Nicholas Lemann, in a story on blogging and citizen journalism in the August 7 issue of The New Yorker: [N]ew media in their fresh youth [produce] a distinctive, hot-tempered rhetorical style. …transformative in their capabilities…a mass medium with a short lead time — cheap…and easily accessible to people of all classes and political inclinations. And […] » about 400 words
I awoke this morning to a bit of a mess. After enjoying months of spam-free bliss thanks to Akismet, I found over a hundred spam comments for pills and free pictures to suit most any need or desire. Spam has snuck through before, but never in this volume, and Akismet has always been quick to […] » about 300 words
I got itchy about magic quotes the other day because it’s the cause (through a fairly long cascade of errors) of some performance problems and runaways I’ve been seeing lately (pictured above). But I deserve most of the blame for allowing a query like this to run at all: SELECT type, data, count(*) AS hits […] » about 300 words
Sometime ago I started work on figuring out how to get dial up networking (DUN) access via my Treo 650. Now I’m getting serious about mobile internet access and looking at this again. The plan is that you should be able to make a Bluetooth connection between your laptop and the phone and then get […] » about 500 words
Somewhere in the WordPress code extra slashes are being added to my query terms.
I’ve turned GPC magic quotes off via a php_value magic_quotes_gpc 0 directive in the .htaccess file (we have far too much legacy code that nobody wants to touch to turn it off site-wide). And I know my code is doing one run of addslashes(), but where are the other two sets of slashes coming from?
In another sign of the arrival of the stupendous, i.e. that the internet is changing our world, Engadget some time ago reported on the SellSmart Knockbox real estate selling dohicky. What is a KNOCKBOX? A KNOCKBOX is a sleek, self-contained appliance that is placed unobtrusively inside your home for sale. It contains a photographic tour, […] » about 300 words
The much anticipated Novatel V640 Express Card EVDO adapter is out. Verizon is pimping them for $180 with 2 year contract and GearLog says it’s “almost too easy” to use these goodies with the MacBook Pros. Then GearLog reader Brad commented: “If you had to install a driver, I wouldn’t say it was the true […] » about 300 words
My Graphire Bluetooth tablet arrived last week as a bundled treat with some Adobe software I needed. Why do I need a tablet, especially as my days as a graphic designer are a distant memory? I don’t…at least not now. But somewhere on the long tail my um, unique, style of portraiture (above) will come […] » about 200 words
There's 173 programs proposed for <a href="http://2007.sxsw.com/interactive/">SXSW Interactive</a>, March 9-13 2007. Go vote for the ones you most want to see at Lindsey Simon's <a href="http://2007.sxsw.com/interactive/panel_picker/">super cool picker</a>. Round one voting is going now. (Also note the really good use of semantic markup in the <a href="http://2007.sxsw.com/interactive/panel_picker/panels.php?mode=html">HTML download version</a> (which I'm embarrassed to have sullied a bit in this representation).) » about 19800 words
I <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/maisonbisson/201844037/">found this photo</a> at <a href="http://www.joe-ks.com/archives_sep2005/MennoniteMath.htm" title="Mennonite Longhand Math">joe-ks.com</a>. The title there is “Mennonite longhand math,” but can anybody identify the source or context? Can anybody work out the equation on the board? I've convinced my friend <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/maisonbisson/53151695/">Will</a>, who teaches math and physics, to pose for a shot like this, but that means we'll have find and fill a huge chalkboard...and he'll have to grow his beard back. » about 100 words
I was amused this week to see two examples of workflow getting sexy. That’s not how the developers describe their efforts, but the departure from old groupware notions is clear.
In daring defiance of Zawinski’s proclamation, Jeffrey McManus, with Approver.com, and Karen Greenwood Henke, with Nimble Net (as reported yesterday), are tackling workflow and approval processes.
Combine the increasing numbers of people who are self employed or working in very small businesses that can’t afford those old enterprise groupware “solutions” (but who nonetheless have to get a job done) with the combination of luck, pluck and smarts these two seem to have applied to the challenge, and there’s a chance these new products — groupware 2.0 — might have legs.
Still not sure how Approver.com will get somebody laid (the true definition of social software)? I’m just waiting for somebody to submit for approval a document titled “proposal for licentious relationship including sex and other carnal acts.” With tools so easy to use, and a willing approver, how could it go wrong?
Way too many people are processing grant applications on paper. They spend a lot of time moving paper around and they don’t know much about who’s applying until after the deadline. That’s why we built Nimble Net. Karen Greenwood Henke’s been working the world of grants and grantwriting for years. Her site grantwrangler.com, and the […] » about 200 words
Woot! WordCamp kickoff party at Taylor’s Automatic Refresher (no doubt selected in part because homophone to Automattic), at the ferry Building.
But does it make up for missing Wikimania, the LibraryThing Bar-b-Que-Thing, and Napoleon Dynamite night at The Twig?
Wikimania is about to start, but here, the ever-topical Onion folk are poking fun at Wikipedia. What is there to say when “America’s finest news source” casts aspersions on the world’s newest encyclopedia with the headline Wikipedia Celebrates 750 Years Of American Independence? Extra: watch out for Meredith Farkas‘ panel presentation on wikis and enabling […] » about 100 words
I really need to keep better tabs on Michael Fagan, as his June 11 OpenSearch Update is full of goodies.
Quite a while ago now, stepinrazor asked people to do some self-censorhip in a post in the Flickr Ideas forum. FlyButtafly quickly joined the discussion, noting that she’d encountered some material she found offensive in pictures from other Flickr members: “as I’m going through the pictures, one shows up of a protestor holding a sign […] » about 1300 words
I just got a heads up on an Advertising Age story that Wal-Mart is trying to be MySpace (and, yeah, I aped their headline, too). Here’s the lead: It’s a quasi-social-networking site for teens designed to allow them to “express their individuality,” yet it screens all content, tells parents their kids have joined and forbids […] » about 200 words
Matt Mullenweg announced WordCamp in San Francisco, then ten days later Abby announced the LibraryThing cookout in Portland (Maine). Both are set for August 5. The LibraryThing event promises free burgers and potato salad, while WordCamp attendees will enjoy both free BBQ and free t-shirts. I’d like to go to both, but rather than have to make some decision about which one I’d most like to go to, I’m leaning on the fact that I’d already bought my flight to SFO when the LT event was announced.
Anyway, it’s casual Friday here, so this post is really just an excuse to (again) link to the funniest BBQ-related video I’ve seen in a while.
As noted here, I’m going to WordCamp in SFO in early August.
Matt describes it as a BarCamp-style event (where “’BarCamp-style’ is a code phrase for ‘last minute’”) with “a full day of both user and developer discussion.” I’m just going for the free t-shirt, of course, but I can imagine a number of folks will get a good value out of the sessions and discussions that will likely run, especially all the developer stuff.
Also, if you’ve got some suggestions about what else I should be doing in San Fran, leave a comment or contact me with any suggestions.
Contentsbsuite FeaturesFixed/Changed/AddedInstallationUpgradingCommandsOptionsTag SupportUsing bsuite FunctionsKnown BugsUpdate: bugfix release b2v7 available. It’s been a while since I released a new version of bsuite, my multi-purpose WordPress plugin. I’d been hoping to finish up a series of new features, but those have been delayed and this is mostly just a collection of bugfixes. This update is recommended […] » about 500 words
WPopac, a project I started on my nights and weekends, is now officially one of my day-job projects too. We’ve been using our WPopac-based catalog as a prototype since February 2006, but the change not only allocates a portion of my work time specifically to the development of the project, but also reflects the library‘s […] » about 200 words
Wearing the badge “still beta,” Plazes, the free, network-based geolocation service, now sports a new coat of paint. Among the improvements is the Flash-based badge (above) and a much improved frontpage/dashboard that combines the map of known locations with the map of active users, formerly two separate screens. On the downside, I sort of miss […] » about 300 words
It’s hard to be angry with Flickr about unexpected downtime when they post funny things like this. For my part, this is more than just an excuse to link to DJ Ted Stevens’ Internet Song (yeah, “the internet is a series of tubes”), it’s an excuse to point out how Flickr apparently knows how to […] » about 100 words
I’m honored to join Katie Bauer, of Yale University Library, in a program coordinated by Mary Jane Kelsey, of Yale Law’s Lillian Goldman Library. The full title of our program is Technology Scouts: how to keep your library and ILS current in the IT world (H-4, 4PM Tuesday, room 274). My portion of the presentation […] » about 300 words
Engadget alerted me to this GPS data logger from Spark Fun Electronics.
The device records up to 440 hours of data to a 256MB SD card in either a simple text file or KML-compatible format that you can display in Google Earth.
I like it, I want one (actually, I want three, and I’ll eventually post about why), but the ad copy tweaked me a bit:
Pull the SD card, insert it into a card reader, […] and wammo–you can see what Casey did over lunch with a satellite image overlay. Take a look at the example screen shot. You can see what lane Casey was in! When he stopped at the light, his data points piled up. Fancy. Real fancy. Speed is also datalogged – it’s like Big Brother in the palm of your hand…
