Sorry for another yet another I won't waste much time on hey-sorry-I-haven't-been-posting post. I just want to take a moment to say that I have every intention of turning that around (i.e. posting more and more consistently) and I want to briefly mention a project that has been keeping me away from posting but which is related to this blog.

First I want to say that I believe that weblogs are a critically important element of the Web. I would go so far as to say that more than any other of the collection of ideas and associated web related technology, weblogs speaks to the original design goals of the web. Given that belief, and considering the importance of the web itself, I can think of very few activities that are more worthwhile.

It's a historical fact that the first web browser was also an editor. That key decision and the underlying insight that what was missing from the internet at the time, and also utterly absent from the human experience, was a usable system that would allow for the unfettered, widespread distribution of information AND NOT another (unidirectional) publishing platform. The internet provided the framework, representing the collective contributions - engineering talents, knowledge of networked systems, and hard work - of countless individuals, but the invention of the web was realization of the true potential of the network. The simplicity of HTML combined with the elegance of hypertext (which predates both the web and the internet) is the first and still the greatest achievement associated with the modern web.

Read the rest of this post ]]> Tue, 09 Jun 2009 17:04:13 -0400 http://robreed.net/weblog/2009/06/09/17/04/13/index.html#ya_sorryIhavent_posted_post20090609 http://robreed.net/weblog/meta/announcing_the_release_ofOde Just a quick note to announce that I'm close to releasing Ode, the software that serves as the platform for this site.

Read more about it at Ode's site.

I'm actively writing the software for the site in addition to the site itself and this is one of the unfortunate consequences at the moment.

I'll repeat the notice from the sidebar here for anyone who might not spotted it:

You may see the odd interface glitch or debugging message or two show though. This is expected as I continue to make some last minute unexpected changes to Ode itself, and this theme, in prep for releasing both.

The goal is to keep the site up and running throughout.

I decided to take this step now to motivate myself to start posting to this site more.

I understand that it's frustrating to decide that you want to subscribe to the feed for the site only to run into trouble because of a broken feed link. I assure you, the last group of people I want to inconvenience are the small group of visitors who might want to subscribe.

This is a priority for me and I'll get it fixed as soon as possible.

Thanks for your patience.

We've had some connectivity issues due to:

• a device failure, and
• a couple of power outages in the past two days.

The device should be replaced by the end of the day tomorrow (2008_0612). That should resolve one of the two problems.

unfortunately, because of the current setup, there's not much I can do about the power outages other than protect the server itself. Hopefully the power company will see fit to resolve the issue.

Sorry for any inconvenience!

Looking through my webserver logs yesterday I saw this search phrase:

site:robreed.net boku

I'd guess the visitor was looking for these posts I made about [Boku, a programming environment of kids])(http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2007/03/microsoft_resea.html "InformationWeek.com article - Mar 29, 2007") from Matt MacLaurin of Microsoft Research.

• Boku

• Boku, Part II

Unfortunately, Google sent the visitor to an empty page :(

The reason? If you read the message above you know that I've recently transitioned this site to a new platform I've been working on.

This site is the first personal weblog based on Ode (pronounced oh-dee), a new weblog app I've been working on. You can find out more about ode at ode-is-simple.com.

Like it's author, Ode has a tendency to be a pain in the ass stickler and refused to cough up the right posts because the case of the request didn't match the case of the path to the posts. Come on Ode, be reasonable!

We had a nice chat - translation: I bullied her (feminine pronoun intended to express endearment) like an old prospector kicking a rented mule (I do not condone the kicking of mules) and now she is being much more reasonable. Paths are now case-insensitive under ode by default.

This is why I really like Ode as a platform. It allows me (and you) to easily play around with ideas. In a short amount of time I'll be able to mock up something and play with features not slave over code.

My usual long-form posts don't work.

At first I was concerned about the amount of time I was spending actually writing the posts. I still am, but now I'm more aware of the 'recoil', i.e. the time it takes me to recover from writing an enormous post before I start on the next one.

I'm not planning on giving up the big post but I need to develop a capability for something shorter.

• Technology news and information (though I may put up a second blog with this sort of stuff I prove to myself I can keep up with this one)
• Tutorial type content
• Some stuff about me and my life
• Notes about projects I'm working on
• Discussion of school - specifically Tufts CS.
• Pop culture
• TV
• Social issues
• Photos
• Book, movie, and music recommendations
• Information about software
• Excerpts from from books and magazines I'm reading
• Quotes
• Definitions
• Even the occasional email message

Additionally

I'll try to keep the rants and complaining to a minimum.

I reserve the right to get off track from time to time.

Keep in mind that you can subscribe to individual categories if you're not interested in all of this.

Rob