Lot of people at Etech this year are grumbling about the poor WiFi connectivity. The keynotes in the main conference room are packed except that people are working (Working keynote session?!!). Even in the lobby the signal is low.
However, if you stick around the periphery of the hallways and the lobby, the signal becomes 100%, especially, if you are sitting below one of the large portraits/signage in the hallways. Looks like the access points are hidden behind them! I see a blue cable trying to take a peek while I blog this.
Archive for March, 2006
Etech 06: How to get a Full throttle WiFi connection
Wednesday, March 8th, 2006[Etech 06] The RSS & Atom cat-fight: Did you have a premonition?
Wednesday, March 8th, 2006I’m sure Tim Bray had a premonition that a war of words is going to start after his “Atom as a case study” presentation. I hopped into the ballroom, expecting to learn a little bit more about Atom (which I was avoiding for a long time) — but, it looked like an open declaration of war, kinda “KMyA”. It did reach a positive note during the later half of the session, which was informative (When to use Atom? RSS? etc.)
The session started as an open criticism of RSS. Dave Winer (sidenote: Don’t know, but seldom hear about Dave presenting at conferences like this) the man behind RSS picked up and shot back at O’Reilly, Tim & Microsoft.
I heard by reading a bunch of blogs that Tim Bray said some unkind things about me and my work at his Etech presentation. This is what happens when you try to create a monoculture; it has to demonize those who have differing opinions. That’s why O’Reilly conferences so lack substance, because they always only present one side, the side that Tim has invested in.
In the session Tim brought up the fact that RSS has failed (sic.) because of it’s non-rigorous specification. The point being missed here — the charter of RSS was to have modules; wherein it could be extended as desired. On one side, there is openness, collaboration and extensibility and then on the other tight control by a working group. Making both to co-exist can be impossible. Analogy: You can either be Microsoft (tightly controlled Windows APIs) or you could be Linux (derive and add your own flavored logo).
Funnily enough, in his presentation, Tim had a cute photograph of two kittens fighting under the toilet. Note sure if that’s Atom vs. RSS or Dave vs. Tim, after what’s being talked about in the blogosphere. Hopefully, its the former and not otherwise.
FeedBurner might be happy seeing this — maybe they will come out with their own canonical model!
[Etech 06] The RSS & Atom cat-fight: Did you have a premonition?
Wednesday, March 8th, 2006I’m sure Tim Bray had a premonition that a war of words is going to start after his “Atom as a case study” presentation. I hopped into the ballroom, expecting to learn a little bit more about Atom (which I was avoiding for a long time) — but, it looked like an open declaration of war, kinda “KMyA”. It did reach a positive note during the later half of the session, which was informative (When to use Atom? RSS? etc.)
The session started as an open criticism of RSS. Dave Winer (sidenote: Don’t know, but seldom hear about Dave presenting at conferences like this) the man behind RSS picked up and shot back at O’Reilly, Tim & Microsoft.
I heard by reading a bunch of blogs that Tim Bray said some unkind things about me and my work at his Etech presentation. This is what happens when you try to create a monoculture; it has to demonize those who have differing opinions. That’s why O’Reilly conferences so lack substance, because they always only present one side, the side that Tim has invested in.
In the session Tim brought up the fact that RSS has failed (sic.) because of it’s non-rigorous specification. The point being missed here — the charter of RSS was to have modules; wherein it could be extended as desired. On one side, there is openness, collaboration and extensibility and then on the other tight control by a working group. Making both to co-exist can be impossible. Analogy: You can either be Microsoft (tightly controlled Windows APIs) or you could be Linux (derive and add your own flavored logo).
Funnily enough, in his presentation, Tim had a cute photograph of two kittens fighting under the toilet. Note sure if that’s Atom vs. RSS or Dave vs. Tim, after what’s being talked about in the blogosphere. Hopefully, its the former and not otherwise.
FeedBurner might be happy seeing this — maybe they will come out with their own canonical model!
ETECH 2006: Real/Unreal mashups and more
Tuesday, March 7th, 2006Just couple of days (hours?) before the registration closed and the event being declared sold out, I got myself registered for the O’Reilly ETECH 2006 (I really called them and found out that there were only 21 slots to go). The Day 2 was a complete brain awe, with the jaw dropping “pressure-sensitive multi-touch interface” presentation taking the crowd by storm.
The opener on Day 2 had Ray Ozzie talking about a “live clipboard” for the web, where cut-n-paste information from a website goes to the actual clipboard on the PC. The example he showed was a seamless cut and paste of a calendar entry from a website to Microsoft Outlook. Ray’s little prototype hits right on the head and plugs the big gap in the ‘mashup-o-logy’.
Ray talked about “real” mashup in his keynote. I call it “real” ‘coz this mashup does not require a non-techie user to do anything more than install a plugin (maybe this feature will come out-of-the-box in IE7, Ray and his team is already collaborating with the IE7 dev. team).
There were other folks who tried to display some “unreal” mashups using microformats — I don’t really understand why we need a new technology/format viz. microformats — Don’t we already have atom which describes the same things which microformats are trying to achieve? Maybe it’s more? But, that’s what I understood from the 45 minute-4-presentations-4-demos-session.
I call these “unreal” because (a) it requires a geek to do what it is suppose to do (b) it uses some non-standard format to do simple things.
Moreover, Ray envisions that RSS and correctly done “mashup” has the potential of giving the Internet a “Unix pipe” for doing simple tasks on related websites.
I think Microsoft Live Clipboard is a real winner — it’s not about “mashup” of content from just two sites but a chained linkage and that is truly wiring the web.
George Bush in India: The working Lunch Menu
Thursday, March 2nd, 2006Main Course
Tandoori fish, Mutton kebabs, Mutton korma, Dal bukhara and curried vegetables to be relished with rice and a choice of rotis. The fish has been “fished” and flown from the Western India for the banquet.
Starter
Pineapple with French dressing and Broccoli soup
On the side
Red cabbage and peach melba
Served on the backdrop of beautiful Mughal Gardens.
Tandoori Kebabs, Dal, Rice and still working lunch? Yea, working my mouth 🙂