TechnoMagicians Weblog

New Blog URL

Tim A — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 20:30:15 -0400

I'm moving this blog to a new URL which can be found here. I've moved as much of the content across as I could. Comments and some linkage are probably missing and I might work on getting it all over there. However, this site will likely stay archived at this location as well so that old links pointing here still work.

Please be patient while I make changes to the new URL and site over the next week or so.

If you are subscribed here I suggest you pickup the RSS subscription from the new location of the blog.

Amazon MP3 Widget

Tim A — Thu, 15 May 2008 11:35:17 -0400

Just trying this Amazon MP3 Widget thing:

Amazon.com Widgets

Google HuddleChat and 37Signals Campfire

Tim A — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 18:47:14 -0400

Wow, whats all the fuss about this HuddleChat and 37Signals??

Google Apps Engine

Tim A — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 11:49:29 -0400

This looks interesting:

Google App Engine enables you to build web applications on the same scalable systems that power Google applications.

Google Chat Widget

Tim A — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 13:57:10 -0500

Google has come out with what Brent actually envisioned for the BlogChat webchat application in 2001/2002. He wanted visitors to his website to be able to chat with him but not necessarily give out his IM address etc. The Google Chat Widget is basically that and ties into GTalk (Google IM) without revealing one's actual IM address etc. However, it is only one-to-one so no group chat available at this time (perhaps they'll add that as a feature).

Very nice though.

End of Support for Netscape web browsers

Tim A — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 13:25:02 -0500

I'd say this announcement is at least 5 years late!!!

Google Talk Language Translation

Tim A — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 15:17:20 -0500

Google released a chat translation thing today. However in my opinion the implementation is really sloppy with the use of a bot. I suppose a possible reason they are doing this is just to show that one can hook bots into GTalk etc so perhaps it isn't really the fact that they wanted to add translation in a user friendly way.

Brent was messing around with translation for BlogChat back in 2002 and had it working in a much nicer way. See his post on it here.

New Version Of Yahoo User Interface (YUI)

Tim A — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 14:00:13 -0500

Yahoo released a new version of YUI yesterday. I've been using YUI lately on a few projects and it is proving very useful. See their blog entry on the list of new features.

Another Loser Admits Using Steroids

Tim A — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 13:54:33 -0400

I'm really tired about hearing about all this steroid use with athletes.

Another athlete (not even sure I should call them athletes) admits using steroids but again like a ton of others is going to come out saying "I didn't know it was steroids". Apparently the pill they are given is called "the clear" and they are told it is Flax seed oil pills. The strange thing is how come not one of these athletes are suing their coaches or whoever they get "the clear" from. If I was slipped a drug for years and years that I didn't want to have in my system I'm sure I'd sue or do something about it.

Software Is Hard

Tim A — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 11:07:26 -0400

Great article on why software is hard and probably why I'll pickup Dreaming in Code: Two Dozen Programmers, Three Years, 4,732 Bugs, and One Quest for Transcendent Software.

Some of my favorite quotes from the article:

"Software scheduling is an NP-complete bin packing problem where the sizes of the bins are hidden!"

"Software construction is the most complex endeavor ever undertaken by mankind. It makes building things like cathedrals and space shuttles look like child's play, and it strains our little monkey brains to the utmost."

Its A Wonderful World

Tim A — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 14:32:52 -0400

Amazing hand puppet action here that I just had to post:

Global Warming

Tim A — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 17:14:34 -0400

I've always been suspicious of anyone like Al Gore so vocal about Global Warming considering I've followed some of the research and discussion on the other side of the fence. You have to figure anything Gore is doing in the public eye is politically motivated. He is a politician and nothing more. A quote from his "An Inconvenient Truth" from IMDB: "Al Gore strips his presentations of politics, laying out the facts for the audience to draw their own conclusions". He may have stripped his presentations of politics but you know they are his one and only underlying agenda.

I'll give you a few links that I've come across recently very recently:

From this National Post article:

In his enviro-propaganda flick, An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore claims nine of the 10 hottest years on record have occurred in the last decade. That's been a common refrain for environmentalists, too, and one of the centrepieces of global warming hysteria: It's been really hot lately -- abnormally hot -- so we all need to be afraid, very afraid. The trouble is, it's no longer true.

Last week, NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies -- whose temperature records are a key component of the global-warming claim (and whose director, James Hansen, is a sort of godfather of global-warming alarmism) -- quietly corrected an error in its data set that had made recent temperatures seem warmer than they really were.

A little less than a decade ago, the U.S. government changed the way it recorded temperatures. No one thought to correlate the new temperatures with the old ones, though -- no one until Canadian researcher Steve McIntyre, that is.

...

In many cases, the changes are statistically minor, but their potential impact on the rhetoric surrounding global warming is huge.

The hottest year since 1880 becomes 1934 instead of 1998, which is now just second; 1921 is third.

Four of the 10 hottest years were in the 1930s, only three in the past decade. Claiming that man-made carbon dioxide has caused the natural disasters of recent years makes as much sense as claiming fossil-fuel burning caused the Great Depression.

The 15 hottest years since 1880 are spread over seven decades. Eight occurred before atmospheric carbon dioxide began its recent rise; seven occurred afterwards.

In other words, there is no discernible trend, no obvious warming of late.

You'll definitely want to checkout this blog and this site where a group is reviewing official temperature sensing stations and showing the ridiculous locations they are put in or are now in due to urban development etc. The graphic on the homepage there says it all comparing a station setup correctly in a location vs one that is not.

Fire Up A Colortini

Tim A — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 20:03:53 -0400

sit back, relax, and watch the pictures, now, as they fly through the air - Tom Snyder. One of the greatest interviewers has passed away. There has not been another interviewer with a regular show other than Howard Stern that gets real interviews and guests talking honestly and openly than Snyder. He was absolutely the best. I had to find the Tom Snyder / Howard Stern interview. See below.

From this Time's article:

Kayako Help Desk

Tim A — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 11:17:52 -0400

I was just online submitting a trouble ticket to a company and while entering the information a bunch of knowledge base articles started popping up underneath the web based input form. One of them had the answer to my question so I didn't even need to submit the ticket. This is the best implementation of an online help desk that I've seen yet. Most of the time I'll skip over reviewing the FAQ or online knowledge base because they are typically useless to search and get the info anyway. But this was a nice way to present it.

Looks like they are using Kayako Help Desk stuff.

Velocity Server / DataPoint Inc

Tim A — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 10:34:04 -0400

I used to be able to recommend Velocity Server (who was recently bought by DataPoint) as a pretty decent Virtual Private Server (VPS) provider. That is no longer the case. It seems that whenever they were taken over by DataPoint mass incompetence has taken over. We used to deal with a few very competent people at Velocity Server but that is no longer.

Its almost impossible to get someone to get back to you from there now. The billing department emails have a phone number stamped on them that doesn't exist anymore. I've left a number of voice mails and even tech support apparently has asked someone to call me back (nothing). Although someone from another department called me back (I think it may have been one of the principals from the old Velocity Server).

The last straw that broke the camels back was when they mistakenly deleted the wrong VPS on me. Instead of killing one that I no longer required they killed the one that was working nicely leaving me holding the bag. I made it very very clear which one to delete. Further, I had just paid an invoice that morning on the one they deleted.

The moral of the story is, don't deal with these guys. Customer service is pretty much non-existent at this point.

GMail / Google Apps For Domains False Positives

Tim A — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 14:39:50 -0400

I've noticed an alarming increase in false positives being detected by Google Apps For Domains GMail spam detection. It is so bad actually that I'd rather turn off GMail spam detection altogether. My own service SimpleFilter does a much much better job at spam detection and so much less false positive that I have to begin thinking about not using Google Apps GMail for my domains now. They really should allow one to turn on or off the spam filtering or at least some sort of basic options.

I've been using Google Apps For Domains with most of my domains for a while now. See here.

Wayne Gretzky-Style 'Field Sense' May Be Teachable

Tim A — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 17:05:37 -0400

Having some of this Gretzky field sense myself, if I may say so, I think they are a bit off base in this article. At least in the examples given they don't apply to Gretzky's field sense whatsoever in my opinion. For the tennis and volleyball examples, one is training on being able to predict trajectory by watching directly and picking up on various clues. Also, with the Australian rules football example, I believe this is completely backwards as to how Gretzky and similar players in hockey process information.

From my own experience and the way I understand how Gretzky processes information, it basically comes from experience and the ability to track 3-4 other players (maybe more if you count the other team) simultaneously as to their predicted movement on the ice. This comes from being able to process what one would do if you were in their shoes without the need to look at them or focus on them. When I play with players that approach the game very very similarly to myself I have an extremely good idea exactly where they are going to be on the ice at any given time. I know what they are going to do if I cut one way or the other. I know what they are going to do if a defender moves a certain way. I don't need to glance at them or assess the field.

XM Weather helped AGR on rainy Indy 500

Tim A — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 18:52:55 -0400

From Orbitcast:

Andretti Green Racing's partnership with XM Satellite Radio has more to do than just talk shows and sponsorships. AGR used XM WX Weather for up-to-the-second intelligence during the rain-soaked Indy 500 as part of their arsenal of tech tools.

While other teams were relying on local weather forecasts to layout their strategies, AGR was using streaming real-time weather data delivered trackside to their team computers.

Well, not quite. Although they might have had this data they certainly didn't make good use of it. I watched the Indy 500 and I was pulling up weather data from various online weather sites. It was obvious to me that they wouldn't finish this race without rain coming in big time for a second time and ending the race. With AGR having 3 cars up front I would have definitely left at least 2 if not 3 of them out there running instead of pulling them into the pits. The decision to bring them into the pits cost them dearly if you ask me.

ActiveWidgets Javascript Library

Tim A — Fri, 18 May 2007 12:04:52 -0400

I've been using the YUI (Yahoo User Interface) Library for a while now and had a need for a pretty complicated table/grid and decided to give their DataTable a try. It is still in beta and probably why I ran into a few quirks and bugs I just couldn't work around. So I gave ActiveWidgets a try and have been really pleased with it so far. Seems to be nicely designed and although I also ran into a few quirks it was very easy to work around them. Definitely seems to be worth the dollars rather than spending the time getting YUI working. I fully expect YUI to work nicely down the road but I can't wait for it right now.

New Google Analytics

Tim A — Sat, 12 May 2007 11:25:46 -0400

The update to Google Analytics seems to be really slick. Checkout the blog post about it here.

SEC Suspends Trading Of 35 Companies Touted In Spam Email Campaigns

Tim A — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 19:37:54 -0400

Interesting:

The Securities and Exchange Commission this morning suspended trading in the securities of 35 companies that have been the subject of recent and repeated spam email campaigns (see examples). The trading suspensions - the most ever aimed at spammed companies - were ordered because of questions regarding the adequacy and accuracy of information about the companies.

Another Reason Why Rogers Sucks

Tim A — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 16:17:51 -0400

Michael Geist has the full blog post here:

If true, this form of network interference - implemented with virtually no transparency and now affecting basic Internet services such as email - demonstrates why a dedicated consumer complaints commission is a good start, but a place to complain is not enough. The solution lies in creating mandatory net neutrality provisions to ensure that essential communications tools such as email are not surreptitiously degraded.

Sender Address Verification considered harmful

Tim A — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 00:25:26 -0400

Excellent post by Justin on why SAV isn't that useful in fighting spam:

Some view this as a useful anti-spam technique. In my opinion, it’s not.

Spam/anti-spam is an adversarial “game”. Whenever you’re considering anti-spam techniques, it’s important to bear in mind game theory, and the possible countermeasures that spammers will respond with. Before SAV became prevalent, spam was often sent using entirely fake sender data; hence the initial attractiveness of SAV. Once SAV became worth evading, the spammers needed to find “real” sender addresses to evade it. And where’s the obvious place to find real addresses? On the list of target addresses they’re spamming!

Dave Still Doesn't Get It

Tim A — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 01:06:26 -0500

Dave says that most RSS readers are wrong. Well, I hate to tell him that he is wrong. He'd never understand that but it is just plain true.

Dave still doesn't understand that people have different ways of working and different views. I used a river of news view with his Radio Userland product many moons ago for who can remember how long. I hated the fact that I was tied to one way of reading news and had less than zero options to change things. At least other RSS readers (I'm sure Dave hasn't looked at one) do things in many different ways and allow one to view news in the way they like and NOT how Dave thinks everyone should.

Stop crying me a river.

Update: Just found this here:

For something to be wrong, there must, neccessarily, be something that is right. When Dave says that RSS Readers Are Designed Wrong, he implies that there is a right way to design them, and the lack of qualifiers and means that there is one right way. Unfortunately, Dave contradicts his own theory in the second line of his post when he says “One of the first rules of software design is also the primary rule of business — ‘The user is always right.’”

Repeat after me Dave, "The USER is always right, the USER is always right, the USER is always right ........"

SimpleFilter And Google Apps For Your Domain / GMail

Tim A — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 23:11:27 -0500

I've been slowly moving my various domain's email management to Google Apps For Your Domain. After a bit of success I let Brent know and he is happily also using Google Apps Gmail thingy.

One thing I noticed right away since I let things run outside of our SimpleFilter corporate service is that a ton of spam piles up that I never ever see. Now Google Apps Gmail does a very good job at moving this stuff to the spam folder but one still needs to scan a million emails to see if any false positives get through. One thing we did with SimpleFilter early on was to classify spam into LOW, MEDIUM, and HIGH probability of being spam. That way one can quickly scan through the LOW for false positives and completely ignore the MEDIUM and HIGH. In fact, SimpleFilter allows one to block the delivery of MEDIUM and HIGH to the users inbox. I've been running in that mode for years (most customers do too) and I've never had an issue with a false positive falling into either of those higher categories. It is very rare actually to get one falling into LOW as well.

This is a huge difference and I can't see how one could possibly managing their email with just Google Apps Gmail spam filtering. There is just way too many spams to scan through. With SimpleFilter in place it takes me about 5 seconds every day or two to scan for false positives.

I ran a little test and without SimpleFilter in the mix, I'd have to scan through approximately 300 emails a day. With SimpleFilter in the mix and throwing away MEDIUM and HIGH spam, I'm down to about 11 a day. Thats a huge difference.

Here is a screen capture to show the difference. Jan 17th ones go on for at least a few pages (like I said about 300 or so emails). I slipped SimpleFilter into the mix at the end of the 17th.

del.icio.us Bookmarks Extension For Firefox

Tim A — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 20:57:02 -0500

Looks like Yahoo released a new firefox extension for del.icio.us. It really integrates with the browser now with tons of very nice features. For some reason the actual del.icio.us website does not reference this version but you can get it from here - https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/3615/

Heads Or Tails?

Tim A — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 16:05:04 -0500

What is it with the fascination of that TV game show "Deal or No Deal"? Is North America really reduced to this level of mindless television? Is there anything remotely interesting about this show? I was able to stomach approximately 5 minutes of this show before vowing never to watch it again. How is it so popular? Mind you I watch as little TV as possible and there are times I like to completely unplug my brain and stare at the tube but even then I don't think I could watch "Deal or No Deal" ever again. What is the appeal?

Having said all that, if people are looking for this type of mindless game show then I have a great idea. Lets simplify things even more. Make it even more mindless. Lets make the choice dead simple. Heads or Tails? Thats it. No boxes to chose from, no phone calls, no nothing. Just start out at $100 and the contestant picks Heads or Tails. Flip a coin. You either win or lose. Perfect. If you win, you increase the dollar amount to the next level and the contestant can take the money and run or continue. And then the all important decision once again. Heads or Tails. This continues all the way to a million dollar prize.

Ok, thats my idea. I'll sit back and wait for one of the networks to contact me now and by this time next year I'll be rolling in the dough with the most popular game show on TV!!!!

Update (Feb 23, 2008): Since this post there is some odd phenomena of comedians hosting game shows. I guess some genius moron producer thought, if Deal or No Deal can be so popular with a comedian hosting then it must mean we can throw any comedian a game show and it will sky rocket. Just off the top of my head, we have 1 vs 100 with Bob Saget hosting, The Price Is Right with Drew Carey and Amnesia with Denis Miller (I'm sure I'm missing a bunch).

I'm going to see if Seinfeld would like to host Heads Or Tails. Without a doubt it would be the #1 show!!!! Or better yet, Howard Stern since he seems to want to host a real simple game show.

Mailinator Architecture

Tim A — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 18:39:32 -0500

Paul Tyma, creator of the great service Mailinator wrote a post about the architecture of the system. The reason I point to it is because of the simplicity/beauty of the system. Here is a short couple quotes:

At this point, Mailinator averages approximately 2.5million emails per day. I have seen hourly spikes that would result in about 5million in a day. In addition, the system also services several thousand web users and several thousand RSS users per day.

In the world of email services, this probably isn't all that much. The most interesting part to me is that the complete set of hardware that mailinator uses is one little server. Just one. A very modest machine with an AMD 2Ghz Athlon processor, 1G of ram (although it really doesn't need that much), and a boring (IDE , low-performance) 80G hard drive. And honestly, its really not very busy at all. I've read the blogs of some copycat services of Mailinator where their owners were upgrading their servers to some big iron. This was really the impetus for me writing down this document - to share a different point of view.

Reminds me of how Brent and I typically approach similar ideas. Take SimpleFilter and Blogchat for instance. Without going into details, they both were designed to run and operate as very simple services on extremely modest hardware but also with the ability to scale well.

My Vote For Quote Of The Year

Tim A — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 17:25:11 -0500

As with Ross, I rarely blog about politics and crapola like this but I found his quote to potentially be the quote of the year for 2006 when describing Sadam Hussein:

"He was," I finished. "As ruthless and terrible as Hitler, but far less successful."

And then Ross went on to say:

I'm blogging this because I think that we've lost sight of something important. Somewhere along the way, Bush's atrocities have take a more prominent place in our minds. Bush is guilty of his own sins, and the world will be a better place when he is out of office, but I don't think he deserves to be deposed and hung either. Saddam Hussein was not the pathetic old man hiding in a spider hole that we've come to remember him as. He was a tyrannical despot that deserved to die.

The world is a better place without him.

What I find highly ironic here is that Bin Laden was adament about leading a jihad against the Iragis and oust Sadam with his so called Islamic army after the invasion of Kuwait. When Bin Laden's ridiculous plan was rejected by the Saudi Defense Ministry, and American forces were brought in, I think this was the turning point in Bin Laden's view of the US and the beginnings of a very radical Bin Laden. This is from my understanding of reading "Ghost Wars" (end of Chapter 11).

Maybe they should have let Bin Laden go ahead but who knows of his real intentions. Look what happened with the rise of the Talaban in Afghanistan. Not to say that Bin Laden was fully responsible for that but it seems he had some sort of hand in it.

For those of you who mainly make up their views on all this political crapola on either side of the fence from the mainstream (propoganda) press, I highly recommend reading a book like "Ghost Wars" to really get a feel for how grey these issues really are.

NeXT Apple Merge 10 Year Anniversery

Tim A — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 12:26:25 -0500

Interesting post from John Romero about NeXT being used in the early Id Software days. I remember checking out and wanting a NeXT machine around 1990 timeframe. And somehow I didn't realize or totally forgot that NeXTStep became Cocoa.