Discussion on the Atom syntax mail list has hilighted an issue: sometimes the entries in a feed share certain information with the feed they appear in, but sometimes they don't. And a related issue: sometimes an individual entry travels by itself and needs a way to carry information inherited from the feed along with it....
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This morning, I decided to do a little reading to better understand what RDF is all about. A quick skimming of the RDF Primer told me what I felt the need to know, in particular, what is meant by "triples". Triples are a way of writing down RDF statements as a subject, predicate and object....
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RSS and Atom are both XML-based formats. One of the complaints many Atom advocates have about RSS is that it has become commonly permissible for RSS feeds to be invalid XML--RSS readers compensating for a variety of errors made by publishers. Not all in the Atom community advocate cracking down on invalid feeds, but promoting...
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Every time I hear someone suggest the idea of using an RSS client to access their email, it boggles my mind anew. I can understand people casting about for a solution to the problem of spam (and the flood of legitimate email some people receive, for that matter), and the fact that newsfeed items disappear...
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The following, excepted from Yahoo!'s FAQ about DomainKeys, their proposal for authenticated email, points to a possible implementation of SSL (a.k.a. HTTPS or secure HTTP) which wouldn't require a CA, which would make setting up a secure server free, rather than requiring anywhere form $50 to hundreds of dollars per year:

Does DomainKeys require signing...
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The latest issue to arise on the Atom syntax mail list could almost have been inspired by my entry two days ago: Should Atom handle today's problems or tomorrow's? The question is whether to create a group within or connected to the Atom community (or whatever standards organization Atom goes with) to keep an eye...
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Here's a question I'd be interested in comments on: how important is it for Atom to be backed by a standards organization? There's a discussion going on right now about whether it should be go with the W3C or the IETF. Setting that question aside for now, what impact would either have on the future...
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Atom is the outgrowth of a number of people's desire to fix several problems of the RSS specification. Because those exercising influence in the RSS community were not open to the kinds of changes being proposed, a new format was created. If you're reading this, you probably already know that, but here's the point: Atom...
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Last weekend, I came across an entry on Dave Shea's mezzoblue discussing methods of choosing color schemes. A few links on the page took me to tools for generating color schemes, but none of them entirely satisfied me, so I had a little arc: why not create my own? So I did. Plug an RGB...
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A friend of mine, a teacher at a special-needs school, and her roommate are taking a stab at illiteracy by organizing a program to collect 15,000 books for a school in the Ethiopian village or Kersa Ilala. They've found someone to pay the shipping, but need a lot of books. I get the impression that...
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