The little RFC that could: RFC3229

From Phil Windley:

Have you ever interrupted an HTTP download and then restarted it later and had it pick up where it left off? That little bit of magic is the result of RFC3229: Delta encoding in HTTP. This is useful for more than just resuming downloads. Jon Udell, for example, uses this trick to access a small part of an MP3 file and its also the secret sauce in mod_speedyfeed that I mentioned yesterday.

This article by Bob Wyman that outlines the particulars. In an interesting adaptation, while RFC3229 has always been about byte ranges, but the mod_speedyfeed module uses RFC3229 with item ranges. The bottom line: is there really isn't anything about this that would keep it from working with RSS 2.0 as well as Atom.

We're keeping our eyes on any server-side innovations that will limit resource consumption here at InfoWorld, so we've got our eyes on this one, as we have for a while. Back in March, I wrote:

Another interesting technical aside -- as our RSS requests have grown quickly, we have noticed increased server loads at the top of the hour as aggregators "wake up" to pull feeds. Not a huge problem for us right now, but the surge has roughly the same characteristics as a distributed DoS attack and could eventually present trouble for really huge web sites unless aggregators become a bit smarter.

I followed that up four months later noting that RSS was starting to hurt, and the community quickly rushed in with loads of good advice that we heeded. It's nice to see that folks out there are continuing to work to make both clients *and* servers smarter when it comes to RSS. If there's anything InfoWorld can do to help test things like mod_speedyfeed (within reason, of course -- we do have a business to run here), we are glad to pitch in.

Bonus link: story in the Seattle Times yesterday, "Software programs called RSS readers creating a blog jam." After speaking with Kim Peterson (the reporter doing the story), I realized how difficult it is to explain RSS-related issues for a general readership, so I don't envy her job. I think she did a good job considering that the RSS concept is still a mental stretch for the average person. I also hadn't heard of Findory until I read her piece, so I'm going to check it out.

I'm quoted calling RSS serving the "next-wave scaling problem," but with folks like Garrett Rooney coding Apache modules like mod_speedyfeed just to "blow off steam," I think we might beat that scaling issue before it becomes a nastier problem.

Things worth reading -- my new linkblog

In general, I don't write a blog entry unless I feel like I have something somewhat in-depth to add to an existing discussion, or on those lucky days, something relatively original. A lot of stuff flies by my radar screen, though, and while I might not have the time to offer lengthy commentary, a lot of times random things are at least worth referencing and passing along to others. To that end, I just set up a linkblog (RSS here) to keep track of those kinds of things, generally relying on instructions found here to get going. You'll find these items under the "SIDE LINKS" heading on the HTML version of my weblog.

Meet me in Seattle / LA / Dallas in two weeks

I’d like to invite you to a breakfast that I'm hosting, along with META Group VP/analyst Corey Ferengul, at several locations across the country. Packeteer is sponsoring the event, so there is no charge for attending (but space is limited to those who qualify, i.e. IT directors, VP's, CTO's, CIO's, etc). It's rare that I cover so many cities in such a short time, so I'm hoping to spend some time with fellow CTO's, CIO's, tech folks, bloggers, geeks, etc. during this trip. You can register and qualify to attend here.

Here are the dates and locations (the event is from 9am-11am each day):

• Tuesday, September 28: Seattle, WA (Sheraton Seattle Hotel & Towers)
• Wednesday, September 29: Santa Monica, CA (FourPoints Sheraton)
• Thursday, September 30: Dallas, TX (Westin Park Central)

I'm free for dinner that Tuesday night in Santa Monica and Wednesday night in Dallas and would love to take a few InfoWorld readers out to dinner, so e-mail me (chad_dickerson -at- infoworld.com) if you're interested. I'm booked for dinner in Seattle that Monday night, but if anyone wants to meet up for a beer after dinner, I'm game (but not too late -- it is a breakfast we're doing the next morning). I'll also be around after the breakfast program for an hour or so before we depart for the next city.

Two weeks after the west coast swing, we'll pick things up further east:

• Tuesday, October 12: Philadelphia, PA (Sheraton University City)
• Wednesday, October 13: Novi, MI (Sheraton Detroit Novi)
• Friday, October 15: Boston, MA (Sheraton Boston)

The discussions in each city will examine practical strategies for aligning IT with business and provide executives with an opportunity to ask questions, raise issues and exchange ideas that can help improve IT and business alignment. This event series is tailored to executives working in large companies and faced with issues including WAN management.

Topics that will be addressed include:

• Challenges of IT and business alignment
• Your own experiences in addressing this requirement
• Building alignment processes that work
• Key components that help achieve alignment objectives
• Implementing strategies across a distributed enterprise

The event will include breakfast, a moderated discussion with Corey and me, as well as active participation from the attendees. In addition, attendees will also receive a copy of a recent InfoWorld Research Report on a topic of interest.

See you at the events!

InfoWorld RSS feeds not recognized in new Firefox

I installed the new Firefox last night, and the first thing I noticed is that the Live Bookmarks feature (i.e. the built-in RSS reader) doesn't recognize the RSS feeds on the InfoWorld.com home page. That's a little odd considering that our home page is absolutely blanketed with RSS links and icons. (The feeds on our weblog pages like mine and Jon Udell's seem to be just fine).

We're not alone: Dave Winer and Jason Kottke seem to have the same problem. A quick scan and search of the Firefox support forums didn't help.

As I'm finishing writing this, Jason has pointed to a Bugzilla bug in his comments. It looks like there are quite a few feeds that don't work, but through the wonders of open source, someone is working on it -- thank you, Firefox team.

Update: Phil Windley explains what you need to do to make this all work. Hmmm. Looks like we would need to add a header tag for each of the RSS feeds on any given page, something like this:

<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS" href="{full url to rss file goes here}" />

Is it worth re-working all of our pages so the Live Bookmarks feature in Firefox will work? Well, adding 25+ lines like the one above for all the RSS feeds on our home page certainly won't help page weight. Thinking about it. . . .

GSM in Mexico / Skype rocks

I took my Treo out of the country for the first time (to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico -- about 1500 miles south of SF) and I was really pleased with the performance. My phone immediately picked up the Telcel GSM network and my SnapperMail IMAP client seemed to be in overdrive -- the throughput was far better than anything I had ever experienced in the U.S. in any major city. I don't know if it's because I was in a relatively remote area with little GSM demand in the off-season, or if service in the Bay Area just stinks, but there was a noticeable difference.

I had a minor IT emergency while in Mexico (more in a later column) and I used Skype for the first time to conference with Kevin Railsback, our IT manager back in SF. The hotel I was in had wireless, but judging from bandwidth tests, they had the entire hotel running through a 256kbps line to the outside world, so it wasn't a fat pipe (never confuse the presence of Wi-Fi with actual bandwidth -- something anyone who goes to many conferences in hotels already knows). In any case, Skype really delivered. I was able to have a zero-latency conversation with Kevin about the issue we were dealing with and I saved the $5/minute (!) hotel charges for calls back to the U.S. Skype isn't perfect, though. When I tried to conference with my IDG Australia colleague Mark Jones in Sydney, our initial clear conversation started sounding like a bad cell phone call. (I was using the beta version of Skype for OS X, which could have made a difference, I suppose).