Standards Leftovers
-
-
5 reasons to choose Podman in 2025
University of Toronto ☛ Syndication feed readers now seem to leave Last-Modified values alone
A HTTP conditional GET is a way for web clients, such as syndication feed readers, to ask for a new copy of a URL only if the URL has changed since they last fetched it. This is obviously appealing for things, like syndication feed readers, that repeatedly poll URLs that mostly don't change, although syndication feed readers not infrequently get parts of this wrong. When a client makes a conditional GET, it can present an If-Modified-Since header, an If-None-Match header, or both. In theory, the client's If-None-Match value comes from the server's ETag, which is an opaque value, and the If-Modified-Since comes from the server's Last-Modified, which is officially a timestamp but which I maintain is hard to compare except literally.
-
-
Troy Patterson ☛ RSS
Cory Doctorow has a wonderful write up about RSS (You should be using an RSS reader).
I’ve long used RSS to follow the news (and other things). I tried to look up when I started using RSS, but couldn’t find a hard date. Given my remembrances (and a quick search on Middle School Matters), I would posit that it was around 2008. At first, like so many things, I didn’t get it. However, I quickly learned that instead of checking a variety of websites, I could get an RSS feed to see only the things that changed. This saved me tons of time.
-
DomainTools ☛ Post Quantum Cryptography (PQC): You May Already Be Using It!
For nearly a decade, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has been hard at work standardizing new cryptographic algorithms that will be secure even when practical quantum computing systems have been realized23. The new algorithms rely heavily on “Module Learning with Errors,” a problem from advanced mathematics24 that most non-mathematicians have probably never even heard of. It is thus perhaps rather appropriate that the names of the new NIST-approved PQC algorithms draw heavily from science fiction-related themes. I quote: [...]
-
Education
-
Michał Sapka ☛ Email, again
The above is from RFC definining netiquette guidelines. Yup, the thing we heard about since we were in our winmodem age was an offfial guideline.
It’s from 1995 and yet we learn that people are new to the web and may not know how to use it. Email is an old procol, it was created for a much smaller internet, less hostile one. It expects users to own their communication - to learn the tools, and the tribe culture. Is very much like Usenet in that matter. To use it properly, one should study it.
-
-
Web Browsers/Web Servers
-
Event Wrap: SGNOG 11
APNIC supported and participated in SGNOG 11, held in Singapore on 27 September 2024.
The event welcomed 400 participants to hear from speakers on topics including automation, DDoS, AI and much more. View the program for more information.
-
APRICOT 2025 Call for Presentations open now
The APRICOT 2025 Program Committee (PC) is seeking contributions for presentations and tutorials for APRICOT 2025, to be held in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia, from 19 to 27 February 2025.
-
Jamie Zawinski ☛ Mosaic Netscape 0.9 was released 30 years ago today
These anniversaries keep piling up, so I don't really have a lot to add, but check my NSCP tag or the Previouslies for more, particularly the links in this one.
-
Kushaiah Felisilda ☛ Zen Browser — Kushaiah Felisilda
I am back to Zen once again, and it seems to be a promising choice given its rapid developments (almost weekly updates!) in the changing browser landscape. The Split Views could still be improved. Right now there’s no option to resize or close the tab from the multiple views and there’s no indicator on the sidebar which ones are in Split View. Zen is currently in Alpha, so I’m not using any password manager extensions for safety reason. And has some issues, but overall it’s a nice browser that is getting better. And it’ll be interesting to see how they continue to adapt and potentially shake up the browser market.
-
Mozilla
-
Mozilla ☛ Firefox Add-on Reviews: How to turn your household pet into a Firefox theme
Themes are a fun way to change the visual appearance of Firefox and give the browser a look that’s all your own. You’re free to explore more than a half-million community created themes on addons.mozilla.org (AMO), or better yet, create your own custom theme. Best of all — create a theme featuring a beloved pet! Then you can take your little buddy with you wherever you go on the web.
-
-