Blue Sky On Mars

The new Google AJAXSLT provides a JavaScript XSL-T and XPath implementation that you can use when providing AJAX goodness in your apps. It’s licensed under a BSD-style license, so you can use it for whatever you want.

As you can see from the readme, Google had to really work to smooth out differences between browsers, many of which have no exposed XSL or XPath functionality at all. As you can guess, it’s probably not going to be whizzy fast if your browser doesn’t have built-in XSL.

Personally, I have a strong dislike for XSL’s syntax. Though it’s not declarative or as “technically pure”, I prefer the syntax of something like TrimPath JavaScript Templates. And I bet TrimPath’s templates are applied more quickly.

Right now, Apple (AAPL) is trading for about $39 per share. If you want to get a gift for someone, you can get them one framed share of Apple for just $122. Or you could get them three shares of stock instead.

Which one would you choose? That says something about you… a practical person would buy three shares of stock: that’s three times the dividends (if Apple pays dividends), three times the appreciation and three times the value when sold. A more sentimental person would get the spiffy framed version to put on the wall.

Maybe if I were a true Apple geek, I’d want one of these. But, I just don’t see it.

The folks who make the Firebird database only package up the “classic” server for the Mac. This is a process-based server and is more resource intensive than the multithreaded SuperServer. David Pugh has written up instructions for building a Firebird SuperServer on Mac OS X.

I have a couple of additions for people using Tiger. First, you’ll need to gcc_select 3.3, because Firebird does not appear to be gcc 4.0 compatible at this point.

The next thing needed for Tiger is to include the SystemStubs library. If you search the configure.in file for CoreFoundation, you’ll find the line you need to change. Add a “-lSystemStubs ” in front of the -framework and you should be good to go.

Building on the Prototype JavaScript library, we now see the script.aculo.us library which provides easy to use effects and drag-and-drop features. And, it’s nicely documented to boot!

CNET reports that Microsoft wants to extend RSS to include ordering information for things like best seller lists. The funny thing about this is that XML (and RSS is XML) already has an implied ordering. It’s then up to a human to decide whether or not they care about that ordering. All you would really need added to RSS is a flag that says “ordering in this feed is important”.

Zesty News, which I promise *will* be released one of these days, already allows you, the reader of a feed, to decide whether you care about the ordering of items. I use this myself on feeds like the BBC’s Top Stories and the Blogdex popular entries.

Even if there was a flag in the feed saying “order is important”, I think it’s still nice to give the reader of the feed a choice. That’s the beauty of RSS (and other XML formats): it’s machine understandable, so the client software can really do useful stuff with the information that comes in.

Many free web log analysis tools give you the basics, but stop short of providing the type of information that will really tell you where your potential customers are dropping off. The LevelTen Hit Counter is not a weblog analyzer; it keeps its own logs in your database. It uses cookie and IP tracking (which I should note is also available in standard weblogs, if you enable cookie logging) to try to provide a better view of what people are doing.

The hit counter has a Flash UI for looking at all of the data. This is where the tool looks great: not great cosmetically, but great in the data it provides. It keeps track of paths people followed through your site. This is the kind of data that can really help tune your site to make sure people are getting the information they want.

This is not a full review: this is mostly a memory jogger for myself. I just read the features list and played with the demo. I do intend to install the counter and see how it works in real life.

LevelTen Hit Counter is free, but it does have a catch. The EULA does not allow you to change the graphics: in other words, no invisible hit counter. I don’t think it’s too onerous having the logo at the bottom of your pages, but I’m certain there are people who will mind this restriction. It is also possible that LevelTen can track *your hit counts* if the image is not included in the distribution.

Update: I’ve installed this now and confirmed that the graphics are included in the package… so, LevelTen can’t track your hit counts. Groovy!

Glenn McDonald explains in Warnings and Promises why he (someone who buys in excess of 100 CDs per year) has finally given in and “stolen” music online. Someone who buys more than 100 CDs a year is what is known in most industries as a “great customer”. His article is a clear story on how the music industry is failing. (Via 43 Folders)

I must remind you that the Flying Spaghetti Monster is just a theory, not a fact. As with any theory, it is good to consider other points of view.

Not sure if anyone else out there has a similar tag, but my “One of those weeks” post included the “commiseration” tag. Seems like a good tag if you’re in the mood to share in other people’s misery

On Technorati and del.icio.us.

Last week was one of “those” weeks. One of those weeks that says “hey, you’re human”.

It started off with me taking a sick day on Tuesday (my weeks are Tuesday-Saturday). When you’re running your own business and your under the gun to get things going, you really don’t want a sick day. When you’ve got a regular paycheck coming in, a sick day is annoying and sets you back a little. When you’re still working toward that first check coming in, it’s a different story.

When you’re in a house with kids (or even just the one kid), it’s very rare that only one person gets sick. So, my daughter got sick. And two of her premolars decided that now is the right time to start popping up. Combine these two and you get: a lot of broken up sleep. Bad sleep == lower IQ/fuzzy brain. (If you doubt me, you probably don’t have a kid.)

Add to that some unusual extra things that we had to take care of, and basically I lost 2 of the 5 days last week. Because of the sleep (or rather the lack thereof), the other three were less-than-fully-productive.

The icing on the cake was that I hit a showstopper that basically negated my last couple weeks of work. It was a good line of experimentation, but it just didn’t pan out in a way that would work for the users.

Ahh. One of those weeks.

On the plus side, Crysania is sleeping better now. My cold is nearly gone. I have a firm handle on what’s needed now to get my release out the door. SVN did a good job of getting me back to the point in time that I wanted to pick up from (*much* better than CVS, I should add).

I have good reason to be optimistic for a better week this week. And, I’m the sort who always counts my blessings. I know that the week I had last week was far better than the average week for many people.