Divine Modern

You click, it chronicles. What more do you want? Release 0.1.0

Thu, 03 Nov 2005 16:21:04 GMT

Continuing with our break-neck release frenzy, Divmod is pleased to announce version 0.1.0 of ClickChronicle, our browsing history and search server.

This is the same software that powers our free service at ClickChronicle.com (go sign up!). CC allows you to find sites you've visited using search and greatly reduces the need for bookmarking. Having said that, it allows you to bookmark any of your visits and will soon provide a bookmarklet to allow you to bookmark from the browser.

This release is noteworthy for a couple of reasons: one, if you are too paranoid to use our service, you can run your own server and still get the benefits of having all your history searchable on the net; two, CC is currently the best example of a full running multiuser application written using Mantissa and Axiom.

The ClickChronicle cometh

Sun, 25 Sep 2005 14:36:07 GMT

I spend a lot of my time surfing, exploring, observing and learning. I sometimes bookmark pages that I know I want to get back to, but what about the pages that I don't a priori know I'll need? I often find myself in a new context, needing something I read recently but didn't bookmark (since it wasn't "important" at the time). I then get frustrated as I have trouble finding it even with the help of Google and Firefox history.

Enter ClickChronicle. ClickChronicle implicitly remembers every page you visit so that you don't have to remember to remember. ClickChronicle is a combination of a Firefox extension and a web application. The extension sends click data back to clickchronicle.com where the pages are indexed and optionally cached. You can then search, and find, all the pages that you have recently visited. To give you the best of both worlds, ClickChronicle will also allow you to bookmark and tag pages either as you surf or from your history.

Check out the nascent FAQ and a couple of screenshots.

ClickChronicle is the first of Divmod's disaggregated lightweight applications and, as glyph mentioned, we are planning to release a few more this year. ClickChronicle should be available in the next week or so. Stay tuned for more applications built on Divmod's Axiom, Mantissa and Nevow!

8 minutes for your data

Tue, 17 May 2005 16:03:19 GMT

I installed Google accelerator and on a pretty active day's surfing it saved me 8 minutes.

The 8 minutes came in dribs and drabs of a second here and a second there; 8 minutes as one chunk would have been worth it but the accelerator didn't really accelerate much for me. I uninstalled it.

For that meagre saving, Google got all my click-stream for that day's surfing. Like the Google toolbar, the accelerator has access to pretty much all the unencrypted data that went through my browser that day including email addresses entered into forms and the like. It seems to me that the Accelerator is the free crack that gets users to give up large amounts of very personal data in the guise of speeding up their surfing experience. This data can be used in a variety of ways, most obviously to make Google's advertising more relevant. For some it may be a fair trade, but for me my data is more valuable than 480 seconds of time saved in a onesy-twosy way.

I guess Google is trying to see how far it can get with pushing the envelope of "do no evil"; spyware disguised as a web accelerator seems to be on ragged edge.

Low-fi special effects

Sun, 12 Oct 2003 16:36:52 GMT

When Dogme 95 first hit the news with their manifesto of ambient lighting,
no digital effects, handheld DV, etc I started to wonder how special effects
could be done within these constraints. I decided that there was not much
to be done beyond Fangora style gore.

Here are a couple of pieces of work to prove me wrong wrong wrong.

Matrix Ping Pong (windows media)
and Magic Shadow

Responsive

Sun, 12 Oct 2003 02:13:38 GMT

I got to this paper via a pointer form Clay.

It will be interesting to see how soon their ideas become implemented.

We already have features in this vein specced out or implemented. We help you maintain
your desired responsiveness image as mentioned in the pager. Given the lack of tools, there is a cognitive burden
to enforcing policy. Divmod hates cognitive burden. "Responsiveness" is a dial you can
set in your Divmod. To this person, I want to be "Very Responsive" ; we take care
of the book-keeping of replying within 24 hours, etc. We keep the stats, plot the charts,
award the medals and play the sounds. It's part of your brand: responsive, action-oriented.
That's the beauty of Divmod: we make *you* look good. :-)

Finally! Some sanity enters the VOIP fray

Sun, 05 Oct 2003 20:19:58 GMT

A member of the California Public Utilities Commission has called for public hearings on the agency's recent demand that Voice over IP service providers apply and be certified as full-fledged telephone companies.

http://www.voxilla.com/Article26.phtml