Friday, August 29, 2003
nBlog, XML-RPC for the Newton, and nHTML have been updated. No other features have been added, but the application expiration date has been extended to 2/25/2004. Scroll down to the download links below for downloading instructions.
- http://www.tow.com/weblog/newton_web_apps.hqx
- http://www.tow.com/weblog/newton_web_apps.zip
-adam
-adam 8:16 PM
Thursday, May 22, 2003
I'm back.
-adam 9:39 AM
Tuesday, March 25, 2003
I am here sitting in the Printer's Inc. Cafe with the members of SNUG, demoing my new product. The revolution is almost here!!!
-adam 8:23 PM
Saturday, March 08, 2003
My birthday is tomorrow! And the revolution is coming!
-adam 4:37 PM
Tuesday, March 04, 2003
nBlog, XML-RPC for the Newton, and nHTML have been updated. Apps will now expire on 8/31/2003. Scroll down to the download links below for downloading instructions.
-adam
-adam 12:39 AM
Tuesday, February 25, 2003
I'm at the Palo Alto SNUG meeting. The revolution is coming soon, but but not soon enough that I can demo tonight. Perhaps next week!
-adam 8:54 PM
Sunday, February 16, 2003
I'm at borders in Palo Alto, listening to Vienna Teng. CNN is on location, filming the event! How cool is that?
-adam 3:15 PM
Sunday, February 09, 2003
Cirque du Soleil was pretty amazing last night. I wonder what life under the big top would be like.
-adam 9:45 AM
Saturday, February 08, 2003
Off to see Cirque du Soleil in San Jose now. It'll be my first time seeing them.
-adam 6:57 PM
Tuesday, February 04, 2003
It's 18.53 now, and I'm sitting in Keplers Bookstore in Menlo Park waiting to hear Po Bronson speak about his new book, What Should I Do With My Life. Fortunately for me, I know what I want to do with my life now, but this should remain an interesting talk.
-adam 6:59 PM
I wonder who the people are who have come to this talk. What are their backgrounds, what do theyo, ana are they looking for meaning and purpose in life? It's elusive, finding that which excites and drives you day after day, but once you find it, you don't let go. Believe me, it's a fantastil feeling.
-adam 7:04 PM
err... that should have read, "it's a fantastic feeling." HWR still isn't foolproof. The talk should be starting soon.
-adam 7:06 PM
It's 19.06 and he's here. He looks older than in his press photos.
-adam 7:08 PM
Got my shots. Wouldn't it be great if I could just transfer these photos wirelessly immediately after taking them?
-adam 7:12 PM
At the Stanford Bookstore, I reread the foreword I had written for the Developing Web Applications for the Palm OS. If you want a hint at what I'm working on, that's a good start. I'm excited, and I can't wait until I can reveal this all to the world.
-adam 7:19 PM
They are setting up a makeshift screen for Po's projector. the place is pretty much packed, much like it was when Wen Ho Lee was here to speak about a year ago.
-adam 7:22 PM
he just handed out photocopies of additional chapters from his book. One of them is entitled, "Isn't it clear!? the truth about epiphanies"
-adam 7:28 PM
The show he was writing for was cancelled for Temptation Island. Classic!
-adam 7:37 PM
He's doing a slide show now chronicling the progress of his book.
-adam 7:39 PM
Po has a hypnotic, soothing voice. He's talking from his book, I think' so I am interested in hearing him in plain talk.
-adam 8:00 PM
I think I prefer a short speech, followed by a prolonged Q&A session. Let's hope that happenc after his presentation.
-adam 8:05 PM
he's done with his pres, and is now talking in a little less prepared fashion. He's talking about a person in the crowd.
-adam 8:08 PM
He brought some books he's wrote, curiously enough, in an Amazon.com box!
-adam 8:09 PM
His face was on a cookie! It dawned on him at that moment that he never found the words left unspoken by his protagonists ia his first novel.
-adam 8:13 PM
He was a math whiz in HS and studied Econ at Stanford. he didn't take any writing classes in college, though he did write an essay for the Daily in his senior year.
-adam 8:15 PM
rounding errors as dangerous as the ebola virus! (story from his first job after college)
-adam 8:18 PM
parasite entrepreneurism, funny greeting card company story
-adam 8:25 PM
at last, questions & answer time!
-adam 8:30 PM
Thursday, January 30, 2003
New versions of nHTML, nBlog, and XML-RPC for the Newton have been released. No new features or bug fixes have been added, but the apps will now expire on March 1, 2003.
-adam 9:52 AM
The link to download the files remains the same. Check out the January 11th entry for more details.
-adam 9:53 AM
Sunday, January 26, 2003
Though I wanted the Raiders to win, the Buccaneers were the better team and a worthy Super Bowl champion.
-adam 9:25 PM
Thursday, January 23, 2003
Isn't wireless blogging cool?
-adam 12:15 PM
The tide is turning.Wireless is where it is at!
-adam 9:23 PM
Tuesday, January 21, 2003
Updates have been few and far between. Been pretty busy with some very interesting products which will see the light of day soon. Stay tuned!
-adam 7:57 PM
Saturday, January 11, 2003
New version of nBlog, nHTML and XML-RPC for the Newton are available
You can download preview versions of nBlog, nHTML, and XML-RPC for the Newton from here:
nHTML is now version 2.0b10, XML-RPC is version 1.0a7 and nBlog is 1.0a5. These apps will expire at the end of January.
-adam 1:08 PM
Thursday, January 09, 2003
I Have Arrived
Just got to Macworld. Remember, the Newton Gathering will be at the Internet Cafe at 1:00pm.
-adam 11:35 AM
I Have Arrived
Just got to Macworld. Remember, the Newton Gathering will be at the Internet Cafe at 1:00pm. Talking to Brian Hall from Mark Space, Inc... Check out their Missing Sync product.
-adam 11:42 AM
Smaller Than Last Year?
This year's shwroom space seems smaller than last year. Do other people at MacWorld agree? Damn, I should have added a comments section to this blog!
If you want you can post comments on my previous photo journal entry on this site.
-adam 11:56 AM
Photography
Just met this guy who shoots with the Leica DigiLux. I had to ask him if it has the Seurat Pointillism feature. It does, so as long as you shoot in ISO400 mode. Bummer.
-adam 12:44 PM
Photography
Just met this guy who shoots with the Leica DigiLux. I had to ask him if it has the Seurat Pointillism feature. It does, so as long as you shoot in ISO400 mode. Bummer.
Just met a gentleman named Thomas Ritter. At Stanford, I lived in the French House with a another Thomas Ritter, who runs Amikai. The Ritter I met just now also uses a Canon D60 digital camera. Cool!
It's 13:04 right now, and I am waiting for the Newton users to start appearing at the Internet Cafe where I am right now. Anyone coming?
The Airport network here must be saturated witb users. I am finding it difficult to get a reliable connection. Let's hope that I am not making a million duplicate posts when I get a host not responding error and have to repost!
-adam 12:50 PM
Nancy and Scott
Nancy and Scott just popped up and said hello! They worked with Rae and me on Rae's Qiu-Jin documentary. can't believe that its almost been one year since we filmed their sequence!
-adam 1:27 PM
What's Newton?
People are coming up to me, asking me what this device is or if that's "one of those Newton things."
Yeah! Another Newton user just showed up, Dale Steele! Let the gathering begin. Grant H. let Dale know about this gathering. Thanks Grant!
It's 15:07 now, and just finished talking with Carl Stone, with whom I worked with at Palm. I have been running into a bunch of people from COBA, Palm, Apple, Newton and more. I think Dale and I made some new Newton converts!
We got Dale's Newton working with his wireless card. I configured nBlog for him and Dale updated his blog . Check it out!!!
-adam 1:34 PM
Canon 1Ds
What a camera. Same body as my trusty 1D, but with an 11MP CMOS sensor. Drool!
This would be a great camera for weddings and landscape photography.
-adam 3:39 PM
Lunatic ESex
Just ran into Lunatic at the small developers booth. I hope he can make it to the Ninth Anniversary SNUG Meeting at the end of this month!
-adam 4:01 PM
COBA Members!
Just ran into Glenn and Roger, two COBA Member. Glenn recently got a 1Ds and absolutely loves it! I want one, but at $7500, it is a bit expensive, especially when you add in the cost of a new PowerBook!
-adam 4:15 PM
Tuesday, January 07, 2003
Good Morning
It's 6:12 an right now, and it's way too early to be up now. Then again, this time yesterday. I was still up and coding like a madman! In this case, the early bird gets a front seat for Apple's keynote!
Airport access at the Apple Store. It's 7:52 am now. Woo hoo! I'm in line with the folks from MacSlash, Neil and Ben , along with Ashton and Mike.
Ashton was the first person in line, arriving shortly before 7:00 am. I think last year there were many more people in line this time. Now that it's 8:02am, there are a few more people in the line, including fellow SNUG member, Randeep.
-adam 6:20 AM
So, here's my guess on what Apple is working on. They might not release it today, but I bet that we'll see something like this from Apple in the next few years (or another company). If Apple does release a tablet-like computer, it's not going to be like a TabletPC. Rather, it's going to be a wireless webpad that communicates to a host computer via 802.11. 802.11b might be too slow at 11Mbps to send a video signal (or is it?) so Apple might use either 802.11a or 802.11g in this product.
The tablet will have a touch-screen that sends taps, clicks, and what not back to the host computer for processing. Inkwell would work much better since you write directly on the screen instead of on a separate tablet.
The machine wouldn't need a large hard drive, if at all one, since it would retrieve all its data wirelessly through Airport. Or, it could have a FW port to plug an iPod in.
Costs would be down since there isn't a need to have a hulking G4 processor. They could use the leftover G3 processors from the iBook to power this thing. After all, all it needs to do is send a video signal and a few commands back and forth to the host computer! With TabletPC's hovering near $2000, releasing a device for $1000 would be a major coup for Apple.
Who knows if this is what Apple is planning. If they're not, they should be thinking about this, as it would be a great product.
I'm off to the Apple Store in Palo Alto.
-adam 7:11 AM
Ah, the speculation begins among the people in line! A video iPod? My guess of a wireless tablet? AirPort2? Will WOZ come out on stage to rouse the crowd before Jobs' appearance?
I would think everyone is from around the Bay Area but the MacSlash folks are from WA and Ashton & Jason are from Pasadena. Dang! These are the Apple faithful!
-adam 8:34 AM
We're In!
They just opened the doors to the Apple Store! We're in!
-adam 8:49 AM
Digital Cameras
Took some fun pictures at the store just now. Right now, there isn't an easy Way to transfer images from Digital Cameras from mobile devices. Image file sizes are getting larger and larger, and upload speeds are still too slow.
All this will change in time, of course, and when that happens, there'll be more exciting mobile apps available.
-adam 9:02 AM
Keynote
It's 9:07 am now. The keynote will begin shortly.
There he is, Steve Jobs. 9:10 am.
Updates
Jobs is talking about the Switcher campaign now. 7.8 million unique visitors. 68 % Of them are Windows 0wners.
Apple Store update. 85 million people live within 15 miles of an Apple Store.$148 million in revenues last quarter. 50% of sales to Windows owners. 1.4 million people visited the Apple stores last month.
Apple Education update about X for Teachers.
iCal update. 750 calendars available on iCalshare. He glossed over iSync and has moved to talking about .Mac.
Now he's talking about the iPod. They've shipped 600,000 iPods since they were launched 14 months ago. Working with Burton, they've released a jacket that holds your iPod. It can also change the volume with controls on the sleeve!
MacOS X
5 million users on X. He made a joke about Quark which still hasn't released an x version of Xpress.
DigiDesign Pro Tools demo. My friend Eric works there!
Final Cut Express, a lite Version of Final Cut Pro. It looks and feels just like FCP. The price for this product will be $299.
5,000 native apps today. All new products Are not going to boot in OS 9. Freudian slip there as Jobs said OS9 instead of 0SX there!
Digital Hub
-adam 9:09 AM
iLife, The Digital Hub
Tremendous interaction between all the appkations 'n the Digital Hub. Jobs Says they are going to do to the digital hub what Microsoft did to productivity with Office.
iPhoto2
iPhoto2 integrated with iTunes. 1-click photo enhance and archive to CD and DVD. Integration with iDVD3. 1-click photo enhance looks similar to Photoshop's Auto-color feature. Retouch looks like a powerful healing brush feature.
iMovie3
Ken Burns Effect and precise audio editing. Chapters integrate with iDVD to automatically show a scene selection Menu!
iDVD3
Full integration with iPhoto2, iMovie3, & iTunes3. Lots of new features! Very impressive indeed.
$3 for a box of DVD's
Pricing
$49 for a box including iDVD3. The other apps are free.
-adam 9:38 AM
Is Anyone Reading This?
If so send me an email!
-adam 9:58 AM
Reality Distortion Field
Jobs' Reality Distortion Field is in full gear right now.
-adam 10:01 AM
Safari
First major new browser in 5 years. OpenSource, based on KHTML rendering engine. Beta release starting today!
speed
Fastest browser on the Mac. But is it faster than PC browsers?
Innovate
Google integration. New way of looking at bookmarks.
Demo
Every website in your Address book shows up in your Bookmarks Library. Cool!
-adam 10:06 AM
Steve Jobs' Hair
I think Jobs' should try the shaved head look, don't you?
-adam 10:17 AM
Keynote Presentation Software
For when your presentation counts, they've released Keynote.
He's used it for every Macworld keynote in 2002. They built the app for him.
Alignment goides, full alpha channel support. Themes support.
This is a very impressive presentation software package.
Imports and exports PowerPoint. Supports PDF and Quicktime. XML based file format.
How much for Keynote? $99, available today. Everyone in the auditorium at Moscone gets a free copy.
-adam 10:20 AM
Hardware
Are there any hardware announcements on tap at this keynote?
-adam 10:31 AM
New Powerbook???
Jobs' says notebooks will eventually outsell desktops.
17-inch PowerBook!!! Thinner than the current PowerBook!
1440x900 displ?, 16:10 aspect ratio. It has a l.ghted keyboard, an industry first!
6.8 lbs, built out of hard annodized Aluminum. 1GHz G4 with firewire 800.
wireless
Bluetooth and Airport built-in. Airport extreme (802.11g), 54 Mbps! Antennas in the screen.
Airport base station for $199 with USB printing!
The new 17-inch pb will be $3299, shipping next month!
12-inch PowerBook
Smaller than the Duo! $1799!! Shipping in 2 weehs! $199 fom a Superdrive.
-adam 10:37 AM
TV Ads
What else is there to announce at this MacWorld? How I bout Some TV ads. Yao Ming and Mini-Me!
-adam 11:08 AM
Wow
Quite the Macworld, eh? What an impressive showing of products this year!
-adam 11:10 AM
Hello NewtonTalk readers! Thanks for visiting my weblog!
-adam 2:01 PM
Monday, January 06, 2003
nBlog Welcome
Welcome to nBlog, my weblog that I update wirelessly from my Newton MessagePad 2100.
nBlog works alongside nHTML 2.0 and XML-RPC to create one of the most powerful and portable web development environments around. nHTML is much more than an HTML tag generator, and XML-RPC allows you to send almost any object on your Newton, such as a note, name, or package, over the Internet using the industry standard XML-RPC protocol.
Stay tuned for my updates from the showroom floor at MacWorld San Francisco this week!
If you have questions or comments about nBlog, XML-RPC, or nHTML, please visit my web forums and contribute!
-adam 5:02 AM
Thoughts On Newton's Past And Future
People have been writing off the Newton since its inception, yet here we are, nearly five years since its "cancellation" at the hands of Apple, and Newton has shown that it never dies. On the contrary, it many ways, it has continued to advance beyond the capabilities of even the latest handheld offerings from Palm and Microsoft Pocket PC licensees.
Before the Tablet PC, there was the MessagePad 2100. Before the XScale processor, there was the StrongARM SA-110. Before one could play MP3's on the Sony Clie, there was MAD Max and MAD Newton. Handwriting recognition? The Newton's print recognizer is still the best in its class. Want to sync with OS X? It's possible with NewtSync. Thinking of connecting your Newton to a wireless network? It's possible with Hiroshi's 802.11b driver. You can even turn your Newton into a web server!
Applications such as nBlog, nHTML, and XML-RPC bring today's cutting edge web technologies to yesterday's hardware? Is there anything similar for the PalmOS or PocketPC? I don't think so, at least not yet :)
Newton is still relevant today, and it's time for the rest of the world to jump onto the bandwagon. The tagline "Newton never dies, it just gets new batteries," is nice and catchy but is wearing a bit thin. As much as today's technologies can benefit from Newton, so too can Newton benefit from today's advancements in hardware and software. How and when remain the decision not of Apple, but of the community that has remained loyal and faithful to the green.
Tomorrow will feature the keynote by Steve Jobs at the 2003 Macworld in SF. I plan on being at the Apple Store in Palo Alto tomorrow morning to hear it. No one quite knows what Apple is planning to announce, but I doubt that it will have anything to do with handhelds. The market is too saturated and the competitin too fierce for Apple to enter that marketplace. They could release an updated laptop with a touchscreen to compete with the TabletPC. After all, why else would they bundle the "old" Newton Recognizer in Jaguar?
No use in speculating. All will become clear by mid-morning tomorrow. Stay tuned for more updates throughout the day tomorrow!
-adam 4:50 PM
Preview nBlog, nHTML, and XML-RPC for the Newton
Interested in trying out nBlog, nHTML, and XML-RPC on your Newton? Download the preview versions of these applications. The apps will expire on January 13, but they are otherwise quite functional and useful.
System Requirements
- NewtonOS 2.1
- NIE 2.0
- 300KB of storage space
- Ethernet card or 802.11b wireless card
- Newtscape (for viewing HTML pages)
- Blogger account or weblog system like MovableType that supports the Blogger XML-RPC API
Note: The file formats and data structurs for these applications are likely to change before the final release. Be sure to back up your Newton prior to installing and using these apps. nHTML and XML-RPC can be installed on their own, but nBlog requires both nHTML and XML-RPC to be installed.
nHTML
nHTML bears a strong visual resemblance to the HTML Tools Palette in Bare Bones Software's BBEdit, but that's where the similarities end. nHTML is fully customizable, allowing you to create custom tags, attributes, popups, scripts, and buttons. You tie all of these elements together into button sets. nHTML comes with button sets for HTML editing and for commonly accessed applications. Use nHTML as an HTML editor, a launcher, or whatever you wish. It's up to you!
In this version of nHTML, you can only create new button sets, buttons (tag and script buttons only), and scripts. The final release of nHTML will allow you to create new tags, attributes, and popups.
XML-RPC for the NewtonXML-RPC is a package that installs a unit (i.e. shared library) that allows third-party developers to easily create applications that communicate with XML-RPC servers on the Internet. XML-RPC handles all the hassles of converting your NewtonScript data into XML. It will eventually allow you to convert any Newton object accessible through the system-wide routing system for transport over the Internet.
In this preview release of XML-RPC for the Newton, functionality is limited currently to third-party applications. The system-wide transport is visible, but disabled.
nBlognBlog is an appication that turns your Notepad into a portable publishing system. It interface with your weblog systems, such as Blogger or MovableType, in allowing you to publish your thoughts anytime and anywhere.
nBlog requires that both nHTML and XML-RPC for the Newton be installed. It will not work if either one of those applications are missing.
When installed, nBlog will place an item in the Notepad's action button. nBlog only works on individual notes. It does not work with multiply selected notes. Furthermore, nBlog only works with plain notes. Checklists, outlines, and third-party stationery items are not currently supported.
Before you can use nBlog, you must first set up nBlog's preferences. Tap on the Prefs button and enter your information for host, path, port, username, and password.. Tap Save and tap on the Refresh Blog List button to retrieve your list of blogs from the Internet.
Choose the blog that you wish to post to and tap Post & Publish to post your note onto the Internet. Once you have posted a note, you can edit it on your Newton and tap Update & Publish to update the post. If you want to delete the post (but not delete the note), tap the Delete Post button.
Download appsYou can download preview versions of nBlog, nHTML, and XML-RPC for the Newton from here:
Questions and CommentsPlease visit our web forums to talk about these applications, ask questions, and receive troubleshooting assistance.
-adam 7:21 PM
Fixed a couple of bugs in nBlog 1.0a3 and have released version 1.0a4. The download links above have been updated with the new version of nBlog.
Spoke too soon! Version 1.0a5 of nBlog now available. This version adds basic Blogger 2.0 API support.
-adam 9:36 PM
Tonight, I had dinner at Garden Fresh with Randy. Garden Fresh is a vegetarian restaurant in Mountain View that uses a lot of TVP (textured vegetable protein) in its dishes. The food was good, especially the orange faux-steak with broccoli.
It was a good break to get away from the constant coding. Tomorrow, I'll get up early to attend the keynote simulcast at the Palo Alto Apple Store. It's hard to believe that it's been a year since the last Macworld!
Coverage from last year's MacWorld in San Francisco:
-adam 9:58 PM
