I'm testing Brent's new blog editing tool, MarsEdit.

This is a test post to my rarely-used Radio blog.

It would be nice if we had auto-paragraph support, wouldn't it?

8:59:53 AM     

I just want to see if it's any more fun than using a browser.
9:56:12 AM     

Librarians and programmers will begin to work together to solve some of the problems the W3C hopes to solve with the semantic web.

When business wants to get involved with this, the money follows.

Question: "Can you comment on the 'dangers' of the community." Answer: "There are 'rules' you need to follow, mostly defined by the community itself." Use of the Harvard name and logo have some restrictions -- that's fine.

Dave talks about the Harvard dean's response to the RIAA lawsuits of students and the lawyers responded to the dean's stance through the blog.

Dave said he was really proud of how that provided "instant discourse".

Question: "What is a K-log?" Answer: "I think it's a web log -- made palatable to business people. There's no difference from a technology standpoint. The usages are different, of course."

[always paraphrasing -- don't want to get myself in trouble.]

Question: "Can you define editorial roles for people?" Answer: "Yes." Dave shows us the editorial prefs page in Manila.

Question: "When you're talking about editors, you're not talking about the comments left on an article." Answer: "Anybody can leave a comment." This might evolve over time to prevent spam.
4:34:43 PM     

Dave gives us a little outliner mini-demo. Some of us are pretty used to outliners these days, but many in the room didn't raise their hands when asked about outliners.

Dave thinks OPML (or hierarchical organization of information) is very important -- "an empowering thing for the computer to do for me."

Dave suggested that using an outliner in a meeting forum would let you start with an organized agenda, then expand and reorganize on-the-fly -- during the meeting.
4:24:01 PM     

There are three people running the main blog.

Dave shows us how anyone at harvard.edu can set up a blog.

He shows us the new (as of yesterday) backup function.

Dave invites us to Cambridge on Thursday evenings where the law bloggers talk about their community.

Dave reviews some of the Rankings and Updates listings that are produced by the Harvard Blogs system.

He shows us the Directory -- Categorization of weblogs: howtos, stats and rankings, developers, etc.

Note the orange XML icon: the information you are looking at in html is also available in xml. The orange icon is a link to that file.
4:17:44 PM     

Question: "SOAP used to be thought of as a security risk." Answer: "Block it! If you are that concerned about the risk, block it. It's not hard."

HTTP-POSTS are every bit as dangerous as XML-RPC.

"HTTP is the no-brainer -- the one everybody understands. It was the obvious choice for the transport."

Firewalls are cropping up everywhere, first at work, then at home -- a personal firewall.

Radio uses XML-RPC extensively and works through a firewall, but is architected that way on purpose so that it is still usable.
4:09:29 PM     

Question: "Can you explain a bit about your involvment with XML-RPC?"

Answer: Dave gives a short history of XML-RPC as a joint effort between UserLand and Microsoft.

XML-RPC is a "web service".
4:02:38 PM     

Dave: "It is a problem trying to find the interesting stuff."

Jay: "How does this help collaboration?"

Dave: "It doesn't really, but it fosters communication." [more paraphrasing]
3:59:12 PM     

Dave says the "big idea" is getting people to use it (weblogs).
3:56:25 PM     

Dave says he sees growth of about 10% per month.

Question: "Does it only do Radio blogs?" Answer: "No, other blog systems can ping it."
3:53:18 PM     

Question: "Is that like a Dewey Decimal system for the internet?" Answer: "Sort of, yes." "The directory system really hasn't gotten off the ground yet."

He's showing the "item" xml item, revealing the attributes: description, pubDate, permalink (guid -- Globally Unique Identifier).
3:48:37 PM     

Question: "Is it going to a static site now?" Answer: "No it's not static -- it's dynamic"

Question: "Can other people post to your blog?" Answer: "No, not this one, but blogs can be set up for multiple authors" [shows us blogs.law.harvard.edu/]
3:43:56 PM     

Now we here about the advantage of a "permalink" -- "a URL that will take you directly to that article anytime in the future."

Question: "Is it auto-archiving?"

Answer: "Oh yes, absolutely"

[all items in quotes are para-phrased; not verbatim.]
3:41:01 PM     

Dave says he INAL (is not a lawyer).

Dave starts by showing us a demo of Scripting News -- his weblog. He's reviewing the organization of the main page, the calendar, the archive -- the time-based nature of the site.

He also points out his blogroll down the left-hand side of his page (though it doesn't have to be located there).
3:35:59 PM     

Dave is being introduced now... we have now about 50 to 60 attendees.
3:32:39 PM     

I have a blog but I am no blogger. If I can get OS X installed on this borrowed TI-book and get the the wireless to work, I'll try my hand at blogging his talk.

Installer says 34 minutes remaining... no, wait 35 minutes remaining...
10:29:24 AM