This is part 1 of a series of my lay opinions on proactively maintaining your corner of the web. I recall when linkrot was the major issue for the web back in the late nineties. While it remains a problem today, I think that the web as a sandbox of emergent technologies has not only… Continue reading this entry

After months of bewilderment, I must admit that it was my best friend’s invite that signed me on to Twitter. I’ve been having fun so far; it’s curious, though, how someone can follow six thousand contacts. Take the guy in the following screenshot: Seriously? Don’t you, um, have work?

I don’t have one. There’s a lot of reviews out there (Omnivoracious, Channel Web, and Ars Technica) but there are two things that prevent me from buying one. First, when I’m done with a book, especially fiction, it goes into the dustheap of history unless I want to read a passage that I particularly relish.… Continue reading this entry

The big news in the dextrosphere (“short” for “right-wing bloggers”) this week was the collapse of the Pajamas Media ad network. The issue was brought into the open by Protein Wisdom’s Jeff Goldstein. I recall when PJM’s ad network was being started up, years ago. People judged the merits of the plan and made their… Continue reading this entry

Assume the following: You are an audiophile. You can’t enjoy music in any situation unless it is at “audiophile-acceptable quality.” You have money to burn, and yes, that’s in “today’s economy.” Now consider the following account, by Mark Jaquith: Canal phones offer much better sound than their “in ear” cousins, but in order to hear… Continue reading this entry

I upgraded my phone to the Samsung SCH-u740. I’ve had it for a few days and I have slowly but surely grown familiar with the standard VZW software. Coming from my Treo 650, that was a leap all its own. I chose the phone because I am a very heavy texter, and I was slowly… Continue reading this entry

“So, one day I got the most exquisite piece of fresh rib-eye at the grocer, then I called my best Hindi friend over for a cookout.” For some reason, after reading Owen Winkler speaking truth to Apple, the above line just came up in my head. Then again, Owen wasn’t really belligerent nor purposefully offensive… Continue reading this entry

I use GMail. That’s the most I’ve let Google intrude on my personal data. Most people might think I’m a quack for being so damned scurred of Google’s privacy peeping when I use GMail with such ubiquity. What’s the first rule of email? Do not email what you won’t have the world see out in… Continue reading this entry

I tried MSN Desktop Search a few days ago and it’s pretty good. However, it gets a failing mark on my end because of obscene system resource usage (45 Megs of RAM, and thrice that for the page file, for the indexing service when it’s at rest? You’ve got to be kidding me.). Not that… Continue reading this entry

Know thy enemy, ya? For the first time since I EVER started blogging, I was able to install Movable Type onto a testing subdomain of mine. I won’t be actually posting critiques nor commentary on MT. It ain’t my place, and the whole “know they enemy” phrase isn’t my thing either. I have no animus… Continue reading this entry

I don’t do feed readers, for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, if I subscribed to every blog that I read, I would have a ton of unread items. Now, if I have an application that glaringly tells me that I have not read 30 out of the 40 articles in the folder, it… Continue reading this entry

I’m sure I’m not the first person to observe the way email attachments behave within our mail applications,be it Outlook, Thunderbird, Outlook Express, or even GMail: each attachment is included in a message as a new copy of the file being attached. If we forward a message with an attachment, another copy of the attached… Continue reading this entry

My mom got an iPod Shuffle today. I suppose for her needs it’s fine; I would never recommend an iPod product to anyone who wants the functionality and control that others may want from their mp3 player. The sound from the earbuds is actually pretty cool: it could be the earphones that come with it.… Continue reading this entry

I don’t even know if what I am about to ask can be done without absolute positioning. I don’t particularly care if the page won’t degrade gracefully in older browsers, but there has been a particular three-column layout that has been bugging me to no end, and it’s got everything to do with document order.… Continue reading this entry

I’m late to the meme but it’s still fun to do. Thanks, Jason C.

I thought the WP htaccess RegEx was a hoot… until I saw this. Time for a recursive acronym: “REGEX Exceeds Great EXpectations.” For the record I know no perl, and regular expressions are all RegEx (Greek, in case the allusion to the expression is missed) to me. How does a perl-guy’s mind parse through this?… Continue reading this entry