Dan Wood: The Eponymous Weblog

This applies only to people reading the "Watson" category of this weblog. Since Watson is no longer a sold/supported product, I am no longer going to be updating this thread. Occasional mentions of Watson (including this new one) will continue in the "MacOSX" category, which can be read as part of the general Weblog page or feed, or in its own Web page or RSS feed.

Somebody wrote me and asked if I could post some suggested alternatives to Watson, so that even after tools 'break' in Watson, while we patiently wait for Sun to release Watson's successor, users can still access the information. So that is what this post is about.

First off, take a look at the Web sites that Watson tools are connecting to. You can find this under the 'Tool' menu when a given tool is selected. This is a good starting point. Bookmark the sites that you find useful. And, dare I say it, you can always break out Sherlock and give that a spin. It's slow, but at least it works for the most part.

• Amazon, PriceGrabber, VersionTracker, Meerkat, Google — these aren't expected to go out of service in the forseeable future.
• Epicurious and RecipeSource — these directly correspond to surfing Epicurious and RecipeSource.
• Movies — Try MovieFone or Fandango. Or marvel at Sherlock's movies channel.
• Weather — Try Weather.gov (and bookmark your location) or The Weather Channel.
• Reference — Use the king of reference sites, Bartleby.com.
• TV Listings — Watson uses TVGuide.com, but you may have better luck using Zap2It, or TitanTV — especially the latter if you have EyeTV.
• Packages — Rather than going to the individual sites, try a web-based aggregator such as PackTrack, or the Mac application PackageTracker.
• Phone Listings — Sites with phone listings abound; there are many used by the Watson tool, too many to list here. Just use the Tool menu to see what's appropriate for your country. Or use Google.
• Translation — Unfortunatly I haven't seen an alternative way to access multiple language translation sites like Babelfish, FreeTranslation, Intertran, Lycos, in one easy package. So just use the Web sites listed here.
• Image Search — To be honest, I just use Google's image search these days. They have a good enough selection for me!
• Stocks — There are many web sites that will look up stocks for you; some provide real-time quotes but most are delayed. A simple suggestion would be to use Yahoo and set up a portfolio.
• eBay — I don't have any specific suggestions, but VersionTracker lists a number of eBay clients. Any recommendations from our readers?
• Zip Codes — USPS's site.

If you have any suggestions on how to improve this list, please leave them in the comments!

Today I sent out a fix to the TV tool to restore iCal/EyeTV operation (albeit in a limited way, alas) via the Search tab. There is no duration information in the search results, so the default value is an hour. You will need to adjust the time manually if the actual program length is any different.

Today is, I regret to say, the last day of Watson support.

The Epicurious tool got an update today to fix some problems dealing with multiple result sets.

The Packages tool got an update in version number only ... apparently there were a significant number of earlier versions floating around there with an incorrect version number (1.7.6), so to deal with this problem, I've created an update which will leap-frog that incorrect version number, to 1.7.6.1.

Yesterday I posted about the fate of Watson. I thank all of the readers of this weblog (There appear to be more than the three that I previously estimated!) who posted or sent comments.

Now that Watson's life span is coming to an end, I thought I'd mention a little bit about what is going on at Karelia. Things were pretty quiet around here while I was working with Sun for a few months on the Java port of Watson, aside from the occasional support update to Watson. But lately, I'm working on a new program.

This time, however, I'm working a little differently. I've partnered up with Terrence Talbot, a talented developer whose whose work you've seen in Watson. He wrote the Epicurious tool originally as a third-party contributor (along with the now-defunct NewsBlaster). Later he wrote the Amazon.com and the Weather tools for Watson, and add some other functionality to the application as well. Anyhow, this time we are building an application together.

Of course, I can't tell you what the new application is. It's too early in the game. What I can tell you is that it will (a) be very cool, and (b) be very useful to a wide number of people (I think), and (c) have lots of opportunities for plug-ins. And because of "once bitten, twice shy", the plans are to build this program initially for the Mac, but then build a Windows version shortly afterwards. If this program gets "sherlocked", we need a backup plan.

One thing that is very important for me is to try to come up with a way to thank Karelia's loyal Watson users. So we are brainstorming ways (logistical and technical) for holders of Watson licenses to get a sweet deal on this new application, when it comes out down the road. More on that later.

There's been some discussion on the Watson Users' email discussion group about the future of Watson and where Sun is going. I am sad to say that it looks like Sun doesn't seem to be focussing on getting the port of Watson released any time soon.

Of course, this wasn't the plan. The intention when Sun acquired the Watson technology was to have a port released by this time. But as all of us are familiar with how public companies behave when pressure is put upon them by Wall Street for profitability; it seems that the release of the Watson port is not on Sun's critical path right now.

I'm saddened by this for many reasons. First of all, I hate to see the end of Watson's support period come in a very short while. The agreement with Karelia specified that all support of Watson cease. Most other kinds of applications would continue to work indefinitely even after being end-of-lifed, but due to the ever-changing nature of the Web, some of Watson's functionality will begin to deteriorate in the near future, and I won't be able to help due to the nature of our agreement.

Here's another reason I'm disappointed that the Watson port isn't released yet. I worked with Sun on the Java port, and I was very pleased with how it was turning out. Yes, it was written in Java, but it really shined on the Mac. Philip Weaver, who worked on the UI, did a phenomenal job making it work well on the Mac.

Mostly, though, I'm disappointed because this means that the Watson community of users (myself included) will no longer be able to fully make use of this program which I spent so much time perfecting. The people that stuck with Watson and encouraged me to keep working on it after the whole "Sherlock" debacle will always have my gratitude.

If you're upset with me and Karelia software that this whole thing happened, I understand. Selling Watson was a business decision, and sometimes things don't work out the way that we planned. I have always had my virtual email door open to your comments. And Sun has an email address set up for comments about their "Project Alameda" port of Watson which is alameda@sun.com. I don't know what kind of response one would get from contacting them, but it might help them to know that there are Watson users out there who really want to see Sun's version released.

But, in this world and especially this industry, change is the only sure thing. So, I'm working on a new project. I'll be talking a little bit about this in a post to follow in a day or two.

... to catch up with a minor change on the UPS web site. Enjoy!

Today, a couple more Watson updates.

• Movies, to 1.7.5.7. This brings back the movie previews that were los after a recent structural change at the source Web site.
• Weather, to 1.7.5.8. This fixes a few locations that were previously not working.

Watson's TV tool got another update today. When TVGuide.com re-did their site a few weeks ago, searching went away ... for a while. But it's back, so now searching is back in the Watson tool as well.

After a weeks' vacation, I finally got to a few updates to Watson.

• Epicurious, to version 1.7.5.1. They changed their site significantly. This update should bring back pretty much all the original functionality of the tool. (There may still be a few glitches.)
• TV, to version 1.7.5.8. I've added in the ability to add iCal and EyeTV events, based on the limited information available in the grid. Since it can't be determined just from the grid, any program that is not followed by another program on the grid causes a warning to be shown that the entire time might not be captured. It's not ideal, but at least it's something.
• eBay, to 1.7.5.9.5. Fix a problem with search by seller, where the description wasn't showing up.

I've just posted an update to the TV listings tool, to version 1.7.5.7. TV Guide has once again changed their Web site in a major way. Unfortunately, some of information that was once displayed on the Web site is now part of a Macromedia Flash presentation. That makes the Web site a lot nicer (as long as you have the ability to view Flash) but not great for Watson. So although Watson can still show the grid, we've unfortunately lost the ability to show details about each show, add it to the Calendar, etc.

Going forward, TVGuide.com is clearly not going to be an ideal data source as Watson moves forward in its new incarnation from Sun.

Watson Updates du jour:

• Phone, to 1.7.5.9.1: Fix broken residential listings in Canada
• Stocks, to 1.7.5.1: Fix formatting error when zero change in price
• Weather, to 1.7.5.6: Fix missing doppler radar in certain locations