Category: Posts

The appearance of quite a few items in my Google Reader feed list is beginning to become a bit of a nuisance. While I’m not nearly as adept as Robert Scoble when it comes to processing that amount of information, I still regularly skim 1500 items per day and get the idea behind most of them. All the feeds I read help me keep up with the news, or provide some degree of entertainment. For example, Behind the Counter details what being a customer service weasel at WalMart entails; it could also be called “hell on Earth.”

Unfortunately, there are several items in my feeds from otherwise quality websites that I’m not really interested in – so much, in fact, that any article with specific keywords or URLs automatically triggers the “next!” reflex. The specific example I’m thinking of is an otherwise excellent website, halo.bungie.org. HBO is the definitive Bungie/Halo fansite, apart from Bungie.net itself. (Disclaimer: In a former role, I used to contribute content to another Halo fansite, The Junkyard, and had several links from HBO.)

The HBO forums far surpass Bungie.net for maturity, level of story analysis, and recent developments. Louis Wu (Claude Errera) has been operating the bungie.org servers for years; he also appeared in the Halo 2 Limited Edition documentary and was credited in the games. There are also several other bungie.org administrators that contribute content to the site and front page.

As far as I know, HBO primarily posts news either from their own forums, sent to various bungie.org email addresses, or reactively based on several Google Alerts out for Halo. Regularly contributing community members also seem to get a fair bit of attention in the form of posts. There have been days in which all posts focus on a single author. Lately, the trend has been for the front page to feature content from personal weblogs, which is something I’m skeptical about; historically, unless the weblog was written by a developer or someone “official” (like Mat Noguchi), it really didn’t receive too much attention. Perhaps it’s due to the trend of people starting to contribute content to their own sites, rather than in forums or as a submission to community portals.

So why all this background? Because I can only stand reading so many opinion pieces and speculation from people’s weblogs when it comes to Halo news. It seems like every day for some time now, there’s been a post featuring HBO’s new female contributor, ‘Hawty McBloggy’. In the past short while, she’s detailed eBay auctions for Spartan armor, spawned “what-if” scenarios spiralling into the rabid fan(boy|girl) category, and peppy lists of things to do in Halo 3 that would make Digg’s front page in no time. It doesn’t seem like legitimate, genuine Halo content – it seems more like a personal weblog that just happens to have a Halo focus, which doesn’t necessarily warrant constant placement on a popular Halo news site.

Not to say that it’s bad writing, or that the author doesn’t have any legitimate content. It’s just not in the same realm as narcogen’s writing at rampancy.net and certainly doesn’t have the stylistic finesse present in Brandon ‘vector40’ Oto‘s content. One wonders if there’s a particular reason for highlighting bs angel‘s content. While I’m fairly certain that Claude’s not just taking up room on the front page of his site because of the female on the Internet playing Halo phenomenon – and let’s face it, it is his site – there’s a large separation between informed, researched and sourced speculation of the Halo universe and (paraphrased) “oh my god, wouldn’t it be cool to have Cortana’s voice in multiplayer?”

This sort of post, with soft news content, isn’t the only thing I’d rather not read from HBO. While there are some talented artists producing interesting Halo art, for example, the One One Se7en webcomics produced by another regular contributor are the equivalent of “Dennis the Menace” or “Garfield”: just not that funny. Master Chief ending up in another particularly embarrassing situation with an ironic remark has the same net comedic value as that damn orange cat eating lasagna, sleeping and punting a dog.

“So then,” you may say, “what are you going to do about this situation?” Well, I could easily piss and moan like everyone on social networking and blog sites does – or I could use Yahoo! Pipes to create a filtered RSS feed. Here it is for your enjoyment: a HBO RSS feed without Hawty or One One Se7en content. I may add more filters if posts continue to crop up that aren’t that engaging.

My next project with Yahoo! Pipes will likely TUAW content without emo whining about “My iPhone bricked itself!” If you’d had a BlackBerry, that wouldn’t be happening… 😉

Alternatively, what really might save me some stress would be a Digg RSS feed, sans articles containing “Digg this”, “Ron Paul”, “[PIC]”, or more than one punctuation mark in a row.

Since I know most people in this post probably have alerts out for their names, don’t take offense to my rhetoric; it’s hard to come up with original content and I respect that. I’m just too disinterested in anything but news to care.

Just checked out the Eclipse SVN site and apparently the issue with dashes in new PHP filenames has been resolved. I upgraded my work copy to the latest nightly build and things seem to be going well. (The October 1st integration build might be better stability-wise, but I’ve had good luck with the nightly builds.)

For the record, after the upgrade, loading my workspace took about five minutes (Core 2 Duo @ 2.16GHz, 1GB RAM) with no discernable progress bar or CPU activity. Eclipse effectively looks like it’s frozen. Be patient; it’ll load eventually.

PDT, though, is about the single most useful tool I find for PHP development at work. The next front-runner is WinSCP, which has a really neat feature, Keep remote directory up to date:

This feature lets you have complete synchronization between a remote SFTP server and your local Eclipse workspace. It also supports private key encryption.

As a pair to WinSCP, I also use PuTTY, with anywhere from one to five sessions open at a time. PuTTY offers a neat tunnelling option, which I’ve mentioned before.

You can also access internal servers using one of these tunnels; for example, if I want to connect to a remote desktop session on host 192.168.1.101:3389 on my internal network, I’d use the following syntax:

Source port: 127.0.0.2:3389
Destination: 192.168.1.101:3389

Then, after establishing the SSH connection, using the 127.0.0.2 alias in Remote Desktop lets me connect to the machine behind the NAT traversal firewall.

Notepad++ is another program I highly recommend as a replacement for Notepad. If you can’t use TextMate because you’re not on a Mac, Notepad++ is an acceptable substitute. It offers some neat syntax highlighting features, and saves session history even when you exit.

Paint.NET is also a decent image editor, allowing you to verify hex values for colours and perform some minor tweaks to images without incurring the load time and aggravations in Photoshop.

I think I’ve found a group of people just as annoying as elitist Mac users. This group would be the no-holds-barred Firefox/Mozilla zealots who hang out at Spread Firefox and post Diggbait articles about the state of browser compatibility. Yes, Firefox has done great things for Web standards and interoperability of sites; it’s also nice to have the same browsing UI on Windows, OS X and Linux boxes. Yes, not everyone at Spread Firefox is drooling with glee as they report sites for misplacing a LI tag. Unfortunately, today’s target of my wrath does not meet the criteria for exemption.

It’s specifically this list that irks me today, written by a guy whose interests apparently include bashing “Micro$oft”, South Park boot screens, and writing about browser incompatibilities.

The only reason I even bring this up (and since I refuse to go into the Digg comments; they’re already at over 110 and I don’t think I’ve seen one intelligent one yet) is because Nathan links to blackberry.com as one of the sites that’s incompatible with Firefox.

Wait, hold up. blackberry.com (the consumer/promotion site for the devices) is about one of the most likely sites to comply with Web standards, since it’s also designed to be viewable on a BlackBerry device. What’s this guy on about? His complaint is specifically the Google Talk instant messenger download page:

http://www.blackberry.com/GoogleTalk/index.do Uses obsolete ActiveX junk. And Google is somehow involved with this?!?

For reference, here’s what the website says when I go to it using Firefox:

Notice

Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 or above is required to download this Instant Messenger.

This web page uses ActiveX controls that work only in Microsoft Internet Explorer. To ensure that Google Talk for BlackBerry devices is correctly downloaded to your BlackBerry, this site is not designed to work with any other Internet browsers.

This page is a separate application with an ActiveX control, designed to connect to your device using USB and load a Java MIDlet (which can’t be done with conventional web scripting language, so ActiveX is really the only way to go.) Furthermore, anybody accessing this page can also do it from their BlackBerry device, which also properly loads the application without the IE requirement.

For the record, I use both IE7 and Firefox at work, each for about 50% of typical usage. All my custom development works equally well in both browsers, except for SharePoint/Project Server integrated plugins (and that’s a Microsoft limitation.) Yes, it’s not entirely great that you can’t load MIDlets with Firefox, but the reality of the business world is such that you can count on a Windows/IE combination for corporate desktops; a Firefox extension/plugin for the same functionality doesn’t really make sense when there’s already a browser-agnostic way of performing this task.

A puzzling problem lately arose when I was asked (through our consulting business) to find a better contacts, calendar and task synchronization solution for a BlackBerry device and Microsoft Outlook. Typically, large business and enterprise users have little issue with this problem, since BlackBerry Enterprise Server for Exchange, GroupWise or Domino takes care of the process. That’s not the case for individual, BlackBerry Internet Service users, who have to connect their device through USB and have the Desktop Manager software perform the synchronization.

This process is less than ideal for small business users, cost of which is only one factor. (You can get a free copy of BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express for one user, which is expandable for up to fifteen users with additional client access licenses.) Unfortunately, it’s not just the software itself that users balk at paying for – you have to be running Exchange Server, Novell GroupWise or Lotus Domino as your backend email server, which can be a much more expensive proposition than BES itself. In my client’s case, they’re running a package called AltN MDaemon for Windows, which provides OWA-like functionality through a component called WorldClient. BES was not an option in this case.

Fortunately, MDaemon (through WorldClient) does support a standardized component called SyncML. Using this guide, I was able to provide the following solution:

• The user account on the MDaemon server (userid@example.com) is accessed using the Outlook Connector component. This keeps all mail stored on the mail server, but also has the side effect of storing contacts, calendars and notes in IMAP-like format on the server as well.
• Mail coming to the MDaemon server for userid@example.com is also forwarded (using mail rules/filters) to the BIS account – in this case, userid@example.blackberry.net.
• The WorldClient and SyncML services are activated on the MDaemon server – for example, at http://mail.example.com:34567/.
• Using a component called SyncJE installed on the BlackBerry device, contacts, calendars, and tasks are synchronized with the server copies. This synchronization can be done manually, to keep data usage in check – or automatically. SyncJE is a fifteen-day trial with a nag screen, and is $39.95 to purchase.
• The following settings are used for SyncJE on the BlackBerry:
  

  URL: http://mail.example.com:34567/MDSyncML.dll (where mail.example.com:34567 is your WorldClient URL)
  Username: (the username for the MDaemon account)
  Password: (the password for the MDaemon account)
  Contacts Folder Name: contacts
  Calendar Folder Name: calendar
  Todo Folder Name: tasks

  The Zen Software site notes that “If you want to synchronise a Public Contacts, Calendar or Tasks folder instead then use the following format in the FolderName field instead:

  ./Public Folder/company.mail/Contacts”

While I can’t officially recommend this solution as the best option, it works well for my client’s needs, and may assist you with your own personal scheduling systems. For example, SyncML components may be available for your mail server, which would also work with SyncJE.

The hierarchy of Internet commenting continues to prove worthwhile and reinforce my point.

From Boy Genius Report, which pointed to DownloadSquad, which blogwhored back to the original source, StupidFilter will be an open source filter package for comments, based on YouTube stupidity:

The solution we’re creating is simple: an open-source filter software that can detect rampant stupidity in written English. This will be accomplished with weighted Bayesian analysis and some rules-based processing, similar to spam detection engines. The primary challenge inherent in our task is that stupidity is not a binary distinction, but rather a matter of degree. To this end, we’re collecting a ranked corpus of stupid text, gleaned from user comments on public websites and ranked on a five-point scale.

The site also refers to Eternal September, which is the September that AOL users first accessed newsgroups and ruined the discussion boards for everyone else. I’m still not entirely sure where most non-technical newsgroups would fit inside the hierarchy.

In the meantime, the StupidFilter project has a random stupidity page, where you can view examples of YouTube comments. (Personally, I think all the ones I’ve seen have ranked too low – the project should have a 1-10 scale instead of a 1-5 to allow more of a granular level of stupidity.)

Also, check out their FAQ page, where I found this bit of hilarity for my morning, emphasis mine:

Keep in mind we grade stupidity on a scale of 1 to 5. Someone might get a 1 or 2 for a comment that used no punctuation, whereas a comment consisting of nothing but text message abbreviations with a dash of LOLLLLL thrown in for good measure would probably rate a solid 4 or 5. There is a certain amount of subjectivity, and our software is aware of that; scoring will be normalized to eliminate excessively generous or harsh estimations of stupidity.

I’ve made a few changes to the site, specifically applying the latest upgrade to WordPress 2.3 and a few new plugins. Here’s what’s behind the engine now:

The All-In-One SEO Pack: Modifies titles and meta tags for better search engine optimization. The site was doing fairly well before, but it’d be nice to make sure all content here is accessible.

Google XML Sitemaps: Generates a sitemap XML file (that you can use with Google Webmaster Tools) from your existing WordPress structure.

Share This: Adds a fairly inobtrusive link to the bottom of posts allowing submission to social networking and news aggregation sites.

WP-Cache: Caches page contents so that your database server doesn’t get reamed as badly. I’d already been running a previous version, and the only annoying thing is that if you’re editing a theme, you have to turn it off (or delete the cached pages every time) and remember to turn it back on when done.

The theme being used here is a slightly tweaked version of Mandigo Blue, with some sidebar code modifications and added support for Google Adsense/Analytics code.

Over the past few days this site has had a ridiculous number of hits outside its ordinary audience. This seems to be due to two particular referrals at the same time, both referencing my post on Leopard showing networked PC’s with blue screens of death:

Unfortunately, the StumbleUpon community seems to be somewhere around the Digg level of maturity when it comes to reviews:

We have a Warren-esque remark about how the site content is “OLD” (let alone the fact that it was written in June, and was a spur-of-the-moment type thing based on a preview copy of Leopard). Strike one.

We also have a superior-than-thou comment about how the poster has never seen a BSOD on XP, and is now going to play some “award-winning games” on his machine. I can hear the Comic Book Guy’s snickering now.

I’ve had kernel panics on OS X. I’ve had random “bus error” messages appear while using Disk Utility on the Mac – hence the title of this freaking weblog. (I’ve never had that horrible of an error message occur personally on any other operating system.) And I’ve had blue screens on 2000, XP, 2003 Server, and Microsoft’s latest pride and joy, Vista – and in Vista, they’ve been incredibly perplexing to troubleshoot.

Operating systems of all kinds can and will die unexpectedly. I don’t play the game of platform superiority anymore. I find Windows does better for certain tasks, such as a seamless 1.8TB storage pool for all my media and personal files. (I’ll have a post on Windows Home Server and its ass-kickery soon enough.)

I find the Mac does better for other tasks, such as managing my 60GB+ music library with iTunes. I don’t have the time or patience to determine why a Core 2 Duo E6750 can’t organize folders locally in half the time my MacBook can over the LAN. After years of tweaking Windows settings, I’m content to let the Mac manage things and find out solutions to idiotic problems when it’s convenient, not when I want to listen to Mims.

In any event, users probably wouldn’t notice XP bluescreening anyways, as its default settings are to dump memory contents to disk and reboot immediately. I’ve fixed many a system with dodgy motherboards that needed this option disabled, to confirm that the chipset drivers were acting up. A split second is not enough time to ascertain the driver file name or the STOP message.

So, commenters of StumbleUpon, I salute you for your wonderful sense of timing and self-satisfied gaming. Any other takers?

I’ve made a few statements in the past – both in real life and online – about how certain Web sites seem to attract certain types of users and commenters. There’s a very clear relationship between the audience a site attracts and the comments contributed by users. One can clearly go from quality, interesting comments to spambots and txt-speak in a few clicks.

I may update this list as necessary, as new sites appear every day, but here’s my definitive Hierarchy of Internet Commenting. Rankings go from quality at the top to “I am dumber for having tried to read this” at the bottom.

1. Popular Web standards or technical discussion sites, such as A List Apart or flagship sites in the 9rules network. Sometimes the comments can definitely stray into pretentious quibbling, but for the most part they’re insightful and offer decent advice to Web designers and developers:
2. Something Awful Forums: The content of discussion at SA may be highly ridiculous, but it’ll be written well and intelligently. There’s a reason that several industry insiders post there. A $10 registration fee acts as an initial gatekeeper, and a few ban-hammer wielding administrators take care of anyone foolish enough to use ‘lulz’ in a post or reply.
3. Newsgroups: general discussion. Most newsgroups take a bad reputation because of the inherent community of trolls, but even the troll posts are generally well-written. People may be fairly snippy, as per below, but you’ll generally get the correct answer if you’re thick skinned.
4. Slashdot. Posts without merit are taken care of by the moderation system, and the standard of written English is very high even though there’s no specific enforcement of it. There are some Internet memes present in most discussions, but these posts are likely lead to genuinely funny responses. Posters on Slashdot also have a significantly higher degree of technical knowledge than the average bear (or Internet user), so responses to questions are likely to receive a correct response in a shorter timespan.Comical or humorous posts – even the first one in a discussion – have likely already analyzed the situation and provided commentary on it:

   

5. General-interest blogs. Sites like Gizmodo, Engadget, Kotaku, Joystiq and all others owned by Gawker Media and Weblogs, Inc. have dedicated staff policing their comment fields. Unfortunately, there’s not much enforcement of post quality – simply that there’s no trolling and people tend to stay on topic. Additionally, it’s clear that certain topics attract people without the technical knowledge to respond properly. These people respond anyways, forking the discussion and causing needless debate, when a snappy “You’re an idiot and here’s why, with proof” response would curtail the issue. A certain amount of sarcasm is necessary, in my opinion, to separate the idiots from people who actually do know something.
6. Facebook popular applications walls: This is where we start devolving into really horrible discussions of who is popular and who is clearly not. The picture alone should be sufficient to tell you that the quality of discussion definitely has gone down a bar:
7. Digg: I thought the site’s newly introduced ranking system would keep discussions a bit more technically involved.I thought wrong – apparently that damn “cheezburger” meme is still worth displaying:

   

8. YouTube comments are filled with the most ignorant, racist invective I’ve ever seen online. I found these attached to a “most popular” video on the front page of the site:
9. And last but not least, any MySpace comments – simply because they’re 90% ads for “free” ringtones or profile tracking scripts. I’ll leave the image off this site here, but you know where to look for examples.

Have any other sites with good or horrible comments? Disagree with my ordering? Feel free to comment here, but please keep it at a Kotaku-or-above level.

It must be a banner day for Eclipse projects, since the primary IDE I use for both work and personal projects has been released as a 1.0 version at eclipse.org.

The primary download mirror from eclipse.org is fairly slow (I’m pulling about 50-60K/s from my work connection from it, when normally I get much speedier downloads), at least for the full-sized Win32 large package. I’d suggest you use an alternate mirror – the OSU Open Source Lab mirror seems to be pulling in the ZIP file fairly well. It also hasn’t percolated to all mirrors yet, so try a different one if you’re unlucky with the first.

I’m going to check and see if the minor file naming bug in RC1 made its way out to the final release; stay tuned.

Update: Wow, we’ve got a UI and a pain-in-the-rear bug when trying to create filenames with multiple periods:

I might decide to report this to the Bugzilla site, but last time I did, apparently the description and sample code I provided wasn’t really needed.

Update 2: Apparently this will be fixed in the next integration build, but it’ll still probably have an ‘illigal’ spelling error.

Update 3: The typo should be picked up in the next nightly.

Update 4: The typo and bug has been fixed in the N20070920 build, but still doesn’t allow the creation of filenames with dashes. Might have to report this one.

Just heard the news that IBM’s launched a free office suite called Lotus Symphony. I’m currently installing it; apparently the entire package is based on Eclipse, which should make for an interesting environment. Since I do most of my development in Eclipse, it’ll be interesting to see how they’ve expanded on the IDE to create an office suite inside it.

The site was a bit slow for me earlier, so here’s the direct link to the IBM signin page, which was significantly faster than the Lotus site. To install, run the IBM_Lotus_Symphony_w32.exe file, then run setup.exe from the same folder.