Google has launched a blog search tool. Given how long it took them to get around to it, it’s rather underwhelming. Also, I’m seeing a lot of spam blogs in the results – despite my recent attempts to mock such sites into oblivion they seem to be flourishing. Some Craigslist-style flagging options (also now offered by some blog hosting services) are sorely needed.
ITConversations has posted a second talk from OSCON 2005, Asa Dotzler’s “Linux: In Search of the Desktop”. The talk grew out of a controversial blog posting Asa made, which was then slashdotted.
I agree with most of what he says. I shouldn’t be surprised at the number of people who disagreed with his basic assumption – that Linux has a place in the mainstream desktop computing world – but I am. This argument (“Linux should not try to accommodate regular people”) is, well, stupid. There will always be obscure distributions for people who enjoy being obscure. Or they can move to NetBSD or QNX or unpack their Amiga. I sympathize with the desire – I use Postfix instead of Sendmail, Python instead of Perl, Debian instead of Red Hat, MacOS instead of Windows, Camino instead of Firefox. But if the mainstream OS is Windows, and Windows sucks, then something else needs to move into that space – and devotion to being “alternative” means one is forever marginal by definition.
I can hardly pose as knowledgeable about XUL, having only just recently learned to pronounce it, but I’m happy to learn that the Mozilla project is moving forward with XUL bindings for Python. I prefer the more revolutionary slogan, though: “Breaking the grip JS has on the DOM”. Yes! Cast off the chains!
If you’re not versed in the internals of Mozilla, a good bit of that wiki page will make your eyes glaze over. If you’ve remained conscious, also check out Brendan Eich’s blog posting on the subject and the comments on bug #255942.
This is really one of the most maddening things that OS X does:
The disk "Foo" is in use and could not be ejected.
Try quitting applications and try again.
Hey, you’re the damn computer – try telling me what those applications are! Try telling me what files are in use! Try letting me override!
Quentin Stafford-Fraser commented on Tue Sep 13 04:29:25 2005:
Agreed - this has always bugged me, and Windows does just the same.
I’m way behind the curve on this, mostly because I can be somewhat cantankerous when it comes to Flash. But Scalable Inman Flash Replacement is really clever. Here’s the breakdown of how it works, nicked from the sIFR home page:
A normal (X)HTML page is loaded into the browser.
A javascript function is run which first checks that Flash is installed and then looks for whatever tags, ids, or classes you designate.
I’ve really started to get fed up with link farms, spam blogs, and other wastes of cyberspace that merely exist to trick naive users into a few AdSense clicks. Luckily, many of these sites are not very well constructed and so it’s possible to have some fun at their expense.
At some point I’d like to organize a competition where people submit screenshots and URLs from dopey sites that can be made to embarrass themselves. Here’s my submission (via my link redirector, to prevent any transfer of Google juice).
Via the blog of old Well pal Bruce Umbaugh I learned of the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s new publication “The Customer Is Always Wrong: A User’s Guide to DRM in Online Music.” It does a great job of picking apart the breezy claims of several leading music services. People want to be freed from the hassle of DRM, and these services know it – that’s why they make the overblown statements that the EFF has so nicely debunked.