Web Things, by Mark Baker

Here’s a question for the MEST-heads; how does MEST differ from the architectural style that would describe the architecture of Internet based email?

Four trips to the Bay Area so far this year, and Air Canada bungles two of them, including the one currently underway.

I’ll now be arriving late this afternoon, missing the SDForum thing and Pat Helland’s talk. Yay.

Another convert, thanks to John Cowan’s Extreme presentation
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Ben Carlyle wonders;

I’ve been very serouslying[sic] considering dropping the only new http verb I’ve introduced for HttpSubscription: SUBSCRIBE. […] I’m coming around to the idea of saying this is simply a GET.

Very wise, young Padawan. As Roy says;

In the REST style, consuming components usually pull representations. Although this is less efficient when viewed as a single client wishing to monitor a single resource, the scale of the Web makes an unregulated push model infeasible.

Amen to that. It’s like all these companies are afraid that they might miss out on the opportunity to gouge a would-be successful value-adding service.
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Wow. Some incredible photos of the storm.
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My ISP’s giving me a new static IP, so I have to update DNS. As a result, my web site and blog may be unavailable for a while until your server gets that update. That used to take a couple of days, but I think takes just a few hours (if that) nowadays.

Ok, so rather than just bitch about it, I’ve devised a solution to the URL masquerading problem; use Javascript.

Google, Yahoo – you know what to do.

Well, doesn’t this just take the cake.

Apparently the predictability of success for Web services is so difficult, that Software AG has simply opted for a larger target by claiming that 2000-2010 is the decade of Web services. Sure beats those annual bets.

Note to Software AG; the decade’s half over, and the first half wasn’t exactly what one would call a winner for Web services. Are you sure your money’s on the right horse? You did you know there was another horse, right? At this point, if your bet isn’t at least a quiniela, that includes REST, you might as well go home. Me, I’m playing the REST/MEST exacta.

I guess they’ve been doing this for a few days (weeks?) now, but it’s pissing me off so much that it’s compelled me to speak out …

Turn off the freaking URL masquerading!

If you don’t know what I mean, perform any Google search, then move your mouse over the first link result and check the bottom bar that shows you the URL. Notice that you don’t see the expected;

http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc3092.html

but instead you see;

http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=1&url=http%3A//www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc3092.html&ei=wcohQ4iuGYuc-gGEua2HAw

One of my most common uses of Google is to do my search, then right-click on the link result I’m looking for, do “Copy Link Location”, then paste the URL into whatever I happen to be editing; a web page, a blog entry, a report, whatever. Now I either have to dereference the URI and copy the resulting URL in the browser bar – slowing me down while that happens – or cut-and-paste the green partial URL (minus scheme) that the Google search result also gives me – also slowing me down, as I have to highlight the text, then paste it and prepend it with “http://”. Grrr..

Why do you forsake me, Google?

I think I’ll take this opportunity to give Yahoo search a try … erm, WTF?! They do it too?!

P.S. I wonder if Nelson had anything to do with this? 8-)

Update; interesting, I just noticed this; it’s only the first result that is mangled. Hmm, looks like I’ll have to learn to craft my searches such that what I want shows at #2 …

Next update; It looks like there’s more to this than meets the eye. Also, I’ve hacked together an alternative Javascript solution that Google could use.