ecto now supports some integration with iPhoto: you can easily upload a picture from your last iPhoto photo roll and have all the HTML stuff sorted out for you. Yummy! Now I want access to my full iPhoto database of course! ;-)

Ouch.

• 8 Year Old Becomes The Worlds Youngest Microsoft Certified Software Engineer
• The future of Java : The Invisible Framework cometh
• A tale of two cities

Those were good ones, guys: thanks!

There's two ways of expressing respect: you can seek brutally honest yet friendly confrontation, dumping social rules along the road, since your respect is based on a sense of equality: you're open and upfront, but know that you want to be treated the same way: respect is a mutual thing. Or you can quietly drop the issue and take your place amongst the ditto-sayers along the road towards the ivory tower. Don't forget however, that towers exist mostly in the heads of the people who want to see them, since it gives them a sense of protection and an orientation point when they get lost. Free your mind!

I'm an impatient and easily bored person. Seems like Nikon knows this, and gradually leaks stuff about the D70 cam onto the net. Two weeks ago, they put the manual on their FTP site during an insane one-hour download window, and now they let journalists visit a (the?) Thai assembly plant where my precious is in the process of fabrication. Look at that - she's got a crate full of them. Lust!

I'm preparing a one hour Cocoon Power Trio presentation today, for next week's BeJug Web Workshop. Being a Java non-coder, and presenting in front of a bunch assumably more technical people than me, I'm trying hard not to add buzzwords which could have overloaded semantical meanings for all those people who indulge into closely tracking the ever-changing Terms and Terminology in Java Webapp Land (as featuring on the homepage of JavaBlogs and TSS).
All speakers received a template Powerpoint (bah) presentation, based on the JavaPolis template, presumably based on the JavaOne template from Sun. Smile, Mr. Tufte. I need to come up with a "What you're going to learn" slide, and a "The Single Thing I Want You To Remember From This Presentation" slide. Also, it is suggested to inject a "Thought Provoking Controversial Statement" slide in the beginning of your presentation. Since I'm scheduled as the last presentation of the day, I assume I'll have to be happy if not too many attendees already are sleeping when my time is there, and for sure, I will need to have some Statement to desperately grab their attention. Or do something funny, like cross-dressing like Zorro or whatelse.
Much window dressing required, so it seems, which is a situation I mentally counter with silly jokes. It's good to have a silly sense of humor when you're me. But it doesn't help if people unwillingly add onto my temporary state of persistent irony by putting sentences like "Uncle Bob notes that the Dependency Inversion Principle and the Domain Driven Design concept of Layers seem to contradict each other until you introduce another dimension." on their blog. That's so metrosexual, don't you think? Or is it just me being dumb and getting old?

The only wisdom about Dimensions can be obtained from Calvin, but we knew that already, of course:

Thought of the day: "Why am I so good at iterating over problems, enumerating causes and trying to push things towards self-resolution, and so bad at getting a grip on my own problems?" JFDI is all I need.

Compare slide 5 from Geert's very nice Rife webcontinuations presentation (pdf) with Tony's excellent Getting Started with Cocoon Flow. Gee, I know that sample from somewhere. ;-)
Obviously, Geert prefers Java over JavaScript for coding web application flow. IIRC, he's using Brakes for capturing thread execution state. Cocoon uses a patched version of Rhino, a Java JavaScript interpreter for this.
Given Uwyn's (Geert's company) current commitment to Rife, there's no chance that Geert will ever drop his baby in favour of a larger community. Still, it feels somehow comforting to see the similarities between Rife's feature sheet (slide 3 of the same presentation) and Cocoon one's.
Web continuations have been receiving more blog space lately, also in Python land. However, people indicate concerns about server resource exhaustion when using in a high-traffic environment. Of course, one needs a continuations "janitor", just as one needs to clean out stale sessions in web applications. Nothing new here.
Update: Geert chimes in to explain he didn't go for Brakes, but made some stuff himself (see the comment section of this post). Sorry about my confusion. :-/

I'm pleasantly surprised to see the new Apache License taking off the way it was intended to be used: not only as the new license for all feathered matters, but also as an easy to use and business friendly template license for other open source projects. Proof: Tim Bray's GenX and CrazyBob's DynAOP framework. Cool. Hopefully people find this a compelling alternative for other template licenses out there. IMHO, the ASL (and other BSD-ish) licenses focus more on facilitating actual use of a codebase, rather than trying to make a political statement about a far-fetched, possibly unrealistic world view where freedom becomes a duty rather than a right.

With all the Firefox-is-going-to-slaughter-IE hype, and because I still have a keen place in my heart for the non-suite Mozilla products, I installed Firefox and went surfing around to check the state of affairs. I've been using Safari for the past months, and I like Safari quite a lot, even though it offers no hooks for implementing in-browser HTML editing. Safari is fast, and well integrated (well, duh) with my operating system. Firebird was fast enough as well, but it really felt like a multiplatform app where the Mac port was a bit lagging in terms of seamlessness with the host OS. Onward to Firefox.
Installing Firefox is easy enough, and it effectively goes off to hunt plugins and registers them with the correct mediatype. Default skin makes it much more Mac-like. Kewl. Flash and SVG were my main concerns, and a quick check of the Macromedia samples confirmed that Firefox could handle Flash well. SVG though was a bit of a disappointment. Upon checking the W3C provided samples, SVG was readily displayed using the Adobe Viewer, but Firefox bombed when goofing around in the SVG test suite. This was inconsistent and not reproducible though, so I'm still doubting whether I should give Firefox a try as born-again default browser. Another thing which I don't like is that Firefox spawns a new browser window when triggered from an outside application. In Safari, I could configure whether a new pgae should be opened in a new window, or in a new tab. I liked the tab approach.
Oh well. I might as well just do it.

My oldest son (of 7 years) has recently discovered a new website where you can compose goofy cartoon-like movies, add some text, and send the result off as an e-card. So every evening of this week, 5 minutes after he gets home, he sits down and makes sure I have a movie in my mailbox awaiting my last-email-check-before-I-go-home. And he's awaiting me with a big grin at the front door, to hear what I think of his storytelling capabilities. Yesterday, it was about two bears, a male and a female one. The male one needed a hug. The female one as well. So they met. And they hugged. Life is beautiful when you're 7.

Het was me ooit al eens opgevallen dat éne Michel Vuijlsteke zich GeoURL-gewijs nogal dicht bij mijn weblog ophield, en dat die een mooie weblog bijhield. En eigenlijk waren er nog wel parallellen - freaky veel zelfs. Bij mijn eerste zoektocht naar Internet dailup connectiviteit in het Gentse, wat zowat een jaar of 8 geleden moet geweest zijn, ben ik ooit verdwaald op de website van NetPoint, een Internet bedrijfje dat vooral bezig was met culturele projecten (althans dat was het beeld dat ik van hen had). Het zou me zelfs niet verbazen als er ooit een emailuitwisseling geweest is tussen Michel en mezelf, als mezelf of onder één of andere professionele hoedanigheid... misschien zelfs ooit mijn CV die richting opgestuurd (hoewel, zoiets zou ik nog wel weten, hoop ik).
Enfin, er zat dus ergens een concept 'NetPoint' in mijn achterhoofd, lang voordat ik op Michel zijn blog botste. Na lezing van die blog de volgende reeks van parallellen...:

# Ik woon niet zo heel erg ver van Gent Dampoort vandaan, en werk in Zwijnaarde - niet zo ver van Sint-Denijs(-Westrem?). Michel doet dat net omgekeerd: die werkt aan de Dampoort, maar neemt iedere dag de bus vanuit Sint-Denijs. Waarschijnlijk zelfs de bus die vlak aan onze straat passeert - want er is er maar ééntje (dacht ik) die dit hele traject voor zich neemt.
# Michel is een '70-er, het roemruchte geboortejaar 1970 waartoe ik ook behoor. Marc trouwens ook. Michel is net iets ouder - eind augustus blijkbaar - ikzelf eind oktober.
# Michel heeft twee kindjes met het derde op komst (nog een kleine veertien dagen leert de teller op zijn website me). Onze kindjes (het zijn er al drie) zijn respectievelijk van januari 1997, juli 1998 en mei 2002. Michel's vrouw heeft net als Mieke (mijn vrouw) wat extra maanden zwangerschaps-/ouderschapsverlof genomen. Van zijn site druipt de vaderliefde af. De vaderliefde zal er aan mijn kant niet ver naast gelegen hebben. Misschien moet ik toch maar eens wat meer in mijn moerstaal bloggen.
# Michel en ik zijn allebei met XML bezig. Hij in ColdFusion en zo, ikzelf in combinatie met Java. Qua werkervaring in de boeiende (maar o zo kleine) wereld van de Belgische internet scene vermoed ik dat we wat gemeenschappelijke kennissen moeten hebben. Zoiets schept geen band natuurlijk - het betreft hier enkel technologie, maar goed - het is een zoveelste bijkomende parallel. Sinds Orkut ben ik er trouwens al achter gekomen dat er meer mensen zijn die mij kennen dan ik hen. Of toch minstens dan ik me hen kan herinneren, want als je een kop kaas vol gaten hebt als ikzelf ervaar je het vergeten van contacten als een eenvoudige verstrooidheid.
# Ik meen uit het overname-verhaal van NetPoint door Amercon op te maken dat Michel "zelfstandige-af" is, en nu de toch iets luxer wereld van de bediende is bijgetreden. Ik wens het hem van harte toe - zeker in deze omstandigheden.
# Michel neemt enthousiast fotos, en plaatst ze op zijn website. Hij deelt mijn goesting rond de nieuwe prosumer DSLRs, al moet ik eerlijk toegeven dat ik mijn Canon EOS 300D technolust verdwenen is nu ik mijn Nikon D70 besteld/gereserveerd heb. ;-)
# Michel is druk aan het verbouwen. Ik gelukkig niet.
# We bloggen allebei sinds 2002. Ik na een valse start sinds september - hij sinds juli.

De akelige parallel evenwel, en diegene die me over de streep getrokken heeft om dan uiteindelijk toch te trackback-bloggen, is Michel's horrorstory sinds 1 februari. Blijkbaar is hij stoemelings van een trap gedonderd (of de trap met hem?), en ligt hij, sinds zaterdag geopereerd, in het ziekenhuis te herstellen van een aantal verbrijzelde wervels. Hetzelfde ziekenhuis als waar ik eind 2002 voor de tweede maal geopereerd ben voor een discus hernia. Dezelfde afdeling dus, met hetzelfde verplegend personeel, dezelfde goed-/slecht-nieuws-bezorgers, dezelfde (maar bij Michel vermoedelijk véél langere) revalidatielijdensweg. 3 maanden niet kunnen gaan werken, en dan nog een maand of 9 "gezever", het tast je gemoed aan. Hetzelfde ziekenhuis trouwens waar ik nog iedere week terugkom voor DBC rugoefeningen, wie weet kom ik er ooit Michel tegen...?

Bij zowat ieder blogje die hij vrouw-gewijs toch nog op het Net weet te plaatsen, zitten er zinsneden waar ik ervaringsdeskundigegewijs begrijpend bij knik, wel wetend dat zoiets geen flikker uitmaakt voor de persoon in kwestie. Ik kan me alleen iets minder vaag voorstellen waar Michel en gezin voor staan. Ik kan me de geur en de sfeer op die afdeling nog zo herinneren. Oh ja - wij zaten toen ook net met een klein-klein boeleke toen papa zo nodig naar het ziekenhuis moest, en Mieke had ook ouderschapsverlof tijdens die periode. En als ik zo de vertwijfeling tussen Michel's woorden lees, dan voel ik mijn eigen hart nog ineenkrimpen - en zet ik me vlug rug-hygienisch wat rechter op mijn stoel.

Enfin - als gedeelde smart inderdaad halve smart is, weet dan, Michel en de jouwen, dat ik met beklemming, maar héél hard supporterend met jullie meeleef. Als het je een troost mag wezen: ik vond dat ik op neurochirurgie in St. Lukas/Den Briel in schitterende handen was (voor iets wat natuurlijk in hun ogen een routineingreep was). Ik wens je minstens evenveel geluk toe.

Ik stuur je dit trouwens per fax naar de afdeling - zo weet je dat er nog volk - zelfs onbekend - is die aan jullie denkt.

Looks like the conference season is going full throttle again. Yours truly will be on display, doing Cocoon introductions and workshops, during the following three events:

• BeJug Web Development workshop at the Business Faculty Club (Neder-over-Heembeek, near Brussels), March 4th
• LogOn XML Briefing in Brussels, fall 2004 (postponed because of overlap with CeBit)
• XML Europe in Amsterdam, April 19-21st (exact day not known yet)

Last week, I also did a small presentation for a post-academic course on XML. Cocoon with Woody and Flow are real eye-catchers for webappdev grown-ups. During the break and after the presentation, I got intrigued questions from some students which had been looking at ways to build a web front-end for their J2EE back-ends, and had been evaluating several frameworks already. Things which they were really interested in were continuations instead of painful state and session management, and strong typing and validation for forms.

Matthew, Bertrand and Sylvain are commenting on the aspect of friendship in the context of social networks and blogging. Matthew comes up with an ethical dilemma: "Let's suppose I were to write that I was having an affair or I had beaten up my wife or children today. Would you link to that? Would you comment? Or just ignore the post?". I have a compound answer to this.

First, about the situation he is describing. Should a real friend of mine post such a thing on his weblog, it wouldn't come as a surprise. There's a good chance I would have known about it even before shit happened. So because of friendship's reasons, I will have commented on and discussed about it in real life, and quite likely I will have tried to support my friend in overcoming the situation, should he or she be willing to, or wanting to. Also, the situation isn't quite likely to happen since most of my real friends don't do weblogs or Orkut or whatelse. My partner and I are very lucky to have a small circle of really good friends, and we have recently been confronted with the preciousness of this in a most enriching and supportive way. Thanks, all the people who gave us a call in that week.

If the "friend" however is merely an internet or business acquaintance, somebody I like to hang out with on conference evenings or in public discussion fora, I might still react on the outing, but quite likely I will do that through a small private mail. I might be inclined to post about my general feelings about it on my weblog, but that would serve strictly as a comment or expression of my own values, not as a means to judge that person. In the end, I might also just not care enough about the situation, or be less caring about it than the person would like me to care about it. That would indicate that the person has a different friendship valuation perception as I have.

Related to Matthew's dilemma, I started thinking about different friendship valuations and contexts. I've been talking about this with a real friend quite a while ago. You see people who collect friends easily, and often this is because of a permeable barrier between work and home (and them being enjoyable persons to hang out with, of course). They invite working colleagues over at home, and might still visit friends/ex-colleagues many years after ways of employment parted. I think the old concept of work now easily scales into the larger hemisphere people spend professional time in, like discussion fora, blogs, conferences, and so on. Nothing new here, except that these social software tools might establish friendship links between people prematurely (IMHO).

Other people (like myself), have a more split-personality approach to friends and work. When doing mass-mailings for inviting local Belgian contacts to join us at the Cocoon GetTogether, I have the chance to browse through my contact list. Looking at my Orkut page, I know a fair amount of people, and most of them I'm always looking forward to meeting them in real life. Still, I do feel awkward qualifying all these people as "friends" - and the friendship valuation feature in Orkut is severely lacking in that perspective: they might take a look at what Don is suggesting. There's quite a few nuances that the current social software friendship classification schemata fail to express.

A few of these people however, for reasons of shared-neuroness (which most often isn't expressed in amounts of direct communication!) can easily stand in for real friends, let alone be the distance and real-life disconnectedness be a problem for that. I cannot easily qualify these people. One thing for sure is that I feel at ease when being with them - I like "being with them".

Let me explain that. I'm not as much a people's person as one needs to be. Hm. As I write this, I think I'm touching the core of my issue with "being a people's person". Getting involved with people (which could be friends eventually) means adapting your behaviour to a huge set of intangible socio-cultural Rules, which can be boring, intrusive or inhibitive to genuine contact. If I need to "dress up" my social presence, or simply act better than I am or feel before being able to relate to an acquaintance, I often prefer to stay low and remain in my little social observatory. Because I do love people, but sometimes only as an observator. Yep, I failed to attend the right courses while studying, because otherwise I would have been a sociologist (like my brother), or - godforbid - a shrink, or at the very least been working with people instead of technology.

Some people in this unclassifiable category do hit the sweet spot of not requiring the Rules bullshit, and not expecting more from a friendship than enjoying time together when occasions bring us together. That might not be as involving as the relationship I have with my most precious friends, but it's a very real part of my life, which I cannot easily miss. Anyway - I do hope I've been able in the past to express this special feeling towards certain people in a way they were touched by it - I know I was.

Coming back to Matthew's dilemma, I don't think linking or commenting are tangible expressions of genuine involvement in one-another's life issues - as friends, I mean. In putting your thoughts up on the Internet, you are always, first and foremost, expressing yourself and establishing, reinforcing or shifting your public image as others see it. When I want to interrelate with a real friend, I couldn't care less about my own composure or image: he's a friend after all.

A modest person with a funky twist of sub-dermal craziness, Tom Van Camp has been instrumental for the corporate web presence of some serious Belgian and European companies. He's looking for a new gig - and is very much recommended. (We've been working for the same employer quite some eons ago.)

Thanks David and Gianugo for inspiring me to buy A State of Wonder, by Glenn Gould. It takes some time getting used to him singing along, but other than that it's a delightful intro into Bach for a newbie, and much more accessible classical music than your typical Arvo Pärt.

Reading the Bileblog comments on this particular post feels like browing Slashdot at "only -1". This must be the stuff which reassures Bill that .Net has a place in this world. It's the people, ohmygod.

... or how to turn a marketing campaign into a counterstrike: Recycle your iTunes Pepsi caps.