All posts by warwick

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About warwick

I manage a team of professional technical consultants for a Fortune 100 company. I like clever uses of technology whether it's in a data center or the kitchen of my house.

Safari and autodetection of RSS feeds

BloggerCon, Radio

This is something that sounds hackable at the least.  Brent, could
something like this be done with WebKit's tools (asking out of
ignorance)?

What if Safari detected RSS feeds?.
Here's an idea for Safari: Many web sites/pages now offer an RSS feed
equivalent of their contents, not unlike this weblog! As RSS is getting
more and more popular, it would be cool if Safari would detect the
presence of an RSS feed (through the tag) and activate a UI element on its toolbar that the user could use to drag to their favorite news reading program …. Say, NetNewsWire.

mockup of Safari toolbar with an RSS item [Karelia Software]

Weblog

Reading Scripting News frequently provides hidden gems like this:

Second OJR web pioneer roundtable. [Scripting News]

I read the first two pages and had to stop–I need to work and the article is tood good to read with distractions.

BloggerCon, Radio

Betsy Devine says that
Google should have done some research before buying Blogger. 
Betsy, don't forget the millions of people hate Microsoft products and
*still* buy the upgrades.  :>

Lockergnome on RSS and ads

BloggerCon, Radio

Chris mentions in this post that with RSS…

“When you don[base ']t like what you see, you can delete your subscription IMMEDIATELY.”

… you can elimate the feeds carrying ads you don't like.  I subscribe to a feed that
is all ads–bringing me info on deals from hundreds of websites. 
RSS advertising has it's place and time, if done right.  The
consumer will vote with their subscriptions and dollars.  Embedded
feeds will always suck and besides, a clever person will filter them
out anyway.

My Grandfather's Accutron

Weblog

My grandfather gave me his Bulova Accutron “SpaceView” watch about a year ago.  It's a great watch with a neat bit of history.  Here's a photo:

I left it with Rick McElvaine, owner of Maxon's Diamond Merchants here in Springfield last January with a plea for help:  find someone who could fix it.  Rick spent 8 months investigating the watch and finding someone withe right parts and creditials that could fix it.  The end result you see above, a beautiful watch restored to perfect running order.  The main coil, index wheel and crystal were replaced and I added the leather band, allowing me to wear it daily.

My grandfather received the watch as a Father's Day gift from his wife in 1966 and was worn daily until it sadly stopped working.  Parts had become non-existent and the original lead-acid batteries were nowhere to be found.

Bob, thanks for the opportunity to carry this watch into the future.  It's a delight to wear and a reminder of good times and the love of my grandparents.

Update:  Link to an Accutron source.