Robert Scoble wants search engines to pretend that the web is different than it is. I think this would be a bad idea. Scoble’s objection is that search results don’t reflect his notions of what is important in the world. “As long as I’m the #1 Robert and Robert Redford isn’t as high up as [...]
If you receive this error message, the answer to your question is here. Don’t go anywhere else. After wading through substantial non-sense, Pat Hayzlett points out the answer here. The problem in a nut shell is that mySQL 4.1 changed their password hashing and now store the passwords of database users in 40 chars instead [...]
Matthew Russell has some ideas for extending the battery life of your Apple Powerbook. Since I just switched back to Macs and I was having some problems with my previous laptop’s battery life, this was an issue of keen interest. I knew about all of Matthew’s common suggestions, turn off Bluetooth (actually I had completely [...]
I’d like to have an easier way to track where I am reading in an on line document. I’d like this both for each page as I am reading it, and for bookmarking my location. And, no, I don’t want a pony. Perhaps I am an exception, but I like reading from the screen. Having [...]
There are many excellent features of Ruby on Rails. The technology has significant advantages for rapid development and deployment and I don’t think that I could undertake the work that I am doing to develop factscollector without it. I can prototype rapidly, and deploy the simplest thing that could possibly work. My plan is that [...]
I am starting to experiment with writing unit and funtional tests for factscollector. I haven’t ever worked with consistent automated testing. I probably waited too long to start, both in general, and in this particular Ruby on Rails project. The general reasons are well known in the Agile Programing literature. Tthe existance of the test [...]
Koz has a little whoops moment and deletes his installed application code. So, say youâve typed in: $ sudo rm ruby gem irb rails Then you realise youâre sitting in /usr/bin rather than ~/test/bin. You think to yourself, no worries, Iâll just kill that whole line. But instead of hitting C-k, you miss, and hit [...]
As I noted in the previous post, Google Desktop 2.0 breaks Firefox extensions. The most annoying breakage is of Tabbrowser Preferences. Normally, my settings are to open new links typed in the location bar, and searches from the search box into new tabs. When I first installed Google Desktop, both of these reverted to opening [...]
In all the hype over Google Desktop, for example in the New York Times, Slashdot and Ars Technica, I am surprised that no one has noticed that it hijacks your browser and internet connection settings, and more or less hoses Firefox extensions. Before installing the Google Desktop, clicking on a mailto: link in Internet Explorer [...]
Windows Backup is very poorly designed and implemented for automated use. I had to jump through hoops backwards to accomplish automated backups. In the interest of preserving your sanity, here is what I did. My environment: Windows XP Professional Multiple Users Selected Folders Multiple Disks — C backing up to D, and vice-versa Running as [...]