Popular Tags
Recent Links
- The Kanzius Machine: A ...
- Slow Motion Slap - Coll...
- Hi, I'm the DJ
- A Hotel Wifi Hack
- IE8 and Loosely-Coupled...
This week has already seen a slew of releases: first came an updated Airport Express (I want one). Then today, Apple unleased Safari 3.1, which vastly extends support for bleeding edge web standards like CSS3, HTML5, and expands support of ECMAscript.
Finally, not to have all headlines stolen this St. Patrick's Day, Microsoft loosed Vista SP1 to Windows Update.
I have installed Safari 3.1/Win and this evening I will upgrade at home on the Mac. I am currently downloading Vista SP1 for my work PC. Reviews to follow, for certain.
Comments (0) |
1272 view(s)
So, I updated firsttube.com to "revision 9" on Friday, and when I went to show someone last night, imagine my surprise when I found the whole thing hosed. The site was missing entire chunks - random, non-sequential directories, missing entirely.
I'll spare you the details: I got hacked. Someone either brute forced their way into the admin site (which is now pretty locked down, until I figure this all out) or brute forced into SSH and uploaded several malicious PHP scripts. They are scary, I actually have them intact in a backup from a few days ago. How much has been revealed? My MySQL passwords? It's impossible to tell. Virtually everything will need scrubbing.
In the meantime, excuse any wonkiness until all is repaired. The good news is this finally forces me to finish work on the new administrative area I've been playing with.
Comments (1) |
4462 view(s)
I really did not expect to ever post something like this, but it's true: I switched to Safari 3.
I love Camino, really I do. But recently, its limitations have been bothering me. I prefer my tabs in a very specific order and often I have several tabs open. If ever I close a tab by mistake, I cannot get that same order without doing tons of work or re-launching. Safari 3 draggable tabs.
One of the things that used to bother me about Safari was that there was no "New Tab" button available for the toolbar. There is now. It's also got great keychain integration, private browing, the original embedded RSS, true Aqua widgets, resizable text boxes, easy PDF integration, and it's super-fast.
Camino doesn't support Ad-Block, but rather, stylesheet-based filtering. Safari does that too, by default, and it's even easier to use than it is in Camino. Safari doesn't have any Flash problems and once you add "Safari Stand" and enable the debug menu, you have a perfect drop in replacement.
My biggest complaint about Camino was the lack of development tools. It doesn't have a Javascript debugger (ChimericalConsole never worked me for), doesn't have a decent source viewer, doesn't have many third party hacks to add functionality - it's a browser for users, not developers. Without XUL, it's tough to add features easily. And that made it tough to use for me. When I did any serious work, I'd always switch to Opera or, more recently, Safari 3. Safari 3's Inspector is just awesome.
So... for now, I am Opera on Windows and Safari on Mac. My browser requirements are more demanding than most. I have felt for some time that Opera and Firefox on Mac just "feel" wrong, they don't fit. So we'll see how the Safari experiment goes.
Comments (3) |
3474 view(s)
On Monday, my neighbor came to my house and asked me if I had a "spare Windows XP disc." He's not very computer savvy, but someone owed him some money and he wanted a computer so that his 15 year old daughter could access MySpace. His requirements were minimal, but he had gotten a relatively decent Dell machine - something like 1.2 Ghz with 512 MB of RAM - and it was hosed. The guy had given him a Windows 98 SE disc; they left off the actual restore disc and the drivers.
So I told him the truth - I didn't have a copy of Windows XP I could legally give him (in truth, I don't even have a copy of Windows XP I could illegally give him since we are PC free). I told him, if he was feeling adventurous, I could give him an operating system that had tons of programs, would likely work with no additional drivers, and was completely free and legal. So he took it. I burned him Ubuntu Feisty Fawn. I told him to give the installation a shot, walk through and read everything carefully, and see what happens. If he needed help, I'd visit the next night.
But I didn't hear from him the next day. So, Wednesday, I saw him pulling into his driveway and went out to talk to him.
Result? They successfully got Ubuntu running. They got Flash installed in Firefox. The programs that came with it were "totally sweet" and he was able to get everything figured out. It was online successfully, they had used OpenOffice.org, they had figured out Pidgin and his step-brother was in the process of backing up his files to put Ubuntu on his machine.
Maybe 2008 is the year of the Linux desktop and maybe not, but Linux is ready *now* for people who are ready for it.
Comments (3) |
1538 view(s)
We have a new web-based client portal application we are going to use for my company extranet. However, because it was originally designed to be a hosted application, there are several variables involved in all areas that don't apply to us, since we host it ourselves.
When using said portal, every URL looks something like:
domain.com/login.aspx?QS=jasbndfiaubnfoaeuifwoeifbwfe
The only difference is that the "QS" GET variable is even longer. I made the request of our developers to get rid of this query string for the login page, and the login page only. This is what that code looks like in PHP, inserted at line 1.
That's it. One line of code. In ASP.net, this cost me 3 hours of developer time. THREE hours.
Then I asked our old developers to make a change to their code. It was doing a check in login if they are customers from the new app or the old one. If they are old, it processes the login. If it'they are new, it gives them an error message. So I said, instead of giving them the error, let's redirect them to /new-directory/login.aspx?email=[base64_encoded email]&password=[base64_encoded password].
This is that code in PHP:
This cost me 2 hours at $165. Am I getting taken for a ride? I keep telling them - this would take 30 seconds in PHP. And they tell me, yes but ASP.net doesn't work that way, and we need to change the web.config, and we need to recompile the entire site, etc, etc. If it were just one vendor, I'd be more suspicious, but two separate, unrelated developers are giving me crazy quotes like this.
I hear people bitch about PHP online ad nauseum. Every time I see real code, it appears PHP is FAR faster and far more friendly when it comes to customization.
Comments (4) |
9437 view(s)
Tags: OSNews
I decided that I would add some features to OSN4 that are "subscriber only" features. I won't lie, I did it up subscribership, not because it gets me rich (it doesn't, I make no money from it) and not because I'm a jerk, but rather because OSNews is a better experience without those pesky ads and I want other people to see it. Plus, the longer OSNews is profitable the better equipment we have, the more attention we get from our admins, etc.
Thus, I have implemented some subscriber only features. Like v3, the most obvious benefit is that all ads go "poof" and you never see them. Period.
The most requested feature is the "ignore list." You can now ignore a user, and their comments will be automatically collapsed and highlighted. This is great if you want to ignore a troll or someone who really bugs you.
Thirdly, instead of changing each page to "view -> all comments" in flat mode, you can now set this in your prefs and just see all comments on each page in one shot. This is VERY useful to people who are married to flat mode.
I may add additional site skins for subscribers. I'm not sure about this one, because it's more work, but then, replicating all of the v3 skins ought to be easy now that I have the classic skin mostly complete. [update: I have already added "Orange Platinum" from v3, and will be adding more in the coming week]
And lastly, links in your profile (both your website and any links in your bio) will *not* be tagged rel="nofollow." By adding a rel of nofollow, the links are not followed by search engines and therefore do not benefit from our standing in their index. This is less something I removed from users and more because it prevents spam. Instead of fake dummy accounts who do not visit us but continue to have a valid user page, only subscribers will benefit from our indexing. I am going to add rel="nofollow" to links in the comments too. [update: this is done]
These may not be the only subscriber only features we see in OSNews version 4. I intend to make it more attractive to be a subscriber without making the non-subscriber experience anything less than complete.
Comments (0) |
2247 view(s)
This is much more like it. I'm three days into my experiment. After 9.5 hours running today, this is what Opera 9.1 looks like. I am currently downloading three SHN files all greater than 30MB.
Click picture for a larger view
Comments (0) |
2362 view(s)
I missed the hoopla over the last week stemming from Thom Holwerda's piece on OSNews called Has the Desktop Linux Bubble Burst? His follow up piece, entitled On Favouritism, Apologies, and Black Helicopters, which sounds like the personal musings of a short story author, attempted to clarify his points.
I have a lot to say on this, so if you're interested, read on for the meat.
Complete Story (2337 words) |
Comments (0) |
1432 view(s)
As I've said before, I've been a user of Firefox (albeit, by different names), since 0.2 (possibly 0.1). I've learned to love it. I love my core extensions, I love the tabs and the general feel. I have really enjoyed using Firefox.
As I've also detailed before, I have some problems with Firefox. In particular, a certain Firefox bug has pissed me off so much, not because of the bug, but rather, the fact that the Mozilla devs appear/appeared to be perfectly content with their decision, despite the arguments. I have blown off Firefox at home for the also-Gecko-based Camino. I am seriously considering blowing off Firefox at work for Opera.
But this is the real reason. It's not just their XML arrogance. It's this: Firefox is a mess when it comes to memory.
Click on the image for a full size view
Let's break it down: Firefox allows developers to write extensions that utilize XUL, which means memory leaks could come from poorly written extensions. But as a user, my response is: I don't care. If writing extensions can cause a WEB BROWSER to eat up over 1/2GB of memory, you've got a problem! Fix chrome! Fix XUL! Limit what the extensions can do! Otherwise, someone is going to release "Trusted Firefox," or worse, offshoot Firefox to something simpler, something that is to Firefox what Firefox was to Seamonkey.
Camino, which doesn't use XUL by the way, is much less featureful - sometimes annoyingly so, but guess what - it can runs for weeks without so much as a burp. This is Firefox after less than 24 hours with 6 tabs open, and the last 15 hours were of complete inactivity (overnight, while I was home).
I suspect this could be AJAX related (Gmail is always one tab). But since Firefox is my gateway to the web, it's responsible for making sure the web plays nice through that window and correcting any behavior that makes it unhappy. And frankly, lately, it's letting me down.
Comments (4) |
7637 view(s)
>> Release Tuesday 2008-03-18 13:47:22
This week has already seen a slew of releases: first came an updated Airport Express (I want one). Then today, Apple unleased Safari 3.1, which vastly extends support for bleeding edge web standards like CSS3, HTML5, and expands support of ECMAscript. Finally, not to have all headlines stolen this St. Patrick's Day, Microsoft loosed Vista SP1 to Windows Update.
I have installed Safari 3.1/Win and this evening I will upgrade at home on the Mac. I am currently downloading Vista SP1 for my work PC. Reviews to follow, for certain.
Comments (0) |
1272 view(s)
>> HAXX0RED 2008-03-09 10:41:38
So, I updated firsttube.com to "revision 9" on Friday, and when I went to show someone last night, imagine my surprise when I found the whole thing hosed. The site was missing entire chunks - random, non-sequential directories, missing entirely. I'll spare you the details: I got hacked. Someone either brute forced their way into the admin site (which is now pretty locked down, until I figure this all out) or brute forced into SSH and uploaded several malicious PHP scripts. They are scary, I actually have them intact in a backup from a few days ago. How much has been revealed? My MySQL passwords? It's impossible to tell. Virtually everything will need scrubbing.
In the meantime, excuse any wonkiness until all is repaired. The good news is this finally forces me to finish work on the new administrative area I've been playing with.
Comments (1) |
4462 view(s)
>> I Switched to Safari 3 2007-08-26 10:42:15
I really did not expect to ever post something like this, but it's true: I switched to Safari 3.I love Camino, really I do. But recently, its limitations have been bothering me. I prefer my tabs in a very specific order and often I have several tabs open. If ever I close a tab by mistake, I cannot get that same order without doing tons of work or re-launching. Safari 3 draggable tabs.
One of the things that used to bother me about Safari was that there was no "New Tab" button available for the toolbar. There is now. It's also got great keychain integration, private browing, the original embedded RSS, true Aqua widgets, resizable text boxes, easy PDF integration, and it's super-fast.
Camino doesn't support Ad-Block, but rather, stylesheet-based filtering. Safari does that too, by default, and it's even easier to use than it is in Camino. Safari doesn't have any Flash problems and once you add "Safari Stand" and enable the debug menu, you have a perfect drop in replacement.
My biggest complaint about Camino was the lack of development tools. It doesn't have a Javascript debugger (ChimericalConsole never worked me for), doesn't have a decent source viewer, doesn't have many third party hacks to add functionality - it's a browser for users, not developers. Without XUL, it's tough to add features easily. And that made it tough to use for me. When I did any serious work, I'd always switch to Opera or, more recently, Safari 3. Safari 3's Inspector is just awesome.
So... for now, I am Opera on Windows and Safari on Mac. My browser requirements are more demanding than most. I have felt for some time that Opera and Firefox on Mac just "feel" wrong, they don't fit. So we'll see how the Safari experiment goes.
Comments (3) |
3474 view(s)
>> An Ubuntu Experiment 2007-07-13 10:20:19
On Monday, my neighbor came to my house and asked me if I had a "spare Windows XP disc." He's not very computer savvy, but someone owed him some money and he wanted a computer so that his 15 year old daughter could access MySpace. His requirements were minimal, but he had gotten a relatively decent Dell machine - something like 1.2 Ghz with 512 MB of RAM - and it was hosed. The guy had given him a Windows 98 SE disc; they left off the actual restore disc and the drivers. So I told him the truth - I didn't have a copy of Windows XP I could legally give him (in truth, I don't even have a copy of Windows XP I could illegally give him since we are PC free). I told him, if he was feeling adventurous, I could give him an operating system that had tons of programs, would likely work with no additional drivers, and was completely free and legal. So he took it. I burned him Ubuntu Feisty Fawn. I told him to give the installation a shot, walk through and read everything carefully, and see what happens. If he needed help, I'd visit the next night.
But I didn't hear from him the next day. So, Wednesday, I saw him pulling into his driveway and went out to talk to him.
Result? They successfully got Ubuntu running. They got Flash installed in Firefox. The programs that came with it were "totally sweet" and he was able to get everything figured out. It was online successfully, they had used OpenOffice.org, they had figured out Pidgin and his step-brother was in the process of backing up his files to put Ubuntu on his machine.
Maybe 2008 is the year of the Linux desktop and maybe not, but Linux is ready *now* for people who are ready for it.
Comments (3) |
1538 view(s)
>> PHP vs. ASP.NET 2007-04-27 08:27:33
We have a new web-based client portal application we are going to use for my company extranet. However, because it was originally designed to be a hosted application, there are several variables involved in all areas that don't apply to us, since we host it ourselves. When using said portal, every URL looks something like:
domain.com/login.aspx?QS=jasbndfiaubnfoaeuifwoeifbwfe
The only difference is that the "QS" GET variable is even longer. I made the request of our developers to get rid of this query string for the login page, and the login page only. This is what that code looks like in PHP, inserted at line 1.
if(!$_GET['QS']) {
$_GET['QS'] = 'jasbndfiaubnfoaeuifwoeifbwfe';
}
That's it. One line of code. In ASP.net, this cost me 3 hours of developer time. THREE hours.
Then I asked our old developers to make a change to their code. It was doing a check in login if they are customers from the new app or the old one. If they are old, it processes the login. If it'they are new, it gives them an error message. So I said, instead of giving them the error, let's redirect them to /new-directory/login.aspx?email=[base64_encoded email]&password=[base64_encoded password].
This is that code in PHP:
if($is_new) {
header("Location: /newdirectory/login.aspx?email="
.base64_encode(stripslashes($_POST['email'])) . "&password="
.base64_encode(stripslashes($_POST['password'])));
} else {
//process login
}
This cost me 2 hours at $165. Am I getting taken for a ride? I keep telling them - this would take 30 seconds in PHP. And they tell me, yes but ASP.net doesn't work that way, and we need to change the web.config, and we need to recompile the entire site, etc, etc. If it were just one vendor, I'd be more suspicious, but two separate, unrelated developers are giving me crazy quotes like this.
I hear people bitch about PHP online ad nauseum. Every time I see real code, it appears PHP is FAR faster and far more friendly when it comes to customization.
Comments (4) |
9437 view(s)
>> OSNews version 4 Subscriber Only Features 2007-03-26 14:26:21
Tags: OSNews
I decided that I would add some features to OSN4 that are "subscriber only" features. I won't lie, I did it up subscribership, not because it gets me rich (it doesn't, I make no money from it) and not because I'm a jerk, but rather because OSNews is a better experience without those pesky ads and I want other people to see it. Plus, the longer OSNews is profitable the better equipment we have, the more attention we get from our admins, etc. Thus, I have implemented some subscriber only features. Like v3, the most obvious benefit is that all ads go "poof" and you never see them. Period.
The most requested feature is the "ignore list." You can now ignore a user, and their comments will be automatically collapsed and highlighted. This is great if you want to ignore a troll or someone who really bugs you.
Thirdly, instead of changing each page to "view -> all comments" in flat mode, you can now set this in your prefs and just see all comments on each page in one shot. This is VERY useful to people who are married to flat mode.
I may add additional site skins for subscribers. I'm not sure about this one, because it's more work, but then, replicating all of the v3 skins ought to be easy now that I have the classic skin mostly complete. [update: I have already added "Orange Platinum" from v3, and will be adding more in the coming week]
And lastly, links in your profile (both your website and any links in your bio) will *not* be tagged rel="nofollow." By adding a rel of nofollow, the links are not followed by search engines and therefore do not benefit from our standing in their index. This is less something I removed from users and more because it prevents spam. Instead of fake dummy accounts who do not visit us but continue to have a valid user page, only subscribers will benefit from our indexing. I am going to add rel="nofollow" to links in the comments too. [update: this is done]
These may not be the only subscriber only features we see in OSNews version 4. I intend to make it more attractive to be a subscriber without making the non-subscriber experience anything less than complete.
Comments (0) |
2247 view(s)
>> That's More Like It! 2007-01-05 17:02:24
This is much more like it. I'm three days into my experiment. After 9.5 hours running today, this is what Opera 9.1 looks like. I am currently downloading three SHN files all greater than 30MB. 
Click picture for a larger view
Comments (0) |
2362 view(s)
>> Reaction to Recent OSNews Pieces 2006-12-28 15:30:24
I missed the hoopla over the last week stemming from Thom Holwerda's piece on OSNews called Has the Desktop Linux Bubble Burst? His follow up piece, entitled On Favouritism, Apologies, and Black Helicopters, which sounds like the personal musings of a short story author, attempted to clarify his points. I have a lot to say on this, so if you're interested, read on for the meat.
Complete Story (2337 words) |
Comments (0) |
1432 view(s)
>> You're Killing Me, Firefox 2006-11-02 08:11:04
As I've said before, I've been a user of Firefox (albeit, by different names), since 0.2 (possibly 0.1). I've learned to love it. I love my core extensions, I love the tabs and the general feel. I have really enjoyed using Firefox. As I've also detailed before, I have some problems with Firefox. In particular, a certain Firefox bug has pissed me off so much, not because of the bug, but rather, the fact that the Mozilla devs appear/appeared to be perfectly content with their decision, despite the arguments. I have blown off Firefox at home for the also-Gecko-based Camino. I am seriously considering blowing off Firefox at work for Opera.
But this is the real reason. It's not just their XML arrogance. It's this: Firefox is a mess when it comes to memory.
Click on the image for a full size view
Let's break it down: Firefox allows developers to write extensions that utilize XUL, which means memory leaks could come from poorly written extensions. But as a user, my response is: I don't care. If writing extensions can cause a WEB BROWSER to eat up over 1/2GB of memory, you've got a problem! Fix chrome! Fix XUL! Limit what the extensions can do! Otherwise, someone is going to release "Trusted Firefox," or worse, offshoot Firefox to something simpler, something that is to Firefox what Firefox was to Seamonkey.
Camino, which doesn't use XUL by the way, is much less featureful - sometimes annoyingly so, but guess what - it can runs for weeks without so much as a burp. This is Firefox after less than 24 hours with 6 tabs open, and the last 15 hours were of complete inactivity (overnight, while I was home).
I suspect this could be AJAX related (Gmail is always one tab). But since Firefox is my gateway to the web, it's responsible for making sure the web plays nice through that window and correcting any behavior that makes it unhappy. And frankly, lately, it's letting me down.
Comments (4) |
7637 view(s)