Internet Archive

Simple Message Queue Protocol (SMQP) is a publish/subscribe specification that is currently being reviewed by the IETF since September of 2001. Several revisions of the protocol have also been submitted based on people's comments, and recommendations. This article is to further introduce readers/developers to the protocol and encourage additional input to the specification.

The Australian hacker has been working on pushing Samba beyond the POSIX world and figuring out what work needs to be done to get Samba to support new filesystems such as XFS, ext3, and Storage Tank. The answer is nothing less than a complete rewrite of Samba's smbd code, which has become his latest pet project. Here's an interview with Andrew Tridgell on his latest Samba rewrite.

The Omni Group has released OmniWeb 4.2, an update to their web browser for MacOSX. OmniWeb 4.5 will be based on Apple's WebCore and JavaScriptCore frameworks, the KHTML-based technology that Apple has developed for its own Safari browser. Elsewhere, Opera released 7.10-TP4 for Linux.

Download the developer release of HelloWorld, a new chatting/community environment (with a backend connected to Gnutella for file sharing) that some people say that it could revolutionize the way we see the world via IM. The application currently works under Windows (the company might do an OSX port if there is enough demand for it) and the file weighs 24 MB.

"According to testers for America Online, the company is moving forward with improving its client software for Mac OS X. The upgrade is called "AOL for Mac OS X Plus," and build 200 B is available under the beta section at AOL. This past summer, America Online publicly released AOL for OS X." Read more at ThinkSecret.

Until now, the internet has largely been used as a tool for communication - but new applications are starting to use the internet to coordinate work between machines. This could lay the basis for a whole new level of automation across society, leading to great gains in productivity. The first step in this process is 'grid computing'.

OneStat.com, today reported that Apple's Safari browser has shown a fast adoptation rate with a global usage share of 0.11 percent in the first weeks of its public launch. Opera 7 is not so successful as Apple's Safari. Opera 7 has a global usage share of 0.03 percent in the first weeks (since December) of its public launch. Microsoft still dominates the browser market. As of February 03, 2003, all versions of Microsoft accounted for 95,2 percent of the global usage share market. The total global usage share of Netscape is 2.9 percent and the global usage share of Netscape 7 is 0.64 percent. Mozilla is at 1.2%.

"When 802.11b first burst on the scene, offering a quick and workable wireless home-networking platform, some manufacturers jumped into the market with components and products long before industry standards groups tested and approved the specification. The result was headaches for some as interoperability issues emerged." Read more at ZDNet.

My husband and I made it back from Europe just last night (after an adventurous trip back) so today I was finally having access to my G4 Cube in order to test Safari, the new Apple browser based on KHTML. I like what I saw on Safari. The browser is simple (I like simplicity) and indeed loads the web pages fast (even faster than Gecko browsers on my PC) by using some techniques on rendering the page almost immediately after receiving the data from the web. With Safari, MacOSX has now seven "native" graphical browsers. Read more and vote for your favorite OSX browser! Update: A relevant article is posted on News.com regarding the reasons Apple chose KHTML and not Gecko.

A new version of popular server-side scripting lanaguage PHP was released today. Stephen Smith writes "PHP 4.3 includes bug fixes from PHP 4.2.3, as well as enhanced command line mode for non-web scripting, a better GD library, and more." Changelog can be found at php.net.

In spite of the major advances in Web technology and the explosion of communication methods on the Internet, the simple act of Web browsing has remained fundamentally single-user in its implementation. Why is Web browsing still a solitary activity? Researchers at Microsoft and Harvard were excited about their proposal for a multi-user Web six years ago, and yet here we are and nothing much has changed. Jared White of The Idea Basket gives us his take on the matter, and offers a new proposal for a multi-user Web experience.

InfoWorld features an extensive special show report regarding Web Services and the way they are shaping up for the near future.

Regular changes to the Apache 2 API has developers questioning its usability.Also, extremely low uptake of Apache 2 has caused its producers to advocate freez-ing development of the open-source Web server until makers of add-in software catch up. Almost six months after the launch of Apache 2, less than one percent of sites use it, due to a lack of suitable third-party modules.

For the second day in a row at the XML Web Services One conference here, a keynote speaker got up and signaled the impending end to the Web services era, at least on a standards level. Don Box, an architect in Microsoft Corp.'s developer division told an audience of Web services conference attendees Wednesday: "The end of the XML Web services era is near. I predict two years from now we won't have this conference." Read the story at eWeek.