Friday, August 31, 2001
Attention all Calgary bloggers! I'd like to report a recent moose sighting. I knew our friend Mike was going to be offline whilst attending his second annual traipse to Burning Man, but I had completely forgotten about the bunch of like-minded denizens he was going to be baking with on the playa. Well, I tracked him down. Off-the-cuff mentions and other visual detritus can be found dripping with Diesel's fingerprints all over the Radio KBK site. It's almost like be there.
Thursday, August 30, 2001
I was digging around a couple of sites looking for potential updates to some software I run on this server, and I ran across a mention of buffer overflow in the read me file of a freshly squeezed version of NetCloak. After confirming that the update was in response to the various iterations of Code Red that have be clogging up everybody's pipes lately, I downloaded and installed the puppy. Based on the discussions on the NetCloak-Talk mailing list, this could be the solution to the intermittent server crashes that I've been having this week. Yes, even after all the reinstalls earlier today, WebStar continues to burp... albeit less frequently. The unpredictability of the crashes and the fact that the server can run for weeks without an issue before lapsing into a stream of hourly conniption fits seems to match the wave-like propagation of Code Red. And if the new version of NetCloak doesn't solve the problem, there's always this user-configurable Code Red Killer Plug-in that I can try. The fun never stops around here, kids.
Well, colour me pedantic... my brother-in-law has a blog.
All of you friendly folks who have arrived here looking for the grantcam may be surprised when you actually land on this page instead. It's not a technical problem, it's just that with the grantcam being temporarily waylaid, there's just not a hell of a lot to look at on the home page anymore. I decided to redirect all hits to the home page to my blog, if for no other reason than the simple fact that it's the most regularly updated part of the site. And who knows, you may actually find out you like it here. Once the grantcam is functional again, there will be a direct link to it from this page. If you're just dying for a fix anyway, in the interim you can always take a peek at the compatible grantcam page, where the last live image served up has been frozen in all its bitmapped glory.
Alrighty, I think we're back for good now. I had to reinstall a couple chunks of software on the server this morning and give the router a sharp kick in the pants. Barring any additional hiccups (oh, that's just asking for trouble isn't it?), we should be good to go for at least another month. Whee. Oh yeah, and here's a tip... It helps to get things up and running faster if you don't accidentally delete your only backup of the FTP user file. What a dumb shit.
Tuesday, August 28, 2001
Stable? Of course it's stable. Jeeze.
I thought things were going too smoothly today. All of a sudden the server decides that it's going to burp and start spitting up Type 2 errors. The only thing I can track down is two corrupted prefs files, one for Apple Menu Options and one for the Sound control panel. Nice to see that completely unrelated components of the operating system can bring down the entire box. Let's see how things stabilize after those two renegade files have been nuked and replaced. If nothing else, I now know that the automatic rebooting software works just dandy.
Rustboy is a short all-digital film being produced by Brian Taylor using off the shelf software and a G3 Mac. The visuals are gorgeous. The site is gorgeous. And the way that Brian is documenting the process through an online diary and various production-related artwork is positively brilliant. If you haven't been to the Rustboy site, go quick now. If you have seen it before, enjoy it again. Mad props to my west coast photographer friend Grant Waddell for insisting that I ignore the kids yelling in the back yard for a few minutes and take a look.
There's nothing like the sweet smell of cascading style sheets to snap you out of a late summer funk. Advanced CSS Layouts: Step by Step documents the process of replicating WebReference.com's very own convoluted, nested-table nightmare of a home page completely in CSS. And on a related tangent, you can also glean plenty of usefulness from Mark Newhouse's smartly written Practical CSS Tips, Tricks & Techniques article, which happens to be in super-duper rerun mode over at A List Apart. Promise me you'll read these later. Promise.
Monday, August 27, 2001
Either it's time for a mental inventory or my pint glass is empty again. Whatever it is, I'm been feeling extremely uninspired to write stuff in this blog lately. Believe me, I'm not bored. No, far from it. And it's not as if there isn't plenty of frustrating things to complain about and geeky stuff to gush over - every single day. It's just that summer is drawing to a close. Not in the chronologically Gregorian sense, but due to the fact that my kids start back to school this Wednesday. Suddenly, the metaphorical geese are flocking south carrying their Powerpuff Girls lunch boxes. I'm sensing change. A new school year. My youngest daughter starting grade one. The older one acting more the part of a tweenager every day. And on top of everything, perhaps a new job in the wings for me. All of these new and transitionary circumstances should be providing a copious flood of bloggerisms. Maybe they will in time. But right now, I'm apparently content just trying to keep pace with the changes. By the way, there's still of couple of things stuck in the back of the warehouse that haven't been inventoried yet. And the pint glass? Water, straight from the Brita.
Friday, August 24, 2001
Ah, that feels so much better. It's been just over seven years since we moved into this house. This evening, I finally got around to scraping the remaining weather-hardened bits of green Astroturfesque carpeting off the back porch steps. It's as if I've smeared salve on a persistent rash and it has cleared up and left an unspecified nether region surprisingly unblemished. Consider that item crossed off the to do list, my dear.
There's a new version of MacHTTP that should nip all those pesky Code Red buffer overflow problems in the proverbial bud. Yes, I know that Mac-based web servers can't be compromised by Code Red, but earlier versions of MacHTTP could potentially suffer from request string indigestion.
I'm glad that my friend Howie is finally using his powers for good and not evil. He's definitely on to something promising with his concept for a WAP-based Slurpee Status interface tied into a GPS location system. Now all we need is a wireless input mechanism for ranking 7-11 employees on a standardized perkiness index.
Thursday, August 23, 2001
Phasmidless. The last remaining grandchild of Shim, my original stick insect, finally dried up and crumbled into tiny bug pieces this past week. It was quite a progenetic run for old Shim. I can assure you that there are still quite a few twiggy-legged offspring stuffed into jars across western Canada. However, there are no longer any insects in my employ. The large glass jar has been washed and shelved. The company will not be backfilling the position. Sniff.
"I don't know what a monopoly is until somebody tells me." The tap-dancing sweat gland, Steve Ballmer, as quoted in this News.com article a couple of days ago. I guess he must get paid to be a public ignoramus. Nice work if you can get it. What a dork.
Wednesday, August 22, 2001
Fear not faithful viewers, I'm still here. It just that I'm in the middle of drywalling the furnace room down in the basement. Can't you just see it? There's going to be twenty more linear feet of tidy, organized storage aplenty. Hot damn.
Monday, August 20, 2001
This is a test post through the Blogger API using an XML-RPC enabled AppleScript written by Jeffrey Czerniak. The spiffiest thing about this, at least from my twisted point of view, is that I can now wrap a custom HyperCard-based user interface around this script. Oh dear, I think I'm feeling faint...
Continuing today's inadvertent tribute to the more colourful end of the vernacular, this may be the most accurately representative word mark and domain name ever secured by a law firm. Presenting for your viewing pleasure, mofo.com
Something a little bird sent me.
Saturday, August 18, 2001
Yes, I'm back. And now the server is too. Drat. Apparently, WebStar decided to take its own vacation two days after I left on a week long trip to the mountains. Crud. To all the inconvenienced hostees and regular visitors alike, my sincere apologies for the unintended disruption. I promise that I will install the automatic system reboot software this week. Nuts.
How come the damn server never crashes when I'm in town?
Friday, August 10, 2001
Well, well, well... will wonders never cease? Good friend Issa has finally jumped the cubicle wall and joined the self-imposed sabbatical club. Lunch perhaps? I'll buy.
I love Unix.** Pop server error -ERR [SYS/TEMP]Yes I do.
Failed to create /var/spool/mail/.ghutchin.pop with uid 701, gid 12.
Change permissions.Cron run-parts /etc/cron.dailyI love Unix.
cat: write error: No space left on device/usr/local/sbin/monitorYou should too.
00:10:E0:00:23:0: unknown interface.
SIOCSIFADDR: Operation not supported by device
SIOCSIFNETMASK: Operation not supported by device
SIOCSIFBRDADDR: Operation not supported by device
SIOCADDRT: Operation not supported by device
Thursday, August 09, 2001
The idea of getting back to work on a regular basis has been clunking around in my head more frequently of late. I'm not referring to yard maintenance or puttering around the house or even contract consulting. I'm thinking of a full-time, away from the house, surrounded by a bunch of geeks like me kind of thing. You know, a job. Just the prospect of going back into this type of situation inevitably triggers reflection on why I left my previous job in the first place. Up until this point, I honestly couldn't nail the reason down to anything other than it felt like it was time to leave. Last night I read following passage from the book Accidental Empires. It doesn't completely explain why I left, but it describes something that is amazingly accurate, yet wasn't evident until now."Reasons other than boredom and pent-up ambition cause early employees to leave successful young companies. As companies get bigger, they become more organized and process driven, which leads to more waste. Great individual contributors are very efficient. They hate waste and are good indicators of its presence. When the best people start to bail out, it's a sign that there is too much waste."I was one of the original employees at this small company called Image Club Graphics. Over the years, Image Club was grown, morphed, acquired, rebranded, spun-out, rebranded again, acquired again, and ultimately killed off. We lived through two distinct periods of amazing growth. I never thought of the growth as wasteful at the time, because of a couple of factors. With growth, the speed at which many things happen increases. The faster things happen, the more oblivious you become to the amount of resources and people needed to complete those things. You need to get these things done, and they get done. Period. Of course, growth also slows down other things, like decision making. As you're waiting for decisions to be made, you start to realize how many of those resources and people are being wasted during the time you are waiting. That is frustrating. I realize now that much of the frustration and antsiness I felt was not because our company had become too big or too corporate or too bureaucratic, it was because it had become too wasteful and inefficient.
Tuesday, August 07, 2001
People think I collect a lot of crap. Sure, I'll admit to having a hundred or so obsolete AOL discs kicking around in the archives, but that's chicken feed when compared to guys like Sparky and Bustam. Yikes.
Today's adventure in email is brought to you by letter Q.Date: 07/08/2001 09:10 PMHee.
Received: 07/08/2001 09:10 PM
From: Mail Administrator, postmaster@telusplanet.net
To: Grant Hutchinson, grant@splorp.com
This message was undeliverable due to the following reason:
The user(s) account is temporarily over quota.
<postmaster@telusplanet.net>
Please reply to postmaster@telusplanet.net
if you feel this message to be in error.
Monday, August 06, 2001
And I had such a nice weekend in Fernie. Nuts.
If you happen to be in that distinct group of people who enjoy free web hosting and email accounts via the splorp.com and imageclub.com servers, this is to let you know that the mail server went all cattywumpus this weekend. The other Grant managed to set up another mail server until we can find out if the other box is salvagable. The new mail server has been specified as the primary mail exchanger for the domains related to your accounts. Once again, we'll be at the mercy of the propagation gods for the next 24 hours or so, but then everything should be fine. In the meantime, you'll need to contact me at this alternate email address to find out how to update your email client to use the new mail server. Simple, no?
Friday, August 03, 2001
Cake. Cake. Cake. And more Cake.
The Science of Selling Images
Perhaps this article should be entitled "The Science of Selling Employees Up The River". For a company that has just culled more than 300 people from its work force, isn't expected to meet its reduced revenue targets, and has basically gutted entire companies that it has acquired over the past couple of years - they sure know how to get the media to spin for them. I'm not bitter. Really I'm not. I just know from experience how Getty Images operates. This article paints a pretty picture (no pun intended), but in reality they haven't a clue which direction they're going. If they did have a clue, they wouldn't have told these folks that they'll be looking for a new job before the end of the year.
It's the end of the world as we know it. I just bought a thousand foot spool of Cat 5e Gigabit-ready Ethernet cable and a variable-impact punchdown tool at Home Depot. They had a bin full of 8-port hubs as well. What could possibly be next? Do it yourself fibre-optic backbone?
Here's a piece spam that I received today. What surprised me about it was the way that it sounded more like a weblog confession or a keynote address at an internet conference than the sales pitch it really is. Fascinating.Why I have habitually send Spam email."The economy is fucking slow. Send bulk email." Now if that isn't an inspiring tagline for the next phase of internet commerce, nothing is.
The big dogs Spam, Sears, BMG Music's and many others, make a killing sending bulk email. I bet you have gotten bulk email from one of the big dogs.
Yes I have send out millions of email and got my ISP account canceled twice.
But I have make quite a handsome buck, when I first started sending bulk email, I got a 5% response in which 3% converted to sales. You figure I send out a million pieces, got 50,000 leads 3% or 30,000 to a confirm sales.
The averages price of my product is $19.00, in one bulk email campaign I made over $100,000. I am now an expert at this shit, I can make even more. A lot of selfish people keep secret to themselves, I figure someone showed me the way; I want to return the favor.
Now you see why I send bulk email, stop being a coward, the economy is fucking slow send bulk email. How else are you going to pay your bills?
I am recommending two powerful techniques, which you can use to send out millions of email in seconds, and best of all, you will never get cancel from your ISP.
Thursday, August 02, 2001
On a related note. System 6 Heaven. Via Woz
Due to a lucky find on one of the discarded item tables at the local public library, I have been reading Robert X. Cringley's 1992 book Accidental Empires. It's a bluntly opinionated, painfully true, and oh-my-spleen-hurts funny account of how the whole computer industry schtick took off like it had firecrackers in its pants back in the late seventies. Coincidentally, as I was finishing the chapter on how IBM managed, somehow, to actually ship its first personal computer, I heard via DaveNet that this week is the 20th anniversary of said fugly box. Whoa. That means that my original Apple II is going to be 25 in a year. Only a small part of me is shocked by the large amount of time that has passed since I shelled out $1649 CND for the little slab of beige plastic. For the most part. I'm thoroughly enjoying reading about the escapades and in-fighting of the people who brought these tools and toys to life in the first place. I'm glad I started reading Accidental Empires when I did. Comparing its stories to recent accounts about the same period by people such as Dave Winer, Dan Bricklin, and Woz is filling in a lot of blanks. Those guys were nuts. Damn, how I wish I had been there.
Ooh, look. Old bitmap fonts. But not just any old bitmap fonts. These have been hand-tweaked bit by niggly bit "back when a pixel was worth something" by designer, illustrator, and all around good egg, Mark Simonson. Just recently, Mark decided to release all of these fonts into the public domain, which conveniently opens them up for conversion to Newton format. At least, that's what I would do with them. You "regular" folk will probably just waste them in exceedingly average web page designs and user interface mockups. Fools.
Wednesday, August 01, 2001
It's been nearly 90 sleeps since my last official day as a dumbfounded employee of these jokers. As it so happens, Friday is the deadline for exercising the last straggling chunks of my once valuable stock options. Of course the stock price is scraping its belly near its 52 week low at the moment, which places a good portion of the options underwater by about $20. I don't suppose praying for a voluminous market uptick before the end of the week would be completely foolhardy, would it?
