Update: I don’t do this anymore. I publish this blog through WordPress, for reasons I’ve outlined before. I run it with a custom theme and a bunch of plugins though, and I wanted a convenient way to keep my WordPress install up to date without having to reinstall everything all the time. I wanted source …
Category Archives: Default
OpenID Usability Non-solutions
At work we’re building our new centralized authentication solution. Allowing OpenID logins is not part of our first release, but it’ll follow at some point in the future, at least if Rob has any say in it. Even though I’ve had an OpenID identity for as long as anyone, use mine extensively and have even …
Source Control for your Operating System
I think that I’ve realised why I feel so uncomfortable using MacOS X and Windows for “Real Work”. They’re fine for playing MP3s or browsing the web, but when it comes to developing software I get scared. For me, developing my own software usually involves installing other software and upgrading existing software on my computer …
Twitter Translation
My friend Britt mentioned today that he was about to launch twitter.jp. How exciting! But I don’t understand Japanese. If only I could easily translate all those tweets in languages I don’t understand. I played around with Google’s new AJAX Translation API before and I wondered how hard it would be to use that from …
Ten Years
Ten years ago Netscape released the source code to their browser. They called it Mozilla, I downloaded and built it at my work at the time. I didn’t manage to build it immediately, but I worked it out in the end. Somehow I’ve spent most of the past seven years working with the platform. I …
I told you so
Six months ago I predicted: This kind of bundling is often done by the bad guys. If you install Apple’s Quicktime codecs on Windows every update will trigger an iTunes install, even if you haven’t installed iTunes. I’m sure they’ll do the same thing for Safari on Windows. I’m not sure what iTunes’ market share …
Taming MacPorts
For the record, I don’t like MacPorts. I don’t like building software from sources when someone could have done it for me just fine. It’s a waste of fossil fuels and a waste of my time. Since my Mac doesn’t come with most of the software I’d expect I have to build things from sources. …
Google AJAX APIs outside the browser
Google just announced their new Language API this morning. Unfortunately their API is another one of their AJAX APIs – that are designed to be used from JavaScript in web pages. These APIs are pretty cool for building client-side web applications – I used their AJAX Feeds API in my home page – but I …
API Design
Recently at Songbird I’ve been working on some guidelines to help us build better APIs. One of the most exciting things we’re hoping to offer users and developers are APIs that give them access to their music and the ability to extend their and others’ music players. Getting these APIs right can be hard and …
LUG Radio Live
I’m kind of terrified of public speaking. So I do it as much as possible. I will be speaking at LUG Radio Live USA 2008 in San Francisco in April. I’m going to be talking about Songbird and the Open Media Web focusing on why what we’re working on over at the nest is especially …