Tuesday, August 31, 2004

CSS Reference

css directory : Good Reference

Write Firefox extensions

www.roachfiend.com uses bug-me-not as an example

Everyone has a good idea at one time or another to implement a new feature in a web browser. Well, with the goodness that is Mozilla Firefox, now you can do just that. You need to have a vague understanding of XUL and Javascript, but you certainly don't need to be a master of either. When I started, I knew nothing about either one, really. I had seen some bookmarklets here and there, and tried to figure out just how they worked. Well, that's how I made my first extension, BugMeNot.

How to Fold a Shirt

How to Fold a Shirt - Cool

Monday, August 30, 2004

Molecular Model Kit(s)

Indigo Instruments sells these good educational kits

Nutrition Facts for Computer Games

Wonderland has an interesting rating of computer games

.. the problem of games being perceived as a 'waste of time'.
The research I'm working on at the moment (I'm investigating as to whether we can publish it later on..) has bubbled up this paradox of "play" being seen as a fundamental good, and of high value, and "games" as frivolous and time-wasting, therefore of low value.

Why would this be?

GmailFS - Gmail Filesystem

Richard Jones has done it. I've been thinking about this lately ...and thought this is feasible

GmailFS provides a mountable Linux filesystem which uses your Gmail account as its storage medium. GmailFS is a Python application and uses the FUSE userland filesystem infrastructure to help provide the filesystem, and libgmail to communicate with Gmail.

GmailFS supports most file operations such as read, write, open, close, stat, symlink, link, unlink, truncate and rename. This means that you can use all your favourite unix command line tools to operate on files stored on Gmail (e.g. cp, ls, mv, rm, ln, grep etc. etc.).

Please be gentle on the Python code. This is my first foray into Python and I'm sure the code is far from elegant. I'm particularly concerned with my attempts to manipulate mutable byte arrays in Python. I'm sure that there must be a less clumsy way of doing it than the nasty list -> array -> string path I'm currently using. Python has a reputation as an excellent language choice for rapid prototyping. The first working version of GmailFS took about 2 days of coding. There was an additional 1.5 days spent on performance tuning and bugfixing. Given that this includes language learning curve, Python's reputation seems well deserved. A special mention should go to libgmail and FUSE, both greatly contributed to the short development time.

extisp.icio.us - CleverFool

extisp.icio.us - CleverFool : Thanks Kevin. The previous visualization is available for my tags too ... Hurray

 

del.icio.us visualization

Blackbeltjones shares his visualization of his del.icio.us links

 

Rough visualisation in Illustrator by multiplying font size by number of entries per tag, then placing them without much care.

My favourite apophenic archipeligo = "search situationist smarthomes strategy"

 

Sunday, August 29, 2004

Enfish - Find Anything, Anywhere, Quickly

Enfish - Find Anything, Anywhere, Quickly: Gotch ya

Too much time is wasted searching for information in too many places. This costs your company money and hurts your competitive advantage.

Enfish automatically indexes and cross-references in context, an individual’s working information (emails, attachments, documents, contacts, calendar, network folders, etc.) with corporate knowledge stored in enterprise applications. Enfish can also search portals, document management systems, and more.

Enfish allows users to find critical information fast which means they'll spend more time working on strategic business issues and less time searching for information

Information Management: PCMag Review

pcmag.com reviews all the Information Management Software(s)

 Among the programs we looked at, 80-20 Retriever does the best job of helping you deal with information overload, combining a robust e-mail and document search tool with an easily accessible and familiar interface. Retriever can be embedded in Microsoft Outlook, so starting a search is only one click away. And the program's Clustering feature makes digging through search results even easier.

Retriever offers the best overall combination of ease and power, but if you want the most flexible search tool, take a look at dtSearch Desktop. Its interface is a bit dated and difficult to navigate, but the program lets you index e-mail, files, and even Web sites. It also shows you every word indexed and does advanced searches, such as fuzzy and synonym lookups.

Scopeware Vision Professional tries to present users with a very familiar paradigm: a desktop covered with paper. Vision is reasonably easy to use, and its document thumbnails are useful for jogging your memory, but its search capabilities are ultimately too limited.

If you're willing to give your life over to a tool that can help you recall any document or message nearly instantly, Enfish Professional is worth a look. Enfish can be used as a complete mail client and contact manager, but it still suffers from stability issues and requires a lot of horsepower.

Why can't PCs just offer information related to what we're working on? That's the promise of Creo's Six Degrees, which lacks full-text indexing, lowering the application's overhead. But its suggestions aren't as helpful as they could be.

Finally, we like the promise of Idealab's soon-to-be-released Find, which searches as quickly as you type. Idealab has had to make some trade-offs to make this omnipresent yet unobtrusive application work, so there are some shortcomings, such as the inability to search by phrase.

Flash Screensaver - Create Flash Screensaver

Flash Screensaver : Sounds promising

ScreenSwift is an easy to use flash screensaver software that helps you to convert a Flash movie into an effective screensaver. You can customize display properties, settings window and the installation screen to completely re-brand your Flash screensaver.

Pay no royalities or any such thing for distribution of screensavers created using Screenswift. Screenswift is FREE for personal use and $49.95 for commercial use.

Free E-Book on English Grammar

ANSELL TRANSLATIONS presents an e-book on English Grammer. Also available as a downloadable here

ENGLISH GRAMMAR:
EXPLANATIONS AND EXERCISES
by Mary Ansell
Second edition, copyright © 2000

This book has the following features:

* All of the essential points of English grammar are covered.

* Each point of grammar is clearly explained, and is illustrated by examples.

* For every important point of grammar, one or more exercises are provided, to make it easier to learn and remember the material.

* Answers for the exercises are provided.

* A summary of the uses and formation of the English verb tenses is given for easy reference.

* Grammatically determined rules for spelling, pronunciation, and punctuation are included.

* The grammar of North American English is emphasized.

* Grammatical differences between formal and informal English are pointed out.

Wednesday, August 25, 2004

Phoenix Fire Department - Mission Statement

PHOENIX FIRE DEPARTMENT : Nice Mission Statement

" Prevent Harm, Survive, And BE NICE! "

The On-Time, On-Target Manager

The On-Time, On-Target Manager: Just finished this book. Interesting read. 

Highlights:

  • PRIORITISE: Triage Everything
    • Want To do, and have to do (YES)
    • Have to do, and want to do (YES)
    • Want to do, but don't have to do (MAYBE)
    • Dont' want to do, and don't have to do (NO)
  • PROPRIETY: The Bill Of Rights
    • Do the right thing
    • Do it for the right reasons
    • Do it with the right people
    • Do it at the right time
    • Do it in the right order
    • Do it with intensity
    • Do it for the right results
  • COMMITMENT: "I gotta wanna"
    • Commitment to God
    • Commitment to Family
    • Commitment to Priorities
    • Commitment to Propriety
    • Commitment to Purpose
    • Commitment to Ideals
    • Commitment to Goals
    • Commitment to Integrity
    • Commitment to Truth
    • Commitment to Follow-Through

 

 

Tuesday, August 24, 2004

The 15-Second Pitch

www.15secondpitch.com has an interesting value proposition/idea

 15SecondPitch.com: Market yourself in 15 Seconds

What is the 15SecondPitch™?

"So, what do you do?" It's one of the first questions people ask. Your 15SecondPitch lets you answer with confidence and get them interested in learning more. Enhance all your relationships, business and personal, by marketing yourself more effectively.

Monday, August 23, 2004

X1 - Index/Search your hard disk

X1 claims that it's software instantly searches files & email

 X1 Screen

 The search functions everybody's talking about having are already here. X1™ Search finds the content on your hard drives — in email, attachments, files, and contacts — as you type (and displays the contents instantly in 255 native formats ... even if the application is not on your PC).

In the new version of X1, you can find what you need when you need it by keyword, phrase, or Boolean logic, then save the search for future use (without replacing any of your programs or changing the way that you already work).

Don't wait for the future. Get it today ... in the latest version of X1 Search.

500 Most Commonly Used English Words

world-enlish.org has a list of 500 most commonly used English words.

Top 100
the, of, to, and, a, in, is, it, you, that, he, was, for, on, are, with, as, I, his, they, be, at, one, have, this, from, or, had, by, hot, but, some, what, there, we, can, out, other, were, all, your, when, up, use, word, how, said, an, each, she, which, do, their, time, if, will, way, about, many, then, them, would, write, like, so, these, her, long, make, thing, see, him, two, has, look, more, day, could, go, come, did, my, sound, no, most, number, who, over, know, water, than, call, first, people, may, down, side, been, now

100-200
find, any, new, work, part, take, get, place, made, live, where, after, back, little, only, round, man, year, came, show, every, good, me, give, our, under, name, very, through, just, form, much, great, think, say, help, low, line, before, turn, cause, same, mean, differ, move, right, boy, old, too, does, tell, sentence, set, three, want, air, well, also, play, small, end, put, home, read, hand, port, large, spell, add, even, land, here, must, big, high, such, follow, act, why, ask, men, change, went, light, kind, off, need, house, picture, try, us, again, animal, point, mother, world, near, build, self, earth

200-300
father, head, stand, own, page, should, country, found, answer, school, grow, study, still, learn, plant, cover, food, sun, four, thought, let, keep, eye, never, last, door, between, city, tree, cross, since, hard, start, might, story, saw, far, sea, draw, left, late, run, don't, while, press, close, night, real, life, few, stop, open, seem, together, next, white, children, begin, got, walk, example, ease, paper, often, always, music, those, both, mark, book, letter, until, mile, river, car, feet, care, second, group, carry, took, rain, eat, room, friend, began, idea, fish, mountain, north, once, base, hear, horse, cut, sure, watch, color, face, wood

300-400
main, enough, plain, girl, usual, young, ready, above, ever, red, list, though, feel, talk, bird, soon, body, dog, family, direct, pose, leave, song, measure, state, product, black, short, numeral, class, wind, question, happen, complete, ship, area, half, rock, order, fire, south, problem, piece, told, knew, pass, farm, top, whole, king, size, heard, best, hour, better, true ., during, hundred, am, remember, step, early, hold, west, ground, interest, reach, fast, five, sing, listen, six, table, travel, less, morning, ten, simple, several, vowel, toward, war, lay, against, pattern, slow, center, love, person, money, serve, appear, road, map, science, rule, govern, pull, cold, notice, voice

400-500
fall, power, town, fine, certain, fly, unit, lead, cry, dark, machine, note, wait, plan, figure, star, box, noun, field, rest, correct, able, pound, done, beauty, drive, stood, contain, front, teach, week, final, gave, green, oh, quick, develop, sleep, warm, free, minute, strong, special, mind, behind, clear, tail, produce, fact, street, inch, lot, nothing, course, stay, wheel, full, force, blue, object, decide, surface, deep, moon, island, foot, yet, busy, test, record, boat, common, gold, possible, plane, age, dry, wonder, laugh, thousand, ago, ran, check, game, shape, yes, hot, miss, brought, heat, snow, bed, bring, sit, perhaps, fill, east, weight, language, among

NUMBER27 - The Work of Jonathan J. Harris

number27.org : Interesting works from Jonathan J Harris

 

His projects are listed here

InfoGraphics of World Issues

International Networks Archive has Infographics on major world issues

  • THE GLOBAL ARMS TRADE
  • THE GLOBAL TOBACCO TRADE
  • THE GOVERNMENT GRIND
  • TRANSPORTATION TODAY
  • THE COMING WATER WARS (graphic above)
  • THE GLOBAL MOVIE BIZ

Tracking the Way We Use Language

wordcount.org : Found it thanks to gregarius.net

 
 

WordCount™ is an artistic experiment in the way we use language. It presents the 86,800 most frequently used English words, ranked in order of commonality. Each word is scaled to reflect its frequency relative to the words that precede and follow it, giving a visual barometer of relevance. The larger the word, the more we use it. The smaller the word, the more uncommon it is.

bugmenot.com : It's Back

It's back. Thank Goodness.

 

Friday, August 20, 2004

Hotmail to offer 2GB in September ?

theinquirer writes about this. Let the games begin.

 

The Omni Group - Company

The Omni Group : An Interesting Company with some cool products. Nice logo too.


Inforickshaws in India

CNN.com writes about Wheels of hope bring Internet to villagers


 

Xten.com - Videophone for IP Telephony

Xten.com announces beta program for its EyeBeam application

Xten's long awaited Voice and Video SIP softphone application is now in Beta with production software expected in the late Summer of 2004.

Cable Operators and Carriers can now co-brand, private label or integrate eyeBeam functionality via the eyeBeam SDK. eyeBeam provides maximum flexibility for carriers, cable operators and service providers.

 

    *  Video Conferencing [H.263 & H.264]
    * Instant Messenger and Presence
    * New Sliding Panel Design
    * Acoustic Echo Cancellation
    * NAT Traversal using STUN and ICE
    * Message Waiting Indicator
    * Encryption: TLS and S/MIME & SRTP
    * CDMA Compatibility

Thursday, August 19, 2004

Doing their mite for Madras

The Hindu writes about Three Men attempting make make "stop complaining and do something"

Three men, who call themselves catalysts in changing the face of Chennai, say it is time to stop criticising the lack of basic amenities and start making the city lovable.

"It could be just cleaning a statue in your area and taking pictures near it," said Vincent D Souza, the editor of Mylapore Times, who initiated the revival of Mylapore.

Beginning Sunday, Chennai's residents will for a week contribute in little ways to make the city a more beautiful place. The three -- historian S. Muthiah, D Souza, and Sashi Nair, a journalist -- have been urging public relations agencies, children, corporate houses, artists and Chennai Corporation to participate in Madras Day, the first of its kind to be held in Chennai.

According to records, two Englishmen and an Indian arrived at a beach close to the present Fort St. George sometime in July-August, 1639. The British bought a small piece of land across the sands and soon Madras was born. The city is home to one of the oldest medical and engineering colleges and Corporation, but "we may live here but we continue to refer to some other place as home," said Mr. Muthiah. "There are no monuments for Francis Day, the British trader, Beri Thimmanna, his translator and Andrew Cogan (Day's superior) who are the city's founding fathers", he said.

The venue for the August 22 Madras Day celebrations is Rajaji Hall. The day will begin with a heritage walk around the fort. There will be a photo exhibition on life in Madras and of models and charts by students of various schools on the landmarks of the city. A quiz on Madras in Tamil and English will be held.

In the evening, Corporation officials will participate and give away prizes. On the same day, artists will compete to bring to life buildings along Beach road. Children can participate in `Map Your Neighbourhood' workshop. From Monday, talks will be held by the Madras Book Club, the Madras Naturalists' Society and at Amethyst on cinema, history, heritage and flora and fauna of the city. INTACH (Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage) clubs, set up in 14 schools, will also exhibit photos of the city's landmarks. This is not a one-time effort, the three Madrasis promise. They say they have pitched in with their collective experience with funds coming from Larsen and Toubro's ECC division and Sundaram Finance. Those interested in participating in the event may contact Vincent D Souza, Ph: 24671122; Mobile: 98410 49155; Sashi Nair: 24715492; Mobile: 94441 08182.

Laszlo Systems - Flash-based RIA technology

Laszlo Systems, Inc. - offers premier Rich Internet Application Platform. Flash based

laslo

Laszlo Systems offers the Laszlo Presentation Server, an XML-native platform for developing and deploying highly interactive, effective Web experiences. By providing a smarter, more fluid Internet, Laszlo's single-page Web experience increases conversion rates, fosters brand loyalty and positively impacts the bottom line.

Amazon Travel SearchDashboard Components

Buzzfon - another P2P telephone service

Buzzfon  - another, skype-like, voip software or peer to peer application. Free Unlimited Calls worldwide!

 

Feedroll Pro

Feedroll Pro - Syndication of news feed


Building an audience on the web is hard work. Syndicating your news feed on other websites is a great strategy to reach more people, and it's never been easier...

  • Enable other websites and blogs to easily syndicate your news ad-free and custom designed to fit their own look and feel (...you can also use Feedroll Pro to syndicate any news feed on your own website ad free)
  • Get real time stats to track which web pages are syndicating your news feed, the number of page impressions, and the number of clicks back to your site
  • Feedroll Pro also tracks the popularity of individual articles so you know which content is driving traffic to your site.
  • Syndicate up to 5 different RSS and/or ATOM news feeds (got more? contact us)
  • You can control the amount of content in your feed and we make sure that no external links are syndicated so that interested readers will click through to your site
  • We host your news syndication page like this, or you can integrate it into your own site like this example
  • Feedroll Pro absorbs the bandwidth of syndicating your news feed on an unlimited number of web pages
  • Feedroll Pro is built on robust dedicated resources to ensure fast and reliable service
  • 5 min. setup and no knowledge of code required
  • Sign up today for a month long free trial and you'll lock in the low price of $7.95/month for the lifetime of your subscription

Flickr Services - REST, XML-RPC and SOAP API

Flickr Services - Very soon every service will have something resembling this

 Flickr services logo

The Flickr API is now available for non-commercial use by outside developers.

For an example of an application built with this API, see Organizr (or here if you are already a Flickr member).

    * Overview
    * API Keys
    * User Authentication
    * Developers' mailing list

Photo Upload API

    * Uploading Photos
    * Example Request
    * Upload Authentication

Request Formats

    * REST
    * XML-RPC
    * SOAP

Response Formats

    * REST
    * XML-RPC
    * SOAP

API Kits

    * Perl: Flickr::API

Investopedia.com

Investopedia.com - Your Source For Investing Education

 

  • Dictionary
  • Tutorials
  • Articles
  • Tools

 

GOOG on Nasdaq

HEARTY CONGRATULATIONS Google on successful listing on Nasdaq. All the very best.
Return to Google homepage.
The Google Philosophy
  • Never settle for the best
  • Focus on the user and all else will follow
  • It's best to do one thing really, really well
  • Fast is better than slow
  • Democracy on the web works
  • You don't need to be at your desk to need an answer
  • You can make money without doing evil
  • There's always more information out there
  • The need for information crosses all borders
  • You can be serious without a suit
  • Great just isn't good enough

Wednesday, August 18, 2004

Process 1.0 - Outlining App for OS X

Jumsoft has released a shareware app for project management on Mac

Process 1.0, Jumsoft’s fresh face in the tired throng of outlining applications, is destined to draw a crowd all of its own. Its sublime, user-friendly Aqua interface makes outlining with Mac OS X a treat. But that’s only the start of this all-round wonderful experience. The end result is more remarkable still: Process 1.0 doesn’t just make it simpler to organize your ideas and projects; it has a favorable effect on the outcome of all your planning that is nothing short of subliminal.

Online Contract Drafting Service

Digital Contracts, Inc. is an online service to get contracts done. But is it that simple

Our mission is simple: to deliver a high value-low cost, "intelligent" online document assembly service, backed with our assistance, empowering YOU to control your contract drafting costs - with the same confidence level you would have with a top law firm.

It's as easy as 1-2-3:

1. choose your contract,
2. input party contact info (or select from saved info),
3. answer questions asked by our "intelligent" wizard. That's it!

 

How many laws does your Web site break

A insightful article on this subject 

We had an eye-opening conversation with Chip Cooper, an attorney with Buker Jones & Haley, an Atlanta law firm with a focus on corporate law for entrepreneurs.

When Cooper talks, as the saying goes, we listen: He's been an adjunct professor of computer law Wake Forest University School of Law in Winston-Salem, N.C., for more than 16 years, he's the founder of Digital Contracts, an online contract drafting service, and he's published two books on the subject of software law.

Cooper's not the kind of guy who simply responds to problems as you bring them up; he's actively scouting the legal landscape for new laws, court rulings, and pending cases that could have an effect on his software industry clients.

So, when he suggested that virtually every e-commerce Web site faces a potential liability, we—naturally—took it personally. And, Cooper explained, this isn't a case of one pothole in the road; rather, there are five potential land mines. .....

 

Campaign Tracking Dashboard

There an interesting US Presidential Election Campaign Dashboard here 

Dashboard

Framework for choosing from election candidates

The Countertop Chronicles writes

So, what are my big issues? Here ya go, in no particular order.

  • Integrity, honesty, trustworthiness - Bush wins this hands down. As you will see below, I simply don't trust Waffles and Grits on anything.

  • Economic and Tax Policy - Bush wins.

  • Size of Government - I certainly don't trust Kerry on this, but Bush has managed the issue poorly. A third party can win points here.

  • 1st Amendment - Again, I think Bush has managed the issue poorly but don't trust Kerry to do any better. A third party can win points here.

  • 4th Amendment - Bush has destroyed the issue (I'm ok with Patriot Act activities and profiling, I just don't like the constant erosion of the 4th Amendment). However, it will not improve under Kerry and I doubt i will find a third party candidate who agrees with my vision on the 4th and other provisions of the Constitution.

  • 5th Amendment (Property Rights) - Bush has been as bad as Clinton on this issue. Frankly, he has let Thomas Sansonetti (who along with his minions at the Justice Department deserve a good tarring and feathering), basically adopt the Sierra Club/American Rivers wish list, ignoring clear Supreme Court directives and stealing the land of hard working Americans. Kerry simply won't be better on this issue and it provides a real opportunity for a third party candidate to win me over.

  • Federalism - Bush should be better than Kerry here, but he simply isn't. However, this isn't a philisophical problem, rather its an issue of bad management. The administration went native upon arriving in D.C. In light of the fact that the original attraction for many to Bush was his MBA and promise to run American like a corporation, his performance on this issue and the lack of management and oversight over his minions is very disturbing. Again a third party could gain ground here, just don't suggest Kerry or any Donk is going to be better than Bush on this issue.

  • Homeland Defense  
  • Support of Free Markets
  • Crime
  • Environment
  • RKBA

 

Tuesday, August 17, 2004

The Next Social Revolution?

Slashdot reports that Cryofan writes

In a recent interview, Howard Rheingold (author of Smart Mobs) discussed the possibility of a 'new economic system' born of 'unconscious cooperation' embodied by such technologies as Google links and Amazon lists, Wikipedia, wireless devices using unlicensed spectrum, Web logs, and open-source software. Rheingold speculates that 'the technology of the Internet, reputation systems, online communities, mobile devices...may make some new economic system possible....We had markets, then we had capitalism, and socialism was a reaction to industrial-era capitalism. There's been an assumption that since communism failed, capitalism is triumphant, therefore humans have stopped evolving new systems for economic production.' However, Rheingold is worried that established companies with business models that are threatened by these new technologies could 'quash such nascent innovations as file-sharing -- and potentially put the U.S. at risk of falling behind the rest of the world.'"

PWC's prediction of Athens 2004 Medals

PWC writes

The following factors were found to be statistically significant in explaining the number of medals won by each country at previous Olympic Games since 1988:

  • Population;
  • Average income levels (measured by GDP per capita at PPP exchange rates);
  • Whether the country was previously part of the former Soviet bloc (including Cuba in this case);
  • Whether the country is the host nation; and
  • Medal shares in the previous Olympic Games

 

Model Estimates of Athens Olympics Medals Totals as
Compared to Sydney 2000 Results


Country
Model Estimate
of Medal Total
in Athens 2004

Medal Total in
Sydney 2000


Difference
1. US
70
97
-27
2. Russia
64
88
-24
3. China
50
59
-9
4. Germany
45
57
-12
5. Australia
41
58
-17
6. France
31
38
-7
7. Greece
29
13
+16
8. Italy
28
34
-6
9. Great Britain
25
28
-3
10. South Korea
24
28
-4
11. Cuba
23
29
-6
12. Romania
23
26
-3
13. Ukraine
21
23
-2
14. Netherlands
21
25
-4
15. Japan
20
18
+2
16. Poland
17
14
+3
17. Hungary
17
17
0
18. Belarus
15
17
-2
19. Canada
15
14
+1
20. Brazil
15
12
+3
21. Spain
13
11
+2
22. Bulgaria
13
13
0
23. Sweden
12
12
0
24. Mexico
11
6
+5
25. Indonesia
11
6
+5
26. Switzerland
10
9
+1
27. India
10
1
+9
28. Norway
10
10
0
29. Czech Republic
10
8
+2
30. South Africa
9
5
+4
Top 30 total medals
703
776
-73
Other Countries
226
153
+73
Total medals
929
929
0

Assholes and Morons - software developer types

[dive into mark] writes on Why Specs Matter

Most developers are morons, and the rest are assholes. I have at various times counted myself in both groups, so I can say this with the utmost confidence.

Assholes: Assholes read specs with a fine-toothed comb, looking for loopholes, oversights, or simple typos. Then they write code that is meticulously spec-compliant, but useless. If someone yells at them for writing useless software, they smugly point to the sentence in the spec that clearly spells out how their horribly broken software is technically correct, and then they crow about it on their blogs.

There is a faction of assholes that write test cases. These people are good to have around while writing a spec, because they can occasionally be managed into channeling their infinite time and energy into finding loopholes before the spec is final. Unfortunately, managing assholes is even harder and more time-consuming than it sounds. This is why writing good specs takes so long: most of the time is frittered away on asshole management.

Morons: Morons, on the other hand, don’t read specs until someone yells at them. Instead, they take a few examples that they find “in the wild” and write code that seems to work based on their limited sample. Soon after they ship, they inevitably get yelled at because their product is nowhere near conforming to the part of the spec that someone else happens to be using. Someone points them to the sentence in the spec that clearly spells out how horribly broken their software is, and they fix it.

Besides the run-of-the-mill morons, there is two factions of morons that are worth special mention. The first work from examples, and ship code, and get yelled at, just like all the other morons. But then when they finally bother to read the spec, they magically turn into assholes and argue that the spec is ambiguous, or misleading in some way, or ignoreable because nobody else implements it, or simply wrong. These people are called sociopaths. They will never write conformant code regardless of how good the spec is, so they can safely be ignored.

The second faction of morons work from examples, ship code, and get yelled at. But when they get around to reading the spec, they magically turn into advocates and write up tutorials on what they learned from their mistakes. These people are called experts. Virtually every useful tutorial in the world was written by a moron-turned-expert.

Angels: Some people would argue that not all developers are morons or assholes, but they are mistaken. For example, some people posit the existence of what I will call the “angel” developer. “Angels” read specs closely, write code, and then thoroughly test it against the accompanying test suite before shipping their product. Angels do not actually exist, but they are a useful fiction to make spec writers to feel better about themselves.

Why specs matter: If your spec isn’t good enough, morons have no chance of ever getting things right. For everyone who complains that their software is broken, there will be two assholes who claim that it’s not. The spec, whose primary purpose is to arbitrate disputes between morons and assholes, will fail to resolve anything, and the arguments will smolder for years.

If your spec is good enough, morons have a fighting chance of getting things right the second time around, without being besieged by assholes. Meanwhile, the assholes who have nothing better to do than look for loopholes won’t find any, and they’ll eventually get bored and wander off in search of someone else to harass.

Monday, August 16, 2004

A web standards checklist - contents

MaxDesign talks about

Web Essentials 04

A web standards checklist

A presentation by Russ Weakley to the Sydney Web Standards Group - 5 August 2004.

The presentation is also available in:
Bulgarian, thanks to Boby Dimitrov
Chinese, thanks to Jjgod Jiang
Spanish, thanks to Osvaldo Rainero

IceRocket - Another new Search

IceRocket Search: I love when the searches return with a mini-screenshot of results web page.

 Icerocket. Every Search is a Direct Hit!

 

Mail To The Future

mailtothefuture.com: Another one of these.

 

The purpose of this site is to allow you to send mail to yourself or others at a specified date and time.. in the future!

It's simple, it's fun, and it's futuristic! (Of course..)

Enhanced del.icio.us bookmarklet

Jon Udel writes about a modified bookmarklet which captures the selected text into extended field. Thanks

To further my own self-interest in keeping track of things, I've made a minor extension1 to the del.icio.us bookmarklet, so that selected text on the target page is used for the (optional) extended description of the routed item. This makes the items I route easier for me to scan. And for you too. Of course if you did the same, the items you route would be easier for you to scan. And for me too.

Standard version:
javascript:location.href='http://del.icio.us/YOURNAME?url=' +escape(location.href) +'&title='+escape(document.title)

Modified version:
javascript:location.href='http://del.icio.us/YOURNAME?url='+escape(location.href) +'&title='+escape(document.title) +'&extended='+escape(document.getSelection())

Sunday, August 15, 2004

Are you ready for Bootstrapping

Brad Feld give his thoughts on Top 10 bootstrapping actions

1. Figure out how much cash you really have
2. Figure out how much time you really have
3. Pick a domain and go deep
4. Surround yourself with experienced people
5. Find angels
6. Figure out who you want to look like in 5 years
7. Get customers
8. Learn everything you can about what you are about to do
9. Figure out your fallback plan
10. Figure out what to do if you fail (face your fears before you start)

Kashmir-based Software Co amidst terrorism

New York Times reports abut Magnum Software Services. I always thought that terrorism orginates and sustains because the youth have nothing to do to improve their life. Hopefully we see more such hope.

Undeterred by the regular bursts of gunfire, grenade attacks and bomb blasts, a lone tech firm in revolt-torn Kashmir is trying to catch up with an outsourcing boom that has earned India billions of dollars.

Magnum Software Services, located on the outskirts of Srinagar, Kashmir's main city and the nerve center of a 15-year revolt against Indian rule, has become the first company in the region to bag an international back-office services contract.

The firm has recruited 315 young Kashmiri men and women in recent weeks to format medical files and research data for a Singapore client. Soon it also plans to provide accounting and legal transcription services.

Officials at Magnum said they hope to be an outsourcing pioneer in the troubled region where barely two years ago Internet and mobile phone services were barred because of fears separatist militants could use them to foment violence.

``Anything can happen anywhere, even here in our labs,'' said Umar Manzoor, a director at Magnum, located at Rangreth, an industrial center outside Srinagar.

``We have come to the conclusion that amid bomb explosions, fire fights and suicide attacks, the show must go on,'' he said.

``This is the first time such a project is happening in Kashmir and we are struggling to expand it,'' Sajad Ahmad Kanth, Magnum's chief executive, told Reuters. ``Inshallah (God willing) Kashmir will soon be on the world outsourcing map.''

Young Kashmiris, many of whom were unemployed before getting jobs at Magnum, agreed.

``I enjoy working here,'' said Shazia Bashir, a young Kashmiri woman who sat in front of rows of computers with her colleagues. ``For young computer graduates this is a very good opportunity under the present circumstances.''

PictureM - the digital album service

PictureM Home 
Oline service for managing and sharing your photos and other digital content. Their pricing

M is for:
Mobility: Flexibility to manage, view and share your digital life anywhere, and not be tied down to your PC.
Multi-media: Power to let you take control of gigabytes of photos and other digital content in a simple yet effective way.
Messaging: Freedom to Web post or e-mail multiple pictures and video clips without worrying about large downloads or payloads.

Service Level Online Space Disc Archive Prints Annual Fee
Free 128 MB None None None
Basic 650 MB CD-ROM Yes $50 USD
Premium 4700 MB DVD-ROM Yes $100 USD
 


Why this Cool Idea will not get VC Funding

From Ascription is an Anathema to any Enthusiasm » Cool idea! Now go away.

Tim Oren appears to be suffering from sympathy. An unusual affliction for a VC. A handful of reasons why, Mr. Entrepreneur, your amazingly cool new innovation isn’t going to get funding:

  1. Cool demo! Great price point, what a leap forward! Man making stuff like this dependable is really hard work. You probably can’t see that, having just moved so fast. You know the incumbent is always improving. Sorry, I think we’ll pass.
  2. Cool! - oh - It’s so cool that pretty soon it will be a ‘must have’ and the platform vendor will swallow you. No durable business here. Next.
  3. Neat! - oh - Sadly your customers are too smart. Even if you get past the damn designers (NIH etc.) you won’t get by the risk adversion of the project manager.
  4. Your customer’s too powerful and too slow. They take years to release a new product and they never leave any real money on the table for the component providers.
  5. Customers would love that! - oh - The channel’s doesn’t care. The channel sells by subscription: i.e. they want zero up front cost, sticky features, and value delivered in dribble. You don’t fit that model; your toast.
  6. Ha, that’s clever. The early adopters will love it. But, I just can’t see how the late adopters are ever going to see that as anything but added complexity.

Needless to say Tim put’s this all in a much more professional and accurate way.

EaZy RSS Reader - Within Excel

Lockergnome write about an Excel RSS Reader

Nothing to install, nothing to tweak, nothing to do with spreadsheets - but you can read your RSS feeds in Microsoft Excel! I guess we’ll soon see more accountants grokking the concept of desktop syndication. I just can’t wait for someone to develop a plugin for Notepad - now that would be the ultimate aggregator, wouldn’t it? Or what about Microsoft Paint for moblogs? I’m telling you, the possibilities are endless - and I think Colo just proved me right. I guess it just adds up?

Cool Text-only bog

http://www.wearehugh.com/

 
WE ARE HUGH

Not above stooping to "ad botinem" attacks

________________________________________________________________________

2004/08/17

08:15PM Keith Devens - Weblog: ...
07:50PM Banishing the demons of stupidity from ....
07:40PM Mozilla To Add Support For XForms, World ....
07:20PM Burningbird Survival Guide to LAMP: Multiple ...
07:20PM http://wiki.wordpress.org/MultipleBlogs
07:20PM ecto blog: ecto 2: And you thought ...

Vasool Raja MBBS - One of the best movies

Watched Vasool Raja MBBS at Sathyam: Great Entertaining Movie ... better than Munna Bhai MBBS.

 
Thanks: IndiaInfo.com

Saturday, August 14, 2004

Teach a Child to Read - Resources

Thanks to Teach a Child to Read - Web Resources2

 
The Home School Internet Resource Center
(http://www.rsts.net)
Provides and exciting, safe educational environment for the home schooling family. Free services include: software, a used curriculum exchange, e-pals, a home school news magazine, curriculum reviews and an inexhaustible list of subject reference links - all updated daily to keep you informed!

Essential Learning Institute
(http://www.rsts.net/eli)
An Affordable Disability Learning Solution. Easily administered computer based program for correcting learning disabilities including: Dyslexia, ADD, ADHD, and Reading and Perceptual Impairments.

edHelper.com
(http://www.edhelper.com)
Lesson Plans - Worksheets - Teacher's Lesson Plans - WebQuests - Primary Teacher Resources - Math Lesson Plans - Writing Lesson Plans - Reading Lesson Plans - Science Lesson Plans - Technology Lesson Plans - Social Studies Lesson Plans - and more ...

Sites For Teachers
(http://www.sitesforteachers.com)
"The Net's Best Resource for Teachers."

Pre-K Smarties
(http://www.preksmarties.com)
A preschool education resource for parents teaching preschoolers, with tips for early reading using phonics, parenting articles, and more. A wonderful web site for parents of young children.

Schoolmarm's Little Red School House
(http://www.schoolmarm.org)
Educational tidbits for teachers, students, or anyone interested in learning.

Wee Ones - Families Growing Together
(http://www.weeonesmag.com)
Click on "Parents. A special site just for you. (For the Big Ones.)"

The Homeschool Zone
(http://www.homeschoolzone.com)
Click on The Homeschool Zone to enter.
Check out the education information articles.

MomsView.com
(http://www.momsview.com)
Click on Links (Resource Links).

Splashes From the River
(http://www.splashesfromtheriver.com)
A light-hearted, whimsical approach to learning basic English grammar.
Click on Links, then Homeschool Resources or Educational Links.

KinderStart - because kids don't come with instructions
(http://www.kinderstart.com)
Click on Education/Day Care/Child Care, then Literacy and Reading Issues.

Teach a Child to Read

Link: Teach a Child to Read

 Reading Rescue 1-2-3 book cover

 This easy-to-follow, step-by-step book paves the way for children to develop better fluency, comprehension, and language skills. Using Reading Rescue 1-2-3 can help your child succeed to read at her grade level or higher.

Google For Athens

Google

 Athens 2004

Friday, August 13, 2004

Anagram - Capture Critical Information Fast!

anagram examples

  • Power-up your email
  • Grab contact information
  • Create to-do's
  • Schedule meetings
  • Capture sales leads
  • Anagram Technology puts you in control of your desktop information. With Anagram you can reduce keystrokes, eliminate re-typing errors, and act on e-mails, web sites and documents faster than ever before.

     Web browser source application

     Email reader source application  

     Email reader source application

     Web browser source application