Category: computing

Everyone has an opinion on what Google’s acquisition of Blogger means. I’ve read a lot of them. So far, there have been some interesting theories about what Google wants out of Blogger. Wired’s theory of the links is a good one, but why would Google buy Blogger when it already does links? Its whole search algorithm is based on links and volume. Having direct access to the posts would make indexing a little faster, but it means they’ll have to build something brand new to interface with Blogger’s backend, or migrate Blogger’s backend to a new system.

I think everyone’s missing the point. Google already has access to all the links it will ever need. It indexes millions of pages a day and does a pretty good job of it. Adding slightly faster indexing of a couple hundred thousand blogs won’t make them any money (to recoup whatever they paid Evan). So, what do I think they’re going to do? How does Google make money now? They sell services. I think the bulk of their cash comes from selling their search services to companies like AOL (and others). They then give AOL (and others) money to display their sponsored links on their search products, which people pay Google for. They’re in the service business now. What does that mean for Blogger? It means Google probably already has a good idea for how to package Blogger’s product up into XML feeds and XML-RPC calls to sell to other companies. Of course, this is just a theory – I swear. If I actually had any insider knowledge about Google’s plans, I wouldn’t be sharing them here.

Good theory, no?

Ultranormal is coming!! I started on this today while waiting around for stuff to do (shhh, don’t tell), and am unbelievably happy with it. It still needs some work, and then I need to templify it, but overall, I really like it. I especially like the javascript includes to get the posts from Geekout and Photos on the page. Look ma, no server side scripting! It’s a simple Movable Type template to create the script and then one line to put it on the page. Sweet, huh?

There are a couple problem spots. I don’t like the font color on the menu headings. It looks disabled. I just can’t decide what color to replace it with. Also, the missing borders on the left side of the menu and photos list will go away once this is live – my posts are almost always long enough to cover up the menu, and the menu will have more links in it when it’s done.

Oh, and the font I used for the logo is called AIFragment (because I forgot which one I used halfway through it and had to frantically go back and hunt it down). And, I don’t know what it is about me and orange, but I like it.

I loved the old Geekery. It was butt ugly. Last night and (just a little) today, I put the done-enough-to-show-it touches on the new place for my wild Geek Ramblings: Geekout!

Let me know what you think. I’m gonna try to find the tutorial and tip things I posted here and copy them over. It’s all Movable Type-errific, so it should be much easier to update (ok, it means I’ll probably update it – static HTML is pretty easy too).

Oh yes, you had to know it was coming. Want to run JSP’s or other cool Apache add-ons on your swanky OS X machine? Oh, you say it’s a pain in the butt? Yes, it was. Now you can go get the Complete Apache2 from serverlogistics.com and throw those worries out the window. They have packages for PHP, mod_perl and JSP. Now, I’m not terribly familiar with Apache, but I’ve loved having it on my Powerbook as a platform for playing with Movable Type. Being able to run a servlet engine on it makes OS X just about perfect, don’t you think?

I used to have a copy of KPT 3.0 that had this wonderful thing called Seamless Tile Creator in it. The thing no longer works in PhotoShop, and I haven’t made a seamless tile in ages. Well, today, I made my first two seamless tiles in almost four years today thanks to this great howto. Worked like a charm.

I feel guilty. I just unsubscribed from the YellowDog Linux Listserv. I know! What’s wrong with me? The group is extremely active, helpful and all around cool. I just don’t use YellowDog anymore, and haven’t for quite a while. They’re a great group for general linux tips and will even help (without flaming) when folks ask OS X questions. Why did I leave? I just felt it was time to move on. I loved YellowDog when I used it, but now that I don’t have a machine that can run it, and since I’ve fallen in love with OS X, I’ve actually lost my desire to run it. I run RedHat 8 on one of my office PC’s, and well, that’s linux enough for me. Not because it’s better than YellowDog, just because it runs on the platform I have to run it on. I also just haven’t been reading it lately. It comes in, I’ll look at the titles, and for the past month or so, I just haven’t read it.

I feel so guilty.

I don’t talk about a lot of things on this site. I’m sure that if I did talk about some of this stuff, I would be a much more popular blogger. I self-censor constantly. I’ve only ever written something unpleasant about someone at work once where that person might be able to recognize themselves (and if they don’t, I’m sure the people that know him would).

So, here’s a list of the things I probably won’t ever ever talk about on this site:

• Embarrassing or mean things about my family members and friends. I’m fair game. They’re not. I offend them enough in person to do it for the world to see.

• Embarrassing or mean things about co-workers. First, I don’t want to get fired. Second, I offend them enough in person.

• Stupid thing my company does. Again, I would like to keep my job.

That leaves a whole rich palette of things to talk about untouched. It leaves me opinions about stuff (which I’ve been sharing freely the last couple days), cool stuff, stuff I did, cute family stories, geek stuff and… oh yeah, stuff pretty much covers it. Now, the people who talk about the stuff listed above are brave. Maybe not thinking it all the way through, but brave nonetheless. People have been fired, broken up over, lost friends, etc over things said in blogs. Now, if I lose a friend for an opinion, I can live with that. If you don’t like what I think, and can’t handle the thought that I might have different opinions from you, then you’re probably not my friend to begin with. I’m doing my level best not to rag on people or embarrass anyone other than myself. If I’ve failed, I’m sorry. Really I am.

Do you use multiple computers? Are they all running different OS’es? Do you use different text editors on each one? Does that piss you off? You’re in luck, my friend!! Go download jEdit today. It’s a full-functioned text editor written in Java and delivered as an executable jar file. So, any platform that can run Java can run jEdit. Problem of the text editor collection – SOLVED!! It also has an impressive array of plug-ins which are awesome. Go get the latest stable build and check it out. You’ll love it.

I’m feeling better today. No more whining today. I’m playing with using Tcl around Movable Type and it’s a lot of fun. I wrote a little template that spits all the categories and entries into a tcl array, where things can then be sorted, goofed with, etc. Since everything is in MySQL, I could just go right to the db, but I can never get the MySQL driver to build right on my Linux box. I know I’m kind of wasting my time because I’ll never ever find a hosting company that doesn’t charge an arm and a leg to run AOLserver, but it’s a nice diversion.

For example, I don’t like how Movable Type’s MTEntryNext and MTEntryPrevious work. I usually only want to go back and forth within a category, not through the whole site. You also can’t re-sort by field or ascend/descend like you can with MTEntries (which means your next/prev are out of order if you sort any other way than the default). I’ve already posted it to the Request a New Feature board (although I think it’s a minor minor bug).

I’ve done all kinds of stuff today. I wrote documents, finished up a project, put off starting a new one, ate a salad, drank a gallon of water and wrote up my goals for the first quarter:

• I will write more code than documents this quarter.

• I will mourn Steve Case’s resignation quietly and keep my grief to myself. I will no longer start sobbing in meetings and crying out, “Oh, STEVE!!!! WHY DID YOU LEAVE US?!!”

• I will stop laughing when I hear the word “functionality”.

• In the interest of cost savings, I will institute a toilet paper rationing program. I will personally set an example by using no more than four sheets per visit to the little boys’ room.

• I will stop putting rude comments in my code.

• No more easter eggs (I swear, there haven’t been ANY in anything y’all might have seen).

• Instead of wasting company time walking all the way to the bathroom, I will install one in my office.

• I will stop referring to my co-workers as Squeaky McSoggypants