Bug announcements for OmniOutliner2OPML

In the spirit of full disclosure, faithful reader Oliver Wrede pointed out that he had problems using my script OmniOutliner2OPML with certain outlines. I don’t have a fix yet, and it may be a while, but I wanted to report what’s up for other users that may run into the same thing:

  • If a cell in your outline is a pop-up list and has a non-blank value selected from the list, the script will error out with a NSReceiverEvaluationScriptError: 3.
  • The exported text in a given outline element in the OPML file will be truncated if it contains international accented characters (e.g. é).

As I say, I’m still working on both these issues. If anyone has suggestions on how to get around the problems, I’d appreciate it.

Free a cappella in Cambridge

In concert tonight, in the lobby of Building E-52 (50 Memorial Drive in Cambridge for the MIT-impaired), the Sloan E-52s. Featuring lots of fine a cappella stylings. And stuff.

This is by way of apologizing for the lack of blogging today. I have things to say, but I’m saving them for my group.
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Best viewed with Lynx!

Brent: Best viewed with Lynx:

And now we’re returning to simple HTML, not unlike the HTML of 1994. More structural markup, less of that complex and weird junk. Layout is done through style sheets.

Sites designed that way look good in Lynx. You don’t even have to try. I didn’t go out of my way to make this site work in Lynx.

This site looks pretty good with Lynx, too. And it’s a Manila site. The secret is in the CSS. There’s still navigation, but except for the calendar it’s way down in Lynx; the content stays at the top.

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Apologies…

…to everyone whose RSS feed I destroyed this morning. It seems the problem was an extra quotation mark inside an <a href> tag.

I generally make changes to my tools to scratch an itch, and I’m feeling two itches now:

  1. Some way to ensure the validity of my anchor tags before I post them (whether it’s having the tool build the tag for you, or running a validator before posting, or something)
  2. A list of recently posted items with buttons for “Edit” and “Delete.” It’s very hard, almost impossible, to edit a news item with a mangled anchor tag using Manila—maybe I can come up with something that works from Manila Envelope.

Amateurs and professionals

Dave and Babble talk about the difference between being an amateur and a professional. Here’s one difference: mentioning amateurs in your weblog gets you a hell of a lot more hits from Google than mentioning professionals, but it’s rarely in the context you meant it the first time.

Oh, and I still feel the same way about music that I did then (Shaw’s “Choral music, like sex, is far too important to be left solely to professionals”), but I feel that way now about journalism and software development too.

Other North End recommendations

New York Times: In Boston. Julie Flaherty reports about the state of Boston, including dining out.

I agree about the Daily Catch (and note that it’s possible to find a meal for two for much less than $50, especially if you’re not shy about trying unusual calamari dishes—they range from the normal fried squid to squid meatballs!). It’s long been one of my favorite restaurants. It’s got about eight tables around an open kitchen, where olive oil and garlic is in splattery abundance. House wine is served in plastic cups and a really excellent pasta con seppie nero (black squid ink) is served in a hot sauté pan. Don’t go if you don’t like smelling like your dinner; it took a week for the garlic odor to come out of the coat I was wearing the first time I went.

There are plenty of other excellent options, though, like Taranta (where we talked to a few of the wait staff about living in Campania), Mamma Maria (which had some really outstanding pappardelle with rabbit), Limoncello (which is next door to us and served so much good food and limoncello that I don’t know what to write about), the newly opened Carmen (a wine bar next to Limoncello that has $3-$4 wine plates, an enormous wine list, and outstanding pastas), Trattoria à Scalinatella (run by the owner of the Wine Bottega), Artu, Antico Forno, Assaggio,Terramia… and then all the pizza and sub joints…

Man, I’m going to miss living in this neighborhood.

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A justification for my behavior

New York Times: Chug, Don’t Sip. Relax, they’re talking about tea. Suddenly my wife’s habit of returning from weekend trips to London with enormous Harrod’s shopping bags full of loose tea seems sensible:

Those who drank the most tea — about 19 cups a week — were the least likely to die in the three to four years after [a heart] attack; they had a 44 percent lower death rate than nondrinkers.

Now if there were only advice on how to keep one’s teeth from browning under that regimen…

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Fortuyn killed; Curry blogs corrections

AP (via NYT): “Right-wing Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn, whose anti-immigration party stunned the public with its strong showing in local elections last March, was shot six times and killed Monday as he left a radio interview.”

Adam Curry (the former veejay turned expat techie): “To reiterate: Pim Fortuyn never called for a ‘Ban on immigration’ or ‘Removal of Muslims.’ Unfortunately the memes were set, and the largest news organizations in the world are copying incorrect information and propagating it shamelessly. These organizations used to employ fact checkers. If they still do, then they should all be fired immediately.”

This is why newsblogging is important—it makes it possible for us to get the voice of the man on the ground in a way that would have been unthinkable in a world where only the pros disseminate the news.
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Back again

I was in Newport, Rhode Island over the weekend with a crowd from Sloan. There’s an annual gala there each spring for the b-school, and it was so well done it was almost possible to forget how much the tickets cost. I almost managed not to feel bad about not blogging or checking email. But it’s nice to be back in Boston and back on line.

Hating your professors? Madnick on the stand

Slashdot: Microsoft Expert Witness Stumbles. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that was Stuart Madnick, legendary Sloan School of Management IT professor. He is an institute professor. It’s interesting how many main campus (i.e. non-Sloan MIT) people on Slashdot jumped up to disclaim any knowledge of him when his testimony went awry.

Actually, reading the direct testimony, he did point out some interesting things. Does removing “the browser” mean removing the IE user interface? the HTML renderer (which is now used by substantial portions of the Windows explorer UI?
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