Over at Macsimum Perspective, Dennis Sellers asks What Software is still Missing on the Mac?

Your mileage may vary, but my number one Mac OS/X software desire is packet writing software for CD-RW and DVD-RW so that rewritable optical discs can be treated as [really] big floppy disks. I was hoping that it would someday become part of Toast Titanium. But with Roxio selling its consumer software division to concentrate on Napster, I’m not holding my breath.

De La Salle’s High School’s 151 game winning streak comes to an end. Twelve seasons without a loss with 43 shutouts along the way. When a winning streak comes to an end, you want it to be at the hands of a better team. And by all reports, Belleview was the better team.

I doubt that any De La Salle players wanted the streak to end. But I’m sure that many are relieved to move out from underneath its shadow. The streak was 12 years in the making. That’s a heavy load for teenage shoulders.

I’ve been checking out Gmail thanks to an invite from my good friend Gene, the ubicomp master.

Labels are good, perhaps better than folders. But they’re not for everyone. In small numbers, labels are definitely better. But the implementation provides a flat perspective of my archive. I would need some 30 labels to replace my 43 IMAP folders. That’s a bit too much for a flat categorization. And with 1 GB of storage, it’s just going to get worse.

And I wish that Gmail provided more control over my from email address. I hide my real address behind a cloud of forwarders, but there is no way to hide when Gmail uses the real address on every outbound email. Maybe they think they have the answer to spam and I don’t need to hide my real address. But I’m not going to convert without being able to hide.

All in all a good effort. Not quite good enough to make me leave FastMail. But definitely good enough to become the archive for all my mailing lists.

I guess that I have arrived – I just cleaned a bunch of comment spam off the site. I just don’t understand why. With comments hidden behind a javascript popup, there is no page rank boost. And the text was so clearly spam that no one would accidently click through. I guess there is no accounting for the judgment of those in such an unsavory business.

Allan Karl thinks that the limitations of Radio are becoming more and more apparent. I’ve been there myself and here are some of my thoughts:

Is your problem with Radio Userland or the Userland servers? I agree that Radio Userland has lain fallow. If Radio doesn’t provide capability that you need, then a move may be in order. But if you’re only having upstream problems, then alternate hosting service may solve your problems.

Radio has been quite solid for me on my hosted service. Of course, it would be even better if Radio supported sftp uploads (Steve Kirks, are you listening?). And depending on the comment server upgrade in the upcoming release, you may want to take a look at my Standalone Trackback and Comment Package.

Drop me a line if you’re interested in TextPattern. I’m currently exploring a potential move to TextPattern. I can import your old posts into TextPattern and I can provide a test site for experimentation. For that matter, I can probably put up a test site for WordPress as well.

However, I must say that the more I explore TextPattern, the more I appreciate Radio Userland. There’s a ton of capability tucked inside. You just have to tease it out. And it’s still my favorite aggregator.

Consider TextDrive for your hosting needs. A new company, but solid as a rock so far (knock on wood). And you can manage your weblog via https. Disclaimer: I receive hosting for the life of TextDrive and have an interest in its continued success.

1. Paul Hamm won the Gold Medal fair and square. It doesn’t matter whether the coaches were [incorrectly] informed to protest later. Athletes and coaches are expected to know the rules.
2. Paul Hamm should not feel compelled to return the Gold Medal. I’m sure that anyone competing in gymnastics at his level has been jobbed by the judges in the past. I would not blame him for feeling that this was karmic retribution. In addition, this is not as simple as exchanging medals with Yang - it needs to be a three way swap with all three medal winners agreeing to change their placing.
3. Anyone in the FIG who suggests that Paul Hamm return his Gold Medal without working within the FIG to insure that a similar situation can never happen again is a Sniveling Weasel.
4. Paul Hamm would not have won the Gold Medal without a scoring error. I do not believe that there would have been a different outcome if Hamm was aware of a different score for Yang. Hamm already knew that he was deep in the hole and he already knew that he had to let it all hang out.
5. I wish that the FIG had the guts to admit that they had made a mistake and the will to correct it.

Perhaps it’s just a matter of perspective, but I think that both Tom Murphy [PR, blogs and death…] and Roland Tanglao [PR is dead and blogging killed it] fail to make the salient point: today’s media channels are massively fractionalized and PR must change to match the new environment.

Twenty years ago there were a handful of media channels. Control of just a few gave you control of your message. Today there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of relevant channels. Some will listen to you, some will misunderstand you, some will oppose you and many will simply ignore you. The challenge for PR lies in managing those channels to communicate their message.

Weblogs provide a non confrontational means of countering those who either misunderstand or oppose your message. Suppressing other viewpoints will create backlash. But weblogs allow you to engage those with opposing views. And if you cannot change their position, you can at least associate your message with theirs to insure that your voice is heard.

It’s apparent that reviewing the tape has opened a bag of worms for gymnastics. For what it is worth, I believe that replay should be used to settle issues of fact, not issues of judgment. Yang Tae Young’s start value is an issue of fact. I suspect that Yang’s so called holds are an issue of judgment. If it is shown that holds are an issue of fact not judgment, then I’ll gladly reverse my position. But for now, I’ll stick to my guns. Paul Hamm may have won the gold medal, but Yang Tae Young deserves it.

29 Aug: My Final Words on Paul Hamm.

And the Gold Medal for Sniveling Weasel goes to Bruno Grandi. The president of the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) had this to say:

“For me, the best situation would be for Paul Hamm to take this medal and give …” leaving the sentence unfinished but pretending to remove a medal from around his neck.

Grandi won’t direct the FIG to work towards his best solution, but expects the man who he insists won the gold by the rules to voluntarily give it up. Way to take a stand Grandi, way to take a stand.

No one likes to be second guessed. And given the abuse that they endure, it’s a wonder that anyone becomes a judge. But it doesn’t help when sports choose to ignore the times in which we live. Instant replay is a fact of life at major events and the governing sports bodies must accept that.

Instant replay is not going away. And unless judges somehow become perfect, they will make mistakes and replay is going to highlight each one. There is such a thing as correctible error and if replay can correct the error without sacrificing the flow of play, then it needs to be done.

There is a difference between winning a gold medal and deserving a gold medal. Why not remove that distinction whenever possible?