Web/Tech: August 2003 Archives

According to an article in Business Week the economy is showing signs of strength and will begin to demonstrate robust growth in the near future. I hope so! Even though I am getting some consulting work, I need a lot more of a back log before I can say I am successful. IT spending has been really poor for the past several years so growth and greater innovation will be a welcome relief.

I have had a hard time setting up online communities or even discussion groups that can sustain themselves. I am, in fact, an enthusiastic early adopter of any new collaborative technology. I like to build libraries of documents, I like posting questions and answers, but I loose intrest after about three months. I have never been able to sustain my enthusiasm for a community or online team for more than three months.

I am very impressed, therefore, when an organization or the media says that they have figured it out. In a recent article in OJR, News Sites Still Figuring Out What to Do With Online Communities, the author gives examples of several sites that are doing it right. I would add the Harvard Business Review too, since they have good forums at Working Knowledge.

I tend to come down on the side of Acrobat. I now have used both tools for designing and receiving data via forms ande Adobe's approach makes more sense than Microsoft.

Look at Adobe's interactive income tax form. That document is licensed, by the Document Server for Reader Extensions, to unlock the form fill-in and digital signature capabilities of the reader. Filling in a form and then signing it digitally is an eye-opening experience. It's more interesting now that the form's data is schema-controlled and, Myers adds, can flow in and out by way of WSDL-defined SOAP transactions. The only missing InfoPath ingredient is a forms designer that nonprogrammers can use to map between schema elements and form fields. That's just what the recently announced Adobe Forms Designer intends to be. I like where Adobe is going. The familiarity of paper forms matters to lots of people. And unless Microsoft's strategy changes radically, those folks are far likelier to have an Adobe reader than an InfoPath client. [Full story at InfoWorld.com]

The question on everyone's tongue now is how these products [Acrobat and InfoPath] will compete with each other. A deeper question is how they will compete with HTML/XForms and whether they will indeed progress towards being full application delivery platforms. It seems that there is market pressure for a platform to provide a continuum of capabilities from document publishing to application delivery. Maybe docs, forms, and apps are really all meant to be the same thing. But how we'll achieve that is still far from clear. [java.net]

I have written about WiFi before and I am beginning to see the logic of the free service. Steve at ASK STEVE.COM encapsulates my views in this post:

"What is the secret to Wi-Fi success? Give it away. So suggests an article in the September 2003 issue of Wired magazine. It seems that there hasn't been such a flurry of excitement, activity and investment since the dawn of the commercial Internet. Some see Wi-Fi as the answer to the tech industry's post-bubble doldrums. Others see it as another bubble — and predict that it will burst much sooner than the last.

Personal experience to date gives me mixed feelings on the matter. I've been a subscriber to T-Mobile's HotSpot service since it became available, shelling out $30 per month for the privilege of jumping online at T1 speed at nearly any Starbucks I can find. And I do. I probably use it at least 20 days per week for up to three hours a day -- sometimes more. That comes our to around $1.50 per day and well under a dollar per hour of usage. I wouldn't want to pay that much for my connection at home, but I can't take my DSL connection with me on the road. So do I feel it's worth the price? I'd like it to be cheaper, but yes I do. Would I want to pay more than that? Probably not -- and that's the problem for other folks who want to charge for their Wi-Fi. And even for those who just want to give it away."

Since I tested the Beta versions of Office 2003, I have been looking for the release dates and an indication of the pricing for the product. Here ia a pretty complete description of the offering and the price points in the UK. Good indication of the price here in the US.

All of Davis Square in Somerville Massachusetts will have free wireless access to the internet. Michael Oh, who has done the same thing on Newbury Street in Boston, is working with the City of Somerville to make WiFi access ubiquitous and free. This is a much better idea than Hot Spots, since it covers a wider area. It also makes Davis Square a great place to work and to hang out with your computer.

Trillian Pro is a very powerful Instant Messaging tools with lots of features. I downloaded the 2.0 beta, and have been very satisfied, no problems to speak of, yet. I like the sounds and the new skins, it makes the application look more appealing.

This is a great way to stay up to date on developing stories. Google presents news sources from all over the web and very promptly can make you aware of any changes. As Google says, you can: monitor a developing news story, keep current on a competitor or industry, get the latest on a celebrity or event and
keep tabs on your favorite sports teams.

"The Stones are embracing new technology. The Rolling Stones are using wi-fi to help their Forty Licks world tour go more smoothly. Behind the scenes of the Stones' gigs wireless access points are speeding up the preparation of the stage for the band's performance. By using radio links instead of cables the Stones' production company can set up a venue-wide computer network far faster than normal. A mobile wireless computer network that can be set up and torn down in an hour has been created by Clear Channel Entertainment, the production company the Stones is using to help stage its Forty Licks world tour." BBC

Apparently, they have about 140 laptops that all connect to a network via 3Com access points and PC cards.