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December 11, 2002
Finding Books at the SLC Public Library
Let's say, you're on Amazon looking at a book and you'd really like to read it, but you're not sure its worth buying. Then you hit on a great idea: you'll try something really old fashioned and check it out from the local library! Now, you could schlep down to the library and look it up or maybe even go to Google and see if they have a web site; but, Jon Udell has provided a much convenient way: a bookmarlet (no pun intended). Just drag the following link to the Personal Toolbar in Mozilla or the "Links" toolbar in IE and then when you're looking at a book at Amazon, Borders, etc. just click the link in the toolbar. You'll find out if its available at the Salt Lake City Public Library.
This is really too cool for words. Try it out. Jon has a list of other libraries and some notes on how it works, once again demonstrating that the power of the Internet can be had in bits and pieces, a few scripts at a time.
Update: This works just fine in Mozilla as well.
08:35 PM | Recommend This | Print This
Tablet PCs: A Frist Look
This afternoon I got to spend about 15 minutes playing with a tablet PC from Acer (TravelMate 100) and one from Compaq (TC1000C). I hefted them wrote on them, and played with some of the apps. My first impressions:
- I think I'd like one of these. They have a very nice form factor that is more usable than a notebook in a meeting, airplane, etc.
- I liked that COMPAQ keyboard detached. It wasn't a lot lighter, but it was much thinner.
- The Acer was VERY hot on the bottom. It would cook your legs if you had to sit with it on your lap. The COMPAQ was nice and cool (they'd been on for about the same length of time)
- They're pretty expensive for something which I don't see replacing my laptop. I'd like one, but not as my only notebook. I'd give up my iPAQ for one though.
04:18 PM | Recommend This | Print This
Web Services Ecosystem Meeting
This morning I spoke at a meeting of the Utah Technology Alliance on web services. I posted a copy of my slides yesterday. Rod Linton, who heads UTA, was the host of the meeting and there were probably about 30 people there from Utah companies with an interest in web services.
After my talk, Henrique DiAguantini, Utah's International Office spoke on the upcoming trade missions that the Governor's office and DCED are putting together. Henrique is specifically interested in central america, but there will be trade missions to a number of places around the world. I was really looking forward to going back to Asia, but I won't be doing that now.
Evelyn Rodriquez, who, among other things runs the Chasm Bridge conference, has set up a Yahoo! Groups email list for utah companies and individuals interested in web services at utah-ws{at}yahoogroups.com.
The group broke into two subgroups to discuss standards development and marketing/education. The standards group has been and will continue to monitor various XML standards and find volunteers from Utah companies to work in standards area. The Marketing/Education group is putting together case studies of what others have done, why it worked, what the ROI was, etc. They're also putting together templates and toolkits for Utah companies to build these case studies. The ultimate goal is a web site with case studies from Utah companies that can be publicized and marketed.
A few upcoming events: UITA is sponsoring a Web Services summit in the spring. Evelyn is running a ChasmBridge conference on web services in March in San Jose.
A few people I ran into:
- Al Byers from the Web Automation Group has an open source XSLT debugger. I haven't tried the tool out yet, but I've written before about what a bear XSL can be to debug, so I'm anxious to take a look. I know that there are tools like that in Visual Studio .NET (and I have a copy I've been meaning to play with).
- I also ran into Scott Lemon who has a blog called the.Inevitable.Org/anism. Scott's name was immediately familiar to me because I've been to his blog before. Scott has been kicking around the Utah high tech community for some time (worked for for Novell four times). Right now he's serving as Chief Scientist for a company called Vultus. Vultus builds javascript apps that run inside the browser. They used to be called iBASE and I've talked to them before. Pretty cool technology for the presentation layer. I wonder how something like this meshes with thick clients that some people think might be making a come back.
At the end, Evelyn Rodriguez ran a workshop on making contacts. It was an interesting format. Each person introduced themselves, what they do, and who their most wanted client is. The group then volunteers contact information that they have to help get them in the door with a warm lead. It worked surprisingly well.