The Service Factory

Work can wait!

2005-06-16T12:10:00.000Z

Lack of posting

2005-03-22T09:36:00.000Z

You may have noticed a distinct lack of posting recently. This is due to a whole load of time being devoted to the service factory's latest projcet. Which is why we are pleased to announce the launch of:

http://www.ismycarhotornot.co.uk

Currently the site is experiencing very high demand so hopefully we will be able to post more information as things quieten down a little.

Google Giving Away Gmail! For Free!

2005-03-16T11:09:00.000Z

Google is giving out Gmail accounts to random visitors to google.com. You'd almost think they were giving it away for free...

Here's what you may see (screenshot courtesy of Nirav Patel):

The link is a one-time use link, so don't bother posting it so others can use it. In fact, if you do share the link, everyone will be able to see the email address you registered.

According to Aaron Swartz, the landing page reads:

Since we launched Gmail in April 2004, we've been focused on improving the service, relying on our users to spread the word and invite others to try it out. The response has been great, and now we're ready for some more Gmail users.

[...] As we make room for more Gmail users, we want to first extend invitations to Google users. We're still working to make Gmail better, so for now, we're just inviting a small number at random. Looks like that's you! We're really excited to share Gmail with you and we hope you like it.

Wow. I'd almost forgotten that Gmail launched almost a year ago. Just 16 days to its first beta birthday, April 1. I can't wait to see what Google's April Fools joke will be.

Problems

2005-03-15T12:32:00.000Z

If you read this via the RSS feed you may be unaware that the web interface is currently unreadable.

This is thanks to PIPEX who have toasted the web space that hosts the images for the site. When they sort it out everything should be good again.

Apologies.

My rules for being an evil overlord

2005-03-14T17:50:00.000Z

I will not order my trusted lieutenant to kill the infant who is destined to overthrow me -- I'll do it myself.
I will not waste time making my enemy's death look like an
accident -- I'm not accountable to anyone and my other enemies wouldn't
believe it.
I will make it clear that I do know the meaning of the word "mercy"; I simply choose not show them any.
My undercover agents will not have tattoos identifying
them as members of my organization, nor will they be required to wear
military boots or adhere to any other dress codes.
I will design all doomsday machines myself. If I must hire
a mad scientist to assist me, I will make sure that he is sufficiently
twisted to never regret his evil ways and seek to undo the damage he's
caused.
If my supreme command center comes under attack, I will
immediately flee to safety in my prepared escape pod and direct the
defenses from there. I will not wait until the troops break into my
inner sanctum to attempt this.
Even though I don't really care because I plan on living
forever, I will hire engineers who are able to build me a fortress
sturdy enough that, if I am slain, it won't tumble to the ground for no
good structural reason.
Any and all magic and/or technology that can miraculously
resurrect a secondary character who has given up his/her life through
self sacrifice will be outlawed and destroyed.
I will see to it that plucky young lads/lasses in strange
clothes and with the accent of an outlander shall REGULARLY climb some
monument in the main square of my capital and denounce me, claim to
know the secret of my power, rally the masses to rebellion, etc. That
way, the citizens will be jaded in case the real thing ever comes along.
I will not employ devious schemes that involve the hero's party getting into my inner sanctum before the trap is sprung.
I will offer oracles the choice of working exclusively for me or being executed.
I will not rely entirely upon "totally reliable" spells that can be neutralized by relatively inconspicuous talismans.
I will make the main entrance to my fortress
standard-sized. While elaborate 60-foot high double-doors definitely
impress the masses, they are hard to close quickly in an emergency.
I will never accept a challenge from the hero.
I will not engage an enemy single-handedly until all my soldiers are dead.
If I capture the hero's starship, I will keep it in the
landing bay with the ramp down, only a few token guards on duty and a
ton of explosives set to go off as soon as it clears the blast-range.
No matter how much I want revenge, I will never order an underling "Leave him. He's mine!"
If I have equipment which performs an important function,
it will not be activated by a lever that someone could trigger by
accidentally falling on when fatally wounded.
I will not attempt to kill the hero by placing a venomous
creature in his room. It will just wind up accidentally killing one of
my clumsy henchmen instead.
Since nothing is more irritating than a hero defeating you
with basic math skills, all of my personal weapons will be modified to
fire one more shot than the standard issue.
If I come into possession of an artifact which can only be used by the pure of heart, I will not attempt to use it regardless.
The gun turrets on my fortress will not rotate enough so that they may direct fire inward or at each other.
If I decide to hold a contest of skill open to the general
public, contestants will be required to remove their hooded cloaks and
shave their beards before entering.
Prior to kidnapping an older male scientist and forcing
him to work for me, I will investigate his offspring and make sure that
he has neither a beautiful but naive daughter who is willing to risk
anything to get him back, nor an estranged son who works in the same
field but had a falling-out with his father many years ago.
Should I actually decide to kill the hero in an elaborate
escape-proof deathtrap room (water filling up, sand pouring down, walls
converging, etc.) I will not leave him alone five-to-ten minutes prior
to "imminent" death, but will instead (finding a vantage point or
monitoring camera) stick around and enjoy watching my adversary's
demise.
Rather than having only one secret escape pod, which the
hero can easily spot and follow, I'll simultaneously launch a few dozen
decoys to throw him off track.
Prison guards will have their own cantina featuring a wide
variety of tasty treats that will deliver snacks to the guards while on
duty. The guards will also be informed that accepting food or drink
from any other source will result in execution.
I will not employ robots as agents of destruction if there
is any possible way that they can be re-programmed or if their battery
packs are externally mounted and easily removable.
Despite the delicious irony, I will not force two heroes to fight each other in the arena.
All members of my Legions of Terror will have
professionally tailored uniforms. If the hero knocks a soldier
unconscious and steals the uniform, the poor fit will give him away.
I will never place the key to a cell just out of a prisoner's reach.
Before appointing someone as my trusted lieutenant, I will conduct a thorough background investigation and security clearance.
If I find my beautiful consort with access to my fortress
has been associating with the hero, I'll have her executed. It's
regrettable, but new consorts are easier to get than new fortresses and
maybe the next one will pay attention at the orientation meeting.
If I am escaping in a large truck and the hero is pursuing
me in a small Italian sports car, I will not wait for the hero to pull
up along side of me and try to force him off the road as he attempts to
climb aboard. Instead I will slam on the brakes when he's directly
behind me. (A rudimentary knowledge of physics can prove quite useful.)
My doomsday machine will have a highly-advanced
technological device called a capacitor in case someone inconveniently
pulls the plug at the last second. (If I have access to REALLY advanced
technology, I will include a back-up device known as a battery.)
If I build a bomb, I will simply remember which wire to cut if it has to be deactivated and make every wire red.
Before spending available funds on giant gargoyles, gothic
arches, or other cosmetically intimidating pieces of architecture, I
will see if there are any valid military expenditures that could use
the extra budget.
The passageways to and within my domain will be well-lit
with fluorescent lighting. Regrettably, the spooky atmosphere will be
lost, but my security patrols will be more effective.
If I'm sitting in my camp, hear a twig snap, start to
investigate, then encounter a small woodland creature, I will send out
some scouts anyway just to be on the safe side. (If they disappear into
the foliage, I will not send out another patrol; I will break out the
napalm.)
I will instruct my guards when checking a cell that
appears empty to look for the chamber pot. If the chamber pot is still
there, then the prisoner has escaped and they may enter and search for
clues. If the chamber pot is not there, then either the prisoner is
perched above the lintel waiting to strike them with it or else he
decided to take it as a souvenir (in which case he is obviously deeply
disturbed and poses no threat). Either way, there's no point in
entering.
As an alternative to not having children, I will have lots
of children. My sons will be too busy jockeying for position to ever be
a real threat, and the daughters will all sabotage each other's
attempts to win the hero.
If I have children and subsequently grandchildren, I will
keep my three-year-old granddaughter near me at all times. When the
hero enters to kill me, I will ask him to first explain to her why it
is necessary to kill her beloved grandpa. When the hero launches into
an explanation of morality way over her head, that will be her cue to
pull the lever and send him into the pit of crocodiles. After all,
small children like crocodiles almost as much as Evil Overlords and
it's important to spend quality time with the grandkids.
If one of my daughters actually manages to win the hero
and openly defies me, I will congratulate her on her choice, declare a
national holiday to celebrate the wedding, and proclaim the hero my
heir. This will probably be enough to break up the relationship. If
not, at least I am assured that no hero will attack my Legions of
Terror when they are holding a parade in his honor.
I will order my guards to stand in a line when they shoot
at the hero so he cannot duck and have them accidentally shoot each
other. Also, I will order some to aim above, below, and to the sides so
he cannot jump out of the way.
My dungeon cell decor will not feature exposed pipes.
While they add to the gloomy atmosphere, they are good conductors of
vibrations and a lot of prisoners know Morse code.
If my surveillance reports any un-manned or seemingly
innocent ships found where they are not supposed to be, they will be
immediately vaporized instead of brought in for salvage.
I will classify my lieutenants in three categories:
untrusted, trusted, and completely trusted. Promotion to the third
category will be awarded posthumously.
Before ridiculing my enemies for wasting time on a device
to stop me that couldn't possibly work, I will first acquire a copy of
the schematics and make sure that in fact it couldn't possibly work.
Ropes supporting various fixtures will not be tied next to
open windows or staircases, and chandeliers will be hung way at the top
of the ceiling.
I will provide funding and research to develop tactical
and strategic weapons covering a full range of needs so my choices are
not limited to "hand to hand combat with swords" and "blow up the
planet".
I will not set myself up as a god. That perilous position is reserved for my trusted lieutenant.
I will instruct my fashion designer that when it comes to accessorizing, second-chance body armor goes well with every outfit.
My Legions of Terror will be an equal-opportunity
employer. Conversely, when it is prophesied that no man can defeat me,
I will keep in mind the increasing number of non-traditional gender
roles.
I will instruct my Legions of Terror in proper search
techniques. In particular, if they are searching for escapees and
someone shouts, "Quick! They went that way!", they must first ascertain
the identity of this helpful informant before dashing off in hot
pursuit.
If I know of any heroes in the land, I will not under any circumstance kill their mentors, teachers, and/or best friends.
If I have the hero and his party trapped, I will not wait
until my Superweapon charges to finish them off if more conventional
means are available.
Whenever plans are drawn up that include a time-table,
I'll post-date the completion 3 days after it's actually scheduled to
occur and not worry too much if they get stolen.
I will exchange the labels on my folder of top-secret
plans and my folder of family recipes. Imagine the hero's surprise when
he decodes the stolen plans and finds instructions for Grandma's Potato
Salad.
If I burst into rebel headquarters and find it deserted
except for an odd, blinking device, I will not walk up and investigate;
I'll run like hell.
Before being accepted into my Legions of Terror, potential
recruits will have to pass peripheral vision and hearing tests, and be
able to recognize the sound of a pebble thrown to distract them.
I will occasionally vary my daily routine and not live my
life in a rut. For example, I will not always take a swig of wine or
ring a giant gong before finishing off my enemy.
If I steal something very important to the hero, I will not put it on public display.
When planning an expedition, I will choose a route for my
forces that does not go through thick, leafy terrain conveniently
located near the rebel camp.
I will hire one hopelessly stupid and incompetent
lieutenant, but make sure that he is full of misinformation when I send
him to capture the hero.
As an equal-opportunity employer, I will have several
hearing-impaired body-guards. That way if I wish to speak
confidentially with someone, I'll just turn my back so the guards can't
read my lips instead of sending all of them out of the room.
If the rebels manage to trick me, I will make a note of
what they did so that I do not keep falling for the same trick over and
over again.
If I am recruiting to find someone to run my computer
systems, and my choice is between the brilliant programmer who's head
of the world's largest international technology conglomerate and an
obnoxious 15-year-old dork who's trying to impress his dream girl, I'll
take the brat and let the hero get stuck with the genius.
I will plan in advance what to do with each of my enemies
if they are captured. That way, I will never have to order someone to
be tied up while I decide his fate.
If I have massive computer systems, I will take at least
as many precautions as a small business and include things such as
virus-scans and firewalls.
I will be an equal-opportunity despot and make sure that
terror and oppression is distributed fairly, not just against one
particular group that will form the core of a rebellion.
I will not locate a base in a volcano, cave, or any other
location where it would be ridiculously easy to bypass security by
rapelling down from above.
I will allow guards to operate under a flexible work
schedule. That way if one is feeling sleepy, he can call for a
replacement, punch out, take a nap, and come back refreshed and alert
to finish out his shift.
Although it would provide amusement, I will not confess to
the hero's rival that I was the one who committed the heinous act for
which he blames the hero.
If I am dangling over a precipice and the hero reaches his
hand down to me, I will not attempt to pull him down with me. I will
allow him to rescue me, thank him properly, then return to the safety
of my fortress and order his execution.
I will have my fortress exorcized regularly. Although
ghosts in the dungeon provide an appropriate atmosphere, they tend to
provide valuable information once placated.
I will add indelible dye to the moat. It won't stop anyone
from swimming across, but even dim-witted guards should be able to
figure out when someone has entered in this fashion.
If a scientist with a beautiful and unmarried daughter
refuses to work for me, I will not hold her hostage. Instead, I will
offer to pay for her future wedding and her children's college tuition.
If I have the hero cornered and am about to finish him off
and he says "Look out behind you!!" I will not laugh and say "You don't
expect me to fall for that old trick, do you?" Instead I will take a
step to the side and half turn. That way I can still keep my weapon
trained on the hero, I can scan the area behind me, and if anything was
heading for me it will now be heading for him.
I will not outsource core functions.
If I ever build a device to transfer the hero's energy into me, I will make sure it cannot operate in reverse.
I will decree that all hay be shipped in tightly-packed
bales. Any wagonload of loose hay attempting to pass through a
checkpoint will be set on fire.
I will not hold any sort of public celebration within my
castle walls. Any event open to members of the public will be held down
the road in the festival pavilion.
Before using any device which transfers energy directly into my body, I will install a surge suppressor.
I will hire a drama coach. The hero will think it must be
a case of mistaken identity when confronted by my Minnesota accent (if
everyone sounds American) or my Cornwall accent (if everyone sounds
British).
If I capture an enemy known for escaping via ingenious and
fantastic little gadgets, I will order a full cavity search and
confiscate all personal items before throwing him in my dungeon.
I will not devise any scheme in which Part A consists of
tricking the hero into unwittingly helping me and Part B consists of
laughing at him then leaving him to his own devices.
I will not hold lavish banquets in the middle of a famine.
The good PR among the guests doesn't make up for the bad PR among the
masses.
I will funnel some of my ill-gotten gains into urban
renewal projects. Although slums add a quaint and picturesque quality
to any city, they too often contain unexpected allies for heroes.
I will never tell the hero "Yes I was the one who did it,
but you'll never be able to prove it to that incompetent old fool."
Chances are, that incompetant old fool is standing behind the curtain.
If my mad scientist/wizard tells me he has almost
perfected my Superweapon but it still needs more testing, I will wait
for him to complete the tests. No one ever conquered the world using a
beta version.
I will not appoint a relative to my staff of advisors. Not
only is nepotism the cause of most breakdowns in policy, but it also
causes trouble with the EEOC.
If I appoint someone as my consort, I will not
subsequently inform her that she is being replaced by a younger, more
attractive woman.
If I am using the hero's girlfriend as a hostage and am
holding her at the point of imminent death when confronting the hero, I
will focus on her and not him. He won't try anything with his true love
held hostage. On the other hand, the fact that she has been weak,
slow-witted, naive and generally useless up to this point has no
bearing on her actions at the moment of dramatic climax.
I will make several ludicrously erroneous maps to secret
passages in my fortress and hire travellers to entrust them to aged
hermits.
I will not use hostages as bait in a trap. Unless you're
going to use them for negotiation or as human shields, there's no point
in taking them.
I will hire an expert marksman to stand by the entrance to
my fortress. His job will be to shoot anyone who rides up to challenge
me.
I will explain to my Legions of Terror that guns are
ranged weapons and swords are not. Anyone who attempts to throw a sword
at the hero or club him with a gun will be summarily executed.
I will remember that any vulnerabilities I have are to be
revealed strictly on a need-to-know basis. I will also remember that no
one needs to know.
I will not make alliances with those more powerful than
myself. Such a person would only double-cross me in my moment of glory.
I will make alliances with those less powerful than myself. I will then
double-cross them in their moment of glory.
During times of peace, my Legions of Terror will not be
permitted to lie around drinking mead and eating roast boar. Instead
they will be required to obey my dietician and my aerobics instructor.
All giant serpents acting as guardians in underground lakes will be fitted with sports goggles to prevent eye injuries.
All crones with the ability to prophesy will be given free
facelifts, permanents, manicures, and Donna Karan wardrobes. That
should pretty well destroy their credibility.
I will not employ an evil wizard if he has a sleazy mustache.
I will hire an entire squad of blind guards. Not only is
this in keeping with my status as an equal opportunity employer, but it
will come in handy when the hero becomes invisible or douses my only
light source.
All repair work will be done by an in-house maintenance
staff. Any alleged "repairmen" who show up at the fortress will be
escorted to the dungeon.
When my Legions of Terror park their vehicle to do reconnaissance on foot, they will be instructed to employ The Club.
Employees will have conjugal visit trailers which they may
use provided they call in a replacement and sign out on the timesheet.
Given this, anyone caught making out in a closet while leaving their
station unmonitored will be shot.
Members of my Legion of Terror will attend seminars on
Sensitivity Training. It's good public relations for them to be kind
and courteous to the general population when not actively engaged in
sowing chaos and destruction.
I will not, under any circumstances, marry a woman I know
to be a faithless, conniving, back-stabbing witch simply because I am
absolutely desperate to perpetuate my family line. Of course, we can
still date.
All guest-quarters will be bugged and monitored so that I
can keep track of what the visitors I have for some reason allowed to
roam about my fortress are actually plotting.
If my chief engineer displeases me, he will be shot, not imprisoned in the dungeon or beyond the traps he helped design.
I will not send out batalions composed wholly of robots or skeletons against heroes who have qualms about killing living beings.
I will not wear long, heavy cloaks. While they certainly
make a bold fashion statement, they have an annoying tendency to get
caught in doors or tripped over during an escape.
If a malignant being demands a sacrificial victim have a
particular quality, I will check to make sure said victim has this
quality immediately before the sacrifice and not rely on earlier
results. (Especially if the quality is virginity and the victim is the
hero's girlfriend.)
If I ever MUST put a digital timer on my doomsday device,
I will buy one free from quantum mechanical anomalies. So many brands
on the market keep perfectly good time while you're looking at them,
but whenever you turn away for a couple minutes then turn back, you
find that the countdown has progressed by only a few seconds.
If my Legions of Terror are defeated in a battle, I will
quietly withdraw and regroup instead of launching a haphazard mission
to assassinate the hero.
If I'm wearing the key to the hero's shackles around my
neck and his former girlfriend now volunteers to become my mistress and
we are all alone in my bedchamber on my bed and she offers me a goblet
of wine, I will politely decline the offer.
I will not pick up a glowing ancient artifact and shout
"It's power is now mine!!!" Instead I will grab some tongs, transfer it
to a hazardous materials container, and transport it back to my lab for
study.
I will be selective in the hiring of assassins. Anyone who
attempt to strike down the hero the first instant his back is turned
will not even be considered for the job.
Whatever my one vulnerability is, I will fake a different
one. For example, ordering all mirrors removed from the palace,
screaming and flinching whenever someone accidentally holds up a
mirror, etc. In the climax when the hero whips out a mirror and thrusts
it at my face, my reaction will be "Hmm...I think I need a shave."
My force-field generators will be located inside the shield they generate.
I reserve the right to execute any henchmen who appear to
be a little too intelligent, powerful, or devious. However if I do so,
I will not at some subsequent point shout "Why am I surrounded by these
incompetent fools?!"
I will install a fire extinguisher in every room -- three, if the room contains vital equipment or volatile chemicals.
I will build machines which simply fail when overloaded,
rather than wipe out all nearby henchmen in an explosion or worse yet
set off a chain reaction. I will do this by using devices known as
"surge protectors".
I will explain to my guards that most people have their
eyes in the front of their heads and thus while searching for someone
it makes little sense to draw a weapon and slowly back down the hallway.

Thunderbird Junk Filter Training | Adnot

2005-03-11T09:23:00.000Z

Here is a tip for using Thunderbird's junk-mail filtering. I have no technical explanation for why this works -- and it may not work at all for others, but I've been testing the junk-mail feature since it was born and this has definitely worked for me.

Do not overtrain. This is perhaps the most important tip about using junk-mail controls that I can offer. In the early days, I thought that more training was better and so I'd mark everything as spam, including multiple identical emails. I figured that I'd really get it good by using this aggressive technique -- even keeping a massive and growing spam corpus in a special folder so I could retrain new accounts against it. I was re-flagging as junk any that the filters were catching, doing whatever I could to train it, and train it good!

Well, what I found was that with this massive training I got up to 80-90% spam recognition almost immediately -- in a day or to, but I wasn't ever able to get my junk-mail controls to flag more than about 90% of the junk I was receiving. Even months in with thousands of messages marked as junk, I couldn't break 90%, so I tried a new approach, minimal training.

I started with a clean slate, and only marked a few very distinct emails as junk on the first day, trying to avoid marking duplicates or even similar spams. Each morning I'd look at my inbox and compare with my junk folder to avoid any overlap, marking a few more distinct spams as junk. It took me about a week to get up to where I'd gotten with the massive training approach in just a couple of days -- but! in another week of following the minimal training technique I was up over 90% recognition and in two weeks I was bordering on 95%. I'm about 3 months into this, manually flaggin a mail about once a week, and in the last week, I calculate that my junk-mail controls have nabbed 97% of the spam that's hitting my inbox.

You may not think that it's worth the careful management to make the improvement from 90% to above 95% -- and that may be the case for some users, but for me, that means a long-term time savings that will be quite dramatic.

Automatic HTML Validation for Firefox

2005-03-09T09:45:00.000Z

Here's a great little extension for Firefox that runs Tidy on web pages as you browse them so you can see validation warnings and errors.

Google Desktop Search Download

2005-03-07T09:17:00.000Z

It looks like Google's desktop search is out of beta now that it's got Firefox and Thunderbird support.

Blocking flash pop-unders in Firefox

2005-03-07T09:16:00.000Z

There's been quite a lot of buzz around the blogs the last couple of weeks with people seeing the return of the pop-ups and pop-unders. It looks to me like the overwhelming majority of these are from plug-ins, mostly flash.

A number of pundits and bloggers have been wondering aloud whether or not we'll be able to keep up with the pop-up spammers now that more of them are focused on us. Well, 1.0 shipped with the capability to block these pop-ups and pop-unders but wasn't enabled because of the concern about breaking legitimate uses. If you'd like to turn it on, it's a fairly simple change -- and would be absolutely trivial to enable once determined whether or not lots of websites are depending on the feature.

To block pop-ups from plugins, open your Firefox 1.0 or 1.0.1 browser, type about:config in the address field. Right-click in the resulting config page somewhere and select New -> Integer. Type privacy.popups.disable_from_plugins in the resulting dialog, hit OK, type 2 in the next dialog and you're all set.

This pref can actually take three values:

* 0: open allowed
* 1: the opened windows are treated as popups, but they're allowed to open (we limit the number of these types of popups)
* 2: the window is a popup, block it

PC tax could replace TV licence | The Register

2005-03-04T09:28:00.000Z

The BBC licence fee could eventually replaced by a tax on having a PC instead of owning a TV, according to a Green Paper delivered this week. The government plans to retain the license fee for at least ten years but ministers are looking ahead to a time when high-speed broadband connections routinely deliver digital television channels to the nation's homes. In that event a fee based on television ownership could become redundant and the government could look at other ways to raise revenue, from subscriptions to taxing other access devices.

In a statement to Parliament this week, Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell said that "the changes in TV technology that will soon result in a wholly digital Britain... perhaps the greatest challenge the BBC has ever faced." The Times reports that a legal loophole means consumers could watch television or listen to radio over the net without having to pay a license fee, leaving the BBC with a funding shortfall that could run into the millions.

A Department for Culture, Media and Sport Green Paper on the BBC's long-term future proposes an end of the traditional license fee and "either a compulsory levy on all households or even on ownership of PCs as well as TVs". It cautions that these fees might be tough to enforce. Ministers are also consulting about the possibility of introducing a subscription model.

The Government reckons changes to the license fee will not be needed until 2017, when the BBC's next royal charter expires. However unnamed sources at the Department for Culture told The Times that the government would act earlier if viewing TV on the net became a hit with consumers. In August 2004, the BBC broadcast video clips from the Olympic Games over the net as an experiment. Six million UK homes currently have broadband connections, a figure that can only grow over time, spurring demand for innovative service like broadcasting over the internet. The majority of UK households will be watching TV over the internet by 2012, regulator Ofcom predicts.

Google search beginning to understand acronyms

2005-03-04T09:25:00.000Z

Google doesn't just make efforts to make its search index larger, it also tries to make it smarter. We know Google is making efforts into making its search engine understand different words that mean the same thing, even in different languages, and now Google is making its technology understand acronyms. This search for "wfs clinton" knows that WFS stands for World Food Summit, and it shows it. In any normal Google search, the search term is bolded, and in this acronym-based search, Google bolds the full term "World Food Summit", because Google now knows that's what you're searching for.

This also works for "cia wfb", but Google (for now) only knows WFB stands for World Fact Book, but not what CIA stands for. Can anyone find any other searches this works on?

List of acronyms so far, with sample searches:
WFS - World Food Summit - "wfs clinton" - (via GB)
WFB - World Fact Book - "cia wfb" - (via GB)
RNC - Republican National Convention - "rnc ny"

Yahoo! Netrospective: 10 years, 100 moments of the Web

2005-03-03T09:34:00.000Z

Yahoo! is ten years old, which is just a little longer than I have been using the net. To celebrate, they have posted a Netrospective summarising the 100 most significant events on the net since launch (ableit with a Yahoo! bias).

Webside story sees IE fall below 90%

2005-02-28T09:18:00.000Z

Firefox and other Gecko-based browsers now account for 8.16% of the U.S. market, according to WebSideStory's latest report.

As Firefox and other Gecko-based browsers push toward 10%, IE has finally fallen under the 90% mark for the first time in WebSideStory's tracking history."

Firefox 1.0.1 security and stability update available

2005-02-25T09:26:00.000Z

Get it while it's hot. Firefox 1.0.1 update is available. This is a security and stability update so not much in the way of new feautures.

* Windows en-US: here
* Linux en-US: here
* Mac en-US: here

Other languages can be found here. Thunderbird 1.0.1 and Mozilla 1.7.6 should be coming in the next week or so.

Google Reviews

2005-02-24T10:24:00.000Z

Google Reviews: New application? Not sure, don't see a home page... seems like the search prefix "movie:" returns a new static UI listing various movie reviews.

Try this

Eyetools

2005-02-24T10:21:00.000Z

Ever wondered what people look at on your website? Ever wondered why that new link you have put on is not generating any traffic?

Well, Eyetools Eyetracking Analysis is a service that apparently is able to do research into your websites design effectiveness by monitoring eye movement of user whilst they are looking at your page.

Much more information on their website. If anyone has tried it, drop me a line.

Bad move Google.

2005-02-23T09:20:00.000Z

Search engine firm Google has released a trial tool which is concerning some net users because it directs people to pre-selected commercial websites.

The AutoLink feature comes with Google's latest toolbar and provides links in a webpage to Amazon.com if it finds a book's ISBN number on the site.

It also links to Google's map service, if there is an address, or to car firm Carfax, if there is a licence plate.

Google said the feature, available only in the US, "adds useful links".

More here: Google's toolbar sparks concern

Factory Templates

2005-02-22T14:11:00.000Z

As you may or may not be aware, this site currently offers web templates for download. These templates are of a variety of flavours and a massive choice is available.

You can visit the factory templates shop here.

Want to use Linux and Win32 games?

2005-02-21T09:56:00.000Z

If you're anything like me you play games on your PC, and you also like the appeals of an OS similar to Linux. Currently, to do this means building a dual-boot system and rebooting everytime you want to do something different.

Well, I came across this today which looks like a step in the right direction. If anyone has already tried it, drop me a line.

'EverQuest' gets pizza partner

2005-02-21T09:22:00.000Z

Having apparently taken leonine beasts and enchantment spells as far as they can go, Sony Online Entertainment has found a new weapon in its bid to make "EverQuest II" the baddest online game out there--pizza.

The publisher this week announced an alliance with Pizza Hut that will enable players to deal with the munchies without leaving the game. Type in "/pizza" while playing the fantasy role-playing game, and a browser window will pop up where you can order a pie for delivery.

You'll still have to get out of your chair when the pizza arrives, however, and you'll need to pay in real money instead of in-game "platinum pieces." And, based on the image accompanying the announcement, you might want to specify that you want a pie that isn't enchanted or otherwise prone to elvish magic.

Taken from CNET

Still unsure on CFMX 7?

2005-02-21T09:13:00.000Z

I find marketing spiel a complete waste of time generally, which I why I was quite pleased to be pointed at this article by Arman Danesh at Community MX. Always nice to see product information from a non-sales based perspective.

IE 7 Announcement: A Retrospective

2005-02-18T09:23:00.000Z

Christian Cantrell has posted this very good article on his blog. I hope he doesn't mind me re-posting here:

"I think it's been about three days since Microsoft announced that they will release a new version of IE. The announcement was so thoroughly blogged and discussed that I didn't bother blogging it myself (I was too busy reading what others had written), but now that the dust has settled, I want to offer my two cents.

First, if you haven't done so already, you might want to check out the official Microsoft press release. If you're in a hurry, I'll save you the trouble. Here's the most relevant excerpt:

Gates announced Internet Explorer 7.0, designed to add new levels of security to Windows XP SP2 while maintaining the level of extensibility and compatibility that customers have come to expect.

Next, read the post on the IEBlog. Again, I'll save you the trouble:

...we listened to customers, analysts, and business partners. We heard a clear message: "Yes, XP SP2 makes the situation better. We want more, sooner. We want security on top of the compatibility and extensibility IE gives us, and we want it on XP. Microsoft, show us your commitment."

What I'm hearing loud and clear here is that Microsoft wants to release a new version of IE for XP, and they want to focus on security. Now read the comments left in response to the post on IEBlog. They are far too numerous to even paraphrase here, and it would probably take you all day to read through them all, but just read a few at random and the message will be clear, which is that security updates are fine, but what Microsoft really needs to focus on is standards compliance and rendering. In other words, "maintaining the level of extensibility and compatibility that customers have come to expect" is not what customers are expecting.

Microsoft has put itself in an interesting position. They have publicly announced that they are listening to their customers, and are committed to giving them what they want, however they have also indicated that their agenda is not consistent with what it appears their customers want. I will reserve judgment, but one thing I will say is that it's not yet clear to me whether Microsoft has created an opportunity for themselves with this announcement, or for Firefox."

10 Big Myths about copyright explained

2005-02-18T09:19:00.000Z

Yup, after reading this I'm convinced the majority of peoples understanding of copyright is flawed. Bear all this in mind next time you script kiddies are trying to pilfer something from someone elses site.

252525 times a day?

2005-02-17T09:09:00.000Z

Whats been happening 252525 times a day recently? Give up? Firefox downloads, thats what. The Mozilla Foundation quite happily announced this morning that Firefox has hit the 25 million download mark after a total release time of 99 days. Not at all shabby if I do say so myself.

IE7

2005-02-16T09:01:00.000Z

The IE blog is reporting that Microsoft will be releasing an IE 7 this summer. It appears that their plans to use Longhorn as the delivery vehicle for browser upgrades has been reversed.

The only question I have is will they actually improve their rendering capabilities, or will this be a UI hackjob to bring their five year old app up to a contemporary featureset.

Actually, I have one more question. Why are they leaving out over hundreds of millions of users by not offering this to users of Windows pre-XPSP2? (it sure does sound to me like this won't even be available for XP users pre-SP2. do you all read this differently?)

And here's the press release.

update: After re-reading, it sounds like this might be a bit further off than I originally thought. If they release a beta in summer, take feedback, release another beta, and take feedback, then I don't see them getting this thing out the door until 2006 at the earliest. Doesn't that line up with their plans for Longhorn ship dates? Or has that slipped out even further?

David makes a great observation in the comments, "This feels very much like a 'hang-in-there' message to all the corporations and orgainizations out there thinking of switching to a Better Browser(tm).... The description of what they are planning on releasing sounds very much like a glorified XP SP3." It does sound a bit like that, doesn't it :)

CounterStrike Source - Team Balancing?

2005-02-15T13:45:00.000Z

Team Balancing?

Recently I have noticed a situation that seems to occur more and more regularly. Basically it is to do with the money aspect of the game.

For instance, team A has several good players playing, who are quite happily ramping up the kills and earning the cash. Meanwhile, team b are losing the fight, causing them to be low on cash thus not being able to buy good weapons and armour, thus making them easier to beat, thus pushing the fight in the same direction even more.

This can also happen in the context of an individual. For instance, you have a few bad rounds, and run out of cash, and are then dependant on luck to get you out of the broke situation you are in.

As I see it, this harms gameplay, making the first few rounds critical to how the rest of the game pans out.

The only ways I can see of fixing this are:

1) Allow players to never be 'broke' but have something approximating a 500cr loan (ie, you always havee 500cr regardless)

2) Adjust team balancing: Currently this works on team player counts only. Maybe this should be extended to incorporate factors on player kill ratios, money levels etc. This would obviously want to be on a toggle, so that it can be disabled for matches, this only really making it a good idea for public servers.

3) Periodic re-distribution of money. Ie every few rounds, take all money from every player and re-distribute it across all players.

4) Allow armour pickup from corpses, this will allow greater survivability, thus increasing the chance of weapon pickup. This would only be allowed for players with no armour, and armour cannot be dropped.

Now, I realise that this will negatively effect the people who are playing better on the server, but generally speaking, they will have enough money so as not to put them at a disadvantage. There is also the counter of the people they are playing being able to be be more of a match for them by being able to play on a more level-footing

Now I realise this probably won't get implemented by hey, we can but make ourselves known.

nOOb!

2005-02-15T09:40:00.000Z

Still unsure on your OO or haven't even a clue what I'm talking about? Well over on cf.Objective has started a series "OO for nOOb's". These articles work with simple examples placed in the real-world, and without the obligatory "car has an engine" paradigm for a change.

Need any tyres?

2005-02-12T19:57:00.000Z

I have just ordered some tyres from BlackCircles.com and have been given a voucher entitling 3 "friends" to 5% off an order.

So, if you need some tyres, follow this link to recieve your discount.

Mapping Google

2005-02-10T09:34:00.000Z

I came across this interesting post today on whats going on under the hood at google maps from a web development point of view.
There are indeed some brainy people working there. The article can be found here

Don't bug me!

2005-02-10T09:27:00.000Z

So, you've been reading this article on a site for a good few minutes, and see another article of interest. But, you click through only to be asked to register before you can read any more content. Well, now you can get rid of this harassment with a service called BugMeNot

BugMeNot contains an library of logins for lots of websites that require free registration, therefore meaning that you don't need to register to get the information you want, but you use a pooled login.

And what makes this even better? The fact that it's all available via a Firefox extension which can be found here.

Web services vs AMF

2005-02-09T09:37:00.000Z

If you are into your flash and flash remoting you may well be interested in this post from "tomlink.net" which talks about the performance difference between the two protocols (WSDL and AMF).

An example application is available, and the results can be quite suprising. Looks like AMF is worth a good look.

CFMX 7 Release Notes

2005-02-09T09:30:00.000Z

Two days ago I posted about the general release of Coldfusion MX 7, formerly known as "blackstone". Lots of traffic has been circulating about whats in and whats not, and whats in what version.

Well, Macromedia has posted a full list of all the changes here

Non-Microsoft Browsers Have Spoofing Flaw

2005-02-08T09:33:00.000Z

A post from Netcraft shows that no browser is immune to security flaws. More information can be found here

Google take over the world (again)

2005-02-08T09:15:00.000Z

So, Google have launched a new service in Beta entitled Maps. It only does the US right now, and doesn't provide any of the nice functionality of somewhere like multimap, but it does leave out all the naff stuff, like all the advertising and "sponsored links". We'll see how good it is when it comes to the UK.

Hubble RIP

2005-02-08T09:12:00.000Z

One of the greatest ever scientific instruments is going to be destroyed. More in the Guardian.

Coldfusion MX 7 is out!

2005-02-07T10:00:00.000Z

I'm not even going to bother going into detail on this one as so many other people do it alot better than me so here's a list of resources that people may be interested in:

And some bits to note:

The updated Verity support is very good. You can now get spelling suggestions for queries that don't return any, or enough results. You can get the context for your search terms with highlighting options. Collection data can now support categorization of items to make for more precise searching, and it supports natural language queries.

The Application Event framework. You can now run code when sessions start and end - ditto for Applications and requests.

Query of Query enhancements: You can now use CAST in QofQ. Half of the complains about QofQ were issues where the CF parser misread the data. CAST takes that away. You can now get metadata about queries as well.

All tags that used to write to the Variables scope, like cfhttp, now let you specify the variable name to create. This means you can make 100% thread-safe CFCs.

New to Java Center

2005-02-07T09:51:00.000Z

Just a quick post. If you are a CF'er and minus the now obligatory Computer Science degree (like me) then you may interested in Sun's "New to Java Center". Take a look, you never know, you might learn something.

Firefox and the impact curve

2005-02-07T09:44:00.000Z

Great editorial titled Firefox and the Impact Curve where he discusses the growth of Firefox and the problems that may be in store for intranet application developers who don't get with the program and start considering support for Firefox now. Go give it a read.

More Gmail going live indications

2005-02-04T09:44:00.000Z

For those of you who read yesterday that google have given all gmail users 50 invites each, you'll also be interested to know that they have made bug reporting a lot harder than it used to be (and have renamed it to "Report a technical issue").

So, whats the betting that the Gmail site won't be bearing the slogan "Beta" real soon now. Watch out hotmail, gmails coming.

Google's Gmail goes invite ker-azy

2005-02-03T17:03:00.000Z

Google have today blessed everyone with a current Gmail account 50 invites to hand out to non-Gmail users.

Is this a sign of an impending move out of beta? Pretty blooming likely methinks.

UPDATE: If you want one of these invites, I've got loads to get rid of, so drop me a mail or leave a comment on this entry. Ta.

25 million downloads

2005-02-03T09:53:00.000Z

Just so you know, today, Thunderbird 1.0 broke the 3,000,000 downloads mark and Firefox 1.0 broke the 22,000,000 mark.

Mozilla Firefox 2.0 Roadmap

2005-02-03T09:50:00.000Z

As you may have noticed, Ben at Mozilla (and now Google) has updated the Firefox 2.0 roadmap. This includes more information regarding what code branches are going where and roughly when all this will be happening. As it stands this roadmap is quite light, but will grow somewhat in the same respect as the 1.0 roadmap did so keep checking back.

Full details can be found here: Mozilla Firefox 2.0 Roadmap

For those with some doubt still over what is going on asa has posted a roadmap diagram:

More CFEclipse

2005-02-02T09:08:00.000Z

As I posted the other day, a new build of CFEclipse is available. Well, don't bother downloading that one, as this one is now available which contains a load of bug fixes.

CFEclipse build 1.1.18.6 available

2005-01-31T09:38:00.000Z

Spike just announced the availability of version 1.1.18.6 as a "nightly build". This is the first public outing for the all-new code partitioner (that provides syntax coloring etc) as well as extensive work by Chris Bradford that includes SQL syntax coloring. Downloading now, so I'll try to remember to let you know what it's like later on.

More Mozilla talent Google's way

2005-01-28T09:12:00.000Z

Posted a couple of days ago was a link to a CNET story about Google hiring Mozilla muscle. Well, there's more.

UKCFUG: Ben Forta

2005-01-28T09:10:00.000Z

As I mentioned a few days ago, Ben Forta will be visiting the UKCFUG this Feburary, but when I posted, details had not been confirmed.

Well, details have been confirmed now and the session is open to registration from UKCFUG members. However, you better be quick as places are going VERY fast. Full details are here.

Hal Helms' New Blog

2005-01-28T09:07:00.000Z

If you are a fan of OO-meister Hal Helms you may be interested to know that he has a new "occasional" blog which can be found here: hal.coldfusionjournal.com

Wired 13.02: The Firefox Explosion

2005-01-27T13:49:00.000Z

I have just come across a fascinating article about Firefox yesterday, today and tomorrow. If you are even slightly interested I suggest you take some time out to have a read of the whole thing. Best thing is the opening line:

It's fast, secure, open source - and super popular. The hot new browser called Firefox is rocking the software world. (Watch your back, Bill Gates.)

Solaris goes open source

2005-01-27T09:27:00.000Z

Sun's UNIX operating system Solaris has gone open-source under the CDDL (Common Development and Distribution License).

This is huge, especially if it is release for the x86 platform, as it provides an alternative option to Windows and Linux. Also of notable interest is the release of D-Trace.

More information at OpenSolaris.org

Google Video Search

2005-01-26T11:20:00.000Z

Are you still in shock from the last good idea to come out of the Google Labs? If so, you probably aren't ready for the next one...

Google Video, which went live yesterday, allows you to search through the closed captioning text of all the programs in their archive.

However, despite the name, the service doesn't return videos, at least not yet. Instead it returns still snapshot images at the time stamp where the closed captions indicate the show was covering your search term, along with a text snippet from the captions with your search term highlighted.

The actual usefulness of this service is obvious limited by the archive material available, and at this point that's fairly limited. It'll be interesting to watch this one evolve, does this mark the start of Google's bid to be capture the video on demand market? The current version of Google Video has fairly limited functionality, but I think that it's potential is obvious to everyone watching, no pun intended. If they can do this, with a bit more time and effort, what else can they make it do?

Note: Apparently Google Video came about due to a cheese factory in Wisconsin. Who'd have thought it?

Google snaps up top Firefox programmer

2005-01-25T09:49:00.000Z

Story over on CNET News.com entitled Google snaps up top Firefox programmer.

Anyone want to bet how long it might be before there is something appearing on gbrowser.com?

ColdFusion TechNote : ColdFusion client variables and HTML frames

2005-01-25T09:44:00.000Z

New TechNote. Basically, if you are into frames and/or client variables, you're knee deep in mulitthreading. Workarounds? Don't use CLIENT, and don't use frames.

Firefox breaks 20,000,000 downloads!

2005-01-24T09:17:00.000Z

In seventy six days, more than sixty three thousand of you have joined the effort to deliver Firefox 1.0 to more than twenty million thankful users!

You've engaged your friends and family, your co-workers, colleagues, and fellow students in a novel and exciting effort to take back the Web. You've helped twenty million people to get beyond the daily chaos of adware, spyware, and constant virus infections. You've created the first and the largest open source marketing effort in history. And you all are educating the world that they do have a choice and that they can take control of their Internet experience.

You all have demonstrated that open source community can be powerful, committed, and capable of accomplishing once-unimaginable feats.

Today, we celebrate twenty million Firefox 1.0 downloads. But more than that, we celebrate the community that you all have built and we celebrate each and every one you!

Taken from spreadFirefox.com

February 15th UK User Group Presentation

2005-01-24T09:12:00.000Z

I don't have details yet, but Macromedia U.K. is arranging a user group event in the U.K., and I'll use the opportunity to present Blackstone. Tentative date is February 15th. I have no more details beyond that, but I'll post them as soon as I do (as I will when other European venues are confirmed).

Thanks to Ben Forta.

Firefox Extensions - Gmail Notifier

2005-01-20T09:22:00.000Z

By far one of the simplest but most useful extensions available at the moment as it ensures your gmail account isn't forgotten, also providing a quick way into your mailbox.

You can download the extension here.

Incidentally, I have 5 gmail invites up for grabs so let me know if you would like one.

Firefox Extensions -- ForecastFox

2005-01-19T13:58:00.000Z

Todays extension, ForecastFox.

Get international weather forecasts from weather.com, and display it in any toolbar or statusbar with this highly customizable extension. Best of all, it even gives good local forecasts over here in blighty.

The making of Blackstone - The Directors Cut

2005-01-19T09:29:00.000Z

As you may know, Macromedia are planning on launching Blackstone to the masses in the next few weeks. I have been priveledged to be in the testing team for this product and can tell you it's set to be a siginificant release.

So how do companies like MM create products like Blackstone? Well, now you can find out by reading Damon Cooper and Tim Buntel's article on the subject.

Firefox Extensions -- WebDeveloper

2005-01-18T09:17:00.000Z

Todays extension: WebDeveloper.

I won't go into this one in any detail as the website is by far more interesting than anything I could say here, but one point to make is, this extension is a lot more usefult that it could ever make out in documentation, making debugging HTML helluva lot easier.

NOTE: I have noticed the version available from the homepage is a much newer version.

Firefox Extensions -- Adblock

2005-01-17T09:36:00.000Z

I had a thought over the weekend that I should be talking about the various extensions I have installed in my various installations of Firefox.

So, firstly, Adblock, which I beleive is currently THE best plugin for Firefox, because when combined with the built in pop-up blocker, means that you don't have to see any online advertising ever again.

Admittedly it does need to be told what to block, but if you use the reference file here, then you should be more than ready for ad-free browsing.

Firefox: The Road Ahead

2005-01-17T09:21:00.000Z

Now that Firefox is out and about in over 18 million places (yup, thats 18 million downloads now), you may have thought "What now?". Well, neowin have posted this article describing just that. So, by my reckoning I should be posting about the release of "Deer Park" in about two months. :-)

The gay bomb?

2005-01-15T20:18:00.000Z

Erm,....just seen this over on the BBC. I'm not sure what to say....

Mozilla Is Gaining on Godzilla

2005-01-13T13:17:00.000Z

According to WebSideStory's latest statistics, released on January 12th, Firefox has taken an even larger chunk of users away from Microsoft Internet Explorer. They go on to state that "The U.S. adoption rate of Firefox... has nearly tripled over the past month." Firefox now stands at 4.6% while IE has fallen to 90.6%. Internet Explorer has now lost a total of 4.9% over the past 6 months! More details are in this Businessweek story (from which the subject of this post was borrowed).

Frameworks

2005-01-13T09:42:00.000Z

Sean Corfield has posted a small note about the Seattle CFUG's next meeting about frameworks, and there's nothing wrong with that. But, there is one small part which made me want to post.

"talking about frameworks - Mach II or Fusebox 4.x?"

This got me thinking: Mach-II and Fusebox 4.x are not the only frameworks out there, plus, there is no reason why you can't write your own. Recently I was looking at developing a new framework for use in-house. I looked at Mach-ii and Fusebox 4 and both had their merits, but both of them were way more complicated than I required and did things I didn't ever need. So, I set about developing a nice simple framework for my own use.

A few days later, and I now have a nice robust extensible MVC framework that supports event calls, invocation from remote locations, and provides debugging thats actually useful. Performance is pretty good too.

So, remember that when looking at frameworks, you don't have to buy into one of the big two, take the time to think about what you actually need and whether or not they provide it in the most efficient way possible. And you never know, you might learn some stuff along the way.

Well, what is "The Service Factory" then?

2005-01-12T15:22:00.000Z

Sorry, just been reminded that I would say what the service factory was in Coldfusion. The service factory is a java construct accessible from CF via the following code:

<cfset factory = createObject("java", "coldfusion.server.ServiceFactory")>

Do a CFDUMP on this and see what you can see. None of this is documented (and therefore supported by MM), but that doesn't mean that none of it works.

Have a play, if you find something interesting, let me know.

Samsung launches speech-to-SMS phone

2005-01-11T09:11:00.000Z

Samsung have developed a mobile phone which can convert your speech into text for SMS. Rather than rely on cramming words in tiny fonts onto a small screen, users can just dictate.

This got me thinking, what if, the phone could somehow connect directly to whoever you are sending the text to? What if then, you could then just read out the text directly to the other person? That would be revolutionary. But then I thought, OK, the other person might not be there, which is when I had another revolutionary idea.. some sort of recording system that records these "voice messages" until the person becomes available again.

I have forwarded my idea to the patent office.

Mozilla and Firefox flaws exposed

2005-01-11T09:07:00.000Z

If you are a Mozilla/Firefox user you may already be aware of a flaw found in the browser by iSEC. The flaw involves a buffer overflow bug in the way Mozilla processes the NNTP (news) protocol. The bug creates a means for hackers inject hostile code into vulnerable systems, providing they trick users into executing maliciously constructed news server links. All versions of Mozilla prior to 1.7.5 are affected. Firefox users are advised to make sure they are running version 1.0 to minimise any risk.

Finally, there's a less serious problem affecting Firefox and its email client Thunderbird. Security researchers have found that temporary files are stored by the popular packages in a format that makes it possible for snoops to read the content of downloads and attachments of other users on the same machine.

An overview of these flaws and suggested workarounds can be found here.

Comments

2005-01-10T21:24:00.000Z

Due to not too savoury types leaving blog spam I have had to restrict commenting to registered users only (ie, no anonymous posting). Sorry for the inconvenience.

Google exposes web surveillance cams

2005-01-10T17:30:00.000Z

This one's kept me amused for some considerable time today, namely the fact that you can easily find surveillence cameras on the web via the wonders of google.

By using the fact that half decent webcams come with their own "website", and that these have consistent URL strings, plus the fact that google supports the "inurl:" parameter (which finds all sites containing whatever string in the URL), it means you are able to find various cameras out there on the web.

For instance, AXIS uses the string /view/index.shtml in some of it's software, so doing a search for inurl:/view/index.shtml returns all the AXIS cameras that Google is aware of.

Some of the best ones I could find today are here and here.

Coldfusion penetration in the UK?

2005-01-10T09:37:00.000Z

Ben Forta pointed out this post on his blog about an apparent suprise on the penetration of CF in the UK, making out that the usage levels of Coldfusion are seen as extremely low.

Well, I must disagree with you wholeheartedly there. I am well aware of a vibrant CF Community here in the UK, mainly though the UKCFUG, but also through companies using the product, namely us, 2nd Byte (my daytime haunt), National Express, Friends Reunited and various councils to name a few. I also have evidence of Sun Microsystems using Coldfusion internally.

Oh dear, another warning about IE

2005-01-10T09:27:00.000Z

Secunia have stated that 3 flaws previously found in IE / XP SP2 should now be considered as "extremely" critical due to the fact that example code on how to exploit them is now freely available on t'internet. Microsoft have been aware of these flaws since October.

Best bit of the report? "Solution: Use another product." Need any more reasons to give Firefox a try?

CFCODER Blog

2005-01-10T09:22:00.000Z

Those of you on CF-TALK may have seen Mike Tangorre's name floating about at the foot of posts. Well, the guy has started up a blog of his very own which can be found here.

Putting Context Into Context

2005-01-07T11:21:00.000Z

Just a quick note to point out a very interesting usability article about use context.

Full article here: Putting Context Into Context

It's bitch about Macromedia day

2005-01-07T09:53:00.000Z

A post on CF-Talk pointed this blog entry out to me from John Dowell which goes on about a post referring to how "obnoxious" Real Networks are as a company. He then invites people to do the same about Macromedia.

Unsuprisingly, there has been a massive response on all matter of things, but mainly talking about Flash, Macromedia.com, Application performance and beta testing.

Now, I'm not having a go at MACR myself as I decided to forge a career using one of their main(?) products, although admittedly, that decision was when they were still Allaire.

On a side note, if I saw the guy who wrote Real Player crossing the road in front of me tomorrow, I wouldn't slow down.

VisitorVille Intelligence: : Flash Versions

2005-01-07T09:18:00.000Z

I came across this graph today, which claims to contain accurate information on the saturation of flash player and which versions are more prolific.

After taking a quick look at these stats, something doesn't seem right as it claims that 100% of people have flash installed. While I (and Macromedia) would love to believe this statistic, I know for a fact that my copy of lynx doesn't (and never will) have a flash player installed, and I'm sure that there must be a lot more.

Statistics, and links to stats on a whole host of websites can be found here.

Thunderbird hits 1 million downloads

2005-01-06T09:34:00.000Z

Mozilla's free (and excellent) email client Thunderbird has hit it's first 1 million downloads since release of version 1.0. If you haven't already, give it a try.

Meanwhile Firefox is well past 15 million downloads, way past initial expectations.

What's an Object?

2005-01-06T09:31:00.000Z

Matt Woodward has posted an interesting (Flash)paper on OO in CF. If you are a CF developer still doing things in a procedural manner, I advise you give this article a good read, and then read it again, you might just learn a new way of thinking.

More on Firefox Configuration

2005-01-05T10:39:00.000Z

You may remember my last post about Firefox and configuration of search functionality. Well, I have found a document on Mozillazine which contains all you would ever need to know about any of the options found in About:config.

The full article can be found here.

TechNote: Configuring the Missing Template Handler with IIS

2005-01-05T09:39:00.000Z

A new TechNote has been posted describing how to set up the ColdFusion missing template handler if using IIS, and providing steps to make the IIS configuration changes that may be needed.

We have moved

2004-12-29T01:20:00.000Z

If you are accessing this through the URL http://beaker2004.blogspot.com, this site can now be found at http://theservicefactory.blogspot.com.

Please update any referrals or bookmarks accordingly.

Changes

2004-12-29T00:00:00.000Z

You have probably noticed some changes around these parts over the Xmas period, namely a name change, and some additions to the advertising that is from this site.

Firstly, the renaming the "The Service Factory", this is for two reasons. One, I spend time building sites for third parties, and this site is starting to serve as a gateway for this business, and two, the name stems from the not so well known "underside" to Coldfusion MX. More on this at a later date.

Secondly, I have become a template monster affiliate due to the amount of referrals I do to this company (hence the banner at the top of the screen). So, If you are looking for a new website template, take a look at Template Monster, or even better than that, contact me for a quote on a full website.

New Coldfusion MX Technote

2004-12-23T19:28:00.000Z

Macromedia have released a new Technote regarding CFMX's XML configuration files, where they are and what they do.

Why this was not included in the original documentation I don't know (especially considering CFMX's original multi-homing problems)

Firemonger

2004-12-22T11:28:00.000Z

Having a hard time thinking of Xmas presents for friends and family? How about you give them Firefox? Firemonger is a project started within the Spread Firefox community to create a CD installation of Firefox in a variety of guises. The CD also includes Thunderbird 1.0 and a selection of themes, extensions and the ilk.

So, if you know someone who could be converted, give them a try, you never you they might just like it (Whats the worst that could happen?^®).

Posting a little light

2004-12-22T11:26:00.000Z

Posting will be a little light until the new year as I am now officially on Xmas holiday. If I come across anything I'll pass it on.

Merry Christmas.

Is Firefox safer than Internet Explorer?

2004-12-20T11:27:00.001Z

One of the main points that the open-source community makes about using Firefox is how much more secure and safer to use it is than using Microsofts Internet Explorer. Well, today I came across some hard evidence of this, namely the following two graphs from Secunia. Both graphs represent the number of "security advisories" opened against the two browsers, firstly IE, secondly Firefox.

Counter-Strike Source Hitboxes

2004-12-20T11:27:00.000Z

If you're anything like me you are an avid player of Counter-Strike:Source. Also, if you're anything like me you will have been noticing how in Source, you can be shooting directly at someone and not hit a thing, in a real pulp-fiction style moment.

Well, last night I came across this thread on the steam forums talking about a bug on the hit boxes which the games uses to register damage, and how these are affected by lag (so that the server is seeing something different to what the client sees).

After seeing the short video contained in the thread I jumped onto a couple of servers and started to experiment with shooting ahead and behind people. Sure enough, the more time I spent aiming to one side of people, the more hits I was getting and thus more kills.

Please Valve, fix this bug, it's doing my head in.

Asimo's First Steps

2004-12-17T21:23:00.000Z

You may or may not know about Asimo, Honda's "Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility" robot. Basically it's a little white dude with a backpack. Well, yesterday, he learnt (read "was programmed") how to run at a mighty 3 km/h, quite phenomenal I think you'll agree.

After perusing the movies on the Honda site, this Asimo character is quite a capable machine, the engineers commenting "The aim is to develop a robot that can help people in the daily lives" (in Japanese, obviously)

So, Tweaky (from Buck Rogers if you're wondering) should hopefully be on sale next Christmas.

RE_INVIGORATE

2004-12-17T21:22:00.000Z

I have previously mentioned this service in one of my posts promising to go into further detail about this open source project I came across when first putting this blog together. Well, here we are as promised.

RE_INVIGORATE is a collection of data archiving services that monitors and analyzes traffic on participating websites. Each participant helps by contributing their websites traffic data which is pooled together and displayed within the website to help shed a greater understanding of current web surfing habits. In return participants get stats for their site and all reports are generated in real-time.

If you run a website this gives you several benefits. Firstly, this is one of the few decent free stats services I found which does not require some lairy banner or link on the site in order to collect the information as it simply requires the include of a bit of JavaScript(which you will be able to see at the base of this page if you view source). Secondly, the stats provided by this are quite comprehensive providing information on browsers, platforms, resolutions, cookie support, timezones, referrers and more. The only downside to this is that I cannot immediately see a report of page specific stats, only global website information.

If you own a website, or already use a service such as Site Meter, give this service a closer look, not only will it probably improve your stats reporting but it will also help the project in the long term, and provide somewhere for web developers like myself to get decent stats on today's web surfing habits.

Amendum: Whilst researching this article, I came across Stat Counter which also provide "invisible" traffic analysis. I have installed this alongside RE_INVIGORATE in order to make a comparison at a later date.

Don't use Google desktop search in your business, warns Gartner

2004-12-16T10:41:00.000Z

Story over on The Register

10,000 Firefox enthusiasts make history

2004-12-16T10:33:00.000Z

Today [the Firefox] community has raised its voice loudly and clearly to say to the world: There is an alternative: Mozilla Firefox!

And what 11,000,000 of us already know, we want the rest of the world to know. Thousands rallied together in 10 short days to pull off the largest open source fundraising campaign in history. And today, we can see the result of our efforts.

We're on two full pages in The New York Times because our message is big — much bigger than the ad itself. This is just the precursor to what will become a broadening campaign of Firefox advocacy throughout the world.

So take a good look (you're going to have to!); these folks were willing to put their name out there and be the first to publicly support Firefox and our community at a scale never before attempted in open source history. We owe them a debt of gratitude for taking this risk on the behalf of the 50,000 member-strong Spread Firefox community.

What we have accomplished so far is nothing short of incredible — and I know full well that this is only the beginning!

So, as promised, you can download your own copy as a PDF or head over to the Mozilla Store to pick up your own limited edition print.

Taken from: Spread Firefox

Taxi Driver Shoots Man in Bin Laden Mask

2004-12-16T10:31:00.000Z

Story on Yahoo! News

Guildford runs out of broadband

2004-12-16T10:28:00.000Z

The Register today has posted an article about Guidlford "running out" of Broadband.

...and strange for me, I came across this from Sean Corfield, who's a fellow old "Horshamite", but now lives in the states working for MM.

CFCATCH is not what it seems....

2004-12-15T13:53:00.000Z

It would appear that Coldfusions CFCATCH structure has a split personality. If you CFDUMP cfcatch, it is clearly labelled as a Struct. However, do

isStruct(cfcatch)

and the return is NO.

Try

isObject(cfcatch)

and you'll spot an indiscrepency. Bug or feature? You decide.

Neil Straghalis : Now Blogging

2004-12-15T09:57:00.000Z

Interested in how Macromedia's website works? Well, now you can have an insight into the application from Neil Straghalis' new blog.

Interesting to see how someone from MM taking a more front-end approach to things without talking about Flash/Central/Breeze all the time.

Google take over the world

2004-12-14T10:00:00.000Z

Hot on the heels of the announcement of the Google Suggest Beta, CNET has published an article commenting on Google's plans to scan published print and add them to the Google index.

This represents a phenomenal amount of data and the potential to take a bloody long time. More information can be found on CNET here.

The world goes transformer mad

2004-12-13T09:48:00.000Z

You may or may not have seen the latest Citroen C4 advertisement, featuring the car transforming into a robot and dancing.

Well, it would seem other people are catching on, namely a Japanese paper manufacturer. Movie can be seen here (Requires DivX codec).

Google starts to suggest

2004-12-13T09:44:00.000Z

I came across a new one of Google's mad-scientist like tools today, Google Suggest.

Google's new "Suggest" feature is an auto complete based on search term popularity.

Try it yourself. Now start typing "Fun" or any word that begins with F. Google automatically looks at popular terms and "suggests". By the way, at time of writing, Firefox is the first word you are shown, right at the top of the list.

This is huge; both the Suggest feature and the advertising ramifications, For Instance, Google will now "advertise" Firefox to everyone who searches Google with any word beginning with F. Grandmothers and school kids alike will all see Firefox, and that it is a big thing.

10 million!

2004-12-13T09:39:00.000Z

In little more than a month, Firefox has been downloaded more than 10 million times.

Take a moment and think about that.

If you remember, it took 10 days to reach 2 million downloads of the Firefox Preview Release. This time, in only 32 days, they quintupled that number!

Seriously, the members of the SFX community deserve a huge pat on the back for their efforts to spread Firefox. Even if it meant simply adding a banner to a website, creating custom banners, suggesting to your site's IE visitors that there's a better experience awaiting them or getting your coworkers, family members, friends, classmates or non-techies to switch.

Congrats to the Firefox team.

Norton 2005 AV / Thunderbird 1.0 Incompatibility

2004-12-12T14:01:00.000Z

I came across a solution to a small problem I have been having for the last couple of days that has been driving me absolutely nuts.

The problem was, that with Thunderbird 1.0 on a POP3 connection, the application when asked to download new mail would report in its status bar "Connecting to server xxx" and then stop with no errors or logs produced. I spent ages going through account settings with an extremely fine toothcomb, even removing and adding the entire account a couple of times, all to no avail.

After talking to a few contacts, and perusing the forums for a bit, I came across a thread which was talking about the latest Norton AV signature breaking Thunderbird's downloads. To fix, it is simply a case of turning off scanning on incoming email (which is by no means ideal).

Should this problem ever resolve itself, I will post a message stating so.

Edit: I think Norton might have heard me. The latest update to the core files resolves this issue. If you are having this problem, update your AV in LiveUpdate and all will start working again.

More Firefox and Browser Statistics 2

2004-12-10T17:40:00.000Z

As previously mentioned, decent browser platform statistics are quite hard to come by. However, RE_INVIGORATE supply some stats here which are taken from many sites, including this one.

More on this excellent service at a later date.

Tinsel knocks out Brighton wireless network

2004-12-10T10:37:00.000Z

Years of development, millions spent on infrastructure and some spotty oik from Sussex County Council comes along and screws it all up. Amusing article at the Register about Brighton's WiFi network being taken out by Christmas.