Linkblog - 29.1.2005 - 13.2.2005
Matching my previous, longer, text: Weblog Tools Collection suffers from Referer Spam DoS. Such birds - that is, referrer spammers going into the thousands in terms of accesses - have (yet?) not shown up in my log analysis.
How to CSS DropShadows erzeugt. I could imagine using that for my photos. But it acts up in IE 5.5 for Mac OS X. Besides, drop shadows are only for wimps and softies anyway.
What to expect when updating MySQL 4.0 to 4.1. Okay, database version upgrades are never easy and can always cause problems.
WordPress Localization describes how to create your own translations for WordPress.
Answering machines accept collect calls. Quick check of my answering machine greeting...
Tough times for Kofi Annan - through smear campaigns and denials from conservative NGOs in the United States. But others are also throwing mud around industriously.
wp-style-switcher is a simple CSS switcher for WordPress that works without JavaScript or similar.
China: Executions for social peace? - will certainly not greatly dampen our industrial chancellor's enthusiasm for the large Chinese market ...
A mini Loch Ness Monster washed up in Parton. And now they're puzzling over what kind of creature it actually is.
Rat der EU ignoriert Forderung des Parlaments - well, that was almost to be expected. Why bother with democracy, it only slows things down anyway ...
In "On the GPL" Isotopp writes about the GPL and what is actually in it and how one can understand it. A pretty good explanation, I think. Should be recommended reading for anyone who believes the nonsense that Microsoft, SCO and some others spread about the GPL.
Microsoft receives patent on coordinates in URLs - what utter nonsense. Yet another proof that patents on algorithms are simply rubbish and at best serve to rip people off for money, but certainly not the innovation drive that defenders like to cite over and over again.
Smog could promote allergies. Great. In the city my allergy is being promoted and in the country I'm suffering from hay fever.
The MBROLA PROJECT HOMEPAGE - the MBROLA project provides a free phoneme synthesizer. Phonemes in, speech out. It is based on diphone databases, which are available for a wide range of languages. The project page also contains links to text-to-speech projects that build on MBROLA.
If I ever want to take a look at web-based project management, dotproject - Open Source Project and Task Management Software looks quite usable.
Another death in Georgian government - and although I'm not a fan of conspiracy theories, I'm starting to find this suspicious. Okay, one death is coincidence. Two deaths from the government could maybe still be coincidence. But if a third person dies now, I won't believe in coincidence anymore.
Bill Gates commits to interoperability and makes the insightful observation that open source leads to too many similar solutions, which is why interoperability needs to be tested more and that's a problem. Translation: Bill Moppelkotze thinks open source is annoying because it nibbles away at his monopoly
Cosmic near miss in 24 years - so if it does hit us in 2037, we could manage to be wiped out before the Unix epoch overflow gets us
NZZ Online archive no longer freely available - and with that, the NZZ is no longer present on the Internet. What the heck is online availability supposed to accomplish if it's only available on the day of print publication? Ridiculous nonsense from those oh-so-professional media outlets, who are once again revealing themselves as complete amateurs on the Internet …
Rumsfeld thinks the US troops have killed an insufficient number of Sunnis - isn't it nice to have such simple worldviews? Evil Sunnis, good Shiites. That's how simple it is for Rumsfeld. Stupid politician. That's how simple it is for me.
fallback-reboot is a small daemon that locks itself into memory (so it cannot be swapped out) and then waits for a password on a port. When the password arrives, the machine is rebooted without any security precautions or disk sync. Interesting as a last resort when the machine still responds to pings and similar, but you can't get a shell prompt anymore.
Gigablast is a search engine that offers some interesting features. And most importantly, the search results are available as an RSS feed.
Suddenly and unexpectedly: 25 minutes with Bush - Hawks among themselves.
Software Patent Directive: EU Parliament calls for restart of proceedings - whether that will particularly impress the Commission now? Last time they simply ignored the opinion of Parliament anyway.
Zope.org - FileStorageBackup is a description of many useful tips on how to handle ZODB database files. Specifically replication, backup, repair - basically everything that will bite you in the ass sooner or later when running larger Zope systems.
Mannesmann trial: The acquittal must be enough– so even if it were only symbolic, I'd think it good if he himself had to forfeit the 10,000 euros that were awarded to him in the first instance. Of course, it would be even nicer if the Federal Court of Justice then ruled on breach of fiduciary duty after all, but I'm probably hoping in vain for that …
Microsoft: Error in Buffer-Overflow Protection is Not a Vulnerability - sure. Bill Gates wants to make the net more secure. So a bug is simply not declared as a security vulnerability. Never mind that you can catch a Trojan or virus on Windows faster than you can say boo - and that this one can use exactly this hole to knock down the whole nice security system. What nonsense again...
If it really comes to pass that Scharping runs as BDR president I can only quote the red rascals: folks, try to vote for goat
Auch Affen zahlen für schöne Frauen - and next the spammers will send their spam to the zoos
eAccelerator is another PHP accelerator. It is based on the Turck mmCache source, but is actively being developed.
Esser wants to squeeze 200,000 euros from NRW - Ripping off millions by selling your employees and then suing for damages. Poor, misunderstood manager
Gizmodo : Epson HX-20 Portable Computer - a really nice device. I treated myself to one a while back - as a complement to my two PX-8 computers. Really cute what was in use back then. And playing around with it is simply fun.
Kanther faces penalties - as much as I would welcome it, I won't believe it until the verdict is on the table. And the next courts have ruled. Because somehow the rip-off artists always manage to wriggle out of it anyway ...
The Free Legal Advice for Open-Source Developers is certainly probably only really useful for US American developers - but perhaps something comparable will come to Europe as well.
Microsoft and Macrovision want to close the "analog gap" - great. Just great. Eventually you'll be able to throw the whole garbage out the window because you can't use anything properly anymore without constant regulation. Lots of great ideas for copy protection that are all rubbish anyway and actually don't prevent anything - except completely legal use on some old device or a new one where some garbage collides with other garbage. What a mess.
Found at Schneier on Security: the weakest link. So much for the topic of security.
Solaris 10 is now available for free download - even though I certainly won't be using it in production, it would definitely be worth taking a look at.
Interview with a link spammer | The Register - of course this could be fake, but the guys from The Register claim they conducted an interview here with a blog spammer.
IT Manager's Journal | Bitter struggle to control SCO Group parent company - cool, the SCO management is tearing itself apart in court proceedings
law blog » MONEY BACK FROM JAMBA & CO. - interesting reference and interesting discussion on the question of whether parents have to get money back from Jamba if they demand it - and their children who are not fully legally competent have taken out a subscription with Jamba.
How do you stand it?
Phil Ringnalda recounts his dream about the history of RSS, in which he finds himself in a conversation with early RSS developers discussing the technical choices and philosophical debates that shaped the format.
In the dream, Phil is asked by one of the developers: "How do you stand it?" — referring to the frustrations and complexities that came with RSS adoption and the various competing standards that emerged.
The post reflects on the tensions between simplicity and functionality, and how different visions for what RSS should be led to fragmentation in the ecosystem. Phil uses the dream narrative to explore the human and technical dimensions of this important web technology.
Note: The original source link appears to be from Phil Ringnalda's blog from 2005, discussing RSS history through a dream sequence narrative.
A series of small nice freeware tools for OS X. I particularly like the WordServices and the CalcService (a simple formula evaluator as a service).
US court: Guantanamo tribunals are unlawful | tagesschau.de - interesting. But whether that will impress Bush much?
Bill Gates will das Internet sicherer machen - will he discontinue the entire Windows operating system line and eliminate Internet Explorer?
Camera Bellows and Hoods - Bellows manufacturer that produces replacement bellows. Possibly a solution for my Fujica problem.
Camera Bellows Restoration Trick - Tips on the repair and sealing of camera bellows.
Reprinted Repair Manuals - all kinds of service manuals for all kinds of camera types.