Why I don't like Pandora

I really wanted to like Pandora when I first started streaming music there some several years back... the idea of audiomemes appealed to me, but, there were no PEOPLE there! Then one day I discovered WOXY, the greatest internet radio on the planet (who are launching a new music blog today), and never looked back. 6 months back or so, WOXY went off the air, to be resurrected a month later by lala.com, who now give them the support and resources they needed, but had the good sense to leave everything intact.

The lesson: don't mess with success, stand out of the way of the people... and don't mess with this developer's radio!

Cheers WOXY, and thank you lala!

Project CaseBook:

CaseBook is a collection of XML Schema, XSLT and XQuery which allow you to model an application's controls, pages and states at a high level in an XML document, then use this model to generate documentation for manual testing. Information can also be skimmed out of Bugzilla (or any issue management tool with an Atom feed). CaseBook is intended to fill a need for an easy to use knowledge-base for quality assurance data. I began this project as a way to replace a number of Word documents that were constantly out of date.

I am currently in the process of adding CaseBook as an open source project on SourceForge, under GPL.

Because a CaseBook knowledge base can be implemented using exclusively XML technologies which are freely available, it is by design a very extensible solution, as opposed to less abstract approaches to generating testing documents. This is intended to provide a mid-range between storing testing data as unformatted data (ie word) and using a costly solution.

The CaseBook Schema can be used as is with a XML-friendly editor like oXygen or StylusStudio for transforms, or can be staged on an eXist database equipped server (my preference).

Watch this space for more updates.



- Currently listening to WOXY's coverage of SXSW 2007 - wish that I was there right now.




She, Sir - It's my way of staying connected

"With all of these changes, XSLT 2.0 is able to assume a much more extensive “work-horse” mode than it has previously. Most of these modes have already been explored with older extended XSLT 1.0 processors, but because such implementations tended to differ in critical areas developers and IT managers tended to shy away from them for all but very specialized applications. "

- from his o'reilly blog, Kurt Cagle on XSLT 2.0, a very good summary of the technology and its ramifications.

One thing Kurt mentions is the ability to use unparsed-text() to build up-convertors - Michael Kay has a great paper on this topic, up-converting genealogical data to XML.

Currently still loving Loney, Dear, and more than a little obsessing over Mason Proper and She, Sir. Too bad it's not "Mason, Proper" - for symmetry, see?

Let's see: Michigan based, debut album self-released "There is a Moth in Your Chest" - Vocally, Mason Proper remind me a lot of the 90's experimental work of Ian Masters in the Pale Saints and Spoonfed Hybrid... and that's a really good thing for me, since I loved those bands a ton.

Listening to Mason Proper has the wonderful effect of cheering me up. That's also a very good thing. If you listen to the lyrics a bit closer, well, damn! they're pretty cool, never too obscure, and twee only to the point that it's fun, not obnoxious. Good stuff, I only wish they'd tour my neck of the woods!


Mason Proper - The World Is Smaller Than you Think
Mason Proper - Mr. Charm
Mason Proper - Lights Off
Mason Proper - Chemical Dress

MySpace - Mason Proper

Innovation = Insight + Judgment + Invention

Dan Safer [Adaptive Path] in Newsweek:

"Innovation is traditionally understood as a combination of insight
and invention, with insight being the 'Aha!' moment and invention
being the company's muscle to make it happen. This is all well and
good, but one crucial aspect of the definition is missing: The
ability to judge the inspiration and determine whether it is
worthwhile to spend the company's resources on the invention. Without
this judgment, innovation is just The New, and new isn't always
better. It's a louder sizzle, not a juicier steak. For innovation to
be truly important, it needs to resonate with consumers. Insights
need to be derived from the unmet needs and desires of people, not
simply the company's feeling that it needs to innovate."

The rest of the article is available online [1] (subscription
required) or at your local newsstand. Look for the March 5, 2007
edition!

[1] http://tinyurl.com/3b35rn