...more recent posts
David Isenberg and David Weinberger spell it out (from Nov. 2001): The best network is the hardest one to make money running. Great statement of the problem. (from htp)
Open content network. This seems really cool. A description of the network is here. I have to do more research on this.
If you use PHP to develop web apps you should be aware that 4.2 is bringing some changes that could break your scripts. Still, my impression is these are good changes, but it does mean there is work to be done. Here's an article on keeping up to date.
So I have my database on the server. That holds all the information on this site. And then I have a bunch of PHP scripts that look at the incoming browser, check for cookies, and then assemble the correct page out of the database.
But I also have a copy of that setup on the machine sitting on my desk (the server is in California, I'm in NYC.) When I'm making big changes I do it on my machine, and then once it's running locally I transfer everything up to the server.
One possibly interesting thing I noticed the last time I did this is that I can also have all the PHP scripts running locally, but accessing the remote database. Hmmm. So I started wondering how much load it would save on the server if all the scripts ran locally (but still accessed the servers database.) And now I've started thinking about having the database local too, as well as keeping a second database centralized on the server.
Here's how it would work. Everything (apache, php, mysql) runs local on my machine. I can make pages, post, edit just like before. All changes effect the setup on my machine. But then each page also has a setting for whether it should be synched to the central server as well. If so, then every post is made to the local machine, and then if the local machine is connected to the internet, the post is also sent to the central server. If the local machine is not connected then a flag is set, and the next time a connection is established, all the new posts are sent to the server.
And then the reverse would have to be true also. On the central server I view pages (some of which are mine, some of which are other people on this site.) For each page I choose whether to mirror it to my local machine. Then when my machine checks in with the central server it looks at the last time stamp for every page I am mirroring and updates my local database where necessary.
This setup would be especially good on a laptop (or smaller machine.) That way I could always be adding to the site, regardless of internet connectivity, and everything would synch up as soon as possible. Also, having the data mirrored in a lot of places has obvious anti-catastrophe appeal.
I'm going to keep thinking about this. I haven't really gotten to the heart of it yet.
Someone must have slipped Ev some of the kool-aid:
You see, I'm being seduced into the Mac camp (for a notebook, at least). I can't help it. They're everywhere. And beautiful. And everyone's in love with them. And the Unix command line and Java integration.... well, damn.
Hot swapable, external, firewire connected, IDE hard drive enclosure. Ugly, but cool.
Everybody is blogging the emerging technology conference. It's almost like being there. Doc has tons. Aaron has 1, 2, 3 days worth. Wes has typically good stuff. Does this (take Wes' for example) constitute a new writing style? Technical stream of consciousness? Actually quite easy to read if you have some background. Data dense, for sure. Joey DeVilla has lots of notes too. There's more, but how much are you really going to read?
O'Reilly has a big conference on emerging technology going on now. As has become standard with these events, 802.11b wifi connections are everywhere, and many of those attending have laptops from which they blog the various meetings in real time. This is where a lot of the business world will be in a few years I think. Anyway, Rob Flickenger set up a program called EtherPEG that sniffs the local network for .gif and .jpeg images. He then collaged them for some very interesting results.
If you've never heard of EtherPEG, its a Mac hack that's been around for a while that combines all of the modern conveniences of a packet sniffer with the good old-fashioned friendliness of a graphics rendering library, to show you whatever GIFs and JPEGs are flying around on your network. It's sort of a real-time meta browser that dynamically builds a view of other people's browsers, built up as other people look around online.Check out the results here. Very cool.
MB went to Bentonville Arkansas yesterday. If you're in the retail world you know there is only one reason to go to Bentonville. She sure has a weird collection of jobs being part restauranteur, part graphic designer, and part local political figure. She used to be just a graphic designer. I can barely remember those days though. Neither of us worked at all the first year we were together. Now we eat dinner together but do almost nothing else.
Sleeping alone is really something if you're not used to it. I'd almost say I liked it, except I know what I really like is sleeping alone occasionally. I didn't wake up until after 11:00! That's something I haven't done in years. I think I needed a long sleep.
David McCusker worked out his problems with Lisa. This makes me happy. Although only hearing from one side (his) has made me suspicious of her. Like I'm protective of him, which is weird since I don't know him personally. I guess because I don't know him, and because he writes clearly about relationship issues in a way I don't do in public, there is a lot of transference that can happen from just reading the words. If I actually knew them I wouldn't be surprised to feel less engaged by the whole episode. Anyway, I hope it continues to go well. For all of us.
The CEO as well as the founder of Napster have both resigned. I'm confused as to why this is being so widely reported. You'd almost think this was important in some way. But Napster has been dead for a long time. Once they shut down the free trading it was obvious they could never transition to a pay service.
There are still file trading networks. And they have more users, trading more files (including copyrighted music files,) then Napster ever had. And they continue to grow. I believe the RIAA will eventually be crushed by these networks. But all this has absolutely nothing to do with Napster.