Sun creates yet another important relationship to add to our growing momentum. In an all-star alliance announced today, Sun and Google have begun a strategic relationship to promote and distribute their trail-blazing technologies. As part of the agreement, Sun will include the Google Toolbar as an option in downloads of the Java Runtime Environment from Java.com, Sun’s showcase and portal for Java technology enthusiasts and developers. The new functionality will be available soon.

In keeping with this precedent-setting relationship, executives from Sun and Google broadcast the agreement from the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, the world’s largest museum for preserving and presenting the history and influence of the computing revolution.

Watch the press conference Webcast.

“As a leader in free and open source software, Sun has long recognized that network innovation is vital to the evolution of the global economy,” said Scott McNealy, chief executive officer, Sun Microsystems. “Working with Google will make our technologies available more broadly, increase options for users, lower barriers, and expand participation worldwide.”

Java Momentum Good for Google

Java is one of the most recognized and respected technology brands in the world. Celebrating its 10th birthday this year, Java technology is everywhere and supports a $100 billion market.

Due to the popularity of Java on the desktop, downloads of Java have more than doubled year over year, reaching 20 million per month–and now users can also get the Google Toolbar. With the Java download and the Google Toolbar, users worldwide can benefit from the technology that is powering a new wave of Internet growth–and participate in its opportunities.

Trailblazing Technologies

Sun and Google are leaders in the new economy and at the forefront of the Participation Age. Users and developers alike are drawn to Sun and Google because of their embrace of sharing and innovation.

“Each company is blazing new trails with their technology and commitment to participation and open standards,” says Mark Herring, Sun director of Java Brand and Community Marketing. “The collaboration between these two powerhouses is a milestone for the industry. By working together, Sun and Google are ushering in a new era of dynamic, interactive technology solutions.”

Only the Beginning

The distribution of Java and the Google Toolbar underscores Google’s advocacy of Java technology. Google is a member of the Java Community Process (JCP) executive council and actively participates in shaping the next generation of the Java platform as part of expert groups for Java Specification Requests.

The agreement between Sun and Google also kicks off further collaboration between the companies on projects like OpenOffice.org, the open source productivity suite that is the world’s leading suite on the Solaris Operating System (Solaris OS) and Linux–and the leading alternative suite on Microsoft Windows.

“Google has long been part of the Java technology ecosystem, and today’s announcement highlights this relationship,” says Herring. “Sun is pleased to be working even more closely with a company that also values innovation and breaking down barriers. The agreement is the next big step in a great partnership.”

The bit I have underlined is the interesting bit for me. I wonder when this might become a reality? The speed at which Google has been knocking out products recently, it would not surprise me if this happened pretty soon.