Home → Archives → by month → December 2002
And a Happy New Year -Update-
Ladies and Gentlemen, dear readers, this the last posting for this year: spending my New Year's Eve here and some days early in January there, expect radio silence until January 06, with a possible break of silence on January 03.
Although the public mood, most of the media and the (opposing) political parties here in Germany suggest that doomsday must be straight ahead, my personal outlook on 2003 is rather good - much better than it was on 2002 -, and I hope that named players find back the focus, scale and measure they seem to have lost a bit. My outlook on world politics and peace is rather bleak though, but I am afraid there is not much one can do about it personally on the large scale - so let's try to help those who and improve that what we have influence on.
Thanks to all readers, supporters and contributors of this blog. Since April 1, when I spontaneously set up Movable Type "just to play around a bit", this blog grew into something of value not just for me, but apparently also for a readership constantly growing and much larger than I ever would have expected - and that's just "the best thing since bread came sliced" ;-)
READINGS FOR THE MEANTIME
UPDATE
Just checking my site at a friend's house: the layout seems to be broken a bit in Mozilla 1.2b. In the intended way, the text starts some 82 pixels from top, so that the penguins on the left virtually look at the first headline. In 1.2b though, the content block starts right from the top. Also, it doesn't get the spaces between the postings right, they are too small. Will have to fix that. Stay tuned for updates.
Permanent link :: 
Tell a friend :: 
Add to del.icio.us
Even more toys: Mozilla news
New for your browser of choice:
- LiveHTTPHeaders allows you to view request and response headers sent and received. For the current page, there is an additional tab in the Page Info box (Ctrl-I), and - more interesting - headers can be displayed in real time while pages are being downloaded in a small extra window available from the Tools - Web Development menu. This is a plugin so simple yet useful that it instantly became on of my default plugins, like Calendar, Optimoz and Bannerblind.
- "Preferential aims to provide all users of Gecko browsers (eg. Mozilla, Phoenix) with a simple, accessible GUI that allows the modification of any preference set within that browser environment." Nice.
And new for your application framework of choice:
- Embedding Mozilla: "The GRE [Gecko Runtime Environment] will make life easier for people who want to embed Gecko as well as meaning apps like Phoenix, Mozilla and Thunderbird will be able to share common libraries, saving on disk space." Doug Turner has an overview.
Permanent link :: Tell a friend :: Add to del.icio.us
Da hilft auch keine Rasterfahndung
"Vielleicht hätten Sie jemand fragen sollen, der sich damit auskennt - da hilft auch keine Rasterfahndung! PS: Der CCC e.V. ist nicht hierfür verantwortlich!"
Heise Newsticker Artikel
Permanent link :: Tell a friend :: Add to del.icio.us
Toys
One thing that fascinates me these days is how fast new blogging tools keep popping up. Ben Hammersley had this "More like this from others" idea, and one or two days later, someone releases a Movable Type plugin - voila. But there are loads of stuff more to play around with:
And finally from The Non-Geek Toys Department, Saltytantville has this fine link to most excellent Femme Fatale movie stills. Have fun.
Permanent link :: Tell a friend :: Add to del.icio.us
Who else would buy Macromedia?
There was this rumor these days that Microsoft might buy Macromedia. Loosely Coupled does not share ComputerWires assertion that this would be a coup against Java and asks Who else would buy Macromedia?. Brad Choate says if someone buys it, it is Microsoft, as Macromedia "practically positioned themself for this. [...] And you can be certain that the Linux Flash player would be the first casualty of the acquisition."
Permanent link :: Tell a friend :: Add to del.icio.us
Pushing the Envelope
Mark Pilgrim did it again: Posts by Citations, a new way to access blog archives reading out cite-tags. Semantic markup seems to pay off.
Permanent link :: Tell a friend :: Add to del.icio.us
Killing enterprise Java by owning Flash: Microsoft buying Macromedia?
Just that Sun won the Java ruling, a rumor from The Really Bad and Ugly News Department: Microsoft may buy Macromedia because they want the Flash/ColdFusion scripting platform to be of no use for the Java community.
Computerwire: "Flash would give Microsoft access to tools for building rich interfaces on both desktops and mobile devices, furthering .NET. An acquisition, though, would be seen as a hostile move deliberately designed to thwart J2EE uptake. Flash is a powerful and rich development environment which - through Macromedia's changes this year - took a step closer to J2EE. [...] The J2EE community sorely lacks a programming environment that can make Java more accessible to mainstream developers. [...] Macromedia, meanwhile, said it was bringing its estimated 300,000-strong community of developers to J2EE, potentially expanding the pool of J2EE programmers. A Microsoft acquisition of Macromedia would inevitably see Flash, and Macromedia's other cross-platform tools, tailored purely for Windows and .NET."
Dan Gilmor: "If this is true it will be a disaster for what's left of the software business. [...] Not that the antitrust authorities in Washington would care - they've made it clear that they are in favor of Microsoft's monopoly and whatever that produces in the so-called marketplace." And Jacob Nielsen still worries about Flash accessibility.
IN RELATED NEWS
Microsoft's Top 10 Challenges for 2003 - via Stefan Smalla
Permanent link :: Tell a friend :: Add to del.icio.us
1984, brought to you by Groove
"The early version of the Total Information Awareness system employs a commercial software collaboration program called Groove.[...] Groove makes it possible for analysts at many different government agencies to share intelligence data instantly, and it links specialized programs that are designed to look for patterns of suspicious behavior." - NYT article
Permanent link :: Tell a friend :: Add to del.icio.us
The Christmas Morning News Roundup
Jacob Nielsen has the Top Ten Web-Design Mistakes of 2002 - and the number one is: no prices. Jason Kottke presents a Declaration of Independence for Web developers.
Jon Udell restored the 115 columns he wrote for BYTE.com to the public web under a Creative Commons license.
Phil Wainewright of Loosely Coupled on Software, Jim, but not as we know it, aka "phenomena to look out for when plotting a course for your enterprise".
Matthew Thomas has OpenOffice (dot org) installation notes and an An open letter to the Minister of IT in Victoria, Australia. He suggests "those of you with an interest in freedom of speech on the Internet do the same."
Momentum "is a new peer to peer (P2P) collaboration application that's a showcase for Swing and for what's possible using the JXTA support for P2P networking. The Momentum application supports sharing and collaborating on documents and drawings using email, chat, and direct manipulation. And there's no need for a special centralized server - all communication is peer to peer."
Learning the Shell: LinuxCommand.org is a supreme and structured introduction to the Linux shell.
Apple Developer Connection: Porting to Mac OS X from Windows Win32 API
Movable Hype: Really Simple Discoverability (RSD) and More Like This From Others are two new features that rock.
Ernie the Attorney has an outlined directory of Law Blogs ("Blawgs").
siliconvalley.com: Dell has made a brilliant debut in the crowded field of PDA -- eweek.com: Dell Misfires on PDA Strategy
PHP News: xored:WebStudio looks like an interesting new PHP IDE that comes as an Eclipse extension. Alan Knowles announced that he began to work on a PHP compiler for CIL (.NET bytecode). PHP Kitchen has lists of PHP frameworks and even more frameworks. While the ReadingEd RSS Parser is the current parser of choice, supporting Conditional GET and featuring a smart cache concept, this ZEND article gives more insight into the parsing process itself. And finally, rather old: An empirical comparison of C, C++, Java, Perl, Python, Rexx, and Tcl.
And in sad news at BBC News: Clash star Strummer has died of a suspected heart attack aged 50. Billy Bragg mourns: "The Clash were the greatest rebel rock band of all time. [...] Joe Strummer epitomised that ideal and I will miss him greatly."
Compiled from The Usual Suspects Sources
Permanent link :: Tell a friend :: Add to del.icio.us
Merry Christmas - an evening with Santa Claus, Ella Fitzgerald and Portishead
Permanent link :: Tell a friend :: Add to del.icio.us
MTLDAPAuthors: Movable Type LDAP Integration
decafbad MovableTypeLDAPAuthors plugin: "This is a hack for Movable Type to use LDAP when looking up Author records. Every record of inetOrgPerson class below a given branch of the LDAP tree will be treated as an MT author, and if necessary a blog will be created for each LDAP-based author. Authentication depends on using basic authentication on your webserver - ie. using mod_auth_ldap - since LDAP author objects in this hack heck to verify the REMOTE_USER of a webserver-authenticated user, instead of verifying the password stored in MT's author records."
Less technically speaking, the decafbad author "cobbled together a hack for MovableType that hooks it up with an LDAP server for author accounts. This is an early, early, early release of the thing, and is likely to do very nasty things for all that I know. But, I wanted to share, and it seems to be working for the proof of concept at work (that is, MT weblogs on our intranet for every employee). Hopefully soon it'll be approved, and I'll be looking into a commercial use license for MovableType."
Also in the posting, a praise to the Movable Type coding quality.
Permanent link :: Tell a friend :: Add to del.icio.us
Rock'n'Roll Yearbook
Read all 22 Rolling Stone Magazine cover stories of this year in the Rock'n'Roll Yearbook 2002
In related news: meet me at the Dortmund Christmas Jazz Matinee
Permanent link :: Tell a friend :: Add to del.icio.us
Lügenausschuss konstituiert
Konservatives Demokratieverständnis: Mit einem Balken im eigenen Auge lässt sich gut nach Splittern in dem des Feindes suchen.
Permanent link :: Tell a friend :: Add to del.icio.us
Remote Application Development with Mozilla
XUL is getting more and more interesting: "This article will explore the uses for remote XUL (loaded from a Web server), contrast its capabilities with those of local XUL (installed on a user's computer), explain how to deploy remote XUL, and give examples of existing applications. This will give you a firm grasp on the potential uses for remote XUL, its current limitations, and how to start using it to enhance your Web sites and applications. [...] HTML was designed for content, not interactivity. XUL, on the other hand, was designed specifically for creating application interfaces. It was originally used to build the interface for Mozilla, a desktop application, but because Mozilla can load XUL files from a remote Web server, it can also be used to build Web applications and sites." oreillynet article
Permanent link :: Tell a friend :: Add to del.icio.us
Now also valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional
Ampersands in links no longer prevent this site from validating as XHTML 1.0 Transitional / CSS:
Permanent link :: Tell a friend :: Add to del.icio.us
Presenting the hebig.org/blog Winter Edition
Welcome to the hebig.org/blog winter edition, finally featuring an Internet Explorer 6 compatible layout. Due to a CSS rendering bug in this device, my blog was basically unusable in it. Thanks to gentle inquiries of Michael Koch, my "brother in arms" Heiko Hebig and others, I finally decided to do something about it before my new blog will launch somewhen in January.
Consider this quick CSS hack (I wouldn't exactly call it a layout) a playground and expect various changes to it in quick succession. The sidebar might move back to the right, and I might change its position:absolute into position:fixed, preventing it from scrolling in browsers like Mozilla. Possibly, the layout will change completely again to accommodate the features under development for the new blog.
According to my server stats, many of you still use Internet Explorer 5. As I don't have access to a machine with this browser version, I have no idea if the new stylesheet renders fine in it and would be glad to receive some feedback from IE5 users. Of course, do not hesitate to mail if you use a different browser ;-)
Permanent link :: Tell a friend :: Add to del.icio.us
Releases and Relaunches
In parts not exactly brand-spanking-new stuff, so consider this a "for my own reference" posting ;-)
"PHPeclipse is an open-source PHP IDE. Built as an Eclipse plugin, it takes advantage of a well-designed, robust and widely used application framework." Via vowe. In related news, O'Reilly onjava.com has An Introduction to the Eclipse IDE. Also, PHP 4.3.0RC3 is out. "This will be the last release candidate before the final release. From this point on, only crash and showstopper bugs will be fixed."
"Richy C. has released MT-RefSearch v0.7, a substantial update to the Eliot Landrum's original script released in July of this year", including a major and uncredited borrowing from Kyrogenix.
From the Fucked Relaunches Department: usabilitynet.org, "a European Union project that provides usability and user centred design resources to practitioners, managers and EU projects" relaunched after someones 9-year old nephew got his hands on it and now comes Usability Free - GuaranteedTM. A showcase how to do it not. With Reuters and Die Zeit redesigns in the near past, to name but a few, fucked relaunches are still going strong this year.
And finally from the Other Blogs I Read Department: Somebodydial911.
Permanent link :: Tell a friend :: Add to del.icio.us
Voices
Mitch Karpor on Wired: "I responded in good faith to your inquiry and could not have been clearer about ground rules, which were treat with total disrespect. This completely wrecks your credibility in my eyes, something I will keep in mind with regard to future coverage." Via vowe.
Richard Gabriel, Distinguished Engineer at Sun Microsystems, on The Poetry of Programming.
Russell Beattie on differences between working in Spain and in the U.S.
Mark Watson with a free web book on Practical Artificial Intelligence Programming in Java. Via Russell Beattie.
Permanent link :: Tell a friend :: Add to del.icio.us
PocketBlog
"Pocket Blog extends your weblog to any Pocket PC device. Weblog entries are maintained offline. When Internet connectivity becomes available, such as when your Pocket PC is placed in it's docking cradle or a WiFi card is inserted, changes are automatically posted to your weblog. Pocket Blog also downloads recent weblog entries, enabling you to edit entries that were originally posted from your desktop. Pocket Blog works with your existing weblog software rather than replacing it. The initial Pocket Blog release implements the Blogger API, which is supported by many popular weblog packages including Blogger, Movable Type, and Radio Userland." Though I don't own a Pocket PC, this appears to be a pretty useful application. It also reminds me that work on my Movable Type Offline Tool stalled ;-)
Permanent link :: Tell a friend :: Add to del.icio.us
Und bist du nicht willig...
SPIEGEL Online: "Die US-Regierung will die Anti-Kriegsstimmung in verbündeten Staaten wie Deutschland systematisch aufweichen. Angeblich erwägt das US-Verteidigungsministerium eine verdeckte Propaganda-Offensive. Der Vorschlag, der unter anderem die Bestechung von Journalisten beinhalte, soll im Pentagon zu einer scharfen Kontroverse geführt haben."
Permanent link :: Tell a friend :: Add to del.icio.us
Bahn verhängt Zensur, ZDF sprengt Regelung teilweise
"Die Bahn ist besser, als sie in der Öffentlichkeit dargestellt wird."
Hartmut Mehdorn, Bahn-Chef
Erst: "Zum Start ihres umstrittenen neuen Preissystems verpasst die Deutsche Bahn Journalisten einen Maulkorb. Rundfunk- und Fernsehinterviews mit Bahn-Mitarbeitern oder Fahrgästen seien am Sonntag und Montag weder auf Bahnhöfen noch in den Zügen erlaubt, sagte Unternehmenssprecher Achim Stauß am Mittwoch in Frankfurt am Main auf Anfrage. Zuvor hatte die Bahn dem Sender SWR3 mitgeteilt, dass an diesen Tagen auf dem gesamten Bahngelände ein Arbeitsverbot für Journalisten gelte. Begründet wurde das Verbot mit einem zu massiven Medieninteresse. Als Kompromiss bot die Bahn eine Pool-Lösung an."
newsroom.de: Die Bahn im finsteren Mittelalter
Jetzt: "Die Deutsche Bahn AG hat ihr weitgehendes Drehverbot zum Start des neuen Preissystems am Sonntag aufgehoben. Chefredakteur Nikolaus Brender hat sich bei der Bahn für eine freie Berichterstattung erfolgreich eingesetzt. [...] Jetzt sind für alle privaten und öffentlich-rechtlichen Sender Aufnahmen möglich. Allerdings darf weiterhin nicht in den Service-Centern gedreht werden."
ZDF: Bahn hebt Drehverbot auf
Permanent link :: Tell a friend :: Add to del.icio.us
Other blogs I read
In an unsorted list, other blogs I read regularly or just occasionally:
:: ia/ information architecture news
:: Acts of volition
:: slorp.blog
:: Blackbeltjones
:: Magnetbox
In German language:
:: Kellerkind Bogenallee 11
With the national crisis in Venezuala going on, here some independent voices from South America (in no specific order):
:: Venezuela Libra
:: Caracas Chronicles
:: Vcrisis.com
:: The Devil's Excrement
:: Dissident Military
:: Requena Files
:: carlanga.com/fotos
Permanent link :: Tell a friend :: Add to del.icio.us
E-Smith Server
Von ITW: "e-smith ist eine einfach zu installierende und zu bedienende Linux-Distribution, die einen kompletten Intra- oder Internet-Server mit Gateway installiert - sonst nichts, aber das richtig und kostenlos [...] Der e-smith-Server dient als zentrale Datei- und/oder Hutablage, Internetzugang und -Verteiler, unterstützt virtuelle Domains und DHCP, und hat alles, was ein Vollblutserver braucht - mehr nicht. Die Dateien kann [...] man herunterladen (350 MB) und selbst eine Installations-CD brennen. "
Permanent link :: Tell a friend :: Add to del.icio.us
Spiel und Spass am Vormittag
Die etwas andere Version von Wer wird Millionär - Wer wird Revolutionär?
Permanent link :: Tell a friend :: Add to del.icio.us
The Wednesday Late Night News Roundup
DOMINO VS. EXCHANGE
searchdomino.com: Scorecard: Expert ranks Domino against Exchange, and Exchange doesn't win. In related news:
JICAL GROUP SCHEDULER
From the How to get rid of Exchange Department: "Use Ximian Evolution or Mozilla Calendar on your Linux desktop and JiCal [Java iCal] to publish free/busy time to your webserver. This will give you scheduling capabilities similar to Exchange Server but using open standards based on rfc2445." And it also works with Outlook. Via Russell Beattie.
WHERE DO YOU WANT TO GO?
:: PHP Traveller: PHP: A love and hate relationship - "Where exactly is PHP as a whole going? I'm not telling but it's nowhere good."
:: theopenenterprise.com: PHP5: Ready For The Enterprise? - "If you subscribe to the notion that the future of enterprise development is pretty much a choice between .NET and J2EE, then PHP could be the glue -- the front-end language for implementing Web access to the business logic built on .NET or J2EE servers. Programmers familiar with C++ or Java will find many of the common object-oriented constructs in PHP5 -- destructors, constructors, namespaces, nested classes, exception handling, and syntax overloading are all supported."
IN OTHER PHP NEWS
:: PHPBuilder: Golden Rules for optimizing your pages
:: Zend Tutorial: Googlifying Search Results
:: Zend Tutorial: Extending the Calendar Interface (this is a follow-up article, see this archive entry)
MOVABLE HYPE
MT Plugin Directory - "Kristine's directory of plugins for use with the Movable Type program." Via Couchblog
TIM PERDUE IN INTERVIEW
Tim Perdue Interview with O'Reilly OSDir.com. "Tim Perdue was one of the founding architects of SourceForge [and] is also known for having built both GeoCrawler and PHPBuilder. OSDir asks Tim about his days at SourceForge, what happened behind the scenes, and his latest [open source] project, GForge, a scaled down and enhanced version of Alexandria, the code that VA closed to sell as proprietary."
FROM THE A WORLD LOSING FOCUS DEPARTMENT
U.S. Bombing Watch: When was the last time the U.S. Bombed Iraq?
AND FINALLY ELSEWHERE
:: Christian Science Monitor: Sharing urban exploration on the web
:: Artsjournal.com - "The daily Digest of Arts, Culture and Ideas"
Permanent link :: Tell a friend :: Add to del.icio.us
Presenting: Beth Gibbons and Rustin Man
The hebig.org album of the week: Portishead wonder voice Beth Gibbons and Talk Talk man Paul Webb (alias Rustin Man) made the fine and acoustic Out of Season
Permanent link :: Tell a friend :: Add to del.icio.us
:: in category Music
Quote of The Day
"There are seven sins in the world: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, and politics without principle."
Mahatma Gandhi
Permanent link :: Tell a friend :: Add to del.icio.us
The Wednesday Morning News Roundup II
INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE AND USABILITY I
Louis Rosenfeld on Information Needs Analysis: "Each user has a different type of information need depending on what he's trying to find and why he's trying to find it. If we can determine the most common information needs a site's users have, we can select the few best architectural components to address those information needs." Recommended.
INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE AND USABILITY II
cluebox.com on Worst Practices for Intranet Applications (Powerpoint link): "Intranets may have applications that are developed in-house, out-hosted through an application service provider, or simply deployed as a packaged application. This presentation outlines some common errors in structure and approach that can lead to negative consequences." Recommended, too. More cluebox.com presentations.
WILL OPERA EVER GET IT RIGHT?
Mozilla UI genius mpt: "During the years when I was depressing myself about how awful Mozilla's design was, I'd often cheer myself up by reminding myself that Mozilla would never be quite as poorly designed as Opera. Tonight I've been taking the new Opera 7 beta for a spin, and I'm impressed to see its design is still worse than Mozilla." - and 21 things he lists Opera gets wrong (and two it gets right).
AND DOES NETSCAPE FINALLY GET IT RIGHT?
Still, there are people stuck with badly sucking Netscape 7 instead of having switched to Mozilla. However, there is a glimpse of hope for them: according to Mozillazine, newly released Netscape 7.01 now comes with a "sophisticated pop-up blocker".
OTHER BLOGS I READ
Perhaps I posted this before, but Hypergene Media Blog is too good to miss.
AND FINALLY IN SERIOUS NEWS
Luserland Winerlog - "Respect mah authoritaaay!"
Permanent link :: Tell a friend :: Add to del.icio.us
The Wednesday Morning News Roundup I
OSAF GOING STRONG
Mitch "on a Crusade" Karpor gathers his men: "The OSAF staff has grown considerably in the past weeks. Welcome Chao Lam, Chandler Product Manager and serial entrepreneur; Lou Montulli, founding member of the Netscape engineering team and inventor of the browser cookie; and Aleks Totic, also a Netscape founding engineer." Scott Johnson: "The addition of a product manager to Chandler is a very, very interesting decision. Few if any Open Source projects have a product manager and that, to me, is big, positive news. By having a non-engineer responsible for guiding the product towards completion (that's a huge part of what a product manager does), I suspect they will end up with a product with a much higher degree of fit and finish than most Open Source projects." Other new faces at OSAF are David McCusker, developer, Robin Dunn, the principal author of wxPython, and Mitchell Bake, who will work part-time for OSAF to guide relations with the Open Source Community and Partners and will continue as mozilla.org's Chief Lizard Wrangler. Mitch: "I'm thrilled. No one knows more about working with the open source community."
THE OTHERS, TOO
slipstick.com, "The Outlook & Exchange Solutions Center": "Outlook 11 is the working name for the next version of Outlook, due out in mid-2003 as part of Office 11. This page describes new and improved features, based on public demonstrations of the product which was first unveiled at the MEC conference Oct. 8, 2002."
MORE FROM THE OTHERS
With Open Source trying hard to gain importance as desktop software and with more and more people shifting to such products (some of them finally startled by the complete absent of security in products like Internet Explorer), Microsoft now takes the Office market under heavy combined hard- and software fire: the Tablet PC plus OneNote. To me, OneNote appears highly interesting as it could make working with documents much more intuitive. Adding a Tablet PC, OneNote could possibly accomodate a wide range of personal working methods. My personal killer feature, however, could be an omission: the omission of the save button. "The program always launches or opens to your most recent page of notes, while an auto-save function reduces fussing with filenames." Acts of Violiton has more on that and also links to further ressources, including a Microsoft presentation video. As far as the Tablet PC is concerned, I'd really like to get my hands on one. For at least one of my clients, this thing could be highly interesting. However, the display resolution of currently available Tablet PCs is much to low. Both the client and I are used to notebook displays with 1400x1050 or 1600x1400 pixels, and we both don't want to miss that.
Permanent link :: Tell a friend :: Add to del.icio.us
New at the Google Labs
There are two new toys at Google Labs, the Viewer and Webquotes. Webquotes makes pretty much sense to me, as it annotates results with quotes from other sites. "This offers a convenient way to get a third party's opinion about each of the returns for your search, providing you with more information about that site's credibility and reputation."
Perhaps even more important, this could also work fine as a "what does this company/person" do-feature. Try it for Stratasys, a company most of you probably won't have heard of before. With Webquotes, you seem to get a more precise idea of what they are doing in less time than you would get browsing their site.
Google Webquotes for search term Stratasys
Permanent link :: Tell a friend :: Add to del.icio.us
Google 2002 Zeitgeist: Search patterns, trends, and surprises
"Search patterns, trends, and surprises: 2002 Year-End Zeitgeist offers a unique perspective on the year's major events and hottest trends based on more than 55 billion searches conducted over the past year by Google users from around the world. Whether you are tracking the global progression of the "Las Ketchup" craze or finding out who really is the queen of the Internet, the 2002 Year-End Zeitgeist enables you to look at the past year through the collective eyes of the world on the Internet." marketingfix.com on Google Zeitgeist: "If they can grow decent predictive abilities, Google is going to make good money selling information and analysis to global brands."
Google Timeline 2002
Google Zeitgeist
Permanent link :: Tell a friend :: Add to del.icio.us
Being an Evil Overlord
"Being an Evil Overlord seems to be a good career choice. It pays well, there are all sorts of perks and you can set your own hours. However every Evil Overlord I've read about in books or seen in movies invariably gets overthrown and destroyed in the end. I've noticed that no matter whether they are barbarian lords, deranged wizards, mad scientists or alien invaders, they always seem to make the same basic mistakes every single time. With that in mind, allow me to present...
The Top 100 Things I'd Do If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord
Found at ITW. Also in serious news:
Why the Middle East is in deep shit
And finally in ultra-serious news:
The Book of Seg - Information on and about the Segway HT
Permanent link :: Tell a friend :: Add to del.icio.us
Tools and Libraries
PHP ICALENDAR 0.9 IS OUT
Major changes in PHP iCalendar 0.9 are: added complete VTODO support, added STATUS support for VEVENT and VTODO, added RSS auto-detection on day, week, month, and year pages, added year view icon (Changelog). In related news, developer.apple.com shows how to "build an application that uses the PHP iCalendar internals to simplify the process of creating a WML calendar viewer for cell phones and other wireless devices."
PHP: PHPHTMLLIB
phpHtmlLib is "a set of PHP classes and library functions to help facilitate building, debugging, and rendering of XML, HTML, XHTML, WAP/WML Documents, and SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) images as well as complex html [navigational] 'widgets'."
QT: QWT - QT WIDGETS FOR TECHNICAL APPLICATIONS
"The Qwt library contains GUI Components and utility classes which are primarily useful for programs with a technical background. Beside a 2D plot widget it provides scales, sliders, thermometers, wheels and knobs to control or display values, arrays, or ranges of type double."
INTERNET EXPLODER: IEHTTPHEADERS
"ieHTTPHeaders is an explorer bar for Internet Explorer that will show you the HTTP Headers IE are sending and receiving." blunck.info also offers rtDepend, "a tool that shows what libraries (dlls) your application tries to load at runtime", but this is nothing Sysinternals Process Explorer could'nt do much better.
Permanent link :: Tell a friend :: Add to del.icio.us
A Technical Demonstration
Overheard at lunch as Bret Fausett of icann.blog.us walked behind two men on the street:
Man 1: "...so I was trying to ping this guy's computer, but...."
Man 2: "What do you mean 'ping'?"
Man 1 suddenly punches Man 2 in the shoulder.
Man 1: "Now hit me back."
Man 2 punches Man 1 in the shoulder.
Man 1: "That's ping."
Via intern.de
Permanent link :: Tell a friend :: Add to del.icio.us
Sic transit gloria mundi: Vom Niedergang der demokratischen Streitkultur
Deutschland im Herbst - schlecht regiert, brandgefährlich opponiert. Aus der Sendung MONITOR vom 05. Dezember:
"Den Blick rückwärts auf die Bundestagswahlen, den Blick vorwärts auf die Landtagswahlen in Hessen und Niedersachsen: Ob Parteipolitiker, Boulevardschreiber oder Leitartikler - alle reden von der Staatskrise. Tenor: Rot-grün, die können es nicht. In der Tat: In Deutschland wird schlecht regiert - aber auch schlecht opponiert und schlecht argumentiert. Es ist heuchlerisch, wenn CDU und FDP ihre Aufgabe nur noch darin sehen, einen Untersuchungsausschuss zu den rot-grünen Wahlkampflügen einzurichten. Als ob sie nicht die Zahlen, nicht die Fakten, nicht die Prognosen gekannt hätten vor der Wahl. Es ist fahrlässig, wenn wir Medien uns ausschließlich auf die Horrorzahlen fixieren. Es ist jämmerlich, wenn sich Vertreter der politischen und wirtschaftlichen Elite dieses Landes nicht mit der verlorenen Wahl abfinden können."
Weiter (aufklappen)
PROF. THOMAS MEYER, POLITIKWISSENSCHAFTLER UNIVERSITÄT DORTMUND
"Ich finde die Sprache der CDU in Bezug auf die Wirtschaftslage sehr erstaunlich, weil die CDU ja sehr genau weiß, dass die allgemeine Stimmung selber ein wichtiger Teil der Wirtschaftslage ist, und dass sie mit solchen alarmistischen Kategorien, die der eigentlichen Realität völlig unangemessen sind, die wirtschaftliche Situation hemmungslos in den Keller redet und damit wird die CDU zu einem großen Teil des Problems, selber zu einer der Ursachen, die sie hier anprangert."
PROF. ULRICH PÄTZOLD, MEDIENWISSENSCHAFTLER UNIVERSITÄT DORTMUND
"Zum Teil ist es eine völlig verselbständigte eigene Medienkampagne, in der es jetzt gegen die Politik geht, ganz allgemein, gegen den Staat, die Wirtschaft geht runter, alles geht in den Boden, und der arme völlig schutzlose Mensch bleibt übrig. Das ist also eine ganz fürchterliche Kampagne, und das kann nicht Aufgabe der Journalisten in dieser in der Tat schwierigen Situation sein. Journalisten haben zu informieren, sie haben zu analysieren, sie haben auch zu kommentieren. Aber sie sollen sehr vorsichtig sein, in dieser angespannten Situation auch noch mal eins draufzulegen, uns weiter zu emotionalisieren."
PROF. GUSTAV HORN, DEUTSCHES INSTITUT FÜR WIRTSCHAFTSFORSCHUNG
"Natürlich ist die wirtschaftliche Lage in Deutschland derzeit alles andere als befriedigend. Aber man sollte nicht vergessen: Deutschland ist nach wie vor die drittstärkste Wirtschaftsmacht, Deutschland hat eine hohe Wettbewerbsfähigkeit auf den internationalen Märkten und sie steigt sogar noch, die Steuerquote in Deutschland ist die niedrigste seit den 50er Jahren, und die Arbeitslosigkeit liegt im europäischen Durchschnitt. Wenn also Politiker die wirtschaftliche Lage in Deutschland jetzt als überzogen schlecht darstellen, handeln sie unverantwortlich, denn das vergiftet das wirtschaftliche Klima."
PROF. THOMAS MEYER, POLITIKWISSENSCHAFTLER, UNIVERSITÄT DORTMUND
"Diese Negativkampagne erweckt bei mir den deutlichen Eindruck eines kalkulierten politischen Theaters, in der Absicht, momentan in der Bevölkerung vorhandene Stimmungen aufzuputschen, um sie für parteipolitische Zwecke zu nutzen, die nächsten Wahlen damit zu gewinnen. Sie ist, was die Sprachwahl anbetrifft, unverantwortlich, sie verlässt die eigentliche politische Auseinandersetzung, indem sie den politischen Gegner an den moralischen Pranger stellt, in Freund-und-Feind-Kategorien behandelt. Und ich halte das für eine gefährliche Strategie, weil diese Art von Stimmungen, wenn sie einmal aufgeputscht sind, sich - nachdem der Zweck erledigt ist - nicht so ohne weiteres wieder abstellen lassen."
Der MONITOR-Beitrag als HTML, PDF und Video
Permanent link :: Tell a friend :: Add to del.icio.us
Even newer adventures in online booking
There is at least one difference between Ryanair and Germanwings: ryanair.com still works, while germanwings.com seems to have collapsed under high load (eurowings.de currently won't load, too). So trying to book some 1 Euro Germanwing tickets is a complete failure up to now.
Meanwhile, I managed to get some of those 50 Cent Ryanair tickets. They seem not to be available for destinations in Scandinavia, so we opted to travel south instead. Once you finally found your flight, it takes no more than 2 minutes in a straightforward procedure to terminate the booking.
Interestingly enough, both Ryanair and Germanwings seem to use the same booking system: SkySales Booking, part ot the Skylights E-Suite Booking System of Minneapolis, MN based Navitaire ("Technology that liberates"). To copy what Ryanair did might be a clever move of the competitor, as defective Ryanair customers won't have to learn another booking procedure with another GUI (it even has the same tiny little Javascript/Back button bug on both sites) - and in contrast to the Irish, Germanwings didn't fail to built an appealing site around the module (with an obvious lack in server power, though). GUI-wise, this is something Mr Nielsen should like. Stay tuned for more on an innocent customers online quest for budget tickets.
In unrelated news, ordering at the Siemens Mobile online store is a breeze: ordered yesterday, the parcel just arrived - exactly 23 hours later.
ELSEWHERE
:: Heiko Hebig - Cheap air travel. Or not.
:: Martin Röll - Verrückte Welt
IN THE ARCHIVES
:: 2002-12-05 Ryanair: New Adventures in Online Booking
:: 2002-12-05 These guys remind me...
Permanent link :: Tell a friend :: Add to del.icio.us
Zeitläufte: Das edle Nichts
Kurze Geschichte des Vakuums, Homage an Otto von Guericke, "Großforscher und Erfinder der Wissenschaftsshow, Erforscher der Luft und der Leere, Mitbegründer der Meteorologie, ein erster Verkünder aufgeklärter Humanität, ein echter Revolutionär."
Zeitläufte >>
Permanent link :: Tell a friend :: Add to del.icio.us
Ryanair: New Adventures in Online Booking
Ryanair, one way 50 Cent including fees and taxes - an offer limited to bookings today, tommorow and to 100,000 seats is what a wild propaganda release and coverage at Der Spiegel and elsewhere might make you think. Finally an opportunity to test this carrier and to burn some money in nice European cities, I thought. So I considered buying four tickets to Oslo early in January, two to Rome and three to Barcelona in February. And fine it worked: Oslo, leaving around 10 a.m., arriving around 12 a.m., back next day. Four adults, round trip, 8 single flights, 50 Cents each - 4 Euro will be charged from your Eurocard.
Realizing I hadn't the family name of one member of our group present and given that changing passenger names after booking could get way too expensive, I aborted the Oslo booking and wanted to proceed with the Rome tickets. Now it said: Hahn - Rome 29.99 Euro, Rome - Hahn 49.99 Euro. Checking Barcelona: 24.99 Euro per leg. Checking Oslo again: getting there 0.50 Euro, getting away 109.99 Euro. What a difference three minutes in booking can make.
It's not just that ryanair.com is one of the worst sites ever, straight out of the My Nine Year Old Nephew Did That department. Also, nowhere does Ryanair disclose its selling strategy for those tickets, given there is one. Obviously, they are not sold first come first served. Perhaps randomly. Perhaps following an ultra-complicated algorithm producing seemingly random results. For sure, I won't sit down and fill out and re-submit the search form again and again until the result finally fits my needs, as flying We Suck 'till it Bleeds Airways isn't one of them.
EPILOGUE
It is a 100,000 seats re-action, not a 100,000 seats action - a reaction to Germanwings, selling 50,000 tickets for 1 Euro each (including taxes and fees), limited to bookings on Friday. Perhaps we will try that. Selling on a first come served basis with no hidden costs and no hidden randomness is part of their policy, according to their surprisingly well done website.
These guys remind me... >>
Permanent link :: Tell a friend :: Add to del.icio.us
Joke of the day
Too good too miss. Check it out at Smalla or Vowe or find it in the original Fortune article.
Permanent link :: Tell a friend :: Add to del.icio.us
It's tuesday -just a short roundup
MOVABLE HYPE, PHP
:: lovelinks, "a collection of lovely links", including MT tweaks, MT plugins and MT advanced
:: PHP Kitchen
AND FINALLY IN SERIOUS NEWS
:: Gulf Wars: Episode II - Clone of the Attack. Via Smallbrainer.de
:: Despair, Inc. Demotivators - Increasing success by lowering expectations
Permanent link :: Tell a friend :: Add to del.icio.us
Fire and forget: Companies defend against Chinese censorship charge
"A number of technology companies defended themselves Monday against charges made by human rights group Amnesty International that they were assisting the Chinese government's efforts to censor the Internet. The report, published last week, singled out Microsoft Corp., Sun Microsystems Inc., Cisco Systems Inc., Nortel Networks Corp. and Websense Inc. as vendors that have 'provided important technology which helps the Chinese authorities censor the Internet.'
Microsoft and Cisco said Monday that they merely provide technology and don't control how customers use that technology. 'Our customers, not Cisco Systems, determine the specific uses for the capabilities of these products,'' a company spokeswoman said. A Microsoft spokeswoman also echoed that sentiment. [...]
The censorship issues were brought up in a larger report that also detailed the detainment or imprisonment of 33 people in China in connection with use of the Internet. [...] 'As China's role as an economic and trading partner grows, multinational companies have a particular responsibility to ensure that their technology is not used to violate fundamental human rights,' Amnesty International said in the statement."
IDG News Service story >>
Permanent link :: Tell a friend :: Add to del.icio.us
Mozilla News Roundup - Update -
PREFETCHING A BAD APPROACH
mnot's weblog: Mozilla Prefetching is a bad approach - "I'm extremely wary about the new prefetching feature in Mozilla. I wonder how long it'll be before we see a demo of a DOS attack based on this. Also, not providing a preference UI to control this isn't so bright; Mozilla has matured past the 'world is my debugger' stage, at least in this respect. There are legitimate reasons for turning this off; in fact, I think there's a strong argument for turning this off by default."
MAIL CLIENT GROWING BETTER AND BETTER
Keep on monitoring Mozilla nightlies for two new Mail Client features: Spam Filtering and Message Views. "Spam Filtering does Bayesian classification as described in Paul Graham's A Plan for Spam." In the current nightly, some of the GUI is in place already, though the functionality itself is not available yet. "Message Views allows you to apply what are essentially saved searches to your mail folders and subscribed newsgroups," like 'People I know', 'Not Junk', 'Unread', 'Messages I labeled important', and of course you can roll your own (screenshot 1, 2). As I make heavy use of Labels, this comes very handy. Now, Labels are somewhat half-baked: you can label your mails, but have to use Advanced Search to display labeled mails only, with results appearing in the Seach Result box and not in the main view. This will change with Message Views, and I hope to see it in action soon.
CALENDARING
Mozilla Calendar has grown into quite an interesting solution. Using the iCal format, one can make use of the vast iCal repositories already existing: icalworld.com is a major ressource, icals.de - das deutsche iCal Kalenderverzeichnis offers calendars of events, holidays and the like in Germany. Integration with the Mail Client would make Calendar even more interesting. Add an Aggregator, make wonderful Type Ahead Find (goodbye Control-F) available in the Mail Client, and Mozilla would rock truly.
UPDATE 2002-12-03
Mozilla 1.2.1 is out now: "Mozilla 1.2.1 was released to correct a DHTML bug in Mozilla 1.2. The only difference between the two releases is the fix for this bug (Bug 182500)."
IN THE ARCHIVES
2002-10-27: PHP Calendaring / iCal file format
Permanent link :: Tell a friend :: Add to del.icio.us
Presenting: Ms Dynamite
Jetzt auch in der deutschen Presse angekommen - Ms Dynamite
Eine Hyme der Süddeutschen Zeitung >
Permanent link :: Tell a friend :: Add to del.icio.us
:: in category Music
The Monday Morning Random News
SWITCHING TO FREEBSD
torrez.net switched to FreeBSD, and "in the hours I've spent [setting it up] I've collected an array of links that you might be interested in", including FreeBSD Diary, "an excellent account of one person's life with FreeBSD. Virtually everything I've needed to do, he's done first and pointed out the pitfalls for me." Also, don't miss the tiny windows apps torrez.net offers - before you do the switch ;-)
RERO
Scott Johnson: Understanding the Importance of Release Early, Release Often.
NEW W3 MARKUP VALIDATOR RELEASED
xml.coverpages.com: "A new version of the W3C Markup Validator Tool at validator.w3.org has been released, available as source code and through an online forms-based interface. Noteworthy changes and additions include: (1) Support for MathML is back in good shape; (2) Support for application/xhtml+xml; (3) Support for XHTML+MathML and XHTML+MathML+SVG; (4) Support for SVG and image/svg+xml; (5) Support for XHTML 1.0 Second Edition and XHTML 1.1." Also, there are some nifty new validation bookmarklets.
DRM DOOMED, MICROSOFT SAYS
theregister: "A group of Microsoft researchers, including Paul 'Mr Secure PC' England, has delivered a paper which concludes that all efforts to stop content swapping/theft - possibly even including Palladium - are in the long term futile: File swap nets will win, DRM and lawyers lose." But beware, "thinking about it again, maybe in some senses they are arguing in support of Palladium. Maybe Microsoft has the last laugh after all." Worth reading.
FROM THE HOW STUFF WORKS DEPARTMENT
Coca-Cola Virtual Plant Tour - "Just the Facts" hides a PDF version
OTHER BLOGS I READ
:: Lucdesk - The Information Design, Web Usability and User Experience blog of Lucian Millis
:: Foreword - The Book Design Blog at ospreydesign.com
ELLEN AGAIN
Ellen in ASCII - unstoned, though
AND FINALLY IN SERIOUS NEWS
:: The Flat Earth Society - Deprogramming the Masses since 1547
:: ISCE - Newsletter, articles and essays on the the Hollow Earth Theory
UPDATE: GNUPP
ITW freut sich, daß das Bundeswirtschaftsmysterium GnuPP weiter fördert und entwickelt und leistet einen bescheidenen Beitrag in Form der DAU-festen Anleitungen GnuPP für Einsteiger (PDF, 2.3 MB) und GnuPP für Durchblicker (PDF, 3,7 MB). Ebenfalls bei ITW: Die Arroganz der Dummheit - "Denn die einzige Möglichkeit für eine Firma, ihre öffentlich im Internet publizierte Seite vor Verlinkung zu schützen, ist, sie vom Netz zu nehmen. Falsch ist dagegen, daß auch die Blicke in die Schaufenster eines Kaufhauses reglementiert werden können."
Permanent link :: Tell a friend :: Add to del.icio.us
PHP NEWS ROUNDUP
RELEASES
:: PHP 4.3.0RC 2 is out
:: DBG PHP Debugger 2.11.4 is out - compatible with 4.3.0pre1
NEWSFEED
php.net: PHP news feed available - "The news of PHP.net is available now in RSS 1.0 format via our new statical news.rss file."
HOW-TO
onlamp.com: Internationalization and Localization with PHP
PHPSHELL
PhpShell/MyShell "allows you to execute arbitrary commands on an remote webserver even if you can't have normal Telnet-access." Via Heiko Hebig. This is basically a very nice GUI for the passthru command, and the restrictions of this command apply: strictly limited to command line tools which do not require user inputs after execution, 30 seconds execution timeout.
XML BASED CONFIG FILES AND PHP
patConfiguration "is an interface to access (read AND write) XML based configuration files via PHP. Furthermore it can convert your XML config files into PHP config files. With the use of extensions it allows you to retrieve fully configured objects from your configuration." patUser is another interesting class at php-tools.de
Permanent link :: Tell a friend :: Add to del.icio.us
They rule
"They Rule aims to make some of the relationships of the elite of the US ruling class visible. It allows users to browse through the interlocking directories of some of the most powerful American companies and easily run searches on them. If a user finds an interesting website about a company or director they can add it to a list of URLs relevant to that company or director. A user can save a map of connections complete with their annotations for others to view. Future users can then show approval for URLs and maps by submitting a vote. They Rule is a starting point for research about these powerful individuals and corporations."
Permanent link :: Tell a friend :: Add to del.icio.us
Ashcroft's America
From the A World Losing Focus Department, playing soon across the USA: Loose all your rights on suspicion, never get them back.
:: Washington Post via boingboing: "The Bush administration is developing a parallel legal system in which terrorism suspects -- U.S. citizens and noncitizens alike -- may be investigated, jailed, interrogated, tried and punished without legal protections guaranteed by the ordinary system, lawyers inside and outside the government say. For example, under authority it already has or is asserting in court cases, the administration, with approval of the special Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, could order a clandestine search of a U.S. citizen's home and, based on the information gathered, secretly declare the citizen an enemy combatant, to be held indefinitely at a U.S. military base. Courts would have very limited authority to second-guess the detention, to the extent that they were aware of it."
:: In unrelated news, a "recent poll conducted by the First Amendment Center shows that more than half of Americans think the first amendment offers too many freedoms." (NPR coverage)
:: German version at Der SPIEGEL: "Wer künftig in den USA unter den Verdacht des Terrorismus gerät, hat schlechte Karten - zumindest wenn es nach neuen Plänen der Bush-Regierung geht. Einem Zeitungsbericht zufolge entwirft die Regierung ein zweites Rechtssystem - in dem der garantierte Schutz von Beschuldigten bei Terrorismusverdacht entfällt. Dabei spiele es keine Rolle, ob die Verdächtigten amerikanische oder ausländische Staatsbürgerschaft hätten, schreibt die 'Washington Post' unter Berufung auf Juristen sowohl in als auch außerhalb der Regierung. Zu den erlaubten Maßnahmen gehöre, dass verdächtigte Personen verhört, relativ einfach verhaftet, abgehört, bestraft, ohne ihr Wissen zum Staatsfeind ('enemy combatants') erklärt und schließlich für unbegrenzte Zeit in Militärhaft gesteckt werden könnten - alles ohne den Schutz, der ihnen im bisherigen Recht zusteht. Gerichte könnten gegen solche Entscheidungen kaum vorgehen - falls sie überhaupt von der Festnahme in Kenntnis gesetzt würden. [...] Ashcroft sprach von einem Sieg für die Freiheit und die Sicherheit des amerikanischen Volkes. Es sei eine Entscheidung, 'die unsere Fähigkeit revolutioniert, Terroristen zu ermitteln und Terroranschläge zu ahnden'". Völliger Rechteverlust auf Verdacht - Welcome to America.
Permanent link :: Tell a friend :: Add to del.icio.us
Link & Think: Weblogs & Journals on World AIDS Day
"Link and Think is an observance of World AIDS Day in the personal web publishing communities. The project involves hundreds [539] of webloggers, journalers, diarists and other personal website publishers, each linking to resources about HIV/AIDS or publishing personal stories about how the AIDS pandemic has affected them."
Permanent link :: Tell a friend :: Add to del.icio.us
[./logicaland v0.1] participative global simulation
"[./logicaland] is a project study for visualizing our
