IBM apparently has a patent on web template tools. Suuuuuuuuuuure.

Oct 19, 2001

Well, it appears that Web “technologies” are going ahead full steam. To what detriment, I wonder. IBM has been granted the patent for Web template tools, for which it filed in 1998.

Okay, call me stupid, but didn’t this concept exist previously in the offline world? There’s a concept called “prior art”, which refers to widespread and/or common usage or knowledge of a thing. I guess this doesn’t apply any more. (I worked on web-based software that created whole sites using several predefined page templates in 1995 — Intranet Junction, which I almost doubt is still around any more. Or is it? Any sightings?)

Quick! Someone patent personal web sites!

Now here’s the rub: how will IBM enforce this patent? Realistically, it’s something of a bugbear. While they won’t go after individuals offering page templates on their site, they may go after anyone who creates software to generate a site using page templates.

That would set them head-to-head with all the apps and editors out there that bundle templates with their software.

Can you say “FrontPage”, kiddies? I knew you could.

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Webring is no longer part of Yahoo? Right. I'll believe that.

Oct 15, 2001

On 05 September 2000, Yahoo began its disastrous administration of the WebRing system, a five-year-old free online service and community. People left Y!WR in droves. Some headed to RingSurf. Some headed to the Bomis system. Many either installed RingLink, or signed up with previously-installed RingLink systems. Even with the mass migrations, there were still lots of rings using the Y!WR system…it seemed. As the months wore on, many of them turned out to be abandoned.

Now, apparently, WebRing is no longer part of the Yahoo conglomerate. I’m not really sure about this one, though. True, when trying to reach the Y!WR home, there are l-o-n-g delays and then a switch to this WebRing.com…but that might just mean that someone’s suborned the DNS information.

Other reasons for wondering about this:

1. the page layout of this new WebRing is very similar to Yahoo. Wouldn’t new owners want to make more of a difference by changing the look and feel of the pages - possibly back to the old Webring colourscheme?
2. the information on the WebRing.com pages is a little scanty-looking. I could create this content. It doesn’t really seem to reassure me that it’s genuine.
3. the DNS record lists Yahoo, Inc. as the holder of the domain webring.com (and webring.net and webring.org) and has these domains listed as being on yahoo’s nameservers
4. I can’t find any other evidence or news about this move other than the email I received and this scanty text on the web site

I think that WebRing is still owned by Yahoo - possibly even being administered by the same group of nimrods - but Yahoo is just trying to stem the hemmoraging of outgoing former members by pulling this switcheroo. So while I would welcome another ring hosting service (RingSurf was abandoned by its chief some months back, and while the various Guides do good jobs, there are a lot of duplicate rings, rings that are abandoned, rings that are really nothing more than links to someone’s home page [note: ring hosts are NOT search engines!], and in short, lots of noise, not a whole lot of signal. The Guides can only do so much — they can’t dictate policy or clean up dead rings or things like that. But…until I get some sort of confirmation that this new Webring is legit, and unless I see that those bloody NavBars are only an option and not the only way to create ring fragments, I’ll just stay with RingSurf.

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Is there a wormhole and someone forgot to tell me..?

Oct 14, 2001

My servers are, theoretically, located two timezones away from me. My local time here is two hours behind the local time on my servers. Yet my blog is indicating that my posts are eight hours ahead of the local time of the keyboard on which I type them.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Maybe it’s just a minor neurotic episode. I mean, I’ve been listening to the same song on infinite repeat almost constantly for the last three days. Before that, it was another song on the same CD. (At least when I get music stuck in the cranium, I tend to obsess on an entire disc rather than just one song. Problem is, it lasts for weeks and weeks.)

...mommy..!

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I don't know which is worse: that he seems to have no plan, or that he might have one...

Oct 14, 2001

He lived on a Texas estate without a care in the world. Sure he drank and insulted people, but then he won the highest office in the land even though the people didn’t vote for him. And then the Republican came and started throwing food into minefields in central Asia.

I guess that’s Dubya’s idea of kinder, gentler hazing.

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