Archive for February, 2008

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Writing a book

Posted in Generalon Feb 28, 2008

If I were to write a book titled something like, “Jacob’s Insights,” or “101 Nonsenses,” or “Less about the turbo confabulator encabulator and more about everything else,” what should I put in it?

My current idea is to make it a collection of various things that I’ve written, some of which from this blog, some of which from other sources. What would be the most interesting things that I could put in the book?

Of course, I don’t think anyone but myself would be interested in owning a copy. However, thanks to on-demand publishing, I can print only the number of books that are wanted.

Domain Names

Posted in Technicalon Feb 27, 2008

I went looking for domain names today, and I found a couple interesting ones. They are available, unless of course the person who read this five minutes ago registered it:

  • http://hardh.at
  • http://enscri.be
  • http://xenopho.be
  • http://jacobbrunson.us.com

I think the .at domains are going for about $50, while the .be domains are just $18. If you want a .us.com domain (not like anyone is going to remember it) you can dish $150 out to Network Solutions.

Adobe Error

Posted in Technicalon Feb 25, 2008

Today, Adobe announced a new product: Adobe Air. The basic concept of this is that you can compile a web application that you’ve developed to be a run-time on a users system. Adobe accomplishes this through distribution of the WebKit HTML rendering engine. Basically, your apps run like they would in a web browser, except that they look more like they are a standalone desktop application.

Adobe has done a good job at allowing Air applications integrate well with the desktop.

Adobe isn’t the first to use internet delivery technologies for desktop applications. Mozilla’s XULRunner allows developers to create and package multi-platform programs based off the same technology that powers Firefox. However, Adobe has done a good job at making it simple to publish very traditional AJAX apps as desktop apps.

Adobe’s big problem is they only support Windows and Mac. There is no Linux support, at least not yet. One of Adobe Air’s big selling point is that it makes it easy to create cross-platform applications. However, without Linux support, the most Adobe can advertise is dual-platform apps.

For a great demo Air app, look at this complex YUI example.

Wanted: better templating language

Posted in Technicalon Feb 25, 2008

I need a better templating language, one where an included (called) template can change its containing (caller) template. For example, consider this container template:

<html>
<head>
<title>{define-spot name="title"}</title>
<script language="Javascript">
{define-spot name="js"}
</script>
</head>
<body>
{include file="inside.tpl"}
</body>
</html>

This container creates a spot where a title can be placed and where some javascript can be placed. It then includes another template file which will put content in those spots. This included template, inside.tpl, would look like the following:


{fill-spot id="title"}Jacob's Super Page{/fill-spot}
{fill-spot id="js"}alert('hello'};{/fill-spot}
<h1>Hello</h1>
<p>This is a sample template file</p>

The template language would also need to be flexible enough such that if the included template didn’t fill the spots, then things continue to work without without crashing, as if the spots had been filled with nothing.

The problem is that many template language translate their template into some sort of source code, and usually that source code turns out to be in a procedual language. This means that templates are parsed from top to bottom, so by the time the inside template is included, the template parser has already parsed the spots above it, and can’t go back and fill those spots (because that would require parsing the container template twice).

A posible solution may be available in some template language which would allow you to parse the inner template first by placing it at the top of the container template, capturing its output, and displaying it later. This would result in a less-elegant container template that might look like the following:


{capture to="inside-contents"}
{include file="inside.tpl"}
{/capture}
<html>
<head>
<title>{define-spot name="title"}</title>
<script language="Javascript">
{define-spot name="js"}
</script>
</head>
<body>
{show id="inside-contents}
</body>
</html>

How to get the most out of a free Blockbuster online trial

Posted in Generalon Feb 22, 2008

Blockbuster does something similar to Netflix, where they will rent you DVD movies through the mail. I recently tried their 14 day trial period, and these are my suggestions to make the most of your trial:

  • Sign up for the biggest plan you can get, because after all, this is a free trial. The risk in this though is if you don’t cancel in time, you get charged for the big plan. If you end up liking the service and wanting to continue, you can always switch to a smaller, less expensive plan. (Make sure you switch before your free trial ends)
  • Don’t sign up for your trial late at night. Sign up really early in the morning. The idea is to try and get them to ship you your first set of DVD on the same day that you sign up for the trial. I signed up at 8:30am, and they didn’t ship until the next day. Maybe they never ship on the day you sign up, but if you signed up really early in the morning, you would have the best chances.
  • Check the calendar, and make sure there are no holidays. If there is a holiday in the middle of your trial, you might not be able to fit a whole extra shipment into your trial.
  • Return your DVDs the day after you get them. This might cause a lot of movie watching when you get your whole shipment, but it is a way to maximize the number of free rentals. You could also get creative of other ways to use your rentals without actually spending the immediate time to watch them. :-)
  • Returning DVDs directly to the post office as soon as possible will help make sure that they get in the earliest shipment back. If you put them in your regular mailbox, your mail delivery person gets to drive around with them all day.
  • Signup for your trial early Wednesday or Thursday mornings. I think this allows you the best weekend watching.
  • Cancel your subscription on the 14th day. If you signed up on a Wednesday, make sure you cancel it by Tuesday. When they say 14 trial days, they mean calendar days and not full (24 hour) days. If you signed up Tuesday night, you don’t have until Tuesday night two weeks later to cancel, because they will charge your card Tuesday morning, because it was the 15th day of your trial.
  • If you returned DVDs the business a day or two before the end of your trail, wait until the evening before canceling, to give them every opportunity to send you more DVDs just before you cancel.
  • Manage your queue just right so that your favorite DVD are the last ones to arrive during your trial. This is because they allow you quite a bit of time to return the DVD that they’ve already sent you. For me, they gave me over a month to return the movies they sent me right before I canceled. If you favorite movies are the last to arrive during your trial, then you can watch them over and over.

And remember, if your Blockbuster free trial wasn’t enough for you, you can get a Netflix free trial as well. Or do some Google searching, and you may be able to find even more services like this providing free trials.

Battle of the computer drawn stick figure people

Posted in Funnyon Feb 22, 2008

I thought this was very well done.


Animator vs. Animation by *alanbecker on deviantART

Google Docs celebrates Valentines Day

Posted in Funnyon Feb 14, 2008

Google Docs is an online service that provides a word processor, spreadsheet application, and a slide show program. It is available as part of Google Apps, for a specific team, or directly from Google.

Today I visited Google Docs to upload a document with a sugar cookie recipe, and I found that they’ve gone pink for the day. I did’t know the Google Docs folks were so into Valentines Day, but it looks like they’ve got pleanty of love to share.

Google Docs of valentines day


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