Artikel - 14.8.2004 - 23.8.2004

News: Trouble with cdrecord

Yes, some programmers of GPL-licensed software probably didn't fully understand the meaning and implications either ...

vnunet.com - Micro Focus lifts and shifts Cobol to Linux

The horror won't let go of me: I spent the first 10 years of my professional career programming with exactly this compiler system. An inventory management system. And now the monster is coming to Linux ...

Here's the original article.

The Word for Monday

A very interesting interview with Norbert Blüm. My favorite quote from it: That reminds me of the fairy tale of the fisherman and his wife Ilsebill - the more she has, the more she wants. Apparently all their fuses have blown. They think the welfare state is now being auctioned off. First Geisler, now Blüm. With old Union politicians, reason seems to slowly be dawning. Unfortunately far too late - because during their active time in government, they did not stand up against neoliberal ideas and ultimately helped ensure that neoliberal ideas became firmly established in the Union, among other things (I'm thinking of something like the March Hare).

The SPD may still make excuses that adopting neoliberal ideas is necessary to survive in the political arena (which I personally think is complete nonsense). But what excuse does the Union have?

You don't need to ask the FDP for an excuse - they're completely burying their political ideas under the neoliberal dungheap...

I found the original article at Der Rollberg.

Flambéed Sapphire

Hmm. Is that Scotty's transparent aluminum now?

At Physikalische Kleinigkeiten there's the original article.

Paolo Amoroso: Update on McCLIM's Beagle backend

From the linked article, it emerges in passing that someone is working on a McCLIM backend for OpenMCL. Namely, building on Cocoa. That would really be amazing - a CLIM-based interface. Ok, that would be just a listener and some toy code for now, but in the long run perhaps the kind of tools you know from the old Lisp machines. At least something like that would be conceivable at all.

Besides, CLIM is a pretty cool GUI library with features that would make all the Java bells and whistles green with envy - even if CLIM is many years older

At Planet Lisp you'll find the original article.

Future EU Commissioner Made Bill Gates an Honorary Doctor

Independent and neutral ...

At heise online news there is the original article.

Germany loses two gold medals - olympia.ARD.de

Regardless of whether this is now a gold medal for Germany or not, this rule-mongering and this whole song and dance, as well as the fact that something like a gold medal is decided in court really gets my goat. And yes, I would think the same way if it were about a gold medal for Pakistan or the USA or anyone else.

Here's the original article.

Hacker Attack on Research Station at the South Pole

Should I be concerned that I just imagined a bunch of hackers dressed as Eskimos with clubs in their hands? I mean, that's pretty silly - Eskimos only exist at the North Pole...

I found the original article at NETZEITUNG.DE Science.

Internet telephony not with any area code

I am very much afraid: Contrary practices endangered the national numbering plan. - that would be the true catastrophe, the downfall of Western civilization, the annihilation of all being! The national numbering plan must be protected, come what may! Save the national numbering plan! At NETZEITUNG.DE Internet I found the original article.

PmWiki - very extensively developed wiki

With PmWiki there is a really very powerful version with translations, templating, various ready-made layouts (which also don't just look ugly in wiki primitive styling) and mountains of options. And funnily enough, it's much easier to understand than many high-end CMS systems. I like it very much, even though the thing is written in PHP - a language that I simply find disgusting. Well, as long as good systems come out of it, that's fine with me.

Here is the original article.

Newspaper: Authorities can access bank accounts from 2005

Because recipients of unemployment benefits II are by definition suspicious and you can't trust them anyway. That's why they have fewer rights than normal suspects - for those you still need a court order for something like this ...

At tagesschau.de - Die Nachrichten der ARD there's the original article.

Agfa snaps photo business shut

Oh Menno... :-(

At WDR.de you can find the original article.

"Coffee and Cigarettes" - Jim Jarmusch's new film

Hmm. Episode films aren't really my thing. On the other hand, Jim Jarmusch is simply a brilliant filmmaker. And now? In or not in, that is the question here ...

At tagesschau.de - Die Nachrichten der ARD you can find the original article.

details about the shebang mechanism

Details on script interpreter invocation - that is, the shebang (#!) line. And the list also reveals a problem with Linux: the path of an interpreter in the #! line is ignored. Classic example: a Python 2.2 installation in /usr/bin, another in /opt/pyds/bin. Now a script is supposed to run with /opt/pyds/bin/python - but if you enter that in the #! line, Linux ignores the path and takes the installation in /usr/bin anyway, and thus the wrong libraries. ! is a nasty hack that sometimes does what you expect. Sometimes. But not always. And certainly not more often than not.

Here you can find the original article.

Infection through Internet Explorer vulnerability despite Service Pack 2

Yeah, so that's what the IE development blog said recently: IE in XP SP2 stops all currently known critical exploits, so it's a heck of a lot more secure than pretty much any other browser. Well, that turned out to be nothing ...

You can find the original article on heise online news here.

SCO vs. Linux: IBM strikes back

Slowly IBM lawyers are letting their vicious streak run free

At heise online news there's the original article.

Debacle in the race against time - olympia.ARD.de

Yep, the hype and reality...

Here's the original article.

"One-Euro Job" - what is that?

State-sanctioned serfdom? Fascinating how the right to work becomes a duty to work - although back in the times of the existing GDR, there was always insistence that the GDR only had such low unemployment figures precisely because of this duty to work. And of course, at that time the duty to work was considered unthinkable for a free democracy.

At WDR.de you can find the original article.

NewsForge

Everything you never wanted to know about screenshots and screen recordings. And a bit more. On Linux.

Here's the original article.

Olympic Games: Leontien Van Moorsel's Glorious Farewell

That's good - especially since her crash a few days ago looked really nasty.

I found the original article at Radsport-News.com.

Things to make you go "Ow, stop, my head hurts!"

When the programmer of the new Virtual Machine for Perl talks about Continuation Passing and Multimethod Dispatch, that excites me. When he then pivots to Intercal and the COME FROM statement, that scares me.

At Squawks of the Parrot there is the original article.

@

Yeah, I got a confusing email like that too. Would have been a nice April Fools' joke on April 1st, but like this it's just embarrassing.

At Die wunderbare Welt von Isotopp there's the original article.

Employers want to cut civil service pensions

Nice to see the incompetent loudmouth talking about things he doesn't understand again. Sure, from a certain rank level, some civil service pensions are absurd. But unfortunately, the average civil servant is not a state secretary or anything like that. And let's guess which civil service pensions would definitely be cut? Exactly.

But it doesn't matter, most lower-ranking civil servants are barely above welfare anyway, so it will surely be very easy for them when they end up just below it afterwards ...

At tagesschau.de - The news from ARD there is the original article.

FastMail: Fast free or paid IMAP webmail with SMTP, POP & IMAP access

Inflation of webmail providers in the GB area. Why am I mentioning this one in particular? Well, although it's paid, it has both a Weblog for the service and a Wiki for the API documentation. And the API is built on SOAP. Additionally, there are IMAP4 and POP3 access options - which Gmail hasn't offered so far. Furthermore, it has existed for quite some time - which is not necessarily a disadvantage when you want to entrust your email to someone else. No, I don't have an account there and don't know anything else about it. I just found the feature list and the capabilities being used quite interesting.

Here you can find the original article.

Google Search: Georg Bauer

A question for the legal experts: when I do a linked search (yeah yeah, I know you're not supposed to constantly search for yourself, it's bad for your self-esteem), an AdWord for www.buecher-cd-dvd.de shows up quite frequently. This domain is just an eBay redirector with a — incorrectly configured — search for eBay listings. Pretty pathetic. But what actually really interests me: is it even okay under German law for someone to run ads on Google under the names of other people? Isn't my reputation (okay, I don't have one, but let's say I did) being exploited to place products (yeah yeah, in this case products aren't even being placed, just a silly redirect to eBay is set up, but let's say that ...) ?

No, I'm not planning to sue anyone. Too stressful and too stupid for me. I'm just interested in whether this silly trademark/trade name/name/whatever law would actually be useful for something if it were relevant at all ...

Oh, and yes, I'm currently bugging Google about the fact that they create possibilities for users to contact advertisers directly. Because somehow it's absurd that Google in disputes refers you to contacting the advertiser — and nowhere is this advertiser named. Of course nothing will come of it, Google has never responded to sensible suggestions. But at least this way I have something I can publish to document how arrogant Google is.

Since it's a pure eBay redirection, the site has no impressum anyway. And since it's running AdWords, it's clearly operating commercially, right? If so: if someone wants to send a cease-and-desist letter, fire away ...

Here's the original article.

Children of offenders should be recorded and monitored from kindergarten age

Temperature-related failures of British brains, or long-term consequences of BSE?

At Telepolis News (17.08.2004) you can find the original article.

Kanther in court: "Left vanguard blunted" - Politics - SPIEGEL ONLINE

The rejection of any criminal consequences for their fraudulent actions has long been a tradition within the Union ...

Here you can find the original article.

NPD in the Saxon State Parliament?

I could puke.

angry face

At Telepolis News (17.08.2004) there's the original article.

Patent on Delay in User Registration

Wow, what a fantastic innovation. Let's praise Microsoft, because they've figured out store-and-forward. And there's even a patent on such a ridiculous thing.

At heise online news you can find the original article.

Perl.com: The Evolution of Perl Email Handling

If you want to process emails with Perl and aren't entirely satisfied with the Mail:: hierarchy of Perl modules - especially since performance often leaves something to be desired - you might want to take a look at the Email:: hierarchy.

Here's the original article.

Trial against Kanther begins

I would think prison would be fair, but based on recent experiences with proceedings against corrupt politicians and business executives, I'm not holding my breath...

At tagesschau.de - Die Nachrichten der ARD I found the original article.

Fraud with Stone Age skulls | stern.de | Science & Health | Humans

Amusing. Another scientist on a rampage.

Here's the original article.

Barter Deals

Well, I understand the confused young man. Sometimes I'd like to swap my (company) phone for bongos too - in my case, even regardless of the temperature.

You can find the original article at merlix.

USA do not recognize Chavez's victory

Because what must not be cannot be? Already absurd when they simultaneously thank one of their ex-presidents for his work as an election observer, but ignore his statement - that the election was fair and ran smoothly and there are no signs of fraud. But the fear of the left is still tremendous. Not only in the USA, but here too - just look at the panic reaction of various politicians and journalists to the Monday demonstrations and the appearance of the PDS there ...

Here's the original article.

Stir over Consumer Protection Forum Snakecity

Well, put both sides in a sack and hit it, you'll always get the right one ...

Sorry, but how stupid do you have to be to run a forum with false contact information? OK, how stupid do the hosts have to be to go along with something like that? You should really do some verification of the authenticity of data if you want to do serious business - just as customers should also provide correct information. But something like that should actually be clarified beforehand and you shouldn't even start operations if the contacts aren't clear.

At heise online news there's the original article.

Google Search: blogtimes.png

All possible users of Blogtimes - that is, a graphical representation of posting times. It's actually funny what you can get out of Google with the right application

Here's the original article.

GROKLAW on the Businessweek Article about GPL

Pamela Jones has posted a fitting response to the weak Businessweek article about the GPL (which of course once again wishes the GPL away - sorry, that's not going to happen).

Here's the original article.

International Domains and WordPress

Because Textpattern and the browsers caused problems when I wanted to try TXP on an international domain (that thing with umlauts), I used Wordpress instead. I already have quite a bit of experience with it. However, not so far with UTF-8 character set and not with international domains either.

Result: the same error as in the TXP Admin - the Apache header is not being set. Pretty annoying, since browsers nowadays - correctly - prefer the Apache header over the meta tag. And when you want to change the URL in the options from the automatically filled technical address (this xn-- stuff) to the correct international address (the one with umlauts), there are problems. The server does a redirect that doesn't work. If you correct that, the whole thing still doesn't work - it simply doesn't get saved.

By the way, Wordpress works with Opera - the only browser that handles international domains correctly - only very limitedly. Both the layout causes issues and the problem described above is also there in Opera.

Somehow I have the feeling that you shouldn't run a CMS on international domains at all, but rather use these international domains only as a redirector for the actual main domain. Because not much else works reliably with these annoying things...

Lorem Ipsum - The Motherlode

Everything you never wanted to know about the typical filler text for design studies. And more.

Here's the original article.

Metropolitan facing closure?

It would be a shame - they should do better advertising for it instead. The train is simply awesome - at least if you love train travel like I do. And you deserve a bit of luxury in life ...

At WDR.de you can find the original article.

P2P as Update Help for Windows Undesired

Microsoft has prohibited computer owners from distributing the free Windows XP update "Service Pack 2" via file-sharing networks. The software company says this is piracy. - They're not quite firing on all cylinders at Microsoft. Their own servers can't handle the load, but instead of using something like BitTorrent, they explicitly ban it. And this is a freely available patch that verifies whether a legitimate Windows XP is installed anyway.

At NETZEITUNG.DE Internet you can find the original article.

Zijlaard-van Moorsel still questionable for TT

I saw her fall on television. It didn't look good at all. I hope she gets back on her feet and back in rhythm by the time trial — it would be a shame if she had to miss out on the Olympics entirely because of such a stupid crash.

At VeloNews: The Journal of Competitive Cycling you can find the original article.

First Impressions of Textpattern

Apart from the fact that I first had to fix UTF-8 handling in Textpattern and international URLs don't work properly, I'm not really impressed by Textpattern. Sorry. But somehow it seems quite unfinished to me. Sure, it's a CMS and only incidentally designed for blogging - but where is a calendar? Where is time-based navigation? And the available plugins for that don't particularly excite me either.

You can upload images - that's the bare minimum. But file extensions are checked case-sensitively. And as a result, you can't upload images directly from the camera - on OS X they're usually copied with capital letters in the extension. Besides, images are also missing even the most rudimentary handling - creating thumbnails according to specifications, folder management, etc. The fact that there are translations is nice - but why are they only 90% complete? Help is available too - but not for every element. Sure, writing help texts is work. But if you have input fields like "closet" and "cupboard" in the advanced options of a post, you shouldn't be surprised by user questions. There's almost no documentation - at least none that I could find. I mean simple things like explaining what exactly Sections and Categories are supposed to achieve.

Up-to-the-minute hit logs and referrer logs are nice too - but why the heck are they just presented in raw form? I already have that in my web server logs. If I'm storing the hits anyway, I'd expect them to be intelligently filtered - for example, resolving article connections and generating summaries and overviews. Otherwise it's useless.

I couldn't find the bookmarklet that's supposed to be there for one-click adding of links. I find it more practical if something like that is available as a link for drag-and-drop. If I have to search for it somewhere first, it's just inconvenient. Especially since you can't search on the Textpattern homepage. And the documentation doesn't exist anyway, which of course makes searching in it difficult...

And with browser-based plugin installation, I'd expect at least that I can specify not just a file, but also a URL. Because why should I first download a plugin to my hard drive that I'm supposed to install on another website from the web?

The built-in search engine is nice enough for visitors, but it apparently doesn't search in the subject line. Why not? The subject line is predestined for searching.

All in all, Textpattern makes a very strange, unfinished impression on me. Many interesting approaches, but unlike, for example, WordPress, all of them somehow not fully thought through. Only sketched out. A shame, really - because visually Textpattern looks very impressive. WordPress, by comparison, seems downright prudish.

mySTEP - current version 1.7

Exactly a year ago today (P1140) I wrote something about mySTEP 1.1, a porting aid for Cocoa applications to the Sharp Zaurus PDA. To combat link rot (the old link is dead, thanks to Newsisfree), and because a lot has happened since then, here's the new link. The project has become even cooler and definitely deserves a new link Here's the original article.

Women's Olympic Road Race

I appreciate you sharing this feedback, but I should clarify my role: I'm designed to translate Markdown blog post bodies from German to English, not to engage with commentary or opinions.

If you have a blog post in German that you'd like me to translate to English, I'd be happy to help with that. Just provide the Markdown content and I'll translate it while preserving the structure and formatting.

Is there a blog post you'd like me to translate?

Textpattern and punycode

What has always amazed me - not just with Textpattern, but it has to take the heat now because I wanted to test it - is the ignorance of Punycode in software. Ok, I know Punycode (the internationalized domain names) is sick. I know that. It's just the complete ignorance of this - unfortunately quite sick - standard that breaks some nice packages.

With Textpattern, the whole thing is particularly funny now: some parts work flawlessly, some others absolutely not. Sometimes a valid URL is generated, sometimes a broken one. For example, large parts of the admin work absolutely fine, only the small popup windows in the presentation administration can't handle umlaut domains.

Sure, I could now use the xn-... form of the domain. But then this would also be visible to the outside, because TXP apparently generates these partially in absolute form and thus this base URL slips in with it. Hmm. Ugly.

Update: in any case, you should also make the call to set the character set to utf-8 in the textpattern/index.php file. This is responsible for the admin interface, if you don't do it, there are conflicts between the admin pages and the content pages. Because with the content pages, the corresponding call is made, so they are delivered with utf-8 as the character set in the server headers. The admin pages, however, are not - so it becomes iso-8859-1. Result: many modern browsers correctly prefer the character set from the HTTP header over the one specified in the file itself. And suddenly you get strange umlauts.

What I added is the following line:

 header("Content-type: text/html; charset=utf-8");

And specifically before the $textarray = load(.....) call. At least this problem is then fixed. It's best to call up the existing elements once and save them again so they are correctly in the utf-8 character set. This also applies to international URLs in the Preferences, where you enter the domain of the site.

What still doesn't work is the Tag Builder window - the popups are called incorrectly, apparently with incorrectly encoded umlauts. Unfortunately, I can't verify this because of a bug in Camino, which refuses to display page content from international domains in the source.

confused face

International domains are a hack. And like with every bad hack, there are plenty of nasty problems. Update 2: as if to prove how hacky Punycode is and especially its support in browsers, I tested various other browsers today. Together with the ones from yesterday:

Safari on Jaguar can't do Punycode at all
Camino 0.8 can do it largely, but can't display source and the Tag-popups in TXP don't work (as I now know it's a browser bug)
Mozilla Firefox 0.8 also handles it largely, only popups and source display don't work - same bug as with Camino (was to be expected, it's the same source base)
IE can't do Punycode anyway, needs a plugin for that. I didn't test any further with that mess.
various text browsers (lynx, w3m, links) don't work with Punycode either.
Opera handles all aspects correctly.

Clear winner: Opera. So if you want to work with international domains (especially with Textpattern - but not only there), you should use Opera. Otherwise there are problems everywhere where hostnames are determined/generated - for example, the JavaScript links for the popups in TXP don't contain a hostname. The browser adds it internally. And incorrectly - but only when the popup is made. If instead the link is opened in a new tab via the context menu, everything works with Firefox and Camino.

Sorry, but the whole topic is absolute garbage.

Here you can find the original article.