If I disappear again in the next few days, it’s because my DSL went tits-up (as those cheeky Brits say), and I’ve lost my connection. I shouldn’t be gone for long, however. Hendikins is also an admin for theAnnoyed Contributors Network forums, so bitch to him if the feces impacts the air-circulator. I shall return as soon as possible. Enjoy the reprieve.

Today on MozNews we ran a story on a couple browser-related interviews. In this one, Gary Schare blows more FUD smoke to confuse the issue, and generally lies.

Such as this: “For architectural reasons, it turns out you can’t just add tabs via an add-on into the IE app itself. You can get tabs by running a different app like those other browsers that build on the IE platform, so it’s a nice option for people.” Bullshit. That’s just bunk. IE is just a shell that calls mshtml.dll and shdocvw.dll for rendering content inside the viewport. They could add tabs exactly like other IE browsers have done, ones that they even mention. You can’t add tabs to mshtml.dll, but then again, why would you? That’s the renderer, not the UI.

I rant more, and address a number of issues in detail below. click Read More for the rest.

» Continue reading “Microsoft FUD Machine Back In Full Gear”

It seems no matter where I go, I see people whining in blog comments all around the web about the blog owner’s content. So, I decided it’s time to post a nice disclaimer.

This blog is mine, not yours. I pay monthly costs for hosting, yearly costs for domain names, spend time making various forms of content, then put it up here for anyone or no one to look at, free. You are welcome and invited to view the entire contents of the site. However, if you do decide to view the content, and find you do not like the content of this (or any other) blog, you have no recourse, and may feel free to take a leap off a frelling cliff.

Thank you, The Mgmt.

The standard FF logo is TMed and all that, and I always loved the OSX-style aquaish icon someone did (I don’t remember who), so I did a little work and came up with this for firefox.



I’m going to work up an icon set and such soon too. And a new throbber. I hate that lame little spinner Firefox has.

Well, the concensus was that “Firefox 1.0 Released, World Stops” was lame as a title for our Firefox 1.0 article so I changed it. But I liked it, so it is now the headline for this post. And if you don’t like it, you’re just as much of a douchebag as the guys in #bs who didn’t like it. 🙂

I was lucky enough to get in on a free 1 year subscription to PC Magazine a couple months ago. I stopped buying it years ago because it was becoming so Internet-centric and home-user oriented that it lost the power-user edge it had when PCs weren’t as popular in the pre-$20-ISP age. I still read it now and then, and the columns from Bill Machrone and especially John C. Dvorak still are almost worth the cover price alone. Sadly, when I got to the free subscription offer, all the print-edition giveaways were gone, so I had to accept the subscription in digital format only. I figured, “well, it’s still PCMag, and still free, so why not.” I already have a print edition subscription to eWeek, and grab the PDF versions when I need an article and I’ve already tossed the aging paper version. I was not-too-pleasantly surprised to see PC Magazine’s digital edition isn’t in PDF, but in a format from a company called Zinio for their proprietary Zinio Reader. Frankly, Adobe’s PDF would have been a far better choice for many reasons. Acrobat even does DRM, which seems to be the main point of using Zinio’s software.
Click the link for my informal review on the app.
» Continue reading “Informal Review: Zinio Reader”

[22:14] <steeler_fan> “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt, March 4, 1933
[22:14] <steeler_fan> “Oh, and starvation. We might all starve.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt, March 4, 1933
[22:15] <nosebleed> lol
[22:15] <steeler_fan> “Why no women, blacks, or non-Christians have answered the Founders’ challenge is a mystery, though most indications point to some inherent genetic flaw.”
[22:16] <steeler_fan> “Give me liberty or give me death…but preferably liberty.” — Patrick Henry, 1775
[22:17] <steeler_fan> “Despite working long hours in grueling conditions, most slaves received absolutely no college credits for their unpaid labor.”
[22:18] * jesus_X wonders how steeler_fan managed to channel hao2lian.
[22:18] * hao2lian has joined #bs
[22:18] <steeler_fan> freaky, jesus_X
[22:18] <Chewie[]> …
[22:18] <steeler_fan> how’d you do that?
[22:18] <nilson> whoah
[22:18] <Chewie[]> what the fuck?
[22:19] <hao2lian> Don’t take that tone of voice with me.
[22:19] <hao2lian> What’d I do?
[22:19] <hao2lian> Or what did someone who we shall not mention do?

Anymore, it’s taboo to refer to someone by whatever racial/ethnic/religious/etc. category, as it can be construed as offensive or pejorative, except when it comes to the political term “Liberal”. The Republican party has managed to turn the word “liberal” into a dirty word, a word of slander, and quite frankly, I’m sick of it. Anymore Bush is on the trail bashing Kerry just for being “Liberal”. So what? He’s a social conservative and no one is demonizing that word. Sure, we disagree with the positions, but not the word itself. That’s hollow. And now, at a time when the deficit is bigger than it’s ever been, and the national debt is bigger than it’s ever been, and spending is far outpacing intake (obviously, with that big a deficit), they have the gall to bring back the phrase “tax and spend Liberal”. I’m sick of the ad hominem attacks from the right, fed up with it to my nose. If you want to debate positions then fine, but if you have to resort to name calling, then you obviously feel your positions are so weak as to be indefensible, and should just be quiet.

And additionally, it’s time for Liberals everywhere to take back that word. Do not be ashamed when you are called a Liberal. Do not deny it, or try to defend being one. Respond, “Yes, I am a Liberal. I believe in Liberty, and in granting as much freedom to American citizens as is possible. That’s why America was founded. Are you against freedom and liberty?”

Complete debate transcript, via the Washington Post.

This list will grow as I get more links. These are all linking directly to the results, by the way.
CNN.com
CBS News
MSNBC
Fox News
Yahoo News

Kerry Takes Lead Over Bush in AP Poll

Ok folks, this is a challenge. The prize will be a very hackable Polaroid i-Zone Webster ‘scanner’ doohickey. It’s more like a handheld webcam with built in memory, although it can’t do live streaming with the software provided. You can however hack the interface software (TWAIN compliant), hack the casing so it can take photos of stuff without holding it up against the items, and it’s got a simple serial interface (very simple) so I’m sure an enterprising Linux hacker can figure out how to get the data out of it.

What’s the challenge? In 1988, Michael J. Mefford created a utility for PC Magazine called DIRMAGIC, short for Directory Magic. It’s a kick ass little utility, but it has some short comings. It can’t handle large drives (where large is still significantly short of half a gig). It can’t handle more than (approximately) 1k files in a directory. It’s slow full screen due to BIOS call emulation, and even slower in a window. It can’t handle long file names (obviously). Essentially, computers exceeded the programs built-in future-headroom. But, I have never found anything that can take it’s place. So, I issue this challenge. I’m looking for a Win32 Console mode app to replace DirMagic. So that this isn’t a blind challenge, I’m including “screenshots” and a zip of the program. It’s comprised entirely of an 8 kilobyte .COM file. All that functionality in 8k. Obviously, I don’t expect that in the W32 Console mode version. 🙂 Lastly, it would really kick ass if the winner makes it open source. GPL not required, as I like the MPL‘s approach better anyway. Screenshots and the zip are inside.
» Continue reading “Programming Challenge!”