OLE anyone?

Does this still exist? Is it used? On Windows?

All I know that it is not available on MacOSX. It was available on NeXTSTEP, but got lost in the transition. It was mashing avant le lettre in some sense.

Categories/tags: MicroContent • mashing
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Tarpipe

I have been playing a bit with Tarpipe. This service allows users to pipe together services from third parties. So send an email, have the attached image uploaded to Flickr and post the resulting picture URL to Twitter.

The idea is great, but it is not yet robust enough. I was only able to get an workflow run twice. And some other activities are in the pipeline (I hope). The Dropipe application ended with an error message. It can be that the service is now overloaded due to its exposure on ReadWrite web. So I will come back to it later.

The documentation still needs a lot of work. It is totally unclear what some services do.

Categories/tags: MicroContent , service, tarpipe
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Bento feedback 1

Since a week I am using Bento for two different projects. The application offers a great flexibility, which is great. For such a young application there are naturally still many improvements that can be made.

Bento is called a personal database system and can (and should) not be compared to a full fledged relational database application. And this is also the challenge for the developers: what functionality can be added without becoming to complex. I have the feeling that quite a lot can still be added without becoming to advanced. It should have not become more complex than one of Apple’s iApps.

In my first testcase I created a flat database, such as a collectioneur might use. In my case the collection consists op bottle caps. I have a version of this database online at Listphile. As you can see there, a record consists of a title, a description, an image, links, etc.

1. Tags - Bento does not know tags as a concept. It is possible to add tags, but then I lack facilities that I am used to, as in Sandvox or WebnoteHappy for instance. It is possible to use tags through a "related records list", but that is not as nice;
2. Links - Bento supports links, but in a limited fashion. Their approach is taken from Apple’s AddressBook. This implies that the title corresponding to an URL, is extreme limited. Out of the box the title can be ‘home’, ‘work’ or ‘other’. One can add other titles, but this is in no way a generic link approach;
3. Edit/Design - Bento allows the user to edit his data and change the presentation at the same time. It is very good that this is possible, but I noticed that I accidentally get in design-mode when I want to edit and vice-versa. I would like to see a locking system. This should allow me to lock-down a design when I am finished with it;
4. Limited design - Bento does not allow the user to change the design to much. I guess that this way to go is OK for this application, but as it is now it is not enough. Bento should take an approach similar to the iLife suite and introduce an Inspector. This Inspector could have multiple modes, which are now hidden under the menu of Bento;
   1. Field - allows to set and change field type and its attributes. Change the field name;
   2. Label - The label text defaults to the field name. However the user can also use another text without changing the field name. The appearance of the label (font, font size, color). The position of the label (above/below/left/right/none);
   3. Field content - This should allow to change the appearance of a field. This is a bit similar to the Form Tools, but more flexible: choice of font, font size, color of font, color of field box, etc;
   4. Page appearance - the Themes that Bento supports is extremely limited. Just look at the Keynote application for a better approach;
   5. Related List appearance - I would like to be apple to suppress the column and row header. And I certainly would like to suppress the controls at the bottom. And if I have just one 1 item in the list, I would like to see a presentation similar to the other fields;
   6. Object appearance - Now I can not change anything and yet there are many attributes that could be changeable;
5. Tabular layout - Bento forces to use tabular layout for elements (fields, related lists, objects) on a form. I guess this is OK in order to limit the complexity. I would like to see some more flexibility, where for instance a column divider does not span the whole page, but just a limited number of rows;
6. Objects - The number of objects is now a bit limited. I would like to see images for instance (my company logo!). And naturally the Inspector should allow to edit the attributes of the objects. Take the Keynote app as inspiration here;
7. Publishing - any modern data based application should allow to integrate with Internet. There are many possible ways to do this. At its basic Bento should allow to export records into HTML-files. At the next level integration with MobileMe could be possible. Take inspiration from MacGourmet here;
8. Spotlight - integration with Spotlight would be nice. Individual records should turn up in the Spotlight results;
9. Media browser - a media browser such as can be found in the iLife suite is nice. This would make adding media to records more easier. Just integrate the iMedia browser from Karelia;
10. Button bar I would like to see a standard MacOSX button bar. This would allow me to set the buttons that I need most and suppress the others. For me this is: Add record, change view (table/split/form), set form, next/previous record, show media browser;

It might seem that I have a lot on comments on Bento (and that I am not happy with it). The contrary is true. It just inspires me and I see many growth directions. The list here are just some ideas that I would use right away. It can become more complete without being much more complex. It does not have to be as simple as iTunes, but can be complex as Keynote. Anyway, I put my money where my mouth is and acquired the application.

Categories/tags: MicroContent • client • application , bento

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Bento

Bento is a relatively new application under MacOSX. It recently got an update and is now called Bento 2. This application can be seen as a generic MicroContent Client. Bento is created by the makers of Filemaker, which is a true database application. Bento is fortunately much more simple and reminds much more of MicroContent. So let’s look at it in more detail.

Bento allows the user to create any MicroContent Type he likes. In Bento each MicroContent Type is called a library. The user can create as much types as he wants. Each Library consists of one or multiple fields. One can select from field types text, number, choice, textbox, media, time, date, duration, counting, rating, address, phone number, email address and URL. This shows the database origin of Bento. As nothing is preset, one can add any field, one can say that Bento supports Wild MicroContent.

The nice thing of Bento is that it can link to other MicroContent Types. These links are called Lists. Out of the box Bento recognizes File Lists, Message Lists, Address Lists, Event Lists and Task Lists. These Lists are by the way linked to the Finder, Mail, AddressBook and iCal applications. These fields are truly Lists as they can be linked to multiple Items.

Also nice is that one can export definitions of MicroContent Types, called Library Templates. So sharing of MicroContent definitions is thus easy for Bento users.

The main Bento screen is very straightforward and reminiscent of other MicroContent Clients. On the left one has the Libraries pane. Each MicroContent Type is indicated by booklike icon. The libraries such as Address Book, iCal Events and iCal Tasks are preset. For each Library it is possible to create handpicked and smart lists. Thus the small icon labelled ‘beer’ indicates a smart list from Capsules.

Below the libraries pane one can see a field pane. This pane allows to add and remove fields. The visibility of this field pane can be suppressed. Also the visibility of the entire library/field pane can be suppressed.

The top right pane is the standard Items pane in table format. One can drag columns around, set the sorting on a column. The nice thing of this implementation is that it works like a spreadsheet. And one can suppress the visibility of this pane.

This brings us to the view-pane. As expected this shows an individual Item. Each field is presented with its label. Note the Bookmarks and Tags Lists, which are presented as Item-panelets. Everything in Bento is editable. There is no separate edit-mode. Thus any field can be changed as needed. Some fields come with preset buttons, for external linking, etc. Below the view-pane one can see controls to add/delete/import/export/print Items.

Above the view-pane buttons allow to change forms or to change to items-pane. The layout of the view-pane is known as a form. And the user can define as many forms as he like. And this is another important feature of Bento. The user can design the view-pane form. Thus he can set which fields should appear on a form, where they should appear, etc. There is no separate design-mode either, anything can be changed, resized, etc. at will.

Naturally Bento can still be improved. I would like to seem integration with other applications, such as iPhoto, iTunes and iMovie. I would like to see some standard libraries for MicroContent Types such as bookmarks, blogs, recipes, etc. I would like to see support for tags as a field type.

Instead of the table format for the Items pane, I would like to see support other formats, such as a grid format for images. I have mixed feelings on the instant editability and designability. I would like to see some locking mechanisms to prevent errors.

The import and export facilities are reminiscent of a true database: csv and tab-delimited files. I miss XML support, such as RSS and OPML and a Internet publishing facility.

All in all a very good application for those who like to keep lists or have the need for a simple database. I guess I will be buy it.

Categories/tags: MicroContent • client • application
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Twine

I started playing with Twine. It is not very obvious from the beginning. I must find and invest some more time in it.

Categories/tags: MicroContent • client • service
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Blip.fm

I created a profile on blip.fm. It took me a long time to figure out how it worked. I hoped it would detect which songs I listened to in iTunes. I did set up audioscrobbler after all. So it is much easier to just look at my last.fm page.

So what does blip.fm add. Basically it just allows to add a microblog comment to each song that is played. I already record some of these things on various microblogs, so this does not add much.

So what is left, is the social component, the DJ. I wonder whether this adds something over last.fm. So I can’t be enthusiastic at the moment about this service.

Categories/tags: MicroContent • type • audio
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NetNewsWire Drops Microformats Support

NetNewsWire drops support for microformat. I am afraid that is a right decision. NJobody seems to use microformats within feeds/blog posts. So deleting this code will speed up NNW, which is of greater importance.

[Inspiration Chris Casciano]

Categories/tags: MicroContent • client • application • format • hformat • type • blog , netnewswire
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Mail Photo Browser

The Photo Browser Window shows the images that can be found in the iPhoto-database. The window is limited to a Lists-pane (at the top) and an Items-pane (at the bottom). The size of the window can be changed to view more or les images in the Items-pane.

The Lists-pane shows all Lists, handpicked and smart, Events, etc that are also found and defined in iPhoto (no Albums though). The Events-list even changes the content of the Items-pane to mimic iPhoto’s behaviour. Thus moving the mouse over an events image will present the images pertaining to that event.

And finally there is a search facility (title, description, keywords and rating) for quickly finding images. The window also supports videos, but these have to be in the iPhoto supported format.

The only thing that I miss is access to the Pictures folder and the image scaling.

Categories/tags: MicroContent • client • application • mashing ,

mail

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Firefox 3 bookmark management

With the introduction of the lasted release of Firefox 3, a new approach to managing bookmarks has been introduced. In order to test this feature I imported my 3000 some bookmarks from WebNoteHappy. This did not make Firefox very happy, I had a crash, but in the end I could access these bookmarks. Unfortunately all this bookmarks were added to my Bookmarks Menu. This really brought Firefox to a temporary halt when I accessed the bookmarks menu item.  I missed the cross-application exchange of folders and tags from WebNoteHappy (a lack of standards?).

The Items-pane shows the bookmarks of a selected list in table format. The user can determine which fields must be shown. In addition to the bookmark fields, the user can also show the visit date, the visit count, the added date or the last visited date.

The most interesting part is the Lists-pane, as this is not totally compatible with other MicroContent Clients. The History-list is a folder with the recent browsing behaviour, so not really a bookmark thing. The Tags-List is really a group that contains preprogrammed smart folders for each tag. Each tag-folder contains the bookmarks that have been tagged as such. The All Bookmarks group is really the entire library of bookmarks. This group contains three other lists/groups: the Bookmarks Toolbar group, the Bookmarks Menu group and the Unsorted Bookmarks group. These three groups are fixed and one can not add other groups on this level.

When adding a bookmark one can chose on of these groups or any folder in these groups. One can also drag&drop bookmarks from one group to another. The Bookmarks Menu group has two predefined Smart Lists: Recently Bookmarked and Recent Tags. I assume that ‘recent’ means the last 10. These Lists can be d&d’d to other groups.

The Bookmarks Toolbar group has smart lists for Most Visited and Latest Headlines. It is again unclear what Most Visited means. Latest Headlines refer to Items in a RSS-feed. This seems to be part of the Live Bookmarks feature of Firefox.

All in all a pretty reasonable implementation of a MicroContent Client, but it is not match for WebNoteHappy. The tag-feature is nice, but the approach will break down with hundred of tags. I miss XBEL-support. And I can not create my own smart lists. And it is just to slow for many bookmarks.

On the other hand the integration with the browsers allows to create smart folders such as ‘most visited’. I do not like the split between Toolbar, Menu and the rest. In this way there is no entire library. I understand why it was done in this way, it seems simpler. The integration of the URI-bar with the bookmarks library is very nice. This allows to make very clever URL-suggestions and can indicate whether the URL has been bookmarked yet.

Categories/tags: MicroContent • client • application • type • bookmark ,

firefox

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Times application

The user can create multiple ‘newspaper pages’, add feeds and assign a feed to a pane. The location of the panes and the format for each pane is set and can not be changed.

At this stage of the application I have mixed feelings. I appreciate the possibility to see multiple headline in one glance, so I can quickly scan news. Depending on how interesting a feed is I can increase of decrease the amount I see. So it should be much quicker scanning and reading. If there is something interesting I can drag it to a shelf for later reading.

I however miss some control. How can I see whether I read an article or not? Why can I not edit my RSS-URLS? My RSS-feed did not show anything, I was not able to figure out what went wrong. The import feeds from NetNewsWire is nice, but with hundreds of feeds imported shows that tthe current feed management solution is not the right one.

However the application shows an interesting new visual apporach to MicroContent. And one that I do not yet have fully my head around.

Categories/tags: MicroContent • client • application • type • blog
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Data portability

I agree with Dave Winer, there way to much discussion on data portability. These discussions are just fights to defend their turf. By opening up a service already much is gained. One can solve interoperability later.

And take your data out, do not trust services, replicate your data as much as possible, do it yourself.

Categories/tags: MicroContent
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YouTube numbers

TechCrunch republishes some interesting numbers on YouTube. YouTube us the dominant player in the online video publishing and viewing world. It really shows that brands are ever important in the online world. And that means not only aggregators and search services, such as Google, but also hosters (video in this case) such as YouTube. If you want to be found, you just have to go through YouTube. Unfortunately this also means that the distributed world, the mesh, is still not here.

Categories/tags: MicroContent • type • video , youtube
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Desktop Web Apps

I have very mixed feelings after reading this post on ReadWriteWeb. I agree with the conclusions, but not with the reasons.

Web Apps do not yet have the required trust in order to become mainstream. You only trust what you have in your hands, on your computer. A good point. There is a lack of transparency. With a browser based web app, you know your data is in the cloud. With a desktop based web app it is much unclearer where your data is stored. There is no need to know, location is transparent.

One of the reason mentioned is that Web Apps are not ubiquitous yet. We do not have access everywhere yet. a very good argument. I loven reading blog-posts, listening to music, looking at vidcasts, creating blog-posts, when I am forced to be offline.

I agree with the comment that ‘the browser is no place for multitasking’. Josh Catone wants to replace it with multiple browser applications, each application for a single web app, as is the intention with Mozilla Prism. As indicated in the post: ‘a browser is not for hosting applications’. Adobe AIR is already a much better approach, but it is not good enough. Real desktop apps are just much better. Just have a look at MarsEdit, WebNoteHappy, etc. Unfortunately there are now also bad MacOSX examples, such as net4mac, which is just a dedicated browser. Real Desktop Web Apps are based on API’s and not on parroting the corresponding web-pages.

For me it is all about the integrated experience between all the applications.

[Inspiration ReadWriteWeb]

Categories/tags: MicroContent • client • application • web 2.0
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Understanding mystrands

I created an account for the MyStrands service. They have an associated application that goes with it.

The service works around music. The application allows you start and stop music from the iTunes library. If the track is recognised the app shows recommended tracks. When the application starts it upload the iTunes library. I guess this is for the recommendations, however these only come after one has played something.

On the site a list of recently played tracks are shown. Also a list of recommended artists and tracks are shown. strangely it asks me whether I know artists that are already in my iTunes library. It should have known that. You can indicate whether you know tracks and artists.

As an aggregating service you can also view top tracks, artists, etc. And there are the standard community features. And finally there are Parties, which I have not chequed out.

Drawbacks are that I can not listen to recommended music, just teasers. And why RealMedia?

I am afraid that I stick with Last.fm, I do not see any advantages and see more drawbacks.

Categories/tags: MicroContent • type • audio
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ODP Viewpoints and Maps

I have been pondering the comments of @Downes on one of my previous posts. In the comments he says that any map is one-dimensional. I am not sure what he means by that, but I take it that he says that any maps lacks aspects. This reminded me of the viewpoints of the ODP Reference Model. These viewpoints are interesting as they intend to separate (separation of concerns) things and offer various abstractions.

Now back to my map. My map shows the relation between the Information Viewpoint (the MicroContent Types/Objects) and the Computational Viewpoint (Applications/Services). The Enterprise Viewpoint is not relevant here, as the intentions and goals of the user are unknown. The Computational Viewpoint covers the actions a user wants perform on the MicroContent Objects (create, read, get, publish, etc.).

In these two viewpoints we should not talk about protocols, API’s, systems, software, distribution of components, etc. In several of the PLE diagrams, I see all the Viewpoints mixed, resulting (at least for me) in an unclearer picture. Unfortunately this is also often reallife reality, users a confronted with all kinds of technological and engineering aspects and they shouldn’t be. Things should be more transparant.

Categories/tags: MicroContent • general
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