On my way from some database work to some PHP work today, I needed to

clean up some files of one of our web servers. Just a simple thing,

zip up and delete a web site directory that we’d recently moved to

newer hardware. That’s what I did, except it was the wrong directory.

I had just deleted a live, well-trafficked web site. Poof! Gone!

It took only about 20 minutes to restore it from tape, but somehow a

bunch of important sales information log files were missing.

I’ve been feeling sick all afternoon. It proves that there’s no such

thing as a trivial task. Pay attention!

So oddpost, the quirky, fun-loving web-based email service, has released version 2. Always a sucker for trying everything once, I thought I’d take a look. After clicking “See a Demo”, I was redirected to a page (browserReject.html I think it was)

“Oddpost currently requires Internet Explorer 5.0 (or higher) for Windows. If you?d like to see Oddpost released for other browsers or platforms, please drop us a line at You can click here for more info about Oddpost?s browser compatibility, or here for more general information about our site.”

Never mind.

I read a large and growing number of weblogs every day, but only

through RSS feeds. I don’t want to visit one or two hundred sites,

looking for new posts, so I don’t. It is becoming apparent that if

your blog doesn’t have a feed, I’ll rarely read it. With the recent

proliferation of software like RSSBandit,

SharpReader

and Syndirella, it’s

getting better and easier. In fact, using SharpReader today, with its

visually pleasing and familiar 3-paned interface, I feel like I’m

reading news and mailing lists, but only seeing posts by authors I’m

interested in. I’m surely not the only one who feels this way. The

moral is, if you want your blog to be read, publish a feed.

The nntp//rss project is a local nntp server which pulls in rss feeds so that you can read your feeds in any newsreader. Cool. I’m using Mozilla news and Free Agent and loving it.

Don’s still the man when it comes to usable things. New Scientist interviewed him.

“The cellphone is a very interesting development - it’s really an emotion machine. The very success of SMS, despite the difficulty of using it, is that it lets people sort of touch each other and keep in touch throughout the day. It’s not about sending factual information, it’s about keeping the social structure going.”

I recently started a separate weblog so that I could record my

experiences while learning to develop in Flash. It’s called New2Flash. I’ve

got comments and trackbacks enabled there, so feel free to post. I can

use all the help I can get!

Spent the evening with Mary in Detroit’s Greektown - a first for me. We ate at Hellas. Never having eaten Greek food before, I had no idea what to expect. It was fantastic. My favorite was the Octopus - we ordered seconds. Then came Mousaka, some Saganaki and Grape leaves. (Didn’t care for the grape leaves.) We had 3 different desserts - Baklava, rice pudding and some custard thingy which was awesome.

In case you’re interested:

Hellas Cafe

583 Monroe

Detroit, MI 48226-2932

313-961-5544

You knew this

had to happen.

“We do view Google more and more as a competitor. We believe that we

can provide consumers with a better product and a better user

experience. That’s something that we’re actively looking at doing,”

Bob Visse, director of marketing for Microsoft’s MSN Internet services

division, said.

David Stutz leaves Microsoft - and some advice. Lots of bits about the onslaught of the open source movement. The last line sums it up nicely…

“Stop looking over your shoulder and invent something!”

I’m rather impressed with the way Macromedia is handling the

less-that-stellar response to their new web site. In sort of a

“oh-that-was-just-a-beta” move, they’ve released beta 2, which is a vast

improvement over the original release. They’re documenting what

they’ve learned. The summary is here.

Excerpts:

First we learned (again) that itÂ’s the experience (stupid). You canÂ’t

learn that lesson enough.

Our first key lesson from Beta 1 is that there is a distinct

difference in how people interact with content compared with an

application.

The most successful sites will walk the delicate balance of using

Macromedia Flash and HTML together to create engaging, effective

experiences.

I’m a fan of ColdFusion and Flash, but I’m typically very skeptical of

Macromedia. My skepticism could diminish if they can finally admit

that Flash may not save the world, but can play an important role in

it.