Same issue of New Architect (also apparently their last): virtual elves: A write-up on ActiveBuddy and the BuddyScript SDK. “BuddyScript allows developers to create interactive agents either for internal use — an agent might be used to answer common human resource questions or for Internet marketing and promotion.”
“AOL must give permission before outside bots can be launched on its network, because ‘they have to flip a switch to let an unlimited number of messages go to one screen name,’ says Murray. This is referred to ‘provisioning the bot.'” If you have AIM, you must try out RecipeBuddie or you can use the MSN version of RecipeBuddie. 🙂
Also, check out the list of active and retired agents.
From the March (not yet online) issue of New Architect: SportsML : The Sports Markup Language: “SportsML aims to be the global XML standard for the interchange of sports data. Designed to be as easy to understand and implement as possible, SportsML allows for the exchange of sports scores, schedules, standings, and statistics for a wide variety of competitions. “
All kinds of fun things happening in Boston these days. From [cms-list]: “OSCOM3 (Open Source Content Management Conference) will take place at lovely Harvard University, Cambridge/Boston, at the end of May 2003:
If you’re in Boston next week and can spare a couple hours on Valentine’s Day, then check out this seminar at MIT:
“Adventures at Google
Speaker: Martin Farach-Colton
Speaker Affiliation: Rutgers University
Host: Erik Demaine, Frans Kaashoek, David Karger
Host Affiliation: LCS
Google has changed the way search engines are built. I’ll discuss some of the changes, as well as some experiences from my two years in the Google Research Department and the nature of research at a startup.”
update on JCACHE from Cameron Purdy: “JCache. jCache. JCACHE. Who knows. It’s Technically known as JSR 107 and it’s been stuck in the doldrums until recently due to Oracle licensing issues. I am on the expert commitee. One thing that I really dislike about the JCP is its total lack of transparency. The work all goes on behind an iron curtain. Take this JSR for example. It’s been in process for a year and a half, but no one outside the JSR knows what state it is in. The specs inside the JSR don’t match the ones published with the original JSR at all. The specs implemented by various future JCACHE vendors don’t match either the originally published API or the current thinking for the JSR. There’s no status updates, no accountability. If a vendor wanted to implement the spec, they’d have to wait for the public review period at the earliest, and would be far behind Tangosol, Oracle, SpiritSoft, etc. by that point. The JCP should not be the means to a market advantage for a company; it should the means for the market advantage of Java.”
I’m (perennially) working on karensrecipes.com tonight, putting the final touches on the application. I’d running into a couple places on the site where performance is not so good so I’d like to start caching objects, presumably in the servlet container. I’m looking for ‘the way’ to cache instances of objects in a web application. I found this article on JavaWorld.com, which seems promising, but doesn’t relate caching to a servlet container. Would you just place the hashtable in the ServletContext using setAttribute()?
JCACHE – Java Temporary Caching API looks promising as well, although I don’t see where JCACHE lives.. anyone else know if JCACHE is alive and well?
I remember going to a presentation on caching at JavaOne last year, one of the presentations was on ESI, but of course, they have nothing to download on that site, so it’s worthless.
Project managers will benefit because it should help them hone in on the goals of the project, and should give them measurable, definable targets to hit. (ie: the goal of this project is NOT to get a new website ‘designed’ that is warm and fuzzy but rather to a) standardize the production of web content across the enterprise, b) decrease the amount of time that managers and employees spend making web pages and c) sell more shoes online than last year.
Sales should like this because it gives them another angle to play in a sales pitch: How is your CMS helping you now? Has it reduced the number of phone calls your tech support staff takes? (ie: is it providing relevant timely information to your customers?) Does it decrease the amount of time that your staff needs to create content for the web? (ie: is it quicker and easier than creating content using Dreamweaver or FrontPage?)