The Widget-Gadget food fight

Oh lordy, I hate getting in the middle of Mac v. Windows food fights. I am not a Mac user, so I can’t speak from a position of authority, and the religious nature of the debate brings out trolls on both sides. But I really have to step into this one.

Yesterday, Microsoft announced the introduction of Windows Gadgets. The Gadgets Blog explains what they are:

What are Gadgets? Gadgets are a new category of mini-application designed to provide information, useful lookup, or enhance an application or service on your Windows PC or the Web. Examples might include a weather gadget running on your desktop or on your homepage, an RSS Gadget that pulls in your favorite feeds, or an extension of a business application providing just-in-time status on the pulse of your business.

This, of course, inspired guffaws, chortles, and snorts of derision from Mac experts like Dori Smith, who point out that this stuff was old news when Mac Widgets appeared in 2004. In fact, this page from Apple’s site sounds awfully familiar:

Dashboard is home to widgets: mini-applications that let you perform common tasks and provide you with fast access to information. With a single click, Dashboard appears, complete with widgets that bring you a world of information — real-time weather, stock tickers, flight information and more — instantly. Dashboard disappears just as easily, so you can get back to what you were doing.

Of course, Konfabulator fans could point out that this stuff has been available on the Windows desktop for some time.

And I could point out that I was running SideKick widgets (or whatever they were called then) on my MS-DOS PC in, like, 1987.

Now, to be fair, there are some things about the Microsoft implementation of gadgets that are genuinely new. It’s a unified development platform, not just an add-on. You can write Web-based gadgets for Start.com, which apparently will then work in any modern browser through the miracles of DHTML and Ajax. And gadgets can also be written for auxiliary displays, which will allow these mini-programs to pop up alerts in a tiny window on the outside of a notebook, or perhaps on a Bluetooth-enabled mobile phone that’s in range of a Windows Vista computer, or even over a network connection.

But still…

Microsoft, would it kill you to actually mention the source of some of these ideas? Wouldn’t it actually help people understand how this new thing is different if you acknowledged the similarities to other things that have been around for a while? I’m just sayin’.

(And by the way, Mike, pointing out the Windows Vista Sidebar was announced years ago and that Apple stole the idea is probably not the strongest argument you could make. You have to ship it before it counts.)

I will now duck as the inevitable food fight breaks out in the comments section. Please be nice.

Speed-read that license agreement

You know you should read the full text of every end-user license agreement (EULA) before you install a new program. But do you? Ha! Admit it: You rarely pause for more than a nanosecond before you click the Continue button. And you have lots of company.

Which is why JavaCool Software (makers of the superb SpywareBlaster and SpywareGuard products) have introduced EULAlyzer. If you can’t be bothered to read the full text, at least run the EULA through this utility first. It highlights any “interesting” words or phrases and gives you a chance to think about whether you really want to install that new program.

Of course, I installed it without reading the license agreement. Afterwards, I analyzed Eulalyzer’s EULA, which concluded that it only had three phrases that required a closer look. And the program crashed with a run-time error on two different computers when I fed it the Microsoft Office 2003 EULA.

Good idea, but you should still read the EULA!

(via Donna Buenaventura)

Recommended Software list updated

As part of the redesign of this site, I’ve been updating some of the static pages. Today I took a few minutes and gave my Recommended Software page a makeover. It’s not complete, but everything on there is a program that I currently use (or have used in recent months) and recommend.

The previous version of this list had detailed version numbers. I’ve removed most of those and instead stuck only with major version numbers where it seemed appropriate. I also broke the list into categories for easier reading.

If you want to suggest products I should try, leave a comment here. Include the full name of the product, a description of why you think it’s useful, and a link. No affiliate links, please. I’ll edit or delete anything that looks like an ad. (That’s what the column to the right is for. If you want to advertise a product, contact me. You might be surprised at how reasonable the rates are.)

Final version of SyncToy released

I’ve been using the beta version of SyncToy for a few weeks. The final version is now released. This white paper explains how it works:

SyncToy is a free PowerToy for Microsoft Windows XP that provides an easy to use, highly customizable program to help copy, move, and synchronize different directories. Most common operations can be performed with just a few clicks of the mouse, and additional customization is available without adding complexity. SyncToy can manage multiple sets of directories at the same time; it can combine files from two folders in one case, and mimic renames and deletes in another. Unlike other applications, SyncToy keeps track of renames to files and will make sure those changes get carried over to the synchronized folder.

It also includes a download link.This is a marvelous little program, and it’s free. Ironically, Walt Mossberg in tomorrow’s Wall Street Journal reviews some commercial products that perform similar functions. If you need a PC-to-Mac solution, one of those alternatives might make sense; otherwise, SyncToy should do the trick.

Update: As Hubert Kay points out in the comments, the programs that Walt reviews also include online services and are primarily intended for synchronizing folders over the Internet. They typically cost up to $100 a year. If you need to sync files on machines that aren’t part of the same network and you’re willing to pay that price, read his review. For synchronizing files between two or more computers on your own network, though, the free SyncToy is a better choice, IMO.

Windows Desktop Search glitch

The more I use it, the more I like Windows Desktop Search, which is included with the MSN Search Toolbar. I especially like that you can use command line operators to create custom search requests, and you can save searches as Internet shortcuts.

I’ve found a few glitches, including one that’s very annoying. I use Outlook Express only as a news reader and not for e-mail; that means the newsgroup files get indexed, and I can search for words, phrases or people just by entering store:oe as one search term.

But here’s the glitch: The resulting list contains a series of posts that include the search term I specified. Some posts are HTML, some are plain text. I can preview the text posts, but the preview pane is blank for the HTML-formatted messages. I’ve searched the FAQ and the newsgroup and find nothing to indicate that this is a known glitch. Outlook files can be previewed regardless of their format.

Anyone from the MSN team reading this and want to comment? Scoble, can you forward this to someone who might be able to help?

More details about RSS in Longhorn

Microsoft has a new home page for RSS in Longhorn. Here’s a reasonably simplified explanation of RSS Support in Longhorn. The specification itself is here.

This license information appears at the bottom of the specification page:

Microsoft’s copyrights in this specification are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License (version 2.5). To view a copy of this license, please visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/. As to software implementations, Microsoft is not aware of any patent claims it owns or controls that would be necessarily infringed by a software implementation that conforms to the specification’s extensions. If Microsoft later becomes aware of any such necessary patent claims, Microsoft also agrees to offer a royalty-free patent license on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms and conditions to any such patent claims for the purpose of publishing and consuming the extensions set out in the specification.

Dean Hachamovich has some comments here.

Oh, and those who were wondering whether XML support in Office 12 will be a big deal can now put their skepticism to rest. Yes, this will have huge implications for Office 12, and I think you can safely assume that the ability to create and consume RSS will be a big part of the next version of Office.

More on Microsoft and RSS

Joe Wilcox at Microsoft Monitor has a series of three posts on Microsoft’s RSS Platform. (Part 2 is here and Part 3 is here.) They’re well worth reading, with some interesting insights and a nice historical overview. It’s too bad the first post in the series starts with a big mistake:

Microsoft will introduce proprietary tags to RSS, which it will make available under a Creative Commons license.

Proprietary means the format is owned by one company, and if anyone wants to use it they have to pay a royalty, or reverse-engineer it, or reinvent the wheel. These extensions are being released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license, whose terms read:

You are free:

to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work
to make derivative works
to make commercial use of the work

The extensions Microsoft announced today are not “proprietary.” Exactly the opposite, in fact.

Wow! Microsoft releases new RSS standards under a Creative Commons license

I’m listening to the live stream of Dean Hachamovitch’s keynote at Gnomedex, where Larry Lessig just gave a public thank you to Microsoft for its decision to make its new list extension to the RSS standard available under a Creative Commons license. For those who don’t remember, Lessig was the special master appointed by Judge Jackson in the Microsoft antitrust trial. For him to give a shout-out to the folks in Redmond is a very big deal.

The press release has some details:

Microsoft Corp. today announced support for RSS (Really Simple Syndication) in the next version of the Microsoft^® Windows^® operating system, code-named “Longhorn.” The RSS functionality in “Longhorn” is being designed to make it simple for end users to discover, view and subscribe to RSS feeds, as well as make it easier for developers to incorporate the rich capabilities of RSS into their applications. In addition, Microsoft announced Simple List Extensions, a set of extensions to RSS that can be used to enable Web sites to publish lists such as of photo albums, music playlists and top 10 lists as RSS feeds. Microsoft is making the specification freely available via the Creative Commons license, the same license under which the RSS 2.0 specification was released. …

The RSS support in the “Longhorn” platform includes the following:

Common RSS Feed List. This core feature of Windows maintains a common list of the user’s subscriptions across all applications. This allows the user to subscribe to a feed once and have all RSS-enabled applications able to access the common list to view the subscriptions.

Common RSS Data Store. A common data store will provide a single location where applications can access content that has been downloaded to the PC via RSS, including text, pictures, audio, calendar events, documents and just about anything else. All applications will have access to this content for creating rich user experiences.

RSS Platform Sync Engine. The sync engine will automatically download data and enclosures for use by any application. The engine is designed for efficiency, using idle network bandwidth whenever possible to limit the effect on the user’s Internet experience. Developers can use the platform to get RSS data without having to manage details such as synchronization schedules or subscriptions.

What does all this mean? The unexciting opportunity is for publishers to deliver more Top 10 lists that can be updated regularly in an RSS-enabled client. The more exciting opportunity is that you can build your own list – your favorite restaurants, photos, performers, writers, technology analysts. Using RSS, you can have those lists updated automatically and share them with other people.

Exciting.

Channel 9 video with first public demo of IE7 is here.

Bluffing for startup money

A CNET News article from last week, High-stakes start-ups, paints an unusual picture of one of my favorite software companies:

Sitting at his desk in a small, stuffy office in a gritty corner of San Francisco’s South of Market district, [Brad] Meador is nonchalant about the win. It’s just another Wednesday morning at ClearContext, a software start-up that’s keeping the lights on and the servers running with the aid of its founders’ online poker winnings.

Meador, who is head of operations at ClearContext, and Deva Hazarika, the chief executive officer, have been playing poker in lieu of collecting paychecks for the past year while working to get their three-person company off the ground. After logging 50 or more hours a week at the office, each one spends another 10 to 15 hours, usually on weekends and evenings, at their favorite poker sites…

The point of the article, apparently, is that the go-go 1990’s are long gone, and startups have to be more frugal and creative. But I really wonder about the wisdom of allowing your company to be profiled this way. If ClearContext wants to make it to the next level, they’re going to need more capital at some point. Do you think any outside investor will give a seven-figure check to a group of people who choose to spend 15 hours a week playing poker online? Most VCs do background checks on their partners-to-be and will disqualify someone who appears to have a gambling habit, because they don’t want their partners dipping into the seed money when they hit a losing streak at the tables.

I’m not being a moralist or a fuddy-duddy. I used to play the horses. A lot. I was very good at it and could probably have supported a small start-up on my winnings. I still enjoy a day at the races, although I don’t get to go more than once or twice a year anymore. I also know a couple of professional poker players, the kind who were traveling the country playing in local tournaments long before the current poker obsession got started.

But let’s not kid ourselves. I went to the track because I liked to play the ponies, and I worked hard at being better than the competition. It took many hours of study and preparation to become an expert at that game, and I filled a lot of notebooks and databases with information, back in those pre-Internet days. My poker-playing buddies play because they enjoy the rush of winning, and they’ll be the first to tell you that consistently winning at poker is hard work. The guys at ClearContext are playing poker because they like the rush. If they’re routinely winning, it’s because they’re beating up on chumps and rubes, and they could be in for a rude shock if some real pros ever show up at their virtual table.

MSN replies on tabbed browsing

Denise Ho, a Microsoft product manager working on the MSN Search Toolbar, has this update on tabs:

Our goal in delivering this feature was to give IE users a tabbed browsing solution to enhance overall online search and browse experiences prior to the official release of IE7 without them having to install a completely new browser.

Many of you have reported a flicker when you switch tabs. We understand that this is bothersome and are actively working on improvements to reduce the tab flicker. There have also been reports of issues associated with tabs and using F11 in IE to get to full screen mode. We are also looking into a fix for this.

Give MSN credit for linking to at least five posts criticizing the performance and implementation of the tabbed browsing feature in the latest MSN Desktop Search toolbar (including mine, but not this one, to no one’s surprise). An improved version of the toolbar should be available soon, they promise.