I have not used Usenet News for a few years. With the low signal-to-noise ratio and the unattractive text message based interface, I expect it would soon go obsolete and replace by the more attractive web based forums.

Recently I was bothered by he high volume of email from a mailing list. I am not able to keep up with the discussion using the email client. Most often I simply delete all the messages. Fortunately this forum can be accessed through a mailing list or a newsgroup. Then I realized this is what the Usenet news is good at. It is a medium to conduct high volume discussion. I can easily scan through the heading and pay attentions only to the few topics that really interest me. I installed an old news reader, Agent, from Forté again. It is the same old Usenet and the same old news reader. And It works just as well as in the 90s. I learned to appreciate newsgroups again.

2003.04.25 [tech] - comments

I was looking for a RSS feed from major new sources. There really isn't much available. I guess wired news is a revenue source for news agency so they may not want to provide it for free. Anyway BBC provides a news headline for wireless browsers. It is simple HTML and is rather close to RSS. I used this for a news box.

Another tips for using wireless browser: wireless devices usually have small screens. A few web sites provides contents formatted to fit in these wireless devices. Usually they are strip down version of web pages without advertisement and many distracting information. Unfortunately, most other web sites do not provide such wireless format. Look for the printer friendly format. They are usually clean, text only version. I find that what is good for printing is also good for small screens!

2003.04.23 [software] - comments

Thanks Mark Pilgrim, who has posted a Python RSS parser. With this parser, it is trivial to add news feed boxes to the home page. I added some news feed from O'Reilly to this web site for the start. Now the home page look more interesting! Still have to work on the scheduling of feeding.

2003.04.22 [web, software] - comments

At last I have built the application I always wanted, a weather and news email alert for my mobile phone. While my T-Mobile phone is capable of internet browsing, the connection is so poor that it make web surfing an unenjoyable experience. The email alert deliver the information and does not incur the painful delay in interactive browsing.

This is mostly a HTML screen scrapper in only 200 lines of Python code. Within a few hours I have success in the implementation. That is while I am still learning the language! If it is not so easy because of Python this would probably remain on the drawing board for a long time.

2003.04.21 [python, web, software] - comments

John Hagel has given a great presentation on the business value of web services in the Web Services SIG of SDForum. He observed that web services is often first deployed by line managers to facilitate integration with external partners. The implementation cycle is short and incremental and the payback is immediate. Here is some of my notes taken from the event.

2003.04.08 [tech] - comments