What did I do this weekend?  Work, of course.  I finally started on the souped up on-screen newspaper renderer.  GDI doesn't support anti-aliased text, GDI+ was too slow, Flash doesn't have an API I could call, and Quartz is OSX only, so I had to put one together myself.  Key requirement is the ability to fill a large screen full of anti-aliased text and images and switch between two zoom factor fast.

By fast, I mean fast enough to trigger the illusion of viewing a real page instead of a painted screen.  That's the magic sauce that will get people into reading on screen.  You would know this too if you spent a few days doing crazy stuff with newspapers while your wife looked on with a worried look.

The good news is that I got a good enough result with some experiments that I am going to invest more time on the project.  The bad news is that it's not fast enough to do zoom transition animation.  I'll have to add some cheap visual hints to trick the reader's eyes instead.

This is an edited version of my comment to Joi's post on Microsoft's so called double-click patent.

The patent is not really about double-click but about a way to use a limited input device (i.e. a cheap button on a mobile phone) to trigger more than one function, morse code sent from user to the mobile OS if you will. It adds functionality without increasing cost nor adding clutter. What it does is map functions to like this:

Down-Up -> F1
Down-1/2sec-Up -> F2
Down-1sec-Up -> F3
Down-Up-Down-Up -> F4

and so on.

IMHO, this is not a trivial patent but a rather innovative new use of existing technology to overcome limitations of mobile devices.  Is it a general innovation?  No.  But it is innovative if you consider the context of its application and you would not think it is an obvious solution if you were the one assigned to solve this problem.

Frankly, I prefer my Next-App (aka Appy) button idea better since user doesn't have to remember the correct pattern. Instead, the user just flips apps as if flipping pages until they get to the one they want to use. In the end, users remember 'where' the app is (i.e. 3rd app) and click the button that many times as they move the device up for use.

Dave suggests that W3C use RSS 2.0 as the basis for their syndicated data activities.  I think W3C should do just that if they really want to do something in the syndicated data space.  I realize that this will lead to another clash between RSS and Atom, this time with a major standard organizations behind each, but conflicts between standard organizations have happened before and will happen again.  I sure hope a third format doesn't enter the picture though.

RSS is a reality that will not fade away for decades regardless of what happens with Atom.  Atom initiative will also not be stopped unless everyone behind it are sent to Mars (I'll go if there is a return ticket).  I tried my best to mate them but the chance of that happening is now zero, so I am now betting on both and will try my best to make sure future extensions to either formats are independent of the container format.

Update:

W3C has obligations to its member companies as well as the public. If both Atom and RSS were bidding for W3C's attention, then discussions over merits of each format has some relevance. Since it appears not, I think it makes sense for RSS to become a W3C standard considering that many of its members are already using RSS and majority of the feeds out there are in RSS.

While this will negate much of the momentum Atom gains through IETF standardization, I am betting on both horses so I don't care which format wins.

I finally got around to installing JspISAPI I mentioned over a week ago.  Since they offered 30 day moneyback, I bought and installed the full version to hook up Tomcat 5.0.25 to IIS 6.0.  It looks like it's running well and doing everything they promised.  Here is a test installation of JspWiki.

Despite increasing popularity of wiki, there is no such thing as the wiki syntax.  Instead there are many wiki syntaxes, each similar to others but different enough to prevent wiki users from learning the local dialect when they visit a wiki.  I haven't figured out exactly what factors are encouraging divergence or discouraging convergence, but wiki will remain a geeky version of the wild west unless some serious efforts are made toward standardization.

Since I don't see W3C getting out of their stubborn chickenshit mode anytime soon and IETF usually operates in reactive mode, there is little chance of standardization happening unless wiki developers, particularly those interested in commercialization of wiki technology lead the way.  The first major step should be a gathering of wiki developers, a Wiki Standardization Summit.

The goal of the summit should be clear: to agree upon and commit to a set of wiki standards on syntax, API, links, etc.  I am not interested in a summit where everyone just yaps for a few days and then leave with nothing more than good feelings.  So I think the summit attendence should be limited to those who are willing to commit time and resources to implement whatever is agreed upon at the end of the summit.

If you are interested, post a comment here.