Doing my Part for Daily Bleatage
By Brian | August 10, 2005
From Lilek’s Daily Bleat:
Back home; checked my mail, discovered to my horror that the Bleat looked like crap in Windows, fixed it…
I sent him a mail yesterday afternoon, so I can only assume he’s referring to me. Just goes to show ya – behind every cyber-celebrity, there stands an army of unseen amateurs keeping the lights on. Such is life.
He also unwittingly enters into a debate that Jeff Porten and I have been having for as long as I can remember:
For reasons I cannot understand the HTML program – GoLive, or StayDead, depending on your experience – refused to accept 550 pixels as the value for the table’s width. I’d type 550; it would revert to 74. I redid it cell by cell; no good. Until eventually it worked. Sorry about that. Monday and Tuesday have been redone, so they should work. All I can say is this: it looked fine in Safari and IE for Mac. Go figure.
Now, clearly there’s a problem with GoLive. But here’s the more interesting question: is the fact that it looked fine on the Mac a problem with the Mac or a problem with Windows? I would argue that if the HTML says WIDTH=74, the page should display with a width of 74. Even if he originally typed in 550. If GoLive changed the HTML back to 74, he should see it on his screen as 74. Two reasons: first, the browser should do what it’s told and nothing more; and second, by “fixing” it for him, the Mac browsers obscured the problem until someone (ahem!) brought it to his attention…
This site, incidentally, has a similar problem. Most of the rollover buttons at the top (which are still Java apps and not Javascripts – I know, I know – I’ll change them as soon as I have some free time. Maybe this weekend. Really. I swear) are in a cell with WIDTH=442, and have widths that total 424. In Windows/Internet Explorer, they appear in one, neat horizontal row, which is what I’d expect, given that 424 < 442. In Mac/Safari and Mac/Firefox, the "Cool Links" button on the right wraps down to the next line. Jeff has argued that if my HTML were clean, it would work on all browsers. I say that if I do a good job adding up my column widths, I should have a reasonable expectation that any browser would follow the rules and display them on a single line. If my HTML is clean, then it’s a bug in Safari and Firefox. If I’m missing something in my HTML, and IE is doing something to “help” me, then I say it’s a bug in IE. On the one hand, I hope the move to Javascripts makes the problem go away. On the other hand, if it goes away, then it just means this problem is inconsistent and difficult to reproduce, suggesting it will never get solved…
Categories: Tech Talk | 6 Comments »
An Endorsement for Iraqi Stability
By Brian | August 9, 2005
It seems ICANN is feeling better about Iraq. At least that’s something…
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New from Apple: The iBaby
By Brian | August 5, 2005
This is wrong. Just plain wrong.
Categories: The World Wide Weird | 2 Comments »
The City That Never Logs Off…
By Brian | August 3, 2005
Via Instapundit, a call for New York to go wireless like Philadelphia tried to do:
Mr. Rasiej wants to see New York follow Philadelphia, which decided it wouldn’t wait for private companies to provide connectivity to all. Instead, Philly made it a city-led project – like sewers and electricity. The whole city will be a “hot zone,” where any resident anywhere with a computer, cellphone or P.D.A. will have cheap high-speed Wi-Fi access to the Internet.
Mr. Rasiej argues that we can’t trust the telecom companies to make sure that everyone is connected because new technologies, like free Internet telephony, threaten their business models. “We can’t trust the traditional politicians to be the engines of change for how people connect to their government and each other,” he said. By the way, he added, “If New York City goes wireless, the whole country goes wireless.”
Here, here. A citywide wireless network would quickly become as basic a part of the city’s infrastructure as the subways or the phone system. And the point about New York being a loss leader is right too: when employees of big companies can communicate wirelessly cheaply & easily in New York, they’ll start demanding it in their satellite offices; when marketers see the benefit of “always on” connectivity with consumers, they’ll start pushing for it in other urban centers; and when the non-techie consumer starts to see “smart” devices appearing all over the city, their understanding of the Internet will expand from web-browsing to real-time services. It’s all good…
Only one hitch that I can see: Wireless is a new technology, and as such, is still in the hyper-growth portion of its lifecycle. I believe Philadelphia never pulled the trigger because each successive plan to bring the city online was quickly eclipsed by another, soon-to-arrive technology that would make it orders of magnitude cheaper. Maybe it takes the population density of New York (more than twice that of Philly) to make it worth the plunge. After all, if the business case can be proven with current technologies, then cheaper solutions become no-brainers. And a working model will allow folks to figure out the break-even points for the more rural areas, too.
Now all the city government needs is a sub-contractor. Don’t Microsoft and Google have billions of dollars just sitting around???
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Every Breath You Take…I’ll be Watching You
By Brian | August 3, 2005
The DHS, DOD, DOE, EPA and NOAA are conducting an “Urban Dispersion Program,” that studies how air flows in a city envrionment.
The second of three field studies start this weekend, and will involve equipment in the form of large briefcases or file boxes, and wind monitoring devices that look like TV antennas scattered throughout midtown. The devices will be labeled as test equipment, and they’ll also be using unmarked vans as mobile measurement labs.
This is a great example of the stuff you do when you’re in charge of the problem, rather than simply commenting on those who are in charge. I’m sure there are a small number of people complaining about privacy invasion now, and a larger number will surface with charges of “promoting a culture of fear” in 2007, when the study is done and they make recommendations about how to improve the safety of the air we breathe.
Categories: New York, New York, Political Rantings | 3 Comments »
Microsoft season! Duck Season! Microsoft Season! Duck Season!
By Brian | August 1, 2005
Well, it’s been quite a while since Microsoft released significant new software. And so predictably, those bent on proving (yet again) that Microsoft is pure evil incarnate, are jumping all over bugs in their beta software and calling them evil plots to thwart competitors’ products. In this case, the story is that IE7 doesn’t work with the Google or Yahoo toolbars.
Given Microsoft’s position as market leader in so many areas, the competitive pressures of today’s technology market, and the frequency of company-issued patches, there’s a rational argument to be made that their production release software is nothing more than advanced-beta testing. Given that, when they announce it’s a beta test product, you’d think we could cut them a little slack, no?
Not to mention, it just doesn’t make any sense. Assuming Microsoft wants everyone to use their new browser, why would they make it incompatible with the current leader in search technology? At the very least, it would do nothing but incent people to stay with IE6 until the bug was fixed. The truly scary thing here is that this automatic harping on everything the company does serves as an excellent cover for them to do something truly evil – consumer complaints would be seen as simply more of the same babble.
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Checking in with Bag Checking
By Brian | July 30, 2005
Last week, the New York City subway system announced it would be randomly checking passenger bags. With much less press coverage, New Jersey Transit and the Port Authority PATH lines are now doing the same thing (I don’t know whhat the other major lines that run into/out of Penn Station – LIRR, Metro North, and Amtrak) are doing. If any regular riders are reading this, drop a comment & let me know – I’m curious.
At any rate, questions, questions, questions:
1) Leaving aside the old, worn-out argument about profiling, I’m curious whether the police are looking for people with suspicious bags or suspicious looking people. They’ve really been very quiet about what they’re looking for, other than the whole “we’re going to be fair” line.
2) They’ve said repeatedly that anyone who doesn’t want to have their bags checked will not be permitted on the train. Two questions here: a) Does that mean that once you’re on the train, you’re safe from inspection? Or if you refuse, do they just escort you off at the next stop? If that’s the case, it would seem an excellent opportunity for someone who wished to commit a terrorist act, and b) if the checks are random, and you can walk away if you’re picked, can’t you just wait a few minutes & walk in again? If the cop on duty starts to recognize you, you could always go in through a different entrance, or a different station. Either way, it seems like a gaping hole in the system.
3) If they do look in my bag, what are they looking for? Let’s say I’m carrying a knife in my bag. It’s not illegal to carry a knife, nor is there any rule (that I’m aware of, anyway) that prohibits carrying knives on the subway. So if they find the knife, do they let me on? What if I’m carrying an explosive device (say I’m a chemist or scientist of some kind, or perhaps I work on special effects for movies or TV)? Again, as far as I know, there is no law against carrying an explosive device on the subway (assuming, of course, you don’t set it off). So what’s the verdict? Confiscate or not? At least with the airlines, they give you a list of what you can’t bring on board…
Any thoughts, anybody?
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Atlantic City Surprises
By Brian | July 30, 2005
My wife & I recently spent a weekend in Atlantic City (mostly in the Tropicana’s new attraction known as “The Quarter”). I’ve always been a little fascinated by Atlantic City from a marketing perspective; everything about the place seemed designed to get you into the casino and spending (or as they call it “gambling”) money. This time around, a few thoughts crossed my mind:
1) We went to AC last year too (stayed in the Borgata), and I had noticed that all the slot machines had moved away from coins & to printed tickets, which could be brought to the chasiers or machines for money/credit. At the time, I thought it was a bad idea, since the “ching, ching” of the slots adds so much to the panache of a casino. This time around, in the Trop and also at Harrah’s (where we went on Sunday before heading home), the slots generally seemed to be back on coins. Did the whole ticket thing fail? Or is it just that the Borgata is newer and the older casinos haven’t caught on to the new technology? Usually, when something new comes around, all the casinos jump on it together…
2) The Trop had nickel, quarter, fifty cent and $1 slot machines (as well as a wide variety of video poker-like machines at various prices). A big difference I noticed this time around was that the different priced machines were mixed together. In the past, I was used to seeing a “Nickel Slots Area” for the old folks who wanted to spend rolls & rolls of nickels, a similar area for Dollars & Fifty Cent machines, and then the rest were quarters. I wonder why they changed the configuration…
3) The Trop also had penny slots. I’m surprised they’d want to start dealing with an entirely new coin (before that, the coin-counting machines at the cashier’s counter only had to deal with nickels & quarters). But if they are, what have they got against the dime now?
4) In other trips to AC, as well as my one & only trip to Vegas, it seemed anything you wanted to do in the hotel required you to walk through the casino, in hopes that you’ll drop a few quarters into a machine, or maybe a few bucks on a table, on your way to wherever you’re going. In the Trop’s “Quarter,” you had to walk through various restaurants & shops to get to the casino. In fact, there were so many hallways to walk down, I actually had to ask my wife, “Where’s the casino?” That’s gotta be a bad sign, right?
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Greasemonkey Update
By Brian | July 30, 2005
Also from InternetWeek:
The bug could let a malicious Web site read any local file on a Greasemonkey user’s machine, or view the contents of all local drive directories, said Aaron Boodman, Greasemonkey’s creator, on his blog.
“I’m working feverishly on a fix for this,” said Boodman. “But [it] will take several days. In the meantime, I strongly recommend that everyone either install Greasemonkey 0.3.5, or else disable or uninstall Greasemonkey completely.”
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Aiding the enemy – Defining Spyware
By Brian | July 30, 2005
From InternetWeek:
Today, the Anti-Spyware Coalition (ASC), an alliance of technology companies and public interest groups, has taken that step toward giving users more power to control the unwanted software clogging their computers, by drafting a definition of the dreaded malware.
The group hopes that the definition will ultimately provide all users — from individuals to large enterprises — with the knowledge of why some programs on their computers may be identified as unwanted and then assist them in deciding whether to remove or block those programs.
Yeah, sure – let’s all agree on a consistent definition that all the spyware blockers will use. You know who will be most interested in this definition? The MAKERS OF SPYWARE…
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