The Way Back Machine

As part of its 10th anniversary - Google has brought back the web... to 2001. They have put live the oldest copy of the index they have - a snapshot of the web in 2001.

A lot has changed since then - but one thing hasn't - this blog.

That's right - if you go to the Google 2001 site - and search for Bob Cusick - you'll see that the second entry is from a Bob's World back in 1997. Unfortunately, the link doesn't exist - so I went back through this morning and tried to find an old archive.

(Bob doing his best Dr. Evil Impression): Then I realized that back then my "column" (the term "blog" didn't exist) was actually in a database being served up live with "dynamic" pages. A big concept back then.

It was actually in a FileMaker database using a new "CGI" (Common Gateway Interface) called "Lasso." The site was called ClickWorld and it catered to the FileMaker Pro community. The site was a collaboration between myself (database and CGI programming), Jason Fried (graphic designer extraordinaire and founder of 37 Signals [you know - BaseCamp, CampFire, Ruby on Rails])... and... and... and I'm sorry, but I don't remember the 3rd guy's name - but he was a co-founder of one of the first "ISPs" (Internet Service Providers).

We had a fully dynamic site that users could register for (23,000+) and they could customize their view of the data; we had "loyalty points" that could be redeemed for consulting services, software and other goodies; we had guest blogs and articles; a basic search engine for our knowledge base - basically it was a more crude version of Facebook meets Engadget meets iGoogle.

Good times... good times.

So I went back to my oldest archives to see if I had actually kept anything from back then (first I had to find my oldest archives!). That was many, many machines ago - so I knew the chances of actually finding stuff would be bleak, at best.

Well, I managed to find a really old text file - an export of SOME of the old Bob's World Articles - circa 1997-2001 (it seems that 2001-2006 are missing). I fired up Servoy and did a quick import to see what was there. In looking back through that stuff... AAAAHHH! It's like reading an old high school yearbook.

Here's the actual picture I used back then on the site:

It was interesting - because some things never change - and other things have. I was totally cringing at some of those posts - let's just say I was wwaaaaayyyyy into Apple and FileMaker Pro at the time. I did have to clean up some of the HTML (I was writing raw HTML in BBEdit on my Mac at the time) - but other than that I've left them 100% unedited.

So, to celebrate my 10 years of blog... er... "columns" - I've published them in their original form - dated on their original dates. Look on the side bar for the year.

WARNING: Best viewed with bell bottoms and a lava lamp...

This Just In: Blogging Going Away

I just (finally!) got time to watch the latest episode of John Dvorak's truly excellent Cranky Geeks (episode #121). Now, I love John's wit, cynicism, and loathing of all things... well all things literally... but he surrounds himself with 20-something folks who have a rather... let's just say... "interesting" point of view on a lot of topics.

Maybe I'm a Cranky Geek® (property of Ziff Davis, John Dvorak, et al) at heart. On one of the snippets of the show (really, see this stuff, you'll love it!) about bloggers. The very attractive and only (!) woman on the panel Natali Del Conte (Senior Editor of CNET TV's "Loaded") predicted that the term "blog" will go away in the near future.

This was met by enthusiastic and hearty "hear hears" by co-crank Sebastian Rupley (Editorial Director of PCMagCast.com) and Bryan Gardiner a tech journalist from Wired.com. They all agreed that the term "blogger" will be replaced with "communicator."

It was Ms. Del Conte's contention that some of these so-called "bloggers" are really reporting news - and as such - should be held to the same journalistic "ethics" as "regular" news outfits. This includes journalistic training, subscription to AP new feeds and the like.

I agree with the fact that people that just copy/paste stuff from the AP are stealing content. Just like if you copy/paste something from anyone else's paper/blog/website/podcast/video and claim it's your own IS stealing content (without a proper link and credit [excerpted Ziff Davis' Cranky Geeks episode #121]). I also agree with John Dvorak who said that "90-99% of the time people are not passing stuff off as their own" (taken from an excerpt by John Dvorak on Ziff Davis' Cranky Geeks episode #121 - it's not my own quote that I've copied from a new feed - I SWEAR!)

The thing I really like about John Dvorak - is that his opinion is the same as mine - "....there should be no standards. Your right to be a journalist is part of the Bill of Rights..." (taken from an excerpt by John Dvorak on Ziff Davis' Cranky Geeks episode #121)

Well, damn it - it's true. Bloggers (and, by the way, the term is NOT going away) - are just that bloggers. They are putting up their personal opinions about things that they give a crap about. Some of it may be "news" in the sense that they have a social life and know people (other than their mother) that might have something interesting to say that that AP or Reuters or WSJ actually didn't happen to find out on their own.

Big whoop.

They go on to talk about all the ethics and disclosures that "real news organizations" have. If you write about Microsoft, you can't own Microsoft stock, etc.

In general, good rules. In practice - it's BS. Disclosure: I don't own Microsoft, Ziff Davis or Apple stock. Even if I did - I'd still write about it. Why? Because I would be passionate about it.

I would actually put my money where my mouth was - and buy something and take a position (either pro or con) and express what it is and why it was that I bought something.

It's not taboo. It's not like some-random-guy writing about why you should buy Apple stock now (or not) is going to make people do it. Correction - most sane people who have a life and an Internet connection.

There is nothing wrong with passionate people writing passionately about subjects they care about. If you get your only news from them (e.g. you get your news from the Daily Show with John Stewart [Copyright © 1995-2008 Comedy Partners. All rights Reserved]) - then you deserve what you get.

There are lots of people who are ethical, "proper" journalists (including John Dvorak, Sebastian Rupley, Natali Del Conte and Bryan Gardiner) - and that's THEIR DAMN JOB. That's what they get paid to do. That is their chosen profession and their bread and butter.

The other blogs that they cited (the so-called "Web 2.0" bloggers) have day jobs. They do something else and passionately write a public blog on what they care about - or what interests them.

Don't worry Ms. Del Conte - they are not after your job. They don't have one iota of the training or professionalism that you do. They are not professionals. Most of them are just... well... Cranky Geeks® (property of Ziff Davis, John Dvorak, et al) at heart.

The Sky Is Falling!

Editor's NOTE: This is a moldie oldie that I pulled from a text dump archive. None of the links will work anymore (or 99% won't) - but the names and companies have NOT changed.

NOT! If I read just one more nay-sayer predict the demise of Apple Computer, I'm going to get out the nearest butter knife and slash my wrists.

To be sure, losing 125+ MILLION dollars per quarter isn't a GOOD thing... HOWEVER, there are some bright spots that just recently appeared:

• the Gil-meister decreed that there will be no executive bonuses (read: multi-million dollar giveaways) to any executives until Apple has returned to profitability;
  
  
• the newly-reorged folks at the top of the technology food chain are folks from NeXT (read: they know the new OS inside and out - literally!);
  
  
• Claris' ex-president and helluva good presenter, Guerrino De Luca is now in charge of Apple marketing (read: REAL ads touting the Mac's benefits, not the typical "Mission Impossible" crap);
  
  
• looking ahead to Rhapsody, Senior Vice President of Software Engineering Avadis Tevanian and Vice President of AppleSoft Marketing Jim Gable said Apple plans to offer a version of that OS for Intel-standard PCs (read: watch out Windows!);
  
  
• Apple is slashing prices across the board (read: say goodbye to the "it's more expensive" PC argument);
  
  
• Etc., etc., etc.

There will always be the folks who can't get enough of doomsday predictions - just like there are people who continue to read and believe tabloids (as Jerry Seinfeld said on 60 Minutes "...people who believe tabloids deserve to be lied to...")! As for me, I'm going to continue to use the best tool for the job.

Sure, someday (1st dev release of Rhapsody is due in summer) Apple will come out with the NeXT operating system - but until then I'm happy using what I've got. I'm writing this column, sending email, designing web pages, writing software, sending files via FTP, and listening to streaming audio while playing a CD all at the same time!

Interactive Reader Exercise: try this on DOS, Windows 3.1, Windows 95, or Windows NT on a machine right out of the box. Go ahead, I'll wait.

Nice try! Computers are a tool that should be used to make one's life easier - not cause higher blood pressure, loud shouts of obscenities, and overall general mayhem. If you're like 95% of the rest of the world, and you use a Windows machine - great. I've got nothing against INTEL-box users, quite the contrary - some of my best friends (and relatives) are constantly on the phone to me asking why the hell they can't print (or fax, or dial out, or run software on "only" 16 megs of RAM, etc.).

I'll admit it - I even OWN an INTEL box (of course, it's in the warehouse collecting dust because the FedEx software won't run on less than 60 MB of disk space and 16 MB of RAM [thanks Mr. Gates!]), the disk-doubled hard drive loses data on a semi-regular basis, the external CD drive doesn't have a Win 95 driver so won't work on Windows 95, etc.

Interactive Reader Exercise #2: do a network install of Windows 95 from FLOPPIES. Have a NICE DAY (I mean weekend).

The bottom line is this - use the tool that works the best for you, period. In the case of me and mine, we'll stick with Mac OS as our tool of choice thank you very much. Even if Apple went out of business tomorrow afternoon, we would still continue to use the Mac OS because it does the one thing we bought computers for in the first place - it helps us get our work done with a minimum of hassle and virtually no "down time."

MacWorld Melee!

Editor's NOTE: This is a moldie oldie that I pulled from a text dump archive. None of the links will work anymore (or 99% won't) - but the names and companies have NOT changed.

Greetings from the computing bowels of the lovely city by the bay - San Francisco, California. It's my annual pilgrimage to "fog city" (not to be confused with the excellent software company fog city software) for a week of outrageous hotel prices, inflated parking prices, expensive food and drink... oh yeah, and computer stuff.

MacWorld in San Francisco is like an intimate encounter with 9,000 of your closest friends - there's no time to see them all - and even if you could you wouldn't. Among all the Internet hype, new hardware announcements, software introductions, show specials on software you'll never use, and endless opportunities to melt even the most hearty of credit cards, there were a few notable things in the pipeline that I found to be of interest to us folk who wax poetic in the (sometimes lonely) land of FileMaker development:

There's a new version of FileMaker Pro in the works... That's about all I can say about it. Suffice it to say it will be good and will include new stuff as well as fix some stuff that's been bugging all of us for years.

New versions of CGI's exposed: All three major FileMaker CGI vendors showed off their latest versions (all included WebStar 2.x plug-in capabilities),
*Web Broadcasting's WEB FM (and "Web Essentials" bundle), *BlueWorld Communication's Lasso (as well as a super-duper 2.0 version that will include it's own HTTP server AND will Java-enable FileMaker), *Everyware's Tango. I'll be ranting and raving about CGI & FileMaker stuff in a future column.... but you owe it to yourself to check out the latest YUMMY offerings from these vendors!

Cool New MAC ONLY Software
*Everything FileMaker CD Matt and folks at ISO have put out THE reference source for FileMaker users! This FANTASTIC $35 CD is chocked-full of over 600 megs of actual FileMaker FILES, EXAMPLES, TECHNIQUES and more - get it while it's HOT!

*Secure FM (download here!) Danny Mack and the wired-in people at New Millennium have cooked up an extension that will dim out editing menu commands IN FILEMAKER! They're also at looking at doing a windoze version, and adding FULL MENU CONTROL in a future version!

*Web Collage that will collate info from the Web or FileMaker databases and create (and auto-upload to server or FTP) GIF images based on the data

*Myrmidon by Terry Morse Software - weird name, COOL print driver that will translate ANYTHING that can be printed into HTML and other formats (INCLUDING script steps, field definitions, etc.)

*Coda by Random Noise is a visual Java builder for creating 100% Java web pages. It will also run on Windows 95, Windows NT, AND Solaris - WAY COOL!

*Web Burst - by the good folks over at PowerProduction is a visual animation tool that will generate it's own Java code, classes, and HTML,
*Home Page 2.0 (Mac & Windows) - nice update to a useful, mostly WYSIWYG HTML editor - watch this space for more info on possible FMP integration in a future version

Coolest place to stay in S.F. if you're staying a week or more - is the City Central Townhouse (click for picture) owned by my good friend Leigh Robinson. This place is the best - it's right next to Jefferson Square and is in walking distance from the Civic Center, Main Library, Memorial Opera House, Japantown, St. Mary's Cathedral, etc. It's 3 bedrooms, 2-1/2 baths of pure pleasure that INCLUDES a jacuzzi tub in master bath, fully equipped kitchen, fireplace, washer/dryer, multiple TV's, VCR, phone, answering machine, roof garden, exercise stuff, and housekeeping services! Check it out - it's even got it's own web site!. You can also contact Leigh at (510) 236-5496, FAX (510) 215-9385 or write to Express, P.O. Box 1639, El Cerrito, CA 94530 and tell em' BOB SENT YOU.

Mac Based ISP I met the folks from the Bay Area Infoasis at the most excellent Macs of Marin FileMaker Pro SIG meeting that I hosted. If you want to super-charge your site by offering the power of FileMaker and CGI's, but don't want the hassles of having your own T-1 or server, contact them and check out their FileMaker Serving services (from $100/mo.)

I also met (for the first time in person) Chris Ogden fellow wine nut, CGI maestro and author of the most excellent AppleScript Web Site that uses Tango and FileMaker Pro to run the ENTIRE site! He and I... well... um... let's just say that the good people at the oh-so-trendy watering hole "Bix" weren't sorry to see us leave in the wee hours of the morning. Keep watching this space for more on the super yummy FileMaker gyrations from the slight-of-hand magicians at Infovista.