September 2004
Sept. 6, 2004
Brits turning into computer buffs. Personally I find it shocking that only 75% of adults have used a computer.
Missing Keystrokes in OS X (via) Emacs style keybindings are available in all Cocoa apps.
Why I don’t recommend Firefox. The average user needs more mollycoddling.
Sept. 7, 2004
Is Multiply simplifying the world? Maybe in one sense... Well dodgy: multiply.com can “import” your Orkut / Friendster profiles.
Why a CSS Website Layout Will Make You Money (via) I hereby declare Trenton Moss the most prolific author on the web.
Year of Python. Completely off topic, but wouldn’t it be fun to have a geek calendar based on programming languages?
Extending Columns. Smarter columns with smart backgrounds.
Successful Lisp (via) Free online Lisp book.
Bush: OB-GYNs Kept from ’Practicing Their Love’. Best Bushism Ever.
Sept. 8, 2004
LazyChat. I’m trying this right now, AIM: heknuks
The Science of Word Recognition (via) Microsoft’s Typography site is a diamond in the rough.
Sell Side Advertising: A New Model? Intriguing: ads spread virally, publishers pick the ones they like.
Joel on Software—It’s Not Just Usability. More social software design thinking from Joel.
Mozilla/Firefox: Javascript Console In Sidebar. So useful!
Spotlight-like livesearch added (via) XmlHTTPRequest strikes again!
In a secret Paris cavern, the real underground cinema (via) Secret cinemas in the catacombs of Paris.
OS X Security Update 2004-09-07 (via) Plenty of important fixes; a must-have.
PostgreSQL startup items for MacOS X (via) Thank you! I’ve been wanting this for months.
Safari Menu Bar Tip. Command click right on the text in the title bar.
Full text RSS on MSDN gets turned off. RSS doesn’t scale.
LJWorld.com: Bank robbed in south Lawrence. All of our reporters are armed with camera phones.
Sept. 9, 2004
XML.com: Automated Tree Drawing: XSLT and SVG. Includes a recursive text parser in XSLT. May cause your brain to melt.
Personnel Foul—Fred Kaplan. The problem isn’t so much the structure of the CIA as it is the quality of their employees.
Command line blacklisting
Just over a year ago, I started blacklisting domain names from links featured in comment spam. My idea then was that these blacklists could become a shared resource: people would publish their own blacklist and subscribe to those of people they trust, thus making it much harder for spammers to operate. While the sheer volume of spam domains meant that the technique was much less useful than I originally anticipated, I’ve continued to maintain my blacklist ever since as a preventative measure against repeat spammers.
[... 721 words]paramiko: ssh2 protocol for python. The SFTP support has a very pleasant API.
Martin Fowler on Closures. They really aren’t that complicated once they’re explained well.
XML.com: Wrestling HTML. Uche Ogbuji on ways to convert HTML to XML using Python.
lgf: Bush Guard Documents: Forged (via) I tried this myself in MS Word on OS X—the spacing lined up exactly.
Sept. 10, 2004
Photo Matt: RSS Bandwidth Usage. Matt makes the case for RSS scaling just fine if you’re smart about it.
VeriSign’s conflict of interest creates new threat. They’re the fox guarding the hen house.