[ music | Soundgarden - Rusty Cage ]

I see Joe Hewitt has quit iPhone development thanks to Apple’s “chickenshit approval process“. I’m easing my way into iPhone development despite my reservations about Apple’s incredibly arbitrary and selectively enforced rules, and find it incredibly telling that as time goes on more and more people are chafing under Apple’s leash. They appear to have responded to customer demand with changes like mature app categories, but reversing course on NIN’s app and the Google Voice fiasco show how incredibly schizophrenic and unfair the system really is. I don’t blame Joe at all.

Someone mentioned to me Mozilla’s Addons site, but there’s a fundamental difference between that and Apple’s App Store. You can choose to develop for Firefox without ever looking at AMO, and you can distribute your addon independently as well. With Apple, you either go through the App Store, or you restrict yourself to EULA-violating methods like Cydia and other jailbreak-only solutions. I have nothing against those solutions, but it severely restricts discoverability and freedom of both developers and users.

What I find so unbelievable is that is that, at least from my perspective, Apple’s policies seemed doomed to failure eventually, and yet they’re still trying to stand by them. I see a redux of IBM of the 1980s. The PC took off thanks to IBM’s wide open policies on clones. IBM felt if they could maintain more control over the platform, there was a lot of profit to be made, and used the genuinely advanced MCA bus to help further those business goals. The consequence in the end was the complete eclipsing of IBM in the PC market. Android may not be on the same level as the iPhone OS yet, but the market seems to have demonstrated time after time that lower cost and greater freedom wins. If Apple keeps strangling their very promising platform, they very well may wind up the next Betamax.

[ music | Talk Talk - Life's What you Make It ]

I was reading this article with was an interview with Big Mitch Baker and Mozilla CEO John Lilly and stumbled across this sentence, and it made me double take.

As of April 2009, Firefox claimed 22.48 percent of Web browser market, according to Net Applications. That makes it the second most popular browser world-wide, after Internet Explorer, which holds 66.1 percent. An impressive feat.

We’ve helped take IE down from over 90% of users to a hair under two thirds, and dropping. We did that, you, me, the entire Mozilla community. We took Gecko from the marginal-at-best suite to Firefox, 22.48% of Internet users, and paved the way for alternative browsers like Chrome and Safari to be able to carve out a viable existence. Ten years ago people were wondering how long Mozilla could keep plodding along before IE snuffed us out, what would happen when AOL cut the umbilical cord, and laughed at the idea of a real alternative to IE ever rising in the shadow of MS.

Impressive indeed.

APNG is a good thing. Some people think it’s not, that it’s just Mozilla carving its own course. It’s not Mozilla just being difficult, it’s that MNG missed the mark by a mile. Don’t believe me? Turns out other companies have encountered similar situations, as Raymond Chen explains why it’s ok to reimplement a subset of functions as a simple solution to a simple problem.

[ music | Samuel Barber - Adagio for Strings (Opus 11) ]

My mother passed away this morning. This is about a year and nine months after her stroke, when I had to admit her to a nursing home, and about 3 years after her diagnosis of dementia, specifically what we believe to have been vascular dementia. In retrospect, I can see the onset was somewhere in early 2002, with significant symptoms emerging in 2004. But she was active and agile into the start of 2008, even though she had have more care at the nursing home than I could provide. She was hit by it quite early in her life, relative to most patients, and sadly the earlier it strikes, the more aggressive it is (and vice versa). If it manages to affect a younger brain, it’s a more severe case, and the prognosis isn’t good. She died at about 8am today, halfway through her 65th year.

She was my only parent, and meant the world to me, we were very close, and I will miss her terribly. But I’m also glad she’s no longer suffering from the cruelest family of diseases, one that robs a person of their memories, their very being. She passed quietly and without much suffering at all. For a short while my site here will be in this monochrome scheme as a form of modern armband of mourning.

I’m leaving for the funeral and mass tomorrow morning, and should be back Saturday. Additionally, I’ll probably be slow on responding to contacts for a bit even after that. Bear with me on that. Please support stem cell and other research into treating Dementia, Alzheimer’s, and other neurodegenerative diseases so that maybe some day soon no families need ever see their loved ones slowly slip away from the inside out, and no one ever need forget who they are. Thanks.

Grey

[ music | Steve Winwood - Valerie ]

You know, I’ve moved quite a few times in my life. I think I’m currently at move number 24. Most were within a small radius as a kid. A couple were across town, a couple were around 75 miles, and now I’ve finished my third move of 500+ miles. That’s not counting travel; I’ve never been overseas, but I’ve been to Mexico once, and Canada three times (four if you count veering into the Canadian side of Lake Erie, but that was an accident), and 28 states. Also, I hate lines, I much prefer pacing. Apparently I’m not one for standing around, neither metaphorically nor literally.

So that brings me back to the third 500+ mile move (I’m going to gloss over the first two). Technically I’m counting road miles and not as-the-crow-flies partly because it sounds more impressive and partly because I’m not a crow. From north western PA (a cultural desert, if I may say so (and I may, I was born in Pittsburgh, I can get away with insulting the crappy parts of PA, so bugger off)) to south eastern Virginia. I packed my car up, and hit the road. It’s fun driving on the freeway with a table strapped to the roof of your car, you should try it.

And you know what? For the first time in my life, I have absolutely not a single ounce of regret or homesickness. It’s fabulous here. I arrived a bit ago and never got around to blogging about it until now. The fact that it’s so flat here is starting to sink in, but other than that, it’s great. And I never thought I’d wind up in The South. Granted, Virginia isn’t exactly on the equator, but it’s below the Mason-Dixon line, and it’s a place I never imagined myself until last November.

And tonight I went to a “tweet up”. What’s a tweet up? It’s like a meet-up but for Twitter people. What’s Twitter? It’s like crack for the ADD crowd; tell the world what you’re doing in 140 characters. Yes, I have a Twitter page too. It’s a lot harder for me to use though. I’ve written a ream of short fiction and two books with a third in process. For me to say anything in 140 characters is like packing a dozen clowns in one of those little cars. I’m most assuredly 10 pounds of manure, and Twitter is a 10 ounce bag. But the tweet-up was awesome. There was a whopping 6 people tonight, and I’m quite sure I talked enough that none will ever come to another one, but I had a blast. I forgot how much fun I have jumping into the deep end feet first.

So here I am. New town, new home, a whole new smorgasbord of opportunities, and I feel 20 again. I don’t look 20, but I sure feel it. Of course, I didn’t look 20 when I was 20, so that’s nothing new. One person at the tweet up was a quite ambitious, hard working, impressive, and beautiful young woman who was a touch older than me, but looked easily ten years younger than she is, and mentioned her husband is about that much older than her. This told me two things: one, that he is a VERY lucky man, and two, there might actually be hope for me yet. If a guy who is that much older can land a beautiful and amazingly talented woman like that, a guy like me who just looks it still has a chance.

All in all, I’m glad to be here. Stay tuned, it’s the same old me, but this is going to be a whole new show. and you bet your sweet bippy it’ll be even more interesting.

[ music | Jason Mraz - The Remedy ]

If you’re a web developer, or a developer of web browsers (which is another kind of web developer, I suppose), you’ve probably grabbed betas of Safari 4. I haven’t had it long enough to give a full review, but I CAN say tabs on top? NO SIR. So, how do you undo that? Well, some swell soul has already dug out some of S4’s hidden prefs. I’m very thankful to this kind chap, and I’m just sharing the knowledge.

Now, if you’re on Windows and want to change these prefs, obviously you can’t do it the way that article mentions. This article has some good tips but there’s a caveat. The potential problems are twofold. One is if the file exists and it’s a binary plist, you’ll have to delete/rename it and create a new XML based one. Two is if similar but very different directories. The proper path is %APPDATA%\Apple Computer\Preferences and not %APPDATA%\Apple Computer\Safari\Preferences despite what it may look like.

[ music | Jesus Jones - International Bright Young Thing ]

I personally am quite happy with Dreamhost. However, I have a customer who is based in Europe, and would prefer a European web host, or one based elsewhere in the world. So, Lazyweb, does anyone know of a non-US web host with a comparable feature set? A healthy bandwidth allotment, PHP, several domains and subdomains per account, and supporting HTTPS/SSL are required, and SSH access is a really welcome feature. I’m more than open to invite or referral codes for good deals to get us in the door. Please email me or leave a comment. Thanks.

[ music | Queen - We Are The Champions ]

No team has ever won 6 Superbowls until now. One for the other thumb.

[ music | Dido - Me ]

Blame Daniel Glazman, it’s his fault.

1. Link to your original tagger(s) and list these rules in your post.
2. Share seven facts about yourself in the post.
3. Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they’ve been tagged.

Let the self indulgence begin!

1. Building on Dan’s medical theme
   • As a child I had some severe migraine headaches. They’d last for days, and I’d just sleep the whole time, but they’d also be accompanied by incredibly high fevers above 105°F. I’m told by doctors it’s a miracle it didn’t cause any brain damage.  I’m told by friends it most certainly did.
   • In 2006 I got to enjoy the agony of gallstones. I mentioned that, and the subsequent removal of said gall bladder. I have a rather high tolerance for pain, you see. My major attack in October had been increasing in discomfort and pain for about 18 hours before I finally went to the ER. I thought it was bad gas or indigestion. This had happened twice before and passed long before it felt this bad. I was crossing the street, and nearly passed out, so I grabbed a cab home and called 911 (I was still caring for my mother at home and wanted her in the ambulance with me so she didn’t worry, here’s why). Turns out I had developed acute pancreatitis and was in shock. Apparently shooting pains throughout your abdomen is a bad sign, and you should get help. Lesson learned!
2. I used to run a Mozilla news site called Mozilla News. It’s gone now, the domain lapsed, but you can read our old stuff via Internet Archive. I broke some news a time or two that some people weren’t happy about, but over all, I think we did a lot of good for the community. Also, we had the first animated favicon ever.
3. I was engaged once.
4. I got to meet and shake hands with Bill Clinton during his 1996 campaign. He came to Pittsburgh in August and had a rally in the Sewall Center at Robert Morris College (now Robert Morris University). Amazing guy.
5. My first computer was a TRS 80 Model 100 (I had the printer too!). I loved that computer. It was very light and incredibly portable, ran on 4 AA batteries, and had a built in 300 baud modem. Once I bought the modem cable and started checking out local BBSes, my entire world changed forever. I bought a second one, cut off one modular connector and attached alligator clips, and went phreaking. Some of the best times of my life.
6. About a decade or so ago, I got hit by my own car. I was at a motel and someone tried to steal my car. I heard it start up, ran out, and stood in the middle of the parking lot. He drove right into me, and I rolled up the hood, over the windshield, and off the side. I hurt my back, but no broken bones or cuts.
7. I’m a published author. I’ve been published in a couple poetry reviews, a technical book, and most recently tech-edited a book for Wiley, HTML, XHTML, and CSS: Your visual blueprint. I’m also about 170+ pages into a novel, but that’s another story. (Get it? Another STORY? Ha-ha! (that one’s for dolske))

So, now I need to harass seven other people about this.

1. Justin Dolske because he’s a punny guy.
2. Chris Thomas because he’s a really smart guy.
3. Josh Soref because he’s a genuinely nice guy.
4. Jeff Walden because is hard to find.
5. J. Boriss because I’m still looking for Natasha.
6. Sean Umphlet who is a good guy and will not give you up nor let you down.
7. Tim De Pauw who is my favorite waffle (and a good musician).

Fin.

[ music | Ulrich Schnauss - Blumenwiese Neben Autobahn ]

Quick note to anyone subscribed to my old RSS feeds: I’ve moved to Wordpress, and while all the old bookmarks work, old RSS feed URLs don’t. You’ll need to update them. Thanks.

So, like a brazilian other Photoshop and Dreamweaver users, I was happy to read all the new info Adobe was releasing about the CS4 suite. I’m fairly certain I would undergo severe withdrawl symptoms without PS and DW. As I read over the What’s New in Dreamweaver PDF, I discovered something I had been wishing Adobe (and previously, Macromedia) would address for a while, the less than stellar in-app preview renderer. It was marginally better than IE, but in no way kept up with Friefox, Safari, or Opera. They’re integrating a leading edge open source rendering engine into the app, specifically Webkit.

View your web pages under real-world browser conditions with the new Live View—while
still retaining direct access to the code. This new rendering mode, which uses the open source
rendering engine WebKit, displays your designs like a standards-based browser.
Changes to the code are immediately reflected in the rendered display.

I’m thrilled that finally the in-app view won’t suck. However, this will trigger yet another wave of “OMG Gecko is dead, Webkit roolz” posts from people who don’t understand what they’re talking about. Webkit is a great engine, and so is Gecko. But the two engines serve two different agendas. Webkit is about being lightweight and easy to pick up and easy to embed. Gecko is about being heavy duty, and does a lot more than just HTML. It has a heftier learning curve as well. If you want to embed an easy to learn web engine, grab Webkit. If you want to leverage an entire web platform, Gecko is your choice. They both have advantages and disadvantages, and are best in different scenarios.

To quote Nokia developer Oleg Romaxa in a recent interview,

Nokia will use the best browser for the job. Currently, we cannot make a full-featured and integrated browser with WebKit in mobile. But with Mozilla, we do not need to do anything, we can take existing models and API’s which are available. Also, NPAPI support is already in the Gecko web rendering engine.

Nokia was looking for a platform on which to build a browser for their products like the Nokia Internet Tablet. No one sensible is going to argue that Webkit can’t be part of an excellent browser, just look at Safari or Google Chrome. However, Webkit’s narrower focus meant that for Nokia, the better choice was Gecko.

For Adobe, Webkit was a better choice as it’s more easily embedded into other apps, and doesn’t come with a lot of things they didn’t need, such as XUL, plugin support, etc. Webkit is just part of the development environment. On the opposite end of the spectrum is NVu and KompoZer, which are web editors built entirely on Gecko. They leverage the platform Gecko provides, something you can’t accomplish with Webkit.