Archive for December, 2005


Blazing Saddles commentary review

12/14/2005

I just bought the Blazing Saddles 30th Anniversary DVD because, you know, it’s an awesome movie. Where else can you get a western that has the line “blow it out your ass” in it.

One thing I always do is listen to the director’s commentary on DVD’s because I like to hear how scenes were done and hear the stories told about the film and so on. I didn’t really like the commentary on the ‘Saddles DVD too much. Mel Brooks is a very smart and very funny man, but he’s terrible at commentary because he never talks about the movie directly. On both Spaceballs and this movie he rambles on and on about stuff barely relating to the film. You maybe get a little snip from him about the film every now and then but it quickly moves to long drawn out digressions about something else entirely. It gets annoying really quick. I couldn’t even listen to the whole commentary because it’s just so darned uninteresting. I just want to yell out Stick to the flim, will ya?

On a scale of 1-10:

Blazing Saddles: 8
Blazing Saddles Commentary: 1 (bleah!)

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EFF’n a!

12/15/2005

Just checked out EFF because I haven’t been there in some time just to check things out.

They now have something there that wasn’t before since my last visit: Fighting for Bloggers’ Rights. I scanned it over and it’s all cool information to know. The one that caught the most interest was the whole anonymous blogging thing which mainly concentrates on (in my own words) “How to complain about your job” or moreover “How to complain about your job and get away with it.”

Corporate America hates blogs so much so that you can get fired for it so they can avoid embarrassment and keep the stockholders happy. That much is obvious. EFF offers common sense tips on how to blog anonymously so you can stay in the clear while still blabbing about how much your job sucks.

I have a few tips of my own concerning bloggers’ rights, but before I do that, I just have to say it’s darned unfortunate that some bloggers have actually been fired just for publishing an opinion or two. The fact that it has (and still does) happen is just wrong, so I applaud EFF for putting up a guide about it.

Watch yourself if you put up a “sucks” site.

A “sucks” site is any instance where you put www.[companyname]sucks.com and register it yourself to tell the world how bad a company, well, sucks. The only thing potentially wrong with this is that you are using a company name belonging to another business entity and using it for your own personal gain (in Corporate America’s eyes). The key is to make the site “informatory only” and never, EVER sell anything on it - because then your domain will get yanked faster than you can say “What the…?”

Avoid dot com, dot net and dot org registrations if it’s going to be about your job and how much you hate it.

Lawyers at corporations (should they decide to give you grief) will bug you if you’re blogging about the company on a domain that ends in .com, .net or .org. Even though it’s very common knowledge that coms/nets/orgs aren’t necessarily business entities, COM could mean “commercial”, NET could mean “network” and ORG could mean “organization”. For the dot com, it could be mistaken to be a commercial enterprise. For dot net, this could be taken as a data networking company. For the org, it could mean you have an officially registered organization (which you don’t, obviously). The way to get around this is to register something that couldn’t be mistaken for anything else, like dot info, dot ST (like mine) or the like.

Do not include a company name in your domain or blog title for the company you’re complaining about.

This follows the same rules as a “sucks” site. You do not want to give the company you’re complaining about any legal advantage at all. Having a company title contained within your domain name or blog title that doesn’t belong to you legally can potentially bite you back later. The best way around this is to just use an alternative title and have the description (keyword there) to contain the company you want to complain about. So instead of [companyname]sucks.com, use [somethingelse].info. Here’s a tip: Use the company colors in the name. If the company logo has red and white in it, register something like anti-red-white.info with the site description as “A place to list grievances about [company name].”

Accept no money on your site.

Something I’ve seen all too often is that people who have “sucks” sites (and the like) will put up a “donations” link. BAD. Don’t do that. It means you’re accepting money by using another company’s name as a way to get it. BAD, BAD, BAD. There’s lots of free blog sites, domain registrations are less than fifteen dollars a year and there are tons of web hosts who will host your site for thirty dollars a year or less.

As far as I’m concerned, forty-five dollars a year is just for any cause, including having a site to complain about work. If you can’t afford less than fifty bucks a year, get a free blog instead.

“But bandwidth costs a lot!” No it doesn’t. If your site is strictly informatory (which it should be), post no images at all. Make your site completely text based. Text is tiny in file size and easy to manage. If you absolutely have to have images, consider hosting them elsewhere like Flickr, Yahoo! Photos or some other free place and just link from the text that you post on your main site. Bear in mind that blog sites will host your images also - just remember to keep the file size down. Always remember that your TEXT is the most important part of your blog. Without text you have nothing.

Do not sell anything on your site.

I’ve seen some instances where those who have the complainer sites will make a freebie cafepress.com store and sell t-shirts, hats and so on with the domain name in the title. BAD. Repeat: BAD. Sell nothing. Do not take the company you’re complaining about and turn it into commercial enterprise of any kind.

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PHP carry values from checkboxes how-to

12/16/2005

For the last couple of days I’ve been working on this monster PHP form for my biz site. It’s definitely the biggest form I’ve ever done and it’s taken a lot of programming. So far it’s almost 30k just in code alone without any design like GIF’s and JPG’s and so on.

The form is simple in nature. It’s a multi-page thing that carries values from one part to the next all contained within one file.

A big obstacle (for me) was getting all checkbox values there were checked in the PHP form to carry from one part of the form to the next. Absolutely nowhere on the internet were any SIMPLE instructions on how to do it, so I did a lot of reading and found a way to make it simple. The answer was to put the values into an array and then implode it on destination, like this:

<html>
<head>
<title>the form</title>
</head>
<body>

<?php
$page = ("$PHP_SELF");
if ($step == "") {
echo("
<form method=\"post\" action=\"$page?step=2\">
<input type=\"checkbox\" name=\"choices[]\" value=\"Choice A\">
 Choice A<br>
<input type=\"checkbox\" name=\"choices[]\" value=\"Choice B\">
 Choice B<br>
<input type=\"checkbox\" name=\"choices[]\" value=\"Choice C\">
 Choice C<br>
<input type=\"submit\" name=\"Submit\" value=\"Submit\">
</form>
");

} elseif ($step == "2") {

if ($choices == "") {
echo ("You didn’t make a choice. Please <a href=\"javascript:history.go(-1)\">go back</a> and make a choice.");
echo("\n</body>\n</html>");
exit;
}

$getchoices = implode(", ", $choices);
$choices = ("$getchoices");

echo ("You chose $choices");

} else {

}

?>

</body>
</html>

The [] for the name on input puts the values into an array. Implode takes the values of the array and separates the ones selected by commas and ta-da, you got it.

I’m posting this process here just in case I ever forget how to do it and need a reference. ;-)

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dot museum

12/17/2005

smithsonian-dot-museum.jpg

This is something I completely forgot about and you’d probably know nothing about it either unless you read it here: dot museum. It does exist. See the pic above? Look at the address bar; that’s the real domain name, http://smithsonian.museum.

Want to see all the dot museum’s that exist? Check out http://index.museum, there’s quite a few of them. If you go there, only pick the ones with asterisks (*) next to them; those are the only ones with links that go somewhere. Unfortunately, most of the links don’t work. Seems that the dot museum TLD isn’t a really big hit. I was kinda ticked off that none of the Boston Museum links worked. But other links do work.

If your bored and need to kill some time, check it out. If anything, go to the Smithsonian site. It’s a very well done site and extremely informative. Heck, even the color scheme is amazing.

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Inspiration found?

12/17/2005

As I was digging through one of my moving totes unpacking my crap, I found my USB memory stick that contains my unfinished screenplay on it. It felt good to find that. It sent a little reminder to me You know, this may be your ticket… Hopefully I will get off my dead butt and just finish the darn thing.

I have been spending a lot of time holed up in my bedroom just click-clacking away on my laptop. I’ve done a lot of work on my biz site and I should have that ready for launch soon. Now that I’ve found my screenplay I also have something else to work on as well.

A few more notes on my whole site moving thing (yes I know I’ve wrote about that a lot, but that’s what I feel like writing about right now so I’m a-gonna do it).

I find myself much more at peace having a site that absolutely none of my friends know about. It has definitely taken off a lot of stress. On my old site I would sometimes feel pressure to the tune of I wonder what my friends will think of this? I know, that’s bad. And yes it did influence my writing. When you write you should write for you, not for someone else.

I’ve also noticed that in some instances I’m going back to the old way I used to write, which is ranty and nerdy. Either I’m ranting about something or I’m explaining in grotesque detail something computer related. I like that stuff, what can I say. The only thing that’s changed is that when I do the computer writing crap I’m much more open about it. Sometimes I get really “techy”, even to the point where a few readers would say something like I have absolutely no clue what this guy is talking about - and that’s okay. There is some stuff here that only computer people would understand.

Off to do laundry, then it’s either work on the biz site or (gasp) tackle the screenplay. Or sleep. ;-)

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Presiding over my kingdom

12/18/2005

I’m writing this entry from “the throne” as my mother used to say. It amazes me how many different terms there are for a toilet. Throne, can, pot, loo, bathroom, restroom, washroom, etc. There’s probably more. My personal favorite is “being indisposed”, meaning the act of going to the bathroom. Always liked that one. To note, there are no wires going to my throne. I’m using wireless ‘net on a laptop.

I did not work at all on my screenplay last night, but I did do a little work on the biz site. At this point I’m debating whether to use traditional Dreamweaver templates (only because it’s faster and easier) or whether to use 100% PHP throughout. I’m leaning towards PHP. While it may be a severe pain in the rump to get started, it’s much easier to maintain in the long run (that’s the whole reason why you do it in the first place).

If I do PHP, the URL’s are going to look something like http://web_site.com/?page=home for just about all of them. This way I can just write a little text file for whatever page I want to appear, and voila, there it is.

Earlier this evening I watched Madagascar on DVD. While I think the animation was stellar, the story was a bit weak in some spots. Melman didn’t have enough lines either. I know why, it’s because his character is very limited to what he can do. The movie also goes on the assumption that you already know that lions eat zebras in the wild. I knew this, but I’m wondering if the majority of the audience out there knew that. Personally speaking I think the small show A Christmas Caper (it’s on the DVD, you don’t have to buy it separately) was better than the actual movie itself. The story was solid and the crazy things the penguins do just seem much more believable.. at least I think so.

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More biz site goodness

12/20/2005

I’ve finally decided on a template for my biz site but it’s been the whole “How do I deliver the content” that’s been racking my brain for the past few nights. I decided to go with tried-and-true PHP includes. Originally I was going to have everything be dynamic, but I find that it’s just easier to have web pages that contain some static stuff and some dynamic (”included”) stuff.

I am also debating whether to spend any money promoting the site. I may or may not do this because the search engines will more than do the job for me in a relatively short period of time.

My secret to good search engine results/rankings isn’t anything all that secret. Here’s what I do (and it works):

Purposely write crappy code

My web pages have no HTML declarations, they never validate, I routinely omit putting quotes around certain things that should have quotes around them and so on. More or less I write web pages the same way they were done back in the late 90’s, save for the fact they look modern because I use CSS. I have found that my pages get crawled quicker and indexed faster by writing them my way instead of the proper way.

Meta keywords/description

The question remains enternal: “Do META tags really work?” The answer is yes, they do. All you have to do is follow a few simple rules. Keep them less than fifteen words in length. Make the words relevant to the content on the web page. Try avoiding words like “and”, “or”, “the” and so on. That’s basically it.

Pseudo-static web pages

All my web pages on my biz site (but not here since I use .php) end in .html, but I add a little thing to my .htaccess to make them parse as PHP files.

AddType application/x-httpd-php .html

That’s it. All my .html files will parse as PHP. This means I can treat them exactly like .php web pages and put includes and whatever other PHP code I want in them. Having web pages end in .html gives off the appearance of static web pages. In my experience they get crawled/indexed faster than other file extensions like php, asp and shtml.

Keep all web pages in root directory

When I first started doing a biz site, I would have the home page URL as http://www.web_site.com and the contact page as something like http://www.web_site.com/contact/ because it looked more professional, but the fact of the matter is that no one cares, and having a ton of subdirectories is a pain in the rump to maintain, so, I keep all web pages in the root directory. Images and other things go elsewhere.

Give it time

For some strange reason (even today), people expect super-awesome search results instantly. That simply isn’t true. You have to give the engines time to catch up to your site. If your pages are done properly it will only take a month. Maybe two.

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Who knew spam could educate you?

12/22/2005

I received a spam today with the subject:

pulchritudinous Wild young grand schoolgirls doing aesthetical oldmans

What caught me was the word “pulchritudinous”. Is this a real word? I said to myself, so I looked it up. Yes, it is a real word. I’ll have to find some way to use it in general conversation with someone to make myself sound ultra-smart.

That tree. It looks so… pulchritudinous.

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‘Tis the season for giving

12/22/2005

My Christmas present this year is a Garmin StreetPilot c340 from Pop (thank you Pop), but this is not my first Garmin Mobile GPS. Since it was introduced I’ve been using the Garmin StreetPilot i3 which I’ll be giving to my sister since I won’t be using it any longer.

(Incidentally, Pop bought himself the Garmin StreetPilot 2720. Holy moly is that thing nice. If I get the chance to use that thing I’ll be sure to write about it.)

So this begs the question(s): Why the c340? What’s wrong with the i3? I’ll answer that as best I can.

As I said a second ago, I’ve been using the i3 since it was introduced to the market.

Here are the things I liked about the i3:

Rock solid reliable

Always turns on and has never failed. Contrary to some message boards I’ve read that Garmin GPS‘ have a problem getting a signal - that is absolutely false. (If any of those message board guys read this, we’re not talking about the 2610, okay?) I have never, ever had a problem getting a signal with the i3. As a matter of fact, the only time I’ve ever lost a signal is when I went through a tunnel that went through a mountain. So if anyone tells you that Garmin GPS‘ have a problem acquiring signal, take it from me, it doesn’t. It does work.

Unfortunately from experience I can say that I’ve dropped the i3 on the ground a few times (taking it to/from different vehicles), but the fortunate part is that it has never broken. It can definitely take a beating.

I have also used the unit in both extreme heat and extreme cold. It’s never complained - and the display always looks the same. The display never needs to “warm up”, it’s instant-on and stays that way which is good.

Great display

The i3’s display is great. Even though it’s small, it can be clearly read and the brightness and day/night options can all be changed to personal preference.

“Favorites”

I really like the fact you can “bookmark” anything, even while driving. Just hold the center wheel button whereever you are and it will respond with a beep and save the waypoint - even if it’s in navigation mode. Nice.

And here are the things I didn’t like about the i3:

Plate mount sucks

The i3 comes bundled with a small black plate which you can stick to your dashboard and then using the suction mount to mount the unit. You also can opt to just mount the i3 on the glass instead of using the plate mount.

If you mount the i3 on any piece of glass (like a windshield), it will stay there.

If you mount the i3 on the plate mount it will fall off from time to time - and it’s very annoying. The plate mount itself won’t un-stick itself, but the i3 will periodically take a dive to the floor. It doesn’t hurt it at all, but while driving in navigation mode it can just ruin your day or at least ruin your trip. I’ve found that the “secret” to getting the i3 to stay on that mount is to wet the suction mount on the i3 itself and wet the mount before mounting it (such as with a damp cloth or paper towel).

You cannot change the information on the bottom

In “regular” mode, there are two small fields at the bottom display. On the left is how fast you’re going (in mph or kph) and on the right is what direction you’re traveling in (North, South, East, West or variant like Northeast, etc.)

In “navigation” mode, the fields are different. On one side is your estimated time of arrival to your destination, the other is how many miles (or km’s) until your next turn.

You can’t modify any of these. What you see is what you get.

On the handheld Rino 130 by Garmin you have four fields and you can change all of them to read whatever you want them to. The i3? Can’t change a thing. I don’t like that.

What town am I in?

The i3 will tell you how to get anywhere, obviously. That’s what it’s for. But it would be really nice if it would tell you where you currently are. I’d love it if you could modify the top of the display to read “Now entering (whatever town you’re entering)” when entering a town and then simply read “(town and state)” when in that town/state. That would be nice. It shows everything else like roads, streets and highways. Why not the town and state? How hard would this be to implement, seriously?

Even better: The top could alternate (while not in navigation mode) between what road you’re traveling on (which it already does) and what town/state you’re in every five seconds. That would kick major ass.

Wheel troubles

Before I go off on this one: There is nothing wrong with the scroll wheel on the i3. It’s always worked as expected.

My biggest gripe about the wheel on the i3 is spelling anything using it. It just takes a really long time. I understand there is no other way to do it with a unit this size - but it’s still time consuming.

Other than that it works fine.

Tiny bit too small

As I’ve said from the first time I wrote about the i3, it’s just a little bit too small. If they added just twenty extra pixels on the display it would be perfect.

In day driving the display is fine. It’s only at night when the small size bothers me. I have no real explanation for why this is other than I notice it and the extra size would help.

–

This leads me to my reason for wanting a c340: Size.

I can deal with the i3’s fudgy plate mount, lack of modifying fields on the display and the annoying-but-necessary wheel - but a larger display is definitely in order; that’s why I’m getting the c340.

The c340 also has touch-screen (no wheels save for volume control) so making input is much easier. There are also some additional features like coming preloaded with the entire USA, Canada and Puerto Rico maps - very nice.

Some notes on data storage in the i3:

In the i3 I had to upgrade the TransFlash card from the existing SanDisk 128MB to SanDisk 256MB because I needed to input a ton of areas into it. At one point I was travling from Maine to Indiana which is a large distance (over 1000 miles). The 128MB card would hold almost all the data I needed in there, but just fell short by a tiny bit. Seriously, it was close. A 256MB TransFlash card bought at Circuit City fixed that problem and it wasn’t too expensive.

The i3 will take other data storage cards and I’m assuming it will take a 1GB card, BUT… bear in mind you are taxing its processor with the more data you input into it. When I plotted a trip from Maine to Indiana, the i3 “thought” about it for almost forty-five seconds - and that’s a long time for the i3 (it will usually calculate a route in less than ten seconds).

When you load in a new TransFlash card to the i3 it does not lose it’s Favorites so you don’t have to program them in all over again - but you do have to load in the map data via DVD to the new card (obviously). My i3 very happily accepted the new card and the data transfer to it was easy; just plug in USB, pop in the DVD and off you go.

The c340 also has text-to-speech which is cool. While the i3 would say (in navigation mode) “In one mile turn left”, the c340 says “In one mile turn left on Center Street“. Nice. Not exactly necessary but nice nonetheless. I’m sure I’ll get used to it rather quickly. (grin)

I’ll be writing a review on it once I get it which will be real soon.

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Now that’s what I call explosive growth

12/22/2005

The Internet is growing at an annualized rate of 18% and now has one billion users. A second billion users will follow in the next ten years, bringing a dramatic change in worldwide usability needs. -useit.com

Impressive. I happen to be one of those internet users that’s been online for almost over ten years and remember when the ‘net wasn’t anywhere near that mark.

Tt’s difficult to imagine one billion people. To put this in perspective, the State of Connecticut roughly has 3.5 million people living in it. A billion is just… a huge number. Colossal.

I miss the ‘net days when it was “for geeks” as is stated in the article referenced above. I liked the whole “newness” of it back then and the fact that a lot of people didn’t know about it. It was like a condensed worldwide community, only open to people who were willing to pay $29.95 a month for dial-up access (which I did) and college students. Anything over 56k speeds was a huge priviledge and very expensive.

Now fast internet is all but free. I think in the next ten years it will become free. In more than a few towns across the USA there is freely accessible wi-fi paid for by tax dollars (I know that’s technically not “free”, but you know what I mean). Heck, even some of the larger truck stops right now have free wi-fi. It’s all just really amazing.

I wonder what the internet will be like in another ten years.

Will there be any more “sites” as we know it, or will dot-coms go by the wayside in favor of words separated by dots like industrial.light.and.magic?

Will cars all be outfitted with ‘net connectivity? Many cars have optional GPS (which I predict will be a standard option on all cars by 2010) right now. How long will it take before ‘net connectivity is put in there?

Here’s something to bear in mind concerning the whole communications thing.

Ten years ago in 1995 if you told me:

* All new cell phones will have the option of browsing the internet.

* A Global Positioning System unit the size of a baseball, with no external antennas, will be able to navigate you anywhere in America running on 2 AA batteries, and will be freely available to purchase at your local electronics retailer.

* Long distance will cease to exist in the USA (think of Vonage and wireless phone providers)

* Internet will be freely available just by taking a laptop to a wi-fi spot allowing you to instantly get internet connectivity.

* Your bank will be 100% online enabled and you will probably never have to set foot inside there if you don’t want to.

* Your credit card(s) will also have the same capability.

* Brand new computers will be available for under $300.

* Motherboards will be developed that will fit in the palm of your hand easily.

* A data card will be developed that is smaller than your fingernail and can hold almost 700 3.5″ floppy disks worth of information - with no moving parts.

…I would have called you nuts. Yet, it all exists and more innovations continue to be developed.

I’m hoping all this new tech will bring the world closer together. It seems to be thus far.

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