Archive.
Thursday, June 27, 2002 Link
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"The goal of VerisignOff is to help people understand that there are alternatives to Verisign/Network Solutions and that by patronizing these registrars, we help send an important message; consumers expect the companies that they patronize to treat them ethically and respectfully. We will not tolerate or reward companies who attempt to acquire or retain our business by deceit or obfuscation."
Amen, brothers and sisters. And as a point of clarity, I'd like to mention that I recently moved all of my personal domains, as well as those which I host and can administer, over to Dotster. Via Mr Barrett
When it comes right down to it, the iPod has the potential to be so much more than a music playback device. Sure, it has some basic contact retrieval (note that I didn't say contact "management") capabilities, speedy-quick file storage, and a couple of nifty easter eggs, but why couldn't it be even more expandable and adaptable? Erik Wrenholt has been asking the very same questions and has compiled a list of possibilities that are certainly well within the realm of the doable. So Apple... why not listen to some of your customers and please open up the iPod API. Via Scripting News
You know, some headlines need no additional explanation whatsoever.
Wednesday, June 26, 2002 Link
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Zoinks! After doing a quick tour through my bookmarks, I had no idea I was so far behind in reading my regular list of weblogs. My apologies for being out of said loop.
Well, Amazon has gone and done it. They finally opened a Canadian site and ding dang it if they're not blatantly waving the "we've got your price beat" flag right under my nose. Even with my frequent spnder membership discount, the very same book over at chapters.indigo.ca is nearly 20% less expensive at Amazon. That's just tormenting. But, wait... that's not all. Having a less substantial, but more focused product offering and barely an inkling of the personalized point of purchase fluff that crowds the user experience of their American tab-fabulous superstore, makes the Canadian site positively vintage. And a damn sight faster than the competition. Oh, why do they tease me so? Why? Via calebos.org, because I totally forgot to check it out after I read about it yesterday.
Palms and Newtons and PocketPCs, oh my! Witnesseth whereas the web site designed with proper standards in mind and practice displays on nearly any device, regardless of make, manufacturer, or year model. Unless, of course some off-brand contraption fudges the interpretation a bit when it comes to rendering your style styles. It sort of like using Babelfish to translate non-roman text. You get the gist, but lose the accuracy. Via Zeldman, natch.
Tuesday, June 25, 2002 Link
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The mail server is still a bit burpy-burpy today. Please bear with us.
Monday, June 24, 2002 Link
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I'm not entirely sure what's going on right now, but the mail server for the splorp.com domain - and all of the virtual domains hosted here - seems to be down. I'm assuming this is a temporary problem, but apologies go out to those folks who use this particular server anyway. I'd fix it myself if I could, but unfortunately it's hosted at another location. Otherwise I'd just run down the stairs and give it a friendly kick in the side panel. The weirdest part of this outage is that if I traceroute to the mail server, the hostname resolves to an entirely different IP address than the one specified in the DNS. I'm wondering if it may be a firewall configuration issue. Please stay tuned. [ Update ] The server is back online again.
Sunday, June 23, 2002 Link
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My head is still spinning from an incredibly busy weekend crammed full of family, friends and other social delights, so the interesting industry tidbits and ranting forth that I usually deliver here will have to wait until Monday. However, I do believe there's just enough time to sneak in an installment of Three Line Poems from the Subject Lines of Spam before weekend is kaput. Please enjoy.
Favors For Family Members
[John Smith, sales, Koffi Kanjo, 2002]
Stainless and aluminum
If it's not here call me
Next of kin
And given the events of this afternoon past, you don't know how appropriate this short verse really is.
Friday, June 21, 2002 Link
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Oops. Who knew that the internal customer identifier was based on the company field? Who the heck builds systems that way? What if the user doesn't have a company name? Why should the company field be required if the user doesn't have one? Why force the user to enter some generic, meaningless text sputum into a field just so a form will get processed? Exactly. That's why I commented out that part of the validation code and made the field completely optional. Except, let's go back to the first point for a moment. Suppose the aforementioned field is empty and doesn't require validation, therefore customer profile gets stored without said identifier. The form action is accepted because it passed validation, and the customer gets notified of their new account via email. Yet the customer can't log into the new account because the system uses the identifier based on the non-existent company name data to look up the account information. Oops, indeed.
Thursday, June 20, 2002 Link
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On the way into work this morning, I spotted several distinct signs that the G8 Summit is but a week away. The local news has been humming with tidbits regarding the preparation and security issues for this international schmooze-fest, but to the casual observer there really hasn't been much evidence of the blessed event here in the city. Until today. There was an abundance of empty flat bed trailers with generic Government of Canada license plates driving on Deerfoot Trail, likely returning from Kananaskis after dropping off their loads of military equipment and the like. As well, the personal æsthetics salon that I pass on the way to the office is featuring none other than a G8 special. I guess there's really no reason why activists and politicos alike shouldn't take advantage of discounted nail maintenance and micro dermabrasion services while they're in town. Unfortunately, I can't seem to get the idea out of head that "G8 special" looks and feels a bit too much like ".38 special". Oh, and there's also a pair of burly, overall-clad individuals slowly installing sheets of plexiglass over all the lower level windows in the provincial government building across the street from where I'm sitting. But maybe that's just a coincidence. Stay tuned, I have a feeling that things are just starting to get interesting.
Tuesday, June 18, 2002 Link
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Fug. This ought to be a joy...
Considering how complex and involved the selection, deployment and ongoing maintenance of a content management system can be, you can easily forget to include really useful features such as desktop pattern organization.
What am I getting myself into? I wasn't looking to change over to a new e-mail client. Really, I wasn't. But the consumer in me was enticed enough by the offer of the O'Reilly AppleScript in a Nutshell book being bundled with the current version of Mailsmith to actually crack open the wallet and place an order. Since Photoshop 7.0 shipped, my only excuse for not migrating to OS X as my primary operating system was my current (read: extremely comfortable) e-mail client. I'm proud to maintain that I still use Claris Emailer, in all of its vintage, unsupported, end-of-lifed, application glory. I've played with the demo of MailSmith on and off for the past couple of weeks and have been duly impressed. MailSmith doesn't do everything Emailer does or in the same way. However, it does do enough of the things that I primarily use Emailer for - and does them very well. That's really the point, isn't it? Now I have no excuse to use, no crutch to lean on, no reason whatsoever not to make the switch. I guess the only thing standing in my way is the ominous task of importing 70,000 or so mailbox items from my Emailer database into MailSmith. If anyone currently using MailSmith has any tips (or gotchas to watch out for) to share, prior to me diving headfirst into the pool, please let me know. Ah, can't you just smell the adventure?
Friday, June 14, 2002 Link
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When did Microsoft start referring to their own software as a virus? Oh, sorry... I must have read that headline a bit too quickly. I thought it had something to do with the truth in advertising movement.
Hydro-demolition sediment tank and overflow hose. 4th Avenue Southwest, Calgary.
Thursday, June 13, 2002 Link
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Well look at what I just found out. The spiffy individual who went and put the first web server on the Mac after talking to that wacky Tim Berners-Lee guy, has gone off and got himself a weblog. Chuck Shotton's Logic Faults: featuring paint scandal updates, banana colada recipes, the occasional web services brain dump, and more. Via archipelago
Oh, the things you can do by splicing together a couple chunks of borrowed JavaScript and just a touch of local style sheet shebang. Just click reload. Simple perhaps, yet a wonderfully effective afternoon hack.
Tuesday, June 11, 2002 Link
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Plunderkind: So you're Apple.
Suck it up, customer boy.
Monday, June 10, 2002 Link
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Whee! WannaBe 1.0b13 is here. Graphical web browsers are just so 1995, aren't they?
Look ma, no dongles. A release version of Hiroshi Noguchi's 802.11b WaveLan wireless networking driver for the Newton has hit the streets. For the folks out there who haven't been following the development of this software or, for the love of Pete, don't have a clue as to what I'm babbling about, trust me on this... it's big news. You can barely scrape the excitement off the walls of the NewtonTalk mailing list, this is so big.
All is not lost. Hope is at hand. Lights are coming on in the valley. Happiness will once again spread across the land. What's up? Just read this article and watch this space. The Web Standards Project relaunches tomorrow.
Thursday, June 06, 2002 Link
Realign your bookmarks everyone. typographica is now typographi.com
Tuesday, June 04, 2002 Link
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And a belated welcome back to Issa, both professionally and bloggishly.
Ah, that's better... In case you're one of the curious lot who've been wondering what the gang and I have been working on for the past few months, let me introduce Veer. Mind your step when entering the premises. A few of the floorboards may not be nailed down quite yet. Mad props, y'all.
Monday, June 03, 2002 Link
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Late afternoon sunlight and plastic snow fence. 7th Street and 5th Avenue Southwest, Calgary.
Something big that was supposed to happen today, will instead happen tomorrow. That is, providing the contingency gods are smiling on us, rather than spilling bags of marbles down the stairs we're attempting to climb.
Furthermore.
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