Bus error: Jake Billo's weblog

As the title implies, my partially-abandoned project (and collaborative weblogging site) ev98.net is now, once again, open to the public for viewing. Posts marked as “hidden” will still require a login to access, but the hilarious links and content within are back in style.

I do still plan on upgrading Ethanol, the software that powers the site, but on a much more laid-back and iterative scale than originally anticipated. While the code may be unstructured, it’s still served people’s needs since 2004. That’s a pretty awesome project for something I wrote on a whim, starting as “EWMS” (Evergreen Website Management System) intended to hold a lot of emo high school memories.

Shame it’s too late this evening (morning, actually) to get started on any revisions, but I expect I’ll have some downtime to take a look at it in the near future. Rule of thumb: Publish changes early and publish changes often.

As Borat would say, very nice. Two bugs I’ve been keeping my eye on at the Facebook developer Bugzilla have received official attention.

Bug 724: Give users the option to control which app’s newsfeeds they want to see

and of course, my own submission:

Bug 721: Templatized actions should require link back to application page

I’m not sure how quickly these submissions will be implemented, but it’s good to get a response of sorts on them.

In a continuation of my blocking Facebook feed pushes line of discussion, there’s a way to find out which application caused the action to appear. Most well-behaved applications will link to their Facebook descriptor pages, but some of them do not.

If you’re a developer or technically inclined, you should vote for this bug on Facebook’s Bugzilla site to encourage transparency for applications – the ones from RockYou are the most ridiculous offenders right now, embedding external links directly onto the News Feed.

For now, here’s how to block applications and prevent them from polluting your news:

1. Click the leftmost icon in the feed entry. The image below is a standard application item, which is much easier to track down. This technique is really intended to work on applications that don’t link back to their source.
2. The News Feed page appears, displaying all entries on the page related to the application. You now have two options:

   • Find the application ID number in the address bar; it’s the number after ?app_id=. Add the ID to the end of this address:
     http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=
   • Or, find the application name in the News Feed title. It will be the word (or words) between All ____ Stories.

     Once you have the application name, you can search for it from the applications directory.

3. Once on the application’s page, click the Block Application link (underneath Report Application, on the right side of the page.) You’ll be asked to confirm the block. Once this happens, you shouldn’t see any more stories about users adding or interacting with the application.

Rogers has come through with a $15/month BlackBerry Internet Service plan. It includes unlimited email (including attachments) and use of PIN messaging for BlackBerry Messenger. (Update: You’ll probably have to call Customer Service for this to be added. The number is 1-888-ROGERS1; make sure you specifically mention “BlackBerry” when prompted.)

The plan’s supposed to only be available for Pearl users; I need other instant messaging capabilities on my personal device, however, so I can’t test out whether a Pearl is actually required to receive this plan.

Another new lower-cost plan added to the customer service/support site is the addition of a $25/month 4MB data plan, which is more in the range of a light email and instant messenger user. It matches similar offerings from Bell and Telus in the BlackBerry push email space.

Thanks to Howard Forums for the updated info.

Whoever designed the “templatized feed push” action at Facebook for developers should be put on notice. My wall today is cluttered with ridiculously inane application pushes, and most of them link back to Slide or RockYou home pages – enabling them to track people’s referrers from the links. What’s worse in the matter is that there doesn’t seem to be any easy way to block them right from the feed.

Examples of these three-line messages:

1. Someone got a new post on their FunWall.
2. Someone scored higher than someone else on a quiz.
3. Someone is “like” someone else.

To save you all from having the most inane actions being pushed to your wall, I’m collecting several direct links to block the most annoying and idiotic applications from finding out anything about you. Applications that you’ve already restricted or blocked can be found from this page. I’ll update this page every time I find a new offender.

Note that these apps may not all push updates to your wall, but I’m sure you’ll agree that most of them are annoying as hell. You’ll still have to minimize them on your “friends'” pages, unfortunately.

Application: Likeness
What It Really Does: In an astonishing circlejerk of vanity and nepotism, apparently you’re similar to someone else.
Company to Blame: RockYou
Block It: I’m like the Angry Pirate!

Application: Causes
What It Really Does: Armchair activism at its finest.
Company to Blame: Project Agape
Block It: I support not hearing about your crap!

Application: Glitter Text
What It Really Does: Cheapens the clean design of Facebook.
Company to Blame: The developer isn’t visible. Perhaps they’re embarrassed about their creation, or perhaps they got banned for turning the site into Bling City.
Block It: hAy GuYs ThIs Is CoOoOoL!!!!!!!!111lollerskates

Application: Top Friends
What It Really Does: Makes the site like MySpace.
Company to Blame: Slide
Block It: Tom is not my friend.

Application: SuperPoke!
What It Really Does: Lets you virtually bitch-slap people, along with many other ridiculous actions.
Company to Blame: Slide
Block It: Jake has dropkicked Slide.

Application: HOT or NOT
What It Really Does: Remember when you’d rate people on a 1-10 scale that wasn’t “number of beers to drink before sleeping with this person”?
Company to Blame: HOTorNOT.com
Block It: I’m hot ’cause I’m fly. You ain’t ’cause you not.

Application: Moods
What It Really Does: Brings LiveJournal to Facebook.
Company to Blame: Some jerks at Berkeley, apparently.
Block It: I’m just a kid, and my life is a nightmare / I’m just a kid, and I know that it’s not fair (guess the song for mad shame!)

Application: Nicknames
What It Really Does: Nickname your friends and bring inside jokes to more than just Group Officer titles!
Company to Blame: A few Brandeis alumni. Yeah, I had to look up what the hell Brandeis was, apparently it’s a college in Waltham, MA.
Block It: I bestow upon your the nickname of ‘Pank’.

Application: FunWall
What It Really Does: You’re one click away from having all those Flash and MP3 embeds blare out of your speakers. Also, YOOOOOOUUUUUUTUUUUUBEEEEE VIDEOZ OMG LOL!
Company to Blame: Those Slide bastards again.
Block It: There’s nothing “fun” about Goatse on your profile.

New update – November 9, 2007 @8:22PM (Updated this section: trying to correct the feed. Thanks Phil.)
Application: My Christmas Tree
Company to Blame: Two people from Singapore.
Block It: I’m the Grinch!

In the past, I’ve often claimed songs to be the worst possible in the world, and this honour has now fallen upon the atrocity that is “G-Slide (Tour Bus)”. If you hated Jibbs’ “Chain Hang Low”, then you’ll know the horror of which I speak. Here’s the chorus:

Lil’ Mama tour bus may ride through your town
Take a time, show you how
To do the G-slide, let me show you how
To G-slide
Let’s go!

This chorus is sung to the backing track of The Wheels On The Bus. You know, that song from the “Songs to Enrage Bus Drivers” album? What’s worse is that Lil’ Mama has the “oh snap!” tone of voice throughout the entire track. I guess that’s her gimmick, but I’m certainly not among the target audience.

If you want to pollute your ears with this, YouTube has the official music video that starts with her blowing some form of pink crack cocaine onto a regular school bus to turn it into some Austin Powers-esque monstrosity. Apparently in at least one of her other videos (yet ANOTHER remix of “Umbrella”), things start the same way.

One of my more favourite recurring threads on Something Awful are those that ask users to sum up their day with a newspaper headline and subtitle. They’re generally hilarious, filled with profanity and make mundane daily activities seem absolutely hilarious. It’s effectively the style of The Onion but in shorter form.

Watch, now, as I summarize some of the posts on my Facebook news feed (also known as the Stalking Utility) in the same format.

Philadelphia Teen Attempts to Get Down to Work and Study
Success highly unlikely; girlfriend’s presence may prove to be distracting

Recent Breakup Offers Quick Turnaround Time
Woman begins seeking ‘whatever she can get’ four hours after relationship dissolves

For Some, The Location Isn’t The Draw
Students continue to patronize ‘Dirty Phil’s’, despite its health and safety record being worse than the Royal Buffet

We Know What You Like: Magical Advertisements Astound and Amaze
Sales on eyeliner, tight jeans and black nail polish for My Chemical Romance fans

Sticky Notes Come To The Internet
Despite perfectly good solutions like email, users blindly trust their text to random developers

When Friendship Just Isn’t Good Enough
New social hierarchies emerge based on mysterious pictures in a grid

I Say, Good Madam, You Appear To Be Emitting Music
People actually visit this site at work, thanks

Update: Now they actually are newspaper headlines.

Just caught this item in my Google Reader feed from Joystiq:

Although GHIII is fine and you could probably survive being in Hot Topic, playing Guitar Hero III within the walls of a Hot Topic actual [sic] conscripts you into an emo band. It’s true: A spectral version of Morrissey appears and eats all but .5 percent of your body fat, tears pre-caked in eyeliner spurt from your eyes and members of Jimmy Eat World chloroform you and force you to play bass. It’s a nightmare.

If it’s worth the risk to you you can see all the details here. But we think we’ll stay at home and put our eyeliner on by ourselves, thank you very much.

I recently had a request from Phil to rip a particular track to MP3 from a band’s MySpace page. While most music on MySpace is shoddily encoded at 96Kbps, sometimes it’s the only place available online to listen to a particular song. To save yourself from the agony of calling up a Web browser, going to the domain, and having ads foisted upon yourself, some technical work will get you set to have a fully unrestricted MP3 copy of the music.

Other solutions exist for this process, including connecting a 3.5mm cable from your sound card line out to sound card line in, and then recording the result, but this introduces even more quality loss to the process.

There are some technical restrictions on this process, and I advise anyone coming here to ask about them to seriously consider their questions before commenting. With a post title involving music and MySpace, I don’t expect the cream of the crop to start posting their wireless packet sniffing instructions or automated Flash extractor Linux tools (although that would be a pleasant change.)

You need a wired connection to the Internet to perform the packet capture. Most wireless card drivers don’t have the ability to capture packets, or they don’t work in this configuration.

1. Download and install Wireshark, which is the newest version of the classic Ethereal network utility. The Windows installer also comes with a driver, WinPCap, that allows the packet capture to take place. Follow all default instructions in the installer.
2. Close any programs that use your Internet or network connection. This includes other Web browsers, instant messaging programs, file sharing utilities and feed readers. While you don’t have to close everything, it’ll help make sure that there’s enough memory to load the MySpace page and capture the MP3 at the same time.
3. Open Wireshark, then resize it to a standard window.
   
4. Start a new Web browser window, resize it to a standard window, and click the Stop button to cancel the page load. You should have Wireshark and your web browser running side by side:
5. Enter the address of the MySpace page in the web browser address bar, but don’t press Enter or Go yet.
6. Switch to Wireshark, and click the Interfaces button – it’s the first one on the left:
7. In the Interfaces window, look for the active wired Ethernet controller in your computer. The numbers for the controller should be slowly increasing:
8. Click the Start button to the right of the controller. Immediately, switch back to your browser and let the MySpace page load. If the song isn’t the one you want, switch to it as quickly as possible. If you resize the Wireshark window, you’ll see packets scrolling past:
9. Wait until the song is done or is almost done playing. (You really only need to wait until the song data is downloaded, though.) Once finished, click the Stop Capture button in Wireshark:
10. Resize the Wireshark window. Copy and paste the following text into the Filter box, then click the Apply button.http.content_type == "audio/mpeg"

    

11. When you click the Apply button, you should only see one entry in the packet list. You may also see two dialog box with progress bars – one filters the captured packets, and the other decodes the MP3 file sequence.
12. Resize the Wireshark window so that you can see the packet overview, as in the dialog below. Click on the Media Type header and cancel the progress windows.
13. Right-click on the Media Type header and click Export Selected Packet Bytes. Enter a filename for the data, ending with the extension .mp3.
14. Open the MP3 or import it into your library. You’ll likely have to provide artist and title information for the track, since it’s not included with the packet stream.

As a special bonus, I’ve also recorded a Wink tutorial on the process. The video takes the shortcut of applying the audio/mpeg filter before stopping the packet capture, so that you can save your song file immediately after it’s downloaded from MySpace.

Other possibilities to reduce processing time would be to set a filter, only capturing HTTP packets on port 80 following the audio/mpeg chain, and changing various configuration settings in Wireshark.

The band that I demoed the capture from is Stalling Dawn, who also have much higher quality tracks available to download directly from their PodShow page if you create an account. Unfortunately they don’t seem to have an official album released yet, but I’d definitely buy it if one ever comes out.

From the November pricing threads at HowardForums, it seems like Rogers may be announcing a new plan to counteract a potentially similar offering from Bell.

The plan would cost $15 per month, to go along with a rumored BlackBerry Pearl promotion and would give unlimited access to BIS email, PIN messaging and BlackBerry Messenger. No word on additional access to data, but we’ll have to see if there are any packages less than $25 for 1MB.

It makes sense for Rogers to do this, considering they can still monetize their data services, and it’s comparable to T-Mobile USA’s $9.99 unlimited email plan. I’m personally looking forward to any developments in this space, both as a consumer – more wireless competition is always a good thing, especially when it comes to data rates in Canada.

Disclaimer: While I do work for Research in Motion, I don’t have any knowledge about future carrier pricing plans – I’m just an enthusiast in the matter.

Update: Well, it looks like it’s too good to be true – as seems to be the usual case whenever anybody gets excited about Rogers’ plans:

The $15 Unlimited Email plan and the $25 4 MB (pooled and non pooled) plans are on hold until further notice. as per email sent, no explanation given