I'm a world traveller! I made it over to Glasgow, Scotland to visit my sister, neice and brother-in-law. They are here while Scott works on his doctorate in theology at the University of Scotland. See Scott's blog.
Robin and Keelyn have been acting as my tour guides and I've seen lots of really cool stuff, like the Glasgow City Council building, George Square, the Huntarian Art Museum and historical collection, Keelyn's daycare school, Pollock House, St Mungo's cathedral, Glasgow City Necropolis, St Mungo Museum of Religion and lots and lots of other stuff that I've forgotten the names of. I'll be here for a few more days and I'll probably post more about the trip when I get back. Here are a few pics I put up over at flickr.
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Thursday, April 20, 2006
Software: Firefox and extensions
Mozilla Firefox is a free, open-source, cross-platform web browser developed by the Mozilla Corp and many, many volunteers. Firefox began life as a fork of the Navigator component of the Mozilla Application Suite that was meant to provide a lean, mean browser only option for users who didn't need the full web suite. The Mozilla Foundation was created after AOL dropped development of the software a few years after purchasing Netscape Navigator (a very popular browser from the early days of the internet).
Firefox includes innovative features such as an integrated pop-up blocker, tabbed-browsing, live bookmarks, support for open web standards and an extension mechanism for adding functionality. Firefox has achieved widespread success and offers users a very stable, very secure, very functional option to Internet Explorer.
I have used Firefox since it was called Firebird (specifically version 0.6) and I can say it has become not only a valid option, but very much the standard by which other browsers are judged (well, ok, at least it's how I judge other browsers). Firefox is an open-source application which means the source code is available for anyone to view. This means Firefox uses sound security methods instead of security through obscurity. Any flaws that are found can be seen by everyone, openly discussed and fixed quickly by the community. No hidden code, no backdoors possible.
There are some criticisms of Firefox. Some users note Firefox takes longer to launch than other web browsers on Windows. The non-Windows-native XUL implementation of the user interface may be the cause of this delay. Internet Explorer has the advantage of being a built-in component of windows and much of it's functionality is loaded at Windows startup, but Firefox is still slower than other browsers such as Opera and K-Meleon. Another complaint is that Firefox uses more memory than other browsers, but developers claim this is at least partially an effect of the fast backwards and forwards features of Firefox (moving between pages that have already been loaded, the browser takes more advantage of the cache, causing memory usage to spike). Some memory leaks may also be caused by poorly implemented extensions.
Overall however, Firefox provides a highly stable and functional web browser that is much more secure and adheres to web standards. I highly recommend at least trying it out, once you understand the power of tabs and extensions I doubt you'll want to use anything else.
Lastly, here is a list of the extensions I normally have loaded with Firefox.
Firefox includes innovative features such as an integrated pop-up blocker, tabbed-browsing, live bookmarks, support for open web standards and an extension mechanism for adding functionality. Firefox has achieved widespread success and offers users a very stable, very secure, very functional option to Internet Explorer.
I have used Firefox since it was called Firebird (specifically version 0.6) and I can say it has become not only a valid option, but very much the standard by which other browsers are judged (well, ok, at least it's how I judge other browsers). Firefox is an open-source application which means the source code is available for anyone to view. This means Firefox uses sound security methods instead of security through obscurity. Any flaws that are found can be seen by everyone, openly discussed and fixed quickly by the community. No hidden code, no backdoors possible.
There are some criticisms of Firefox. Some users note Firefox takes longer to launch than other web browsers on Windows. The non-Windows-native XUL implementation of the user interface may be the cause of this delay. Internet Explorer has the advantage of being a built-in component of windows and much of it's functionality is loaded at Windows startup, but Firefox is still slower than other browsers such as Opera and K-Meleon. Another complaint is that Firefox uses more memory than other browsers, but developers claim this is at least partially an effect of the fast backwards and forwards features of Firefox (moving between pages that have already been loaded, the browser takes more advantage of the cache, causing memory usage to spike). Some memory leaks may also be caused by poorly implemented extensions.
Overall however, Firefox provides a highly stable and functional web browser that is much more secure and adheres to web standards. I highly recommend at least trying it out, once you understand the power of tabs and extensions I doubt you'll want to use anything else.
Lastly, here is a list of the extensions I normally have loaded with Firefox.
Thursday, April 13, 2006
Interesting: Obscure Command Line Tools
I was listening to episode 12 of Hanselminutes today and was introduced to / reminded of several very helpful and cool Microsoft Windows command line tools. A good list of little known commands is here at NeworkClue.
I especially liked 'driverquery' which gives information and properties about all drivers loaded on a system. And also SFC or System File Checker which is a great tool for Windows that works in conjunction with a utility called Windows File Protection that keeps the system file cache. If you have restore points setup you are probably better off using them, however, as a last resort SFC will restore any system files that have been replaced or overwritten by incorrect versions or malicious software.
Scott Hanselman does a good job of describing several other little known tools such as netsh and wmic. Worth listening to if you spend time at the command line, or would like to learn how powerful the command line really is.
Oh, almost forgot, pushd and popd r0x!
I especially liked 'driverquery' which gives information and properties about all drivers loaded on a system. And also SFC or System File Checker which is a great tool for Windows that works in conjunction with a utility called Windows File Protection that keeps the system file cache. If you have restore points setup you are probably better off using them, however, as a last resort SFC will restore any system files that have been replaced or overwritten by incorrect versions or malicious software.
Scott Hanselman does a good job of describing several other little known tools such as netsh and wmic. Worth listening to if you spend time at the command line, or would like to learn how powerful the command line really is.
Oh, almost forgot, pushd and popd r0x!
Odd: British girl gets old heart back
Medical science amazes me.
Basically, they placed a donor heart next to her original heart so it could help pump blood. The drugs she took to keep the donor heart from being rejected quit working, but they found her original heart was now working just fine after the rest. WOW.
Hannah Clark from south Wales had a heterotopic transplant operation -- known as a "piggyback" because the donor heart is placed next to the original organ -- 10 years ago.
Basically, they placed a donor heart next to her original heart so it could help pump blood. The drugs she took to keep the donor heart from being rejected quit working, but they found her original heart was now working just fine after the rest. WOW.
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Interesting: The Battle for Content Ownership Continues
Just buy an HDCP compatible video card? Are you sure? Check out this article at BoingBoing.
The content does not drive the market, the demand does and consumers will eventually demand access to the content they purchase. So DRM will eventually die. I have no doubt consumers will lose a few rounds before that happens, but as a friend recently said "The publishers are dragged, every time kicking and screaming, to the money tree."
The content does not drive the market, the demand does and consumers will eventually demand access to the content they purchase. So DRM will eventually die. I have no doubt consumers will lose a few rounds before that happens, but as a friend recently said "The publishers are dragged, every time kicking and screaming, to the money tree."
Interesting: The Google Brand
This article explains how google really is all things to all people.
Google DNA, stem cells, brand names ... why does that make sense?
Google DNA, stem cells, brand names ... why does that make sense?
Sunday, April 09, 2006
Odd: The Lenovo Tapes
Just a little something odd to see on a Sunday afternoon: The Lenovo Tapes
Whatever it is and whoever created it, it's pretty cool :)
Whatever it is and whoever created it, it's pretty cool :)
Saturday, April 08, 2006
Interesting: AJAX and ajaxWrite in particular
Asyncronous Javascript and XML, or ajax. It's the new buzzword for rich web content and applications in the browser ... the whole 'the network is the computer' business that Sun has been trying to get across for ages now. see Wikipedia.
Ajax is used for GMail and Live from Microsoft. It is mixture of several existing technologies to provide a much slicker, cleaner web experience for the end user (how does it help the developer? I don't know, haven't done anything that could be called ajax, need to start toying). Here is an excellent post about getting started creating ajax apps Rush's ajax for beginners. There are some cool portal sites out there like pageflakes and netvibes and companies are quickly throwing ajax apps up all over the web.
How much is hype and buzzwords? A lot, to be sure, web 2.0 is a bubble being quickly blown to mid-90's 'same idea but on the internet' proportions. We've had all these ideas before, ajax just makes it work better. It's evolution of technology and the fact that more and more people have the bandwidth to actually be able to use these things doesn't hurt, but the marketing folks dream of monetizing these types of apps is still probably just that, a dream. Hopefully we can continue to evolve the technology and get more and better experiences, but it's all about services on top of something else. And that something else is what will drive revenue, not ajax. Ajax is just another tool.
As useful as it might be, the hype might cause it to implode and then we'll be forced to make up a new word for interactivity on the web. Things like ajaxWrite that make huge promises, then fall very, very short of those promises don't help anything. Extremetech has a review here. It doesn't even appear that ajaxWrire is actually written in what is defined as ajax. See comments at slashdot here. Marketing and buzzwords might make the CEO's richer, but real engineering and coding will eventually bring better tools to more people at lower cost, no matter what it's called.
Ajax is used for GMail and Live from Microsoft. It is mixture of several existing technologies to provide a much slicker, cleaner web experience for the end user (how does it help the developer? I don't know, haven't done anything that could be called ajax, need to start toying). Here is an excellent post about getting started creating ajax apps Rush's ajax for beginners. There are some cool portal sites out there like pageflakes and netvibes and companies are quickly throwing ajax apps up all over the web.
How much is hype and buzzwords? A lot, to be sure, web 2.0 is a bubble being quickly blown to mid-90's 'same idea but on the internet' proportions. We've had all these ideas before, ajax just makes it work better. It's evolution of technology and the fact that more and more people have the bandwidth to actually be able to use these things doesn't hurt, but the marketing folks dream of monetizing these types of apps is still probably just that, a dream. Hopefully we can continue to evolve the technology and get more and better experiences, but it's all about services on top of something else. And that something else is what will drive revenue, not ajax. Ajax is just another tool.
As useful as it might be, the hype might cause it to implode and then we'll be forced to make up a new word for interactivity on the web. Things like ajaxWrite that make huge promises, then fall very, very short of those promises don't help anything. Extremetech has a review here. It doesn't even appear that ajaxWrire is actually written in what is defined as ajax. See comments at slashdot here. Marketing and buzzwords might make the CEO's richer, but real engineering and coding will eventually bring better tools to more people at lower cost, no matter what it's called.
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