Oct 2002
Tue, 29 Oct 2002
Graham Glass: No Hardcoded URLs
Graham Glass writes:
i've been working a lot recently on GAIA, our up-coming new product which is a grid services platform. GAIA contains features that allow you to write programs that don't contain a single hard-coded URL anywhere. it's weird the first time you write code this way, but i assure you that once you get used to it, you never want to go back!
It sounds cool. I can't wait to try it. But it begs the question: is it anti-RESTian? Is this going to be yet another one of those religious wars?
Posted at: 08:32 | permalink
Fri, 25 Oct 2002
I Knew There Was A Reason I Liked Norah Jones
Rolling Stone interviews Norah Jones:
Any thoughts on Britney Spears and other girl-pop singers?
She came out when I was in college, and I was a little bit disgusted. I remember seeing pictures of her when she was, like, fifteen, and they were pornographic. That really disturbed me. Back then, I didn't know anything about the music industry. All I knew was that I liked Billie Holiday and I was gonna be a jazz pianist and a singer, damn it! I was a total nerd. Now, I mean, I don't listen to that kind of music, but I don't have a problem with it. She's grown up now, she can do what she wants.
Posted at: 00:45 | permalink
news.kak.net: Audi A4 Gets 190 bhp 1.8T and 6-speed
news.kak.net reports that Audi is going to be delivering a hot form of the A4 with a 190 bhp 1.8T and 6 speed manual. That's what you need.
Posted at: 00:11 | permalink
Thu, 24 Oct 2002
Eric Werner's Movable Type Blog
In the midst of searching for an email address, I came across my friend Eric Werner's Movable Type blog. Check it out.
Posted at: 23:46 | permalink
A Weird Day In The Burgh
I knew it was going to be a weird day today when I drove up behind a car and there was a bumper sticker that read, "My other car is an appliance". Huh?
Then, I was listening to 91.3 FM WYEP, arguably the best radio station in Pittsburgh, and the DJ plays a cover of Depeche Mode's personal jesus that's done in a southern blues style (voice and acoustic guitar) and I'm listening and thinking to myself, gee dave, that sounds like johnny cash. Next thing I know, the DJ comes on and says that indeed it was Johnny Cash and he goes on to explain that Johnny is a big depeche mode fan!
Posted at: 23:36 | permalink
More on the Movable Type 2.5 upgrade
After struggling through some setup woes, Ben Trott was kind enough to help me with my MT 2.5 upgrade and I discovered the source of my problems - my own stupidity. I had MT configured to use two separate static web path directories and so I hadn't updated the correct directory. I fixed the config to use a single directory and now everything's working great. Thanks to Ben for helping me out. One could only hope that all commercial software vendors could begin to approach the kind of old-fashioned customer service that Ben and Mena deliver.
Posted at: 23:17 | permalink
Movable Type 2.5 Upgrade
Well, I upgraded to the movable type 2.5 version tonight. Everything seemed to go OK but I can't quite figure out where the other edit box is for pinging blo.gs and the like. That is, what's described in the doc doesn't match what I see in the user interface. I wish the doc were a bit clearer here. It would make it easier if somebody had a screenshot of the new functionality so that I could compare. Mine looks just like the old blog config options.
The other thing that's a bit odd is that I didn't run any upgrade cgi script as the instructions for my version - 2.21 - indicated only to run the script if I was running mysql, and I'm not. Does this sound right or should I have run one of the scripts? Again, the doc left me with a furrowed brow.
Indeed, after republishing this entry, I discovered that MT is still pinging weblogs.com and movabletype.org, even though it's not supposed to. Hmm... I saw on the mt forums that folks were having trouble with this and ben was trying to figure it out. Could the upgrade script have something to do with it?
Posted at: 00:20 | permalink
Mon, 21 Oct 2002
Wal-Mart Becomes Largest Private Employer In PA
What took the University of Pennsylvania hundreds of years, Wal-Mart achieved in only twelve years. [pittsburgh post gazette]
Posted at: 18:49 | permalink
Sat, 19 Oct 2002
C#, .Net, Mono, and Gtk#
I've been playing around with Mono and Gtk# and I'm pleased to report that despite a few build problems, these teams have made substantial progress and the tools appear to be usable by mere mortals, namely me.
Indeed, something as simple as this:
About about = new About("My First Mono Gtk# Application","1.0","Copyright 2002","Hello", new String[]{"David Watson"}, new String[]{"David Watson"}, "n/a", new Pixbuf("/home/david/aak.thumb.jpg"));
about.Run();
Yields results like this:
I knew writing cross-platform GUIs in Java was relatively easy but this takes it to another level entirely. I'd like to thank everybody who did such wonderful work on this stuff. I'm hoping to dive in and make a contribution soon once I figure out where the holes are. Woo Hoo!
Posted at: 04:10 | permalink
Wed, 16 Oct 2002
The Linux Switch - Redhat 8 vs. Mandrake 9
On the suggestion of Russell Beattie, I downloaded and installed Redhat 8 over the weekend. I finally found time to install it tonight and I'm pleased to report that at least from my cursory review, it appears to equal or exceed Mandrake 9 on all of the points that I care about: painless wireless install, nice desktop defaults, very little work involved. Indeed, I have to give a resounding thumbs up to the folks at Redhat as they seem to have hit it out of the park with most of the desktop work. The fonts are gorgeous, the icons are eye candy, faded texture on the title bars is aesthetically pleasing, and the default window dressing is clean and unobtrusive. The only problem that I've noticed so far is that Mozilla won't switch from classic to modern theme, even after a restart. Not sure what's going on there but I assume there's a bug somewhere. That's not a problem that I had seen on Mandrake 9 so I think it's related to Redhat 8 in some way. So, for the time being, I'm running on Redhat 8 day to day. Here's a screenshot for those of you who care.
Posted at: 01:01 | permalink
Wed, 09 Oct 2002
NY Times Reports newmusicjukebox.org Has Music Score Downloads
The NY Times reports that a new music site has scores of many popular american music composers available for download in PDF format. Indeed, I was able to download John Adams' Short Ride in a Fast Machine. Very cool. Hope to see more like this.
Posted at: 06:07 | permalink
Movable Type 2.5
From Roland Tanglao:
Movable Type is one year old! Congratulations to Ben and Mena for producing the most awesome application that I've ever used.
And on top of all that, they've released version 2.5. I can't wait to try it. Anybody have it up yet?
Posted at: 05:45 | permalink
Tue, 08 Oct 2002
Auto Linkback Referers Abuse
Well, I guess I should have listened when Mark Pilgrim warned me that these auto linkback referer systems could be construed as an invitation to mischief. Last night, I discovered a sizable sequence of requests coming from a dialup on what I believe is a German ISP. These requests all came from the same dialup and each request appeared to have a manipulated referer entry from a myriad of p0rn sites. In the meantime, I've removed the auto linkback referer system from my site till I decide what to do about this. Obviously, I could add filters to the referer code for each of these bad referers but that seems like a losing battle. Sigh. If you have any bright ideas, by all means, please comment. And if you were treated to an array of ugly looking referers on my site last night, I apologize. That won't happen again.
Posted at: 10:29 | permalink
Mon, 07 Oct 2002
Metalsite: The redesign and SOAP Web Services API
I try to avoid talking about work here but I figured this is worth mentioning.
Bryan and I have been busy at work, bringing to fruition a lot of ideas that should have seen the light of day in the late 90's, but hindsight is 20/20. You see, we represent the remaining bastion of people who are still crazy enough to attempt to conquer B2B e-commerce, specifically B2B e-commerce in the metals industry. And it's not easy.
Building on a style labeled HTMinimalism by Curt Cloninger, we set out to radically simplify everything on the site, moving toward CSS-based layout and reducing average page size across the board. We deleted, edited, and cajoled some of the most hideous server parsed markup code that I have ever seen into a coherent whole that we believe has the potential to finally deliver on the promise of B2B e-commerce.
At the same time, we've built a SOAP web services API that enables our customers to transfer product data to our site using their own custom-designed SOAP clients, making it possible to create solutions that tightly integrate our customers disparate information systems with our own.
Posted at: 09:31 | permalink
Sat, 05 Oct 2002
Convergence: Integrate Streaming MP3 into Movable Type with Andromeda
Andromeda is an excellent streaming audio (mp3) web application available in ASP or PHP from Scott Matthews at Turnstyle.
Drop Andromeda into a folder of media files and you get a fully-featured, streaming Web site. Drag in new files, and your site is automatically updated.
Movable Type, of course, is blog software.
I have been working with Michael and Scott to get Andromeda to work seamlessly with Movable Type and I am happy to say that we've achieved our goal. For an example, try clicking my music link in the navbar on the left.
If you'd like to try integrating Andromeda with Movable Type on your own site, you can find the documentation here. Thanks to Michael and Scott for helping me to get this running smoothly.
Posted at: 00:22 | permalink
Fri, 04 Oct 2002
PBS Frontline: John O'Neill - The Man Who Knew
I just finished watching an incredibly powerful piece from PBS Frontline on FBI agent John O'Neill titled The Man Who Knew. It is a deeply disturbing story that left me with more questions than answers. I do believe after watching the program that O'Neill had the country's best interest at heart. The show painted a very dark picture of the role played by former US Ambassador to Yemen, Barbara Bodine. I found it particularly interesting that she declined Frontline's request for an interview. After watching this program, the problems that plague the FBI become much more obvious, particularly with regard to the state department.
Posted at: 00:05 | permalink
Thu, 03 Oct 2002
Running Gnome On Mandrake Linux 9
I spent about a week running KDE on Mandrake Linux 9 and switched to Gnome a few days ago. Haven't made a solid choice either way. Right now, they appear to be about dead even for my usage patterns.
Screenshot of Mandrake 9 running Gnome Desktop including Evolution and Galeon
Posted at: 01:15 | permalink
Brad Wilson: Exodus From Technology Industry On The Rise?
Brad Wilson observes that some friends of his are either fleeing the technology industry altogether or considering it.
This really resonated with me. It reminds me of my friend Jeff Z. Jeff left a successful technology career this past summer, sold everything, packed what was left, and moved to Prague to teach and write. Some of us who worked with Jeff simultaneously admired and envied him. It was like he thumbed his nose at the status quo while saying, "What's so great about a tech career?" Many of us who'd been at it longer than Jeff were asking ourselves that very question.
I love the work, but hate the environment - the commute, the office, the cubicles, the coffee, the politics. In the middle of 1998, I worked from my home office in Redmond, started each day at 6 or 7 and generally worked till 6 in the evening with a break for lunch and a bike ride. I was in good shape and I enjoyed the work and the people.
Today, I can barely will myself out of bed, into the shower, the car, the traffic, the parking, the office. Bryan and I have done some really interesting work in the last year but it's like we're dragging the proverbial 200 ton freight train behind us. Part of it is the dynamic of an organization that is struggling to change and grow. The other part is a business climate that's like trying to sell sand to a man crossing the desert. On top of that, add unprecedented employer selectiveness with regard to hiring and you have quite a dim scene. The days of celebrating a release or milestone are over. There's little, if any, joy in the process. And that's what leads me to consider all manner of options from medical school to music school and everything in between.
Posted at: 00:52 | permalink
Wed, 02 Oct 2002
Jakob Nielsen: Email Newsletters Pick Up Where Websites Leave Off
This should be required reading for anybody running something resembling a dotcom.
Posted at: 08:42 | permalink
Radio Users Still Experience First-of-the-Month Bug Five Months Later
I've been watching the posts on this thread on the Radio Userland support group with amusement.
Note that the original post was may 1st and that today is 5 months later. I'm just wondering what bernard goldbach and scott johnson think of userland's support now?
Goldbach said, "If you land on this thread because your system is telling you it can't find www#prefs.txt, chances are you created the problem yourself by using too many quotation marks in a post."
Oh, I forgot, it's your fault, you're the stupid user that made the mistake that caused this problem, right Bernard? And I thought it was software's job to guard against users wrecking the core of the software? Silly me.
Johnson said, "I would caution you that things aren't all that dissimilar in BloggerVille. The grass is always greener you know. Bear in mind that Radio is in the middle of going from niche to mainstream and this stresses an organization to the breaking point. And then it heals and is better. UserLand will get past this."
Indeed, the grass is greener. I've been running movable type for 3 months now without any problems whatsoever and I've made exactly the same mistake that got me into trouble with radio here on several occasions. So, has Userland healed and gotten better? Has Userland gotten past this in 5 months? I don't think so.
Expecting a commercial software vendor to fix bugs in their product is not a criminal act and it remains the primary reason that I no longer run radio.
Update: Brad Wilson picks up the story.
Update: Sam Ruby points out that Userland has finally fixed the bug.
Posted at: 08:27 | permalink
Tue, 01 Oct 2002
Music Industry Suits Skewered By Musicians
Via Scripting News: MusicDish Industry e-Journal
Absent the penalty of perjury, Major Label lawyers testified to a panel of senators in Los Angles that most artists are happy with their recording contracts. The panel, this past Tuesday, was assembled to entertain arguments as to wether legislation might be necessary to keep major record labels honest when reporting to their artists the amount of money earned on their exclusive record contracts. If enacted, this would be the beginning of government regulation of the music business; a concept that, ironically, artists are initiating.
Deeply disturbing.
Posted at: 22:08 | permalink
MIT Releases Open Courseware
MIT has released it's first iteration of Open Courseware to the public. While I'm excited about the long term prospects, I'm a bit disappointed in the short term. The greatest long term potential may be to influence curricula at lesser institutions from community colleges to high schools. Unless I'm missing something, the short term is less impressive. The site certainly looks nice, but there's not much content. These are all lessons they could have gotten from reading their own graduates, and professors. Why a single person can do this in his spare time with a minimum of effort and produce useful results when a university-funded project can barely get off the ground is beyond me. Oh wait, I forgot. It's really quite sad. Philip Greenspun's materials have been online for years and he's been at MIT for eons, but his own stuff doesn't appear on the Open Courseware site. Go figure.
Posted at: 09:23 | permalink
Music Industry Pays $67 Million Price Fixing Settlement
Slashdot reports on the $67 Million price fixing settlement being paid by the music industry.
Slashdot | Music Industry Pays $67M Fine For Price Fixing
I agree with the posters who pointed out that the settlement is far too small relative to the amount overpaid by consumers in the 1995-2000 period. The music industry has raped consumers for far too long. Now the raping's going to go in the other direction.
Posted at: 09:10 | permalink
