Vista SP1 vs. QuickTime
They may not be getting along as well as I'd like.
I know how you feel, little dialog, I really do.
March 18, 2008
February 6, 2008
HowTo: Make Bloglines "My Start Page" show only unread posts
Since it appears Bloglines will never answer my request for sane 'My Start Page' behavior, here's a DIY fix if you're using Firefox.
To recap: Bloglines (beta) has a My Start Page feature, similar to old-school Bloglines "Playlists", which lets you pick a selection of your feeds as an at-a-glance front page. Nice, except it displays both read and unread headlines; for me, this makes it kind of useless. Why do I need to see the same Groklaw post I read three days ago?
Edit or create userContent.css (details on finding that available from Mozilla), and include the following:
div.quickviewTemplate div[ismarkedread="1"] { display: none; }This just tells Firefox to hide any headlines in the Bloglines Beta Start Page which are already marked as "read".
You'll need to restart Firefox to see the results.
January 31, 2008
Sounds familiar.
From the NY Times' "Bits" -- Could Amazon and Audible Rewrite the Rules of Publishing?
How about a service that allows you to seamlessly switch from reading a book on your digital device to listening to the same book read aloud as you get in the car, or if your eyes are tired, or if you simply want to hear a crucial scene acted out? And then to switch back to the printed page?
Amazon buying Audible... it's a start
So Amazon is going to buy Audible.
And they mention the Kindle in there somewhere.
C'mon, guys -- take the logical next step. I'm still on board to buy the first one...
December 7, 2007
URL Decoder/Encoder (for Eric's future reference)
In case you need it next time...
A handy URL-decoder that works just fine for application/x-www-form-urlencoded text.
November 26, 2007
Things that never happen
May I take a moment to sing the praises of GoToMyPC?
This is what happened when I went to reduce my account from two-PC usage to a single remotely-accesible PC:
I'm choosing to spend less money with them, and assumed that would take effect the next billing cycle. Instead I see an immediate refund of the current month's unused extra-PC balance.
Add this to the fact that GoToMyPC just works, beautifully, all the time -- they have me as a customer for a long, long time.
November 21, 2007
Pre-ordered: The Annotated Turing
So many of the books (and music, and TV, and..) I love sit in that sweet spot where you either can't wait to get your hands on it; or you can't imagine wanting to bother with it at all. Alan Turing generally hits a broader audience, but his computability paper (PDF)? And a book walking you through the same? Right on the money.
Computer geekery? Check. Math geekery? Check. Written by Charles Petzold? Check.
Looking forward to that email in May - "Your Amazon.com order has shipped... The Annotated Turing: A Guided Tour Through Alan Turing's Historic Paper on Computability and the Turing Machine"
November 19, 2007
I'm (sniff) so very proud
So, Scott Adams has a new book out: Stick to Drawing Comics, Monkey Brain!. It's a collection of writings from his blog, and it's basically what happens when the guy who writes Dilbert has no restrictions whatsoever on his writing. Which is to say, really, really funny. Guaranteed to irritate and amuse.
A while back, Scott announced a contest -- come up with the most over-the-top back-cover blurb for the book, and win stuff.
So anyway, see number 21
Geek that I am, the cooler part of the story is: Scott Adams emailed me.
November 16, 2007
I'll buy an e-book reader when...
Noting that Amazon is rumored to be launching their own e-book reader on Monday.
Noticed in the purported specs that there's a headphone jack. Not sure what for... perhaps for text-to-speech, or audible navigation?
What it's probably not for, but will be someday on someone's reader, is this: I'd like to be able to read the book both at home (on screen) and in the car (audio, obviously). The reader knows where I left off. Keep going from there.
And not via robotic vocalization -- I want the real audiobook. I want Frank Muller narrating.
And when I get back home, out to lunch, wherever -- the on-screen reader knows where the audio left off.
I'll buy that one.
October 31, 2007
Dear Movable Type:
WTF?
October 26, 2007
IE View 1.3.4 released
IE View v1.3.4 was released yesterday. What's new?
Features
- You can now edit the entries in the always-load-in-IE list - either via the Edit button or by double-clicking.
- Adding both secure (https) and non-secure (http) sites to the always-in-IE list when either one is added. That is, if you're viewing http://example.com/ and you choose "Always View This Page in IE" from the Tools menu, we'll add both the http://example.com/ and https://example.com/ to the list
Bug fixes
- Fixed IE View's behavior when opening multiple pages via the Open All in Tabs command.
- Cleaned up back-button behavior when the "reloaded in IE" placeholder page is used.
New translations
- Frisian
- Spanish (Argentina)
Thanks for the bug reports and testing; and a huge thanks to the BabelZilla volunteers. I didn't even know Frisian existed, and now my extension supports it.
Download at ieview.mozdev.org
October 9, 2006
How to turn off the "Go" button in Firefox 2.0
ArsTechnica's A look at Firefox 2.0 RC2 is an excellent overview of the changes since the FF 2.0 betas, and of some of the new 2.0 features in general. My favorite little tidbit, though, was this one:
...the green arrow button is difficult to remove from URL bar, but it can be accomplished by hitting about:config and tweaking the browser.urlbar.hideGoButton, changing it to "true."
Ahhh. That's better.
Blogging for my own reference, as much as anything else...
September 9, 2005
Well, *that* sucked.
Hard drive failures are not fun. Especially on a remote box hosting about a dozen sites. So last nights was spent rebuilding. We're getting there. Updates as warranted.
March 23, 2005
How to trap bookmark menu events in Firefox
This came up today on the mozdev project-owners list. My response was aimed at the one person asking for help, but I think the problem is general enough (and I banged my head enough while solving it), that it seemed worth mentioning here.
The question was, how can an extension catch the event when a user clicks on a bookmark entry? In recent IE View test builds, I needed to react the same way to links accessed via bookmarks as to those clicked within a page. Trapping normal links - easy. Bookmark clicks - not. Here's what I did.
When my overlay initializes, I stash a reference to the original BookmarksCommand.openOneBookmark function, then assign BookmarksCommand.openOneBookmark to my own function. When a link is clicked, I get the event. If it's a link that meets my launch-in-IE list, I take action; otherwise, I call the old handler, passing in all the parameters I received. The relevant code is:
if (BookmarksCommand && BookmarksCommand.openOneBookmark)
{
// openOneBookmark: function (aURI, aTargetBrowser, aDS)
gOldOpenOneBookmark = BookmarksCommand.openOneBookmark;
BookmarksCommand.openOneBookmark = function(aURI, aTargetBrowser, aDS) {
var url = BookmarksUtils.getProperty(aURI, NC_NS+"URL", aDS);
if (IeView.forceIe(url))
{
IeView.ieViewLaunch("Internet Explorer.lnk", url);
return;
}
else
{
gOldOpenOneBookmark(aURI, aTargetBrowser, aDS);
}
};
}
See the complete overlay source for context.
This works, but apart from just making me feel *dirty*, it could easily break if the BookmarksCommand object changes. Anyone have a better way?
March 21, 2005
Wondering about the "lack of" Tablet PC hand's-on opportunities
Paging the Scobleizer, Kibo of the blogosphere...
I'm just geeky enough (OK, way more than geeky enough) to want a Tablet PC pretty badly. Add in OneNote and Visio and I'd never bring paper to a meeting again. Can't use a pen to code C#, of course, but does BizTalk have any ink support?
But we're getting close to moving into a new house, not making any impulse purchases right now, blah blah blah. But this isn't about getting me interested. That's done, it's just a financial thing. And maybe picking out the right one. On which topic...
I went into CompUSA yesterday, in search of a Firewire cable. While there, I was drawn to the wall of pretty pretty LCD panels and laptops. Wondered if a Tablet or two might be around for side-by-side comparison -- how does this one feel in hand vs. that, which stylus feels better, etc.
But no. Not a one.
I'd argue that a serious impediment to Tablet adoption / interest is the fact that most people have never seen one -- and if the local PC megamart doesn't have a few around, who will? I know MS doesn't manufacture the boxes, but I also know they hold... ummm... some influence with the manufacturers and retailers. Why not push the things out where they can be seen? From experience, an in-hand Tablet can inspire serious geek lust; and in just the locale where people are really kinda hoping to unleash their inner impulse shopper.
Just a thought. I realize that more-marketing-savvy folks than I (that's a good half the planet, at least) have undoubtedly considered this; so why is this not viewed as a good idea? I'm proceeding on the assumption that if Microsoft considers an idea worth doing... it pretty much gets done. Love 'em or hate 'em, we know this to be true.
March 11, 2005
Wil's Got a Fang
Well, Mr. Wheaton rocked on CSI last night. Between the books and the blog, it's amazing how wrapped up -- and excited -- you can be about the success of, in fact, a total stranger.
I should also mention that Just a Geek is the first book in several years for which I gave up much sleep, in order to finish it in one sitting.
Anyway, WHOOOO! Go Wil! Finders Keepers.
March 10, 2005
What happens to legit Nigerian email?
Mako (via Boing Boing) notes the difficulties of Nigerians sending legitimate email these days:
It seems possible that Nigerian Internet cafes are full of emailers with names like Mr. John Richard who use yahoo email addresses and who come from a culture where it is common to write subjects in ALLCAPS. When they write to people they don't know, they -- quite sensibly -- start mails apologizing for the fact that they may have surprised their readers with an unannounced missive. Spammers and scammers put all these more upstanding folks at a real disadvantage
Reminds me of the mail I received recently at openmikes.org, from a young singer/songwriter just starting out, looking for a place to play. She titled her mail "18, New and Frightened". Sheer chance that I actually glanced at the message content rather than dumping it straight to the "missed-SPAM" folder.
March 2, 2005
Audible.com link-fix hack
Having given up on ever getting audible.com to care about their site's usability problems (especially the javascript links which render tabbed browsing unusable), I had considered writing a Firefox extension to fix the links. Maintaining one extension is enough to fill what spare time I have, however.
Enter Greasemonkey: a killer extension which allows you to assign "user scripts" -- Javascript snippets which perform some sort of fixup once a page is loaded -- to certain sites.
Bingo.
So, if you like Audible, but hate the useless interface:
- Bookmark this page. You'll need to come back after restarting Firefox.
- Install Greasemonkey here.
- Restart Firefox (told you).
- Load the Audible fix user script.
- From the Tools menu, select Install User Script.
- Click OK on the ensuing dialog.
- Load up an audible.com page.
Everything look the same? Good. Hover over a link, however. Look at the status line. Instead of, say, javascript:linkThis('/store/product.jsp','&productID=BK_TIME_000350'), you should see an actual http:... or https:... link. You can open it as usual, in a new tab, in a new window -- all the normal things you can do with a link.
Except save it across sessions or pass it to a friend to help sell an audio book. Audible will have to fix that particular brain-fart themselves.
Update: the script now creates bookmarkable links, as well. Details...
February 25, 2005
Podcasting in 10 words or less
Seemed inevitable that there'd be at least one haiku entry. Still 10 words.
February 3, 2005
Referer spam, AWStats, and nofollow
Seeing a ton of referer spam lately -- which shows how well these "SEO" twits do their jobs, as my logs aren't public.
Nonetheless, referer logs are a perfect place to add nofollow attributes to outbound links -- which would at least reduce the incentive to referer-spam sites.
I use AWStats -- there's already an RFE asking for this feature to be added. I offered a patch to do it -- you can grab it here in the meantime. The patch is against v6.3. Basically adds a NoFollowLinks config parameter, defaulting to 1 (on). If it's on, reported links get a rel="nofollow" attribute.
January 31, 2005
Hands across the waters, heads across the sky
A fun side effect of OSS development is the people who throw in help you didn't even ask for. I just put out a new IE View build -- no new features, I just finally got around to adding in some localization. Basically, a bunch of people, independent of each other, started mailing me things like "here's a Traditional Chinese translation of IE View" or "IE View in Polish". So they're all in there now. How cool is that?
I'm kinda secretly hoping that at least one of them is messing with me, so perhaps the Polish version says "This extension sucks" instead of "View this page in IE". Much as I'd be more amused than annoyed if it turned out there were some crank entries in openmikes.org -- e.g. one of the Christian Open Mike nights actually led to a Skeptics' Society meeting, or a Blues Jam entry pointed you to a DJs-with-laptops dance night.
January 12, 2005
See, it's not just me...
In Aux In For All, I whined (heavily ellipsized for your protection):
How 'bout demanding [front-mounted Auxiliary audio inputs] as standard car stereo equipment, while we're at it? … Big RCA jacks too ugly? Then just go with the same mini plug as the outs we're all using…
and today on Engadget, Ryan Block is discussing upcoming VW/iPod integration, and states:
Of course, if these guys were really smart they’d have a universal interface and just sell an iPod adapter cable, or—god forbid—have an 1/8th-inch jack input.
Always good to know I'm not completely crazed.
December 21, 2004
Aux In For All
Doc Searls mentions "powered speakers in hotel rooms. Just plug in your .mp3 player," as suggested by Buzz Bruggeman.
Nice, but... how quickly would those be stolen?
How 'bout front-mounted Auxiliary audio inputs on the hotel TV? Just a couple of RCA ins, combined with a very common adapter cable (they could supply mini-stereo to dual-RCA on request, I suppose), and you're good to go. How 'bout demanding that as standard car stereo equipment, while we're at it?
And how about adding inputs right next to the headphone outs on the PC speakers sitting on my desktop?
Big RCA jacks too ugly? Then just go with the same mini plug as the outs we're all using, and we can use little symmetrical cables which would lend themselves quite nicely to retractable formats.
The number of adapters I could get rid of...
Better Yahoo map links in PHP
In setting up the map links used at openmikes.org (each club's address is linked to an appropriate Yahoo Map), I wasn't happy with Yahoo's prescribed map creation methods. First, looking up the address in Yahoo and using their generate-a-link tool was obviously too manual a process. Second, the generated URLs were full of meaningless (to you and I) Yahoo-internal data. Third, and unlike the maps available via Yahoo's Yellow Pages, only address information was included in the map -- no name, no phone number. I wanted a map that, when printed, would be all that my users needed to track down the club.
On examining the Yellow Pages maps, I noted that the name and desc parameters, respectively, were used for the business name and phone number.
I also noticed that the extra data (the ed parameter, for instance) could be thrown away with no ill effect.
I used the "Interactive Map" links (not the first-generation map) as my template. These links use the following parameters:
- addr: the street address, not including city and state
- csz: city, state and zip, separated by spaces
- name: business name
- desc: business phone
and a base URL of http://maps.yahoo.com/maps_result
... except, of course, when we're dealing with a Canadian listing. Happily, the only change needed in this case is to use ca.maps.yahoo.com as the server.
So, for example, the map link for "House of Joe, 1220 West New Haven Ave., Melbourne, FL, 32904, 321-728-3200" is: http://maps.yahoo.com/maps_result?addr=1220+West+New+Haven+Ave.&csz=Melbourne+FL+32904&name=House+of+Joe&desc=321-728-3200
whereas the link for "The Supreme Bean, 16 Main St., Warkworth, ON, K0K 3K0, 705-924-1212" is: http://ca.maps.yahoo.com/maps_result?addr=16+Main+St.&csz=Warkworth+ON+K0K+3K0&name=The+Supreme+Bean&desc=705-924-1212
The PHP code used to accomplish all this follows. Note the three optional parameters -- if $country is omitted, 'us' is assumed. If $name and/or $desc are omitted, you get a map without name and/or phone information.
function maplink($street, $city, $state, $zip, $country = false, $name = false, $phone = false)
{
if ($country == 'ca')
{
$server = 'ca.maps.yahoo.com';
}
else
{
$server = 'maps.yahoo.com';
}
$link = "http://$server/maps_result?addr=" . urlencode($street) .
"&csz=" . urlencode("$city $state $zip");
if ($name)
{
$link .= "&name=" . urlencode($name);
}
if ($phone)
{
$link .= "&desc=" . urlencode($phone);
}
return($link);
}
October 25, 2004
Audible responds (kinda)
So, actually heard back from Audible, albeit through a moderate customer service filter. Basically a rewording of boilerplate we've seen before. Still referring to Javascript as Java, still leaving us to infer that the reason for all the Javascript is "faster load times".
We thank you for contacting the home of the best audio – Audible.com. We use java for faster access on the page and we limit the amount of time we have for open sessions to stop and prevent jams. At the moment we cannnot create Guest session on the spot save the home page becuase of how our ecommerce is setup which actually requires an acive session. This request will be forwarded to our developers at great ideas and if feasible will incorporate into our system. However can take a couple of weeks since there are other ideas they are currently working on.
So, I don't know. I give up. They're not listening.
If there was another ship to jump to, with a similar subscription deal, I'd be gone.
.so hell
So I'm trying to install a Subversion server, but I'm trapped in .so / RPM hell. The big sticking point: Subversion depends on Apache 2.x, and in particular the recent Subversion builds want httpd v2.0.48 or later. I, of course, have 2.0.40 installed.
So in attempting to install the latest apache (from source RPMs at the moment, but the results are the same via binary), I find that it insists on libdb-4.1.so. Now, I do have that on the system, but it's not my current RPM install -- that is, I have a source-build libdb 4.1 alongside an RPMed 4.0.14 . I'd upgrade that, but a number of other things depend on it. To wit:
libdb-4.0.so is needed by (installed) python-2.2.2-26
libdb-4.0.so is needed by (installed) pam-0.75-48
libdb-4.0.so is needed by (installed) webalizer-2.01_10-11
libdb-4.0.so is needed by (installed) cyrus-sasl-2.1.10-4
libdb-4.0.so is needed by (installed) perl-5.8.0-88.3
libdb-4.0.so is needed by (installed) sendmail-8.12.8-9.90
libdb-4.0.so is needed by (installed) perl-DB_File-1.804-88.3
libdb-4.0.so is needed by (installed) drac-1.11-1
libdb-4.0.so is needed by (installed) apr-util-0.9.5-0.1
libdb-4.0.so is needed by (installed) subversion-1.0.6-1
libdb-4.0.so is needed by (installed) httpd-2.0.40-21.11
Some of which I'd need to uninstall, just so I can reinstall the dependencies, then reinstall apache, etc.
Is there a most-sensible way (read: least painful) way to get this straightened out?
And yeah, I know, Debian. But I didn't get to choose the distribution, so here we are.
Oh, and that older SVN? Not working properly, possibly due to the fun db4 setup.
October 18, 2004
Audible might be giving this some thought...
The folks at Audible at least seem to be looking further into my questions...
We thank you for contacting the home of the best audio – Audible.com. I am just writing to inform you that both my supervisor and I are looking into this issue a little more.
So there's that. Hmm.
And to make it perfectly clear -- I'm not bashing Audible, nor do I have any intention of cancelling my membership. I love what they do -- I just think a part of the way they do it is user-hostile, and I'm trying to see who I can get to listen.
S5 1.0 released
October 15, 2004
Upgrade in Progress
Mid-upgrade of Movable Type to 3.1. Trying to figure out why the CSS is all weird, but at least let's see that posting / rebuilding works.
October 13, 2004
Audible again
Hey, I got escalated! A bit.
Dear Paul,
We thank you for contacting the home of the best audio – Audible.com. I have answered your questions in the same order you asked them.
1- We use java for faster access on the page. This is a web development issue. I can send a request to our web development department for you if you like.
2- We limit the amount of time we have for open sessions. This way there is minimal lag and traffic jams.
Please let me know if I have answered your questions.
That would be "no".
That *sort of* answers my questions.
1. We're talking about javascript here, not Java -- but I'm guessing we both mean the same thing. "Faster access" I take to mean reducing the page-download size; which is nice, but probably negligible given the amount of images, etc. accompanying each page. Meanwhile, the user's experience (tabbed browsing, etc.) is pretty broken.
And of course, users without Javascript enabled (for security reasons, or many speech-enabled browsers for the blind) are *completely* out of luck.
2. The question remains -- why should bookmarking a single book or category, for future reference, *require* a session at all? And if one is not present, why not create a "guest" session on the spot, as most sites do? If I want to point someone to a book on your site, I should be able to give them a direct link, to make their life easier and your sale more likely. In other words,
http://www.audible.com/adbl/store/product.jsp?productID=BK_RAND_000266should take someone right to "The Da Vinci Code", every time.
And yes, forwarding this to the web team would be great. I'm a big fan of Audible in general, and a longtime customer, but the site is maddening.
Audible : 1, Sanity : 0
Update to: An open letter to Audible.com:
Hey, here's a surprise. Audible came back with a form letter that is not only completely irrelevant in this case, but probably meaningless in any context.
Dear customer,
We thank you for contacting the home of the best audio – Audible.com.Please try going to java.com and installing javasoftware. Unfortunately, we do not have enough information about your computer system to resolve this problem. Because it is extremely difficult to troubleshoot complex technical matters via email, please call our Customer Service group at 1-888-283-5051, or from overseas by calling 1-973-837-2700 to resolve your issue. Our hours of operation are Monday thru Friday, 9 am to 9 pm, and Saturday 10 am to 4 pm Eastern Time.
Please include this message if you are replying with additional information.
Sincerely,
Kathy
OK, it would be mean to pick apart the many ways this response doesn't apply to my question. It's a form letter, probably keyword selected by some semi-automated process. Or perhaps "Kathy" has a brain injury of some sort.
So let's try again, under the theory that good CRM systems will eventually escalate a problem to the point where a somewhat-clueful human being reads the message.
To wit:
Thanks for that very strange and unhelpful answer. It was certainly entertaining, trying to figure out what "javasoftware" might have to do with anything I asked.
As I said in the first mail, "Please, please answer me this time -- historically I get a not-terribly-relevant canned response." Perhaps I should have been more clear -- I was hoping *not* to repeat that experience.
The questions again:
1. Why does Audible insist on Javascript links everywhere, breaking tabbed browsing; multiple-window browsing; the back button; etc.
2. Why can we not have reliable, bookmarkable URLs -- URLs that don't require a currently-active session tag?
Time will tell.
October 12, 2004
An open letter to Audible.com
Submitted to Audible.com's "ask a question" page (I'd link it, but I can't, really -- read on). The reason for the admittedly snarky tone, and for my posting this on my blog, is that I've tried to ask these same questions, nicely, via all available tech-support and customer-feedback routes. Once or twice a year for several years now. I've been a subscriber all that time, so it's not like I haven't been patient...
The responses have been about 90% deafening silence, with 10% being a canned response telling me I should use a modern browser. Must be triggered by the word "javascript" in the emails.
Anyway, just for fun, let's see when/if they reply.
Subject: Javascript and bookmarking funPlease, please answer me this time -- historically I get a not-terribly-relevant canned response.
What's with all the Javascript links? I can't open a book in a new window or browser tab, the back button doesn't always work right -- the rest of the web figured out 5 or 6 years ago that these were bad things.
And I'm sorry you guys used Broadvision, but it's not my fault -- please don't punish me by making it impossible to reliably do crazy things like bookmark a page. Either I leave out the BV session/engine info (giving me an immediate "Timeout" error, instead of establishing a new session and redirecting, like sane people) or I leave it in and the link soon goes stale, giving that same timeout error.
Seriously, I love the service, but the site navigation seems designed to thwart users.
I won't even try to suggest latest-additions RSS feeds...
Network Solutions still sucks: film at 11
Yes, Network Solutions' fantastic customer service, open communications, and lightning-quick response times are all still going strong.
So Gizmodo, et al, are kind of screwed for a while.
Please, please, please -- if you haven't done so yet, get the hell away from NetSol. I've had great luck in the past with Dotster, and I'm currently using GoDaddy for pretty much everything. I'm sure there's some affiliate-linking I could use there, but I won't. Just switch, now, before your domain is lost, suspended, accidentally handed to someone else, etc.
October 7, 2004
S5: a killer browser-based slide-show tool
Hate PowerPoint? Me too.
Thanks to Eric Meyer, though, I can now do straight-XHTML presentations which perform very nicely as slideshows; printed materials; and plain-text web pages on all sorts of browsers.
Check out S5.
August 25, 2004
A new twist - *outbound* link policies
So, bad enough that there are still plenty of companies out there who don't get the whole "your URL is public. I can link to it. Now shut up." concept.
But I was just now presented with an agreement to "sign" (via a pop-up, no less) when clicking a link out of a company's site. Just in case that's not clear (or sounds insane), yes, they want to hang some legal baggage on my clicking through them to another site.
In particular, while viewing this page at mindjet.com, I clicked on the "gyronix.com" link. Not a link directly to the other site, of course -- a tracking/redirector link, nothing unusual there.
Until the pop-up, that is.
I won't quote the whole thing (although it would be interesting to learn their views on Fair Use), but the key paragraph (all-caps all theirs) reads:
THIS AGREEMENT IS A LEGALLY BINDING CONTRACT BETWEEN YOU AND MINDJET. BY CLICKING ON THE "I ACCEPT" BUTTON BELOW, OR BY DOWNLOADING, ACCESSING OR USING ANY PART OF THE SOLUTION, YOU ACKNOWLEDGE THAT YOU HAVE READ THIS AGREEMENT, THAT YOU UNDERSTAND IT, AND THAT YOU AGREE TO BE LEGALLY BOUND BY ITS TERMS AND CONDITIONS.
"The Solution". The link to http://www.gyronix.com/. Holy crap.
Go ahead, click. No rights reserved. I hereby dedicate the above link to the public domain.
July 20, 2004
Firefox Extensions as Usability Fixes
Simon Willison points out a Firefox extension to fix some of the many, many problems with the new Allmusic site.
A cool idea, and some good points made in the comments:
- Sil suggests:
I think that the best way to handle this might not be specific extensions for each broken site. Instead, have one extension, and an online database of JS files, one per broken site.
- But later, John Roberts says:
- Few people will know about/use such extensions, especially if they are browser specific. Even if, however unlikely, the extensions were for IE.
- If such a problem exists, the site should know about it and fix it. I think Jeffrey Veen's idea of "working around the damage" (paraphrased) is more a social phenomenon than a technical issue.
I really like Sil's idea. I'd be happy to contribute code to help shore up Audible.com usage. I'd already written some experimental XUL code to do just that.
Which leads me to John's comments -- what do we do when a site (I'm very much thinking of Audible here) won't even respond to / acknowledge complaints or suggestions about their site? Every damn link on Audible is Javascript-only. Good luck opening anything in a tab or new window, and have fun in locked-down or non-Javascript browser.
And hey, the existence of extensions to make sites like Audible and Allmusic less painful would be a major switch incentive for some.
June 25, 2004
Address, please...
I had posted this as a news blurb on openmikes.org, but I don't really think anyone reads those. Everyone heads straight for the calendar or search.
Since this blog has a couple of readers, anyway, it seemed worth making the point again. This is about as pedantic and Jakob-ish as I get.
OK, this one really has nothing to do with Open Mikes, or openmikes.org, or me, or the musicians who make up most of the site's readership. It's for that other percentage, the club/bar/coffeehouse owner/manager/employee.
I have a very simple request. This is me speaking as a visitor to your site, and potentially to your club:
Include your full street address on your home page. Preferably everywhere, and at least somewhere.
I know, how obvious could this be, right? You'd think. But time and again, as I search for correct street address and contact information for a new listing, I get all excited that the venue in question actually has a site. And not quite half the time, it takes a pretty thorough search to find an address. And about one quarter of the time, I find none.
Now, I applaud the listing of menus, drink specials, entertainment calendars. But if any of those interest me, I might actually want to come down there. "In the heart of Old Town" or "across the street from Gilby's BBQ" won't help if I didn't grow up there.
That's it. That's my request. I thank you, and your new customers - who can now find you - thank you too.
June 21, 2004
Get yer GMAIL invites here...
... for a small cost.
Not to me -- rather, I want some proof (in the form of an EFF receipt) of a donation to the EFF.
June 20, 2004
"Bullying" might be the wrong word
From Scobleizer, "Cory wants Microsoft to be a bully with the RIAA":
Cory wants us to bully the RIAA and push a format that is easily copyable (for music, at least).
I don't think "bully" is really what Cory is looking for.
On further thought, I think he's looking for Microsoft to be Ricky Linderman. The big, scary, nobody-messes-with-him bodyguard that can stand up to the serious, evil, psychopathic bullies.
June 14, 2004
gmailed
So I was going to post about my gmailswap request, but it wasn't up long enough. Thanks, Marius!
I proposed making a $50 donation to the EFF in the invitor's name. It was up for, oh, three minutes or so. I strongly suggest people make similar swap offers -- why not have some lasting good come out of the gmail Tulip Mania?
And for those dreaming up gmail-invite-giveaway contests, how 'bout "first to donate $xx to my-favorite-charity"?
Just a thought.
Unit Testing For All!
Peter Provost says:
I want everyone who agrees with me to blog the following sentence: Unit Testing support should be included with all versions of Visual Studio 2005 and not just with Team System.
And I can't help but agree. Unit Tests, and Test-First Design, are not just collaborative practices. They're fantastic code-quality tools, for individuals or teams, and the more-widely they're spread, the easier they are to use. The Test Framework that's built in to your environment stands a much better chance of being used.
May 16, 2004
The Scout II, starring Squiggy
Via BoingBoing: "David Lander, who played Squiggy on Laverne and Shirley, is now a talent-scout for the Seattle Mariners."
Not a surprise if you'd read his book, Fall Down Laughing. He's been doing this for a while.
The book is well worth checking out, by the way - Lander's account of his life before and after the onset of Multiple Sclerosis -- including the years of hiding it from friends and family (yes, even Lenny). One complaint to Audible, J. P. Tarcher, et al -- why on earth would you not do an audio edition of a comedian/actor's autobiography?
April 24, 2004
Page 23...
Via Tim Bray, via Burning Bird, via...
Instructions: Grab the nearest book, open it to page 23, find the 5th sentence, and post its text along with these instructions. I would add to the instructions: point back to where you got the idea so that we can follow the threads.
Mine: from American Dynasty by Kevin Phillips: "The title of a recent biography of Francis, Standing on a Volcano, referred to his task of hammering out a commercial treaty with Russia, as well as advising on U.S. bank loans to the Russian Government."
March 25, 2004
NT Backup not seeing Ecrix VXA tapes
Posting this so that others might Google it, feel like less of a dumbass than I do, and save some head-banging-against-wall time.
Noticed that my nightly tape backups were failing. NT Backup was insisting that the requested tape was not available. Double-checked, and it's the right tape. Hmm.
Maybe the tape's had it -- try again with a new one. NT Backup reports no free media available, either. Uh-oh. There is a known issue wherein the media library gets corrupted, and I've seen it happen before. Follow the prescribed steps to blow off the library, re-insert the new tape, wait for the "can I import that?" notification.
Nada.
After much spelunking, I finally find a helpful Support entry at the Exabyte (who I believe subsumed Ecrix) site.
The key points to note therein are:
If the tape drive is requesting a cleaning, the Removable Storage Manager will not show a tape loaded in the drive.
...
Note for VXA users: The VXA tape drive does not use its LEDs to indicate when a cleaning is needed while a tape is loaded in the drive. Make sure the VXA drive is empty when checking for the cleaning LED.
In a nutshell: the drive wanted cleaning. NT Backup didn't know this, and the cleaning LED is oh-so-helpfully disabled when a tape is in the drive. Neat.
Grab the cleaning tape, lather, rinse, but don't repeat -- all is well.
February 9, 2004
What the hell is keventd up to?
Scratching my head on this one. Since upgrading my server to kernel 2.4.24PIII (uniprocessor), keventd is constantly taking 70 or 80% of CPU. It seems to yield OK, in that web processes, spamassassin, etc. get space to run when needed, but it's weird. A box that used to sit with lots of idle time now seems to be running full throttle; it may be in my head, but I think it shows in web and IMAP responsiveness.
Nothing untoward in netstat, nor in ps, at least that I'm able to find. I'd hate to think we've been owned, but I have to admit the slight possibility.
Any suggestions on how to at least figure out what keventd is trying to *do* with all this time?
January 4, 2004
We ALL heart DRM
Not just me. Alexander Payne and his mother, too.
December 23, 2003
I Heart DRM
Silly me, tried to download "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", from Concert for George, via Rolling Stone.
Free downloads are good.
DRM, not so good. Especially when there's a separate web hit involved. To get a license. To listen to a free download.
And then they break the stupid thing.
I'll bet it'll sound pretty good, someday. I'd very likely buy the CD if I could hear this -- say, in that nasty ol' MP3 format.
December 12, 2003
Cringely on e-Voting
Robert Cringely: Follow the Money: Why the Best Voting Technology May Be No Technology at All
Nothing new, but well-put. My favorite passage:
Forget touch screens and electronic voting. In Canadian Federal elections, two barely-paid representatives of each party, known as "scrutineers," are present all day at the voting place. If there are more political parties, there are more scrutineers. To vote, you write an "X" with a pencil in a one centimeter circle beside the candidate's name, fold the ballot up and stuff it into a box. Later, the scrutineers AND ANY VOTER WHO WANTS TO WATCH all sit at a table for about half an hour and count every ballot, keeping a tally for each candidate. If the counts agree at the end of the process, the results are phoned-in and everyone goes home. If they don't, you do it again. Fairness is achieved by balanced self-interest, not by technology. The population of Canada is about the same as California, so the elections are of comparable scale. In the last Canadian Federal election the entire vote was counted in four hours. Why does it take us 30 days or more?
The 2002-2003 budget for Elections Canada is just over $57 million U.S. dollars, or $1.81 per Canadian citizen. It is extremely hard to get an equivalent per-citizen figure for U.S. elections, but trust me, it is a LOT higher. This week, San Francisco held a runoff mayoral election that cost $2.5 million, or $3.27 per citizen of the city. And this was for just one election, not a whole year of them.
We are spending $3.9 billion or $10 per citizen for new voting machines. Canada just prints ballots.
November 22, 2003
register.com redux
Hey! They actually replied to the last email!
From: support@register.com To: paul@roub.net Re: SafeRenew billing failure We would like to apologize the inconvenience caused to you due to the SafeRenewal(TM)Service. We understand that you domain name has been successfully transferred from Register.com and the current registrar of your domain name is R91-LROR. We have successfully deactivated the domain name from our databases and henceforth we assure you that you will not be receiving any emails regarding this domain name from our behalf.
So good, eventually, for them. Of course, the emails weren't my real concern -- more that, had they had updated credit card information from me, I'd now be attempting to get some unwarranted charges reversed.
Take what you can get. At least they're not domain-squatting weasels
November 21, 2003
Fun with domain renewals
No, not another encounter with the domain-squatting weasels.
This time, it's a reputable registrar, albeit one with slightly overzealous renewal automation.
I got this notice from register.com last week:
From: support@register.com To: paul@roub.net Subject: Re: SafeRenew Billing Failure ... Dear Paul Roub, This is to inform you that our SafeRenew i.e. automatic renewal system was trying to renew your domain name and the renewal process failed, as the credit card which you have submitted could not be processed. Unfortunately, Register.com is unable to process your credit card for the following domain name renewal: "openmikes.org" The information entered in the billing section is invalid. ...
The reason behind the specific problem mentioned is that the credit card I had filed with them had expired, and I hadn't given them the new expiration date. The larger problem: I had transferred the domain away from Register, to GoDaddy, a few months ago. Oops.
Naturally, I thought I'd fill them in...
From: paul@roub.net To: support@register.com Subject: Re: SafeRenew Billing Failure While this is all very interesting, a *more* interesting question would be: "Why is register.com trying to charge a renewal for a domain that has been transferred to another registrar?" It would be great if you would stop doing that. Thanks.
And today, of course, the form response:
From: support@register.com
To: paul@roub.net
Subject: Re: SafeRenew Billing Failure
...
We would like to inform you that since the SafeRenew(TM)
Service was enabled in your domain name, our system had
automatically tried to renew your domain name.
In an effort to protect your online identity, we are
providing SafeRenew(TM) automatic renewal service for
your domain name. This means that upon expiration, we
attempt to automatically renew your domain name and
charge the most recent credit card on file for each
domain name for one additional year of registration.
This service ensures that our customers' domain name is
secured in the registry for one additional year from the
current expiration date.
...
Love them form letters. Oh, and since the transfer, the domain has already been renewed for another year.
One of the reasons I switched to GoDaddy (aside from price) is that, in my experience, had I sent a letter like this to them, a human being would have responded to my actual question.
One more try, sent today:
From: paul@roub.net To: support@register.com Subject: Re: SafeRenew Billing Failure Please, please, someone *read* the question. Please, no form response. The problem is: THIS DOMAIN IS NO LONGER REGISTERED WITH register.com. It's at GoDaddy. You don't get to auto-renew it anymore. Please, give me some hint that someone at register.com understands why this is a bad idea.
Let's see where that leads...
September 24, 2003
Switch for sale...
Upgraded my home network switch recently, and the old one is up for sale. Mint-condition Linksys 10/100 Etherfast 5-port switch, cheap-cheap.
All gone now, thanks for playing.
August 3, 2003
Comics being unloaded
So I've decided that the boxes of comics from my childhood, unopened through the last 10 years of moves, should probably go to those more currently-interested in such things.
So, of course, it's off to eBay we go.
Doing a few at a time, beginning with some that are actually worth selling individually. At the moment, Amazing Spider-Man numbers 32, 47 and 52; and the 1979 World of Krypton series.
July 23, 2003
More fun with domain squatters
The domain-squatting weasels have struck again. Same ones as last time, and now they're hoarding openmics.com.
Even tried to play hard(er) ball this time, had three different "backorder" services trying to snatch the domain up when it came out of PENDINGDELETE status. But first to the trough wins, and that would be the weasels, yet again.
I ask again: how do they get away with even pretending this is a legit, good-faith domain registration?
Oh, and this is priceless. Elsewhere on their site, the weasels can be found complaining about Verisign's proposed Wait-List service. Now, Verisign are certainly no one's favorite registrar, but you have to love:
" ... a scheme unilaterally proposed by Verisign in order to enable it to receive $20-$30 per WLS subscription, instead of a maximum of $6 for an actual domain registration ..."
Yeah, that's much worse than snapping up every name in site, indefinitely, and holding them for $600+ ransom. I weep for you in your unfair suffering.
July 14, 2003
openmikes.org Mozilla Sidebar
openmikes.org now offers a Mozilla / Netscape Sidebar tab.
Check it out; comments, suggestions and bug reports welcome.
July 11, 2003
New RSS Validator
Mmmmm.... Preliminary Pie...
June 1, 2003
Call off the Hounds
Delphi 6 found, purchased, delivered. All is well.
May 23, 2003
Delphi 6 Enterprise Upgrade Sought
Looking to purchase Borland Delphi 6 Enterprise, preferably as an upgrade, preferably new.
Working on a project which requires this particular version in order to happily integrate with another development team. Have D5, can upgrade. Would buy the D6 upgrade from Borland if they still sold it. And no, Delphi v7 is not an option. I know it's better in a zillion ways, but life is strange sometimes.
Worst case, a used, unlicensable-yet-complete version would suffice.
Anyone?
April 21, 2003
Wanted: Better IMAP for Windows
Looking for a serious Windows IMAP client that doesn't drive me nuts.
Actually, cross-platform would be even better. My gut feeling is that I'll end up hacking on Mozilla Mail (a.k.a. Thunderbird) to meet my needs, and hopefully someone else's.
Meantime, Eudora misses out on all sorts of things (auto-save to a remote Sent Items folder, for one); Mulberry's interface is... interesting, plus it's folder-list display doesn't work for me at all; Outlook 2K isn't actually half bad, but it's offline support is mediocre at best.
And none of them works well in my world -- where categorization / sorting happens on the server side, not at the client. That is, by the time the client sees a new email, it's no longer in the Inbox. It's in a folder.
I'd like that folder to be opened and highlighted, just as it would be if Outlook (e.g.) had routed it there all on its own. I'd like a standard new-mail notification. That's all, really. OK, I'd also like full-blown disconnected-mode support, but one step at a time.
Anyone know of a client that does this right now?
Update, 2004/10/12: Thunderbird has come a long way. Search is over, I think.
March 7, 2003
Searls and Weinberger. Rock? Why yes.
As do Doc Searls and David Weinberger: World of Ends: What the Internet Is and How to Stop Mistaking It for Something Else.
Perhaps companies that think they can force us to listen to their messages - - their banners, their interruptive graphic crawls over the pages we're trying to read -- will realize that our ability to flit from site to site is built into the Web's architecture. They might as well just put up banners that say "Hi! We don't understand the Internet. Oh, and, by the way, we hate you."
May 20, 2002
Since I have the space
Moved to a dedicated box at Dialtone/Interland. Huge sigh of relief.
Since I have the space now, I went ahead and added all the songs from ye olde Crash Basket CD "Letters" to that page.