Category Archives: internet

blogging, internet, microsoft, windows

More RSS madness from Microsoft – this time it’s Live Mail

Once upon a time I was enthusiastic about the “common feed list” in Windows. I thought there was all sorts of potential for sharing and synchronizing content across the network. When it was introduced, Microsoft called it the Windows RSS Platform, though it gets installed as part of IE7.

What’s curious is that even Microsoft doesn’t seem to use the platform in the way it was (presumably) intended. I opened up Windows Live Mail 2009 today (I use it only occasionally as a newsgroup reader), and was puzzled to see 6724 unread feed items.

What’s going on? Well, I use the IE7 feed list and access it either in IE7 or in my own home-brew reader, which uses the COM API to the common feed list.

Windows Live Mail had grabbed the list of feeds and made its own copy of all the data. Am I sure? Yes, first because of this suspicious option in Live Mail:

“When deleting a feed here, also delete it from your Internet Explorer feed list” – implying synchronization, not a common database. Note also the jargon; the Live Mail folk clearly think of this as a feature of IE, not a feature of Windows.

I also took a look in:

C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Live Mail\Your Feeds\

and there is was, a copy of all the entries in X-MimeOLE format. The real common feed list, by contrast, is stored in:

C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Feeds

It is not quite as bad as it first appears. When I chose to sync the feeds in Live Mail, the unread items synchronized with those in IE7. I am also hopeful that the data is only retrieved from the Internet once. though it is hard to be sure. A quick experiment suggests that if you delete a feed in IE7, it stays in Live Mail, though it no longer updates (one or other of these facts could be a bug). If you delete a feed in Live Mail it is deleted from IE7 unless, presumably, the box in the dialog above is checked.

The Outlook team made a similar error, but worse, because the feeds end up messing up your Exchange mailbox as well.

So why doesn’t Live Mail simply present a view of the common feed list, like my home-brew reader? Well, maybe the API is not robust or fast enough. The solution then is to fix the common feed list, not to do all this error-prone synchronization.

The whole thing would make more sense if the feed list was synchronized with the cloud, so that I could also read my feeds on the Web, in the style of Google Reader. Despite the name, Live Mail seems thoroughly bound to the desktop. It is simply an update to Outlook Express.

cloud computing, internet, microsoft, silverlight, software development

Office Ribbon in Silverlight – amazing stuff from divelements SandRibbon

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I blinked when I tried the live demo of SandRibbon for Silverlight, from divelements. It looks remarkably like Office 2007:

The control is in beta, and promises:

All the commonly-used functionality of the Office 2007 UI is made available for you to use with this product, and most of the less common functionality too. Customers who have used SandRibbon for WPF will find the API familiar. The visual constructs used are compatible with all other Silverlight controls, both built-in and third-party.

The company already has a sandcontrol control for WPF. However, the Silverlight control shows how well you can replicate the look and feel of a desktop application in a cross-platform browser application. Now, put this together with the automatic online/offline synch in Live Mesh, and you could have a version of Office with seamless online and offline support. Microsoft may deliver something like this in the web versions of Office 14, though it is going to have one eye on its lucrative desktop sales and I doubt whether it will really exploit what is now possible.

google, internet, software development, web authoring

Want Google Earth in your browser? Don’t use Google Chrome.

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I’ve been trying various mapping APIs and took a look at Google’s new Earth browser plug-in. It looked a bit odd in IE7 so I tried Google Chrome. Not supported:

Given that it now works in Safari on the Mac (which also uses Webkit) I’m a little surprised. No doubt the team will add it soon, but this sort of thing doesn’t help Chrome adoptiom.

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internet, microsoft, silverlight, web authoring

Web app with Silverlight and Virtual Earth

I’m writing on mapping applications right now and came across this impressive example from Port Metro Vancouver. It uses Microsoft’s Silverlight and Virtual Earth. The bit you want is the interactive map on the home page. Wait for it to load, then click the uncaptioned button (to the right of Webcams Wall) for full screen mode, and try some of the menu options.

There is more about the app in this blog entry on the Virtual Earth for Public Sector blog.

.net, internet, microsoft, software development, windows, windows 7

Windows Azure: since PDC, how is it going?

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At the Professional Developers Conference 2008, held at the end of October 2008, Microsoft unveiled Windows Azure, its new cloud platform. I was there, and got the impression that this is a big deal for Microsoft; arguably the future of the company depends on it. It is likely that the industry will reduce its use of on-premise servers in favour of hosted applications, and if Microsoft is to preserve its overall market share it needs a credible cloud platform.

That was nearly two months ago. What’s been the developer reaction, and how is it going with the early tech previews made available at PDC? It’s hard to tell; but there is less public activity than I expected. On the official Azure forums there are just 550 messages at the time of writing; and glancing through them shows that many of them are from people simply having difficulty signing up. One of the problems is that access to the preview is limited by developer tokens of various types, and although Microsoft gave the impression at PDC that all attendees would have these, that has not really been the case. Those who attended hands-on labs at PDC got tokens there; others have had to apply and wait like everyone else. Part of the reason for lack of activity may just be that not many have been able to get in.

There are other issues too. I’ve spent some time trying out Live Framework and building applications for Live Mesh. I’ve written this up separately, in a piece that will be posted shortly. However, I found it harder than I expected to get good information on how to proceed. There is plenty of high-level marketing, but hands-on documentation is lacking. Azure may be different – though I was interested to find another user with similar frustrations (it’s worth reading this thread, as Microsoft’s moderator Yi-Lun Luo gives a handy technical outline of Azure and Live Services).

Still, let’s bear in mind that PDC is where Microsoft shares early technical information about the Windows platform, which is subject to change. Anyone who built applications for the preview Windows Longhorn code doled out at PDC 2003 (Paul Thurrott’s report is a reminder of what it felt like at the time) would have been in for some disappointment – Longhorn was both greatly delayed and much altered for its eventual release as Windows Vista.

It’s possible then that most developers are wisely waiting for the beta of Azure before doing serious experimentation. Alternatively – the bleakest outcome for Microsoft – they are ignoring Azure and presuming that if and when they do migrate applications to the cloud they will use some other platform.

Nevertheless, I’d suggest that Microsoft’s evangelism of Azure has been poor since PDC. There is more buzz about other things presented there – including Windows 7, which in contrast to Azure seems nearly done.

Update

Matt Rogers from Microsoft comments below that the service is not going to change radically between now and general release. He claims that feedback is extensive, but not evident in the online forums because it comes from other sources – he told me on Twitter that “we are getting much of it directly through relationships with customers, local user group meetings and through our evangelists”.

Maarten Balliauw has converted an application to Azure and written up the experience on his blog. He is using Azure TableStorage for data and Live ID for authentication. He says:

Overall, Microsoft is doing a good job with Azure. The platform itself seems reliable and stable, the concept is good.

Unfortunately the app itself does not work at the time of writing.

adobe, internet, multimedia, software

BBC iPlayer AIR app brings downloads to Mac and Linux

I’ve successfully installed the new BBC iPlayer AIR application on Windows, Mac and Linux – and I’m mostly impressed so far. The main snag is that you have to click the Labs tester button on a separate page before the  download works – but this isn’t mentioned on the download page. Another usability issue is that when you start up the app it invites you start downloading; you click the link, and the iPlayer web site opens in your default browser with no advice on what to do next. You have to find a programme which includes a download to computer link – most of them do not. I found a Roy Orbison documentary that worked (no, that’s not Roy Orbison in the pic, but another singer).

This was a better experience than early days with the old download iPlayer, though on Linux (Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex) I found that I needed to fiddle with the settings and allocate some disk space specifically before it would accept downloads.

An interesting aspect of the new iPlayer is that it replaces a peer-to-peer download system with a direct download. I discussed the implications of this at some length with both Anthony Rose at the BBC, and with a couple of ISPs, when I was researching an interview for the Guardian. In the end there wasn’t enough space to include much of this technical detail, though I’m hoping to post some of it in the near future.

A quick summary: the ISPs are not in favour of peer-to-peer because it is less efficient. Typically, all the retries cause approximately double the amount of data to be transferred (according to my source). That said, they don’t like the BBCs move towards Level 3 rather than Akamai, because it works out more expensive for them. ISPs could install their own box to stream the BBCs content, saving them operational money, but these apparently are expensive to buy and install; I was told that the iPlayer’s traffic does not yet justify it, but if it grows to say twice what it is now, it will become economic.

The biggest cost though is the last step, from the ISP to the user. This is where the cable companies (mostly Virgin Media) have a big advantage, since the cable goes to your doorstep, and is designed to accommodate digital broardcasts. ISPs that have taken advantage of local loop unbundling are also relatively well placed. Those that pay BT wholesale for the traffic are the most vulnerable.

The other important point is that there is always something you can do to manage increased traffic – though not necessarily quickly. If everyone in the UK suddenly tries to watch HD video at the same time, the system will seize up, but that won’t happen. What will happen is that increasing numbers of people will find that their cheap transfer-limited packages are no longer sufficient and they will need to upgrade.

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ebay, internet

Former eBay scientist complains of “Dilbertian compromises”

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Former eBay scientist Raghav Gupta – who composed a farewell poem – has given an interview in which he talks about the difficulty of getting innovations deployed at eBay:

There is actually a lot of good innovation happening nowadays in terms of demos and prototypes and contests, but hardly anything worthwhile ever makes it out. The personal cost of having to push something down the approval and implementation pipeline is so great that very few are able to persevere. And whatever does get out usually suffers through so many Dilbertian compromises that it is missing the core aspect of the original idea.

You should never judge a company on the basis of comments from departed employees (though Gupta left of his own volition). That said, there is plenty of evidence that eBay is pursuing a policy that is punishing sellers (that is, its customers) in favour of buyers, as well as increasing its fees. The bizarre ratings policy, in which sellers rated as good by buyers get suspended, is one example. Good sellers get suspended for other reasons too, apparently, and I have learned a new bit of jargon as a result – “dolphin”:

Dolphins are those sellers that get suspended by eBay because their system automatically singles them out for skirting the rules or something more grievous, yet if a human actually looked at the sellers account they would find it was a simple mistake and now they are screwed.

according to Randy Smythe, who is chronicling Dolphin stories on his blog.

Another thing I’ve noticed is that eBay’s default search results (which you cannot change globally) are now ordered in what it calls “Best Match”, according to an unknown algorithm, rather than the old system of “Time: Ending soonest”. This change gives eBay the ability to promote sellers it likes at the expense of sellers it does not like – though I do not know whether it uses Best Match in this way. If your items are always several pages away according to “Best match”, it is unlikely you will make many sales. Sellers are now having to discuss “Best Match” optimization techniques similar to Search Engine Optimization on the wider web.

Plenty of frustration for small sellers, then, and the trend at eBay seems to be towards fixed-price sales from large vendors, though of course you can still grab an auction bargain on occasion.

Gupta suggests that sellers get together and invent an alternative eBay on a mutual ownership basis. A nice idea, though eBay is dominant and it won’t be easy to dent its market share. Most disgruntled sellers seem to head for Amazon marketplace.

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internet, microsoft

Microsoft’s three ways to store stuff online

Windows Live Sync has just been released. This is an update to FolderShare, a file synchronization service which Microsoft acquired from Byte Taxi in 2005. The new version supports up to 20 folders and 20,000 files, supports Unicode, and still works on both Windows and Mac. It has also been migrated to Windows Live ID, breaking existing shared access lists and apparently causing much pain for existing users, especially on Macs, judging by the comments here.

But why does Live Sync exist? Most of what it does is a subset of what is available in Live Mesh, which as I understand it is a strategic product. I prefer Mesh, since synchronized files are also stored on the Internet for browser access. Another flaw in Live Sync is that if you enable remote access to folders on your PC that are not sync folders, the files are transferred without encryption.

Finally, let’s not forget SkyDrive, free online storage of up to 25GB. I use this regularly; it works nicely when you just want to stick some files (especially large ones) on the web without worrying about the complexities of synchronization.

Why doesn’t Microsoft integrate SkyDrive with the Mesh online desktop as an online-only storage area, and scrap Live Sync completely – sorry, “roll its functionality into Live Mesh”, in PR-speak?

facebook, google, internet, microsoft

BBC looking at OpenID for iPlayer social network

At Adobe’s MAX conference in Milan last week I spoke to the BBC’s Anthony Rose, who runs iPlayer at the BBC, and wrote this up for today’s Guardian. One of the things we discussed is social networking planned for iPlayer, where you will be able to see comments, ratings and recommendations from your friends. I asked Rose how user identities will be managed:

“We’ll make sure you never have to log in to use our services. But if you want to post comments and create a profile then you’ll need to log in. We’re going to start by using a BBC one, then we’re going to look at OpenID and see if we can synch to others. OpenID is very cool but is a challenging user experience, and some people will get it, and some will go, why have you made it more difficult?”

Right now there are multiple competing “networks of friends”: Facebook, MySpace, Microsoft Live Messenger, Twitter and so on. Facebook is trying to extend its reach with Facebook Connect; Google is evangelising OpenSocial which “defines a common API for social applications across multiple websites”, along with an implementation called Friend Connect. It will be interesting to see to what extent the BBC creates yet another social network, and to what extent it hooks into existing ones.

adobe, flash, internet, java, multimedia, Sun, web authoring

Sun’s JavaFX is launched: another go at applets

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Sun has launched JavaFX.

 
Sun’s Eric Klein, VP of Java Marketing, explains JavaFX

What is it? Sun says:

JavaFX is a rich client platform for building cross-device applications and content. Designed to enable easy creation and deployment of rich internet applications (RIAs) with immersive media and content, the JavaFX platform ensures that RIAs look and behave consistently across diverse form factors and devices.

What is it really? A new script language called JavaFX; a compiler that turns JavaFX script into Java bytecode; a runtime that includes new media codecs; converters that turn SVG, PhotoShop or Illustrator graphics into JavaFX format. JavaFX also requires the JRE (Java Runtime Environment). Currently only Windows and Mac OS X are supported; Linux and Solaris support “will be provided in a future release”; mobile is also on the way, promised for Spring 2009.

A variety of video and audio codecs are supported, but unfortunately these vary by platform. For example, WMV plays only on Windows; H.264 runs on Mac but on Windows only “as an update”, whatever that means. However, there is a specific “cross-platform” codec, which is VP6 from On2. Snag: you need On2’s commercial software to convert to the required .FXM format.

What’s good about JavaFX? Sun claims broadest market reach; but this is nonsense – I presume it is counting every device with a smidgen of Java installed. There are some advantages though. JavaFX can run Java code, and there’s plenty of that out there. The Java VM is mature and fast. A neat feature is that you can run JavaFX applications outside the browser by dragging them onto the desktop. Even in the browser, Java FX are not confined to the browser window, but can create graphics that appear anywhere on the screen. Java SE 6 update 10 or higher is required for these features, which depend on an out of process Java applet plugin in this update.

What’s bad about JavaFX? There are several reasons why Sun will find this a hard sell:

  • Large download size. Flash and Silverlight are self-contained browser plug-ins; Silverlight is larger than Flash, but still under 5MB. I’m not sure exactly what size JavaFX is on a machine without Java. I tried visiting javafx.com on a new XP install, and was directed to the main Java download site which recommended a JRE of about 7MB; I suspect it might do further incremental downloads after that, since the full JRE is more like 15MB. Once the JRE is in, you still need to install the JavaFX runtime, though is done automatically and I imagine that in time JavaFX will just be part of the JRE. Right now, the process is less smooth than for Flash or Silverlight.
  • Lack of design tools. Adobe has its fantastic Creative Suite, most of which now seems to target Flash. Microsoft has Expression. Sun is offering converters for Photoshop and Illustrator or SVG. These applications know nothing about JavaFX, and there is no visual editor in NetBeans 6.5.
  • A new language. Although JavaFX script does not look particularly difficult to learn, it is friction for developers wanting to give it a try.
  • Signs of haste. I’m seeing this now. When I saw the JavaFX announcement, I went to the site and successfully installed the runtime and played the introductory video, which itself uses JavaFX. Soon after, presumably as word spread, the launch site became unusable for me. Videos do not play; samples do not download. The spin will be that this shows the high level of interest; but vendors like Sun are meant to understand about scalability.

     
    JavaFX.com showing signs of stress on launch day

  • Late to the party. Adobe is well entrenched with Flash. If Microsoft is late with Silverlight, Sun is very late with JavaFX.
  • Limited features. I’m just back from Adobe MAX, learning about features like Pixel Bender in Flash Player 10, and its new text rendering engine, and new audio API. The JavaFX API looks limited by comparison. There is no 3D support yet.
  • Lack of compelling reasons for adoption. You can run Java code; but then again, Java applets and desktop Java clients have been around for many years. I can see the value in both Flash and Silverlight, but what is the must-have feature of JavaFX?
  • Platform variation. It bothers me that JavaFX supports different codecs on different platforms. What happened to write once – run everywhere?

What else? It’s early days. I’d like to hear from Designers whether JavaFX does what they need. JavaFX will improve, and it does have obvious value for Java developers who want to code rich internet applications. Sun’s commitment to open source may make JavaFX interesting to those who find Flash and Silverlight too tightly locked to single vendors.

Some details above are drawn from the JavaFX FAQ.