Daily Bytes » 2003

HTML’s Time is Over. Let’s Move On.

January 31, 2003 - Posted by André Restivo - 0 Comments

href="http://www.boxesandarrows.com//people/archives/david_heller.php">
David Heller has some good points in this article but I just
can’t agree with the fact that HTML time is over.

Ultimately, I dont see a long term future for HTML as
an application development solution. It is a misapplied tool that
was never meant to be used for anything other than distributed
publishing.

HTML has several problems, let’s face it, but most are caused by
bad browser implementations and misuse. Developers must learn that
HTML isn’t the answer to all problems, sometimes other kind of
technologies (like the ones listed in the article) have to be used
in order to create a thin client.

But lets not forget the advantages HTML has:

Everyone has a HTML browser.
HTML is simple and light.

These advantages took many time to be fully developed and I can’t
imagine in the near future another technology that will be so
widespread as the HTML browser.

David also points that developers end up developing for one
specific browser. I don’t see a big problem with this and I don’t
really see the difference between programming for a specific
browser or using another thin-client architecture.

Bottomline is: If you wan’t to create an
accessible interface for people all over the world there is no real
challenge for HTML at the moment. But if you are developing for a
strict group of people and you need a little more power than HTML
can provide then, by all means, don’t use it.

From href="http://www.boxesandarrows.com/archives/htmls_time_is_over_lets_move_on.php">
www.boxesandarrows.com.

Small is beautifull

January 31, 2003 - Posted by André Restivo - 0 Comments

I want one… Why do they have to be so expensive? src="Netbox.png" />

We build the Cubits ourselves from 5mm solid aluminium
in 5 colours. They are hand-finished and assembled around the
latest mini-motherboard, a generous helping of memory and more hard
disk storage than we’d ever be likely to need. We also make them in
Plexiglas. They’re more solidly built than the grey monster under
your desk - we think you could drive a truck over the aluminium
ones - but probably take up less than a quarter of the
space.

[If you do decide to put one in your kitchen, please
note they're not waterproof. But neither is your
toaster.]

From href="http://www.netbox.co.uk/netbox/html/index.htm">www.netbox.co.uk.

Amazon Easter Eggs

January 31, 2003 - Posted by André Restivo - 0 Comments

Amazon has always been, IMHO, the most inovative internet business
in the in the past few years. This time href="http://blog.portugalmail.pt/NuLo/">Nuno found out that
sometimes, while you surf their website, you can find some pearls
like this one. I did some research
of my own and found out at least href="http://eggheaven2000.com/detailed/1032.html">another easter
egg at Amazon:

Go to Amazon.com. Click on “Directory of All Stores”
near the bottom, then scroll down to the copyright notice at the
bottom. Under the “1996″ is an invisible link which will take you
to the farewell page for one of their employees.

For the impatient ones here’s the href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/subst/misc/dr.html/103-7395425-0520605">
link.

From href="http://blog.portugalmail.pt/NuLo/archive/000292.html#000292">blog.portugalmail.pt.

The Power of the Blog…

January 29, 2003 - Posted by André Restivo - 1 Comment

Interesting comparison:

The nature of blogging allows us to point to what another
individual said, adding our opinion without mutilating theirs in
the translation.

Each opinion in the string remains intact while the message goes
round.

This is very different from the Telephone game where the message
is always translated by the forwarder. (The news media is more like
the telephone game.)

The ideal scene of blogging being “the voice of the people” is
that the precise blogging voice echoes repeatedly, thereby gaining
velocity and power.

From href="http://judithburton.weblogger.com/discuss/msgReader$86">judithburton.weblogger.com.