Trellix And Blawgers?

It's too early to tell of course, but Trellix might turn out to be an attractive alternative for non-techy business types who yearn to answer the call of the blog. [Via Ev] The press release discussing Trellix's on-board blogging plans touts giving "builders of all technical abilities the power of a blog and the features and flexibility of a web site." And Dan Bricklin's vision is provocative:

I'm excited because finally I'll be able to tell people who want to blog that they can just go to some URL, sign up, and create their blog and associated pages without my help. There's no installing anything. There's no asking me for help in making their web site look the way they'd like. There's no asking me to make the "About Me" page. If they want "www.theirname.com" they can do it (if the service provider allows). They can do it all themselves. (Well, they probably will still ask me to take their picture with my digital camera...) This is not just ease of first setting up, but also ease of getting all the way that most people need and want. As a usability guy, and lover of the blog phenomenon, this gets me very excited.

While it may prove too basic and limited for someone who's an old hand at building and running Web sites, for someone like me of only, ahem, modest technological acumen, well it gets me excited too. Personally though, I'd like to see the final results emulating on a larger scale what b!X is doing with his Spartaneity Project, rather than simply bolting a weblog component onto Tripod, etc. More reflections on the potential of Trellix are in this thread on Blogroots [via Dave Winer], where Anil Dash notes how cumbersome it is for "users to pick a hosting company, pick a blogging company, pay a fee to each, and then perform the integration work by hand," and MisterMorgan has this to say: "Blogger's UI is just so darn good people are willing to add bits to it piecemeal--a blogrolling tool here, a comment system there--but it would drive me nuts after a while to keep track of all those logins and different admin interfaces."

More Re Science, Explained

(An oldie but a goodie.) Martin Sargent elucidates the finer technological points of Big Mouth Billy Bass. [Via TechTV] See also Marsette Vona on "How to make a talking fish say what you want," and Am I Annoying (while it does not appear possible to vote on whether Billy is annoying -- how fleeting, fame -- The Coelacanth is fair game: "Occupation: Fish").
--Later: Jeremy, via Fishrush

Can Juries Handle Patent Issues?

"The United States is the only country that has a jury decide patent dispute. . . many outside the United States find this 'laughably quaint.'" [Patent Fight Brings Science Into Courtroom, via Law.Com] My personal take on this is juries and courts can and do understand even the most esoteric of issues, as long as the attorneys understand them, and are skilled and diligent enough to translate their understanding in a straightforward way.

Gift It Up

The Shagmart is open. "Shoplifters will be prosecuted."

Getting To Know Them

Frank's been busy!
Anita Rowland
Gretchen Pirillo
Papa RageBoy to come --