J.E. Gordon's book is a great read. Did you know that arches are so popular because they have to break in 4 places before they will fall down? Amazing factoids and insights for the lay person abound in this book. The technical details occasionally … [Continue reading]
Human-Built World
Posted on December 15, 2006 Written by
Thomas P. Hughes "Human-Build World - How to think about technology and culture" compares and contrasts current optimism about the Internet, gadgets and technology with human attitudes to earlier generations of technology. Technology has a much … [Continue reading]
The HyperText Computer (HTC) and seti@home
Posted on December 15, 2006 Written by
SETI@home is a computing project that analyzes radio telescope data using the spare computing power available in internet connected computers. Users who wish to offer their computers' processor and storage to the project, download and install BOINC - … [Continue reading]
The HyperText Computer (HTC) and the Windows Communication Foundation
Posted on December 12, 2006 Written by
As part of .NET 3.0 the Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) is a unified programming model from Microsoft that delivers many of the benefits motivating the proposed HyperText Computer. Some of the key benefits of the WCF include: Replacing 7-8 … [Continue reading]
The HTC does for programming what has already been done for information retrieval.
Posted on December 9, 2006 Written by
What has the web done for information? In short, the web has made the network invisible when retrieving information. The distance traveled and the technology employed to deliver a request from a browser and the response returned makes no difference … [Continue reading]
The HyperText Computer (HTC) and IBM’s Infinity Project
Posted on December 9, 2006 Written by
This morning I found a recent report by Darryl K. Taft quoting Stefan Schoenauer of IBM titled "Future Net: Expanding the Web from Pages to Data Sources". It appears that IBM's Infinity middleware project may be a proto-HyperText Computer. While the … [Continue reading]
The HyperText Computer and the web information space
Posted on December 8, 2006 Written by
After reading the following quote from Tim Berners-Lee I have been reflecting on the appropriateness of my proposal of a HyperText Computer -- a model computer built on top of HTTP: From the fact that the thing referenced by the URI is in some sense … [Continue reading]
The HyperText Computer and the Axioms of Web Architecture
Posted on December 7, 2006 Written by
Tim Berners-Lee has written several articles about the axioms and design principles behind the web. I have been curious as to how many of the basic principles of the web are broken by the proposed HyperTExt Computer (HTC). A key idea of the … [Continue reading]
The HyperText Computer and Client Side Scripting
Posted on December 7, 2006 Written by
Client side scripting enables the local client computer to perform parts of the processing required by a web application. Javascript is a client-side part of the magic sauce that makes AJAX apps so fluid and useful. This works, of course, but why do … [Continue reading]
The HyperText Computer, Microsoft and Google
Posted on December 7, 2006 Written by
A couple of days ago, John Milan in his "Changing Climates for Microsoft and Google, Desktops and Webs" post on Read Write Web, explored the balance of local verses remote processing and storage and the battle between Microsoft and Google. Earlier … [Continue reading]
The HyperText Computer and Rich Internet Applications
Posted on December 7, 2006 Written by
The HyperText Computer may provide an alternative to the need for special technologies created just for Rich Internet Applications. The HyperText Computer (HTC) is a computer built on the HyperText Transport Protocol (HTTP). In a HTC, every … [Continue reading]
The Hypertext Computer
Posted on December 6, 2006 Written by
The HyperText Computer (HTC) is proposed as a model computer. Built on the HyperText Transport Protocol (HTTP), the HTC is a general purpose computer. In its basic instruction set, every operator is implemented by a HTTP request and every operand is … [Continue reading]
Rise of Open Source
Posted on October 27, 2006 Written by
The rise of credible Open Source alternatives to entrenched commercial software continues. Today I uninstalled Winzip that I paid for a couple of years ago in favour of 7-zip. For me 7-zips ability to handle files with Russian and Kazakh language … [Continue reading]
The meaning of life
Posted on October 16, 2006 Written by
Last night, I happened across the website of a recent book "Making Meaning: How Successful Companies Deliver Meaningful Experiences", which is a guide for corporations on how to gain customer loyalty by delivering meaningful experiences. It seems … [Continue reading]
Rethinking retirement financial goals
Posted on June 4, 2006 Written by
I was born in 1961 and so I am right on the tail end of the Baby Boomer Generation. I have got the Australian Government's message! I know that superannuation and saving for retirement is now more of an imperative than it was in the past. … [Continue reading]