Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/06/23/feeling-lucky/
Ahhh, Google Custom Home Page, you are having a bad day.
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/03/30/more-dst-fun/
From Wired:
“This is like Y2K except this one is really happening,” said [Purdue University] IT spokesman Steve Tally.
Currently, most Indiana computer users set their PCs to a special “Indiana East” setting — Eastern time that doesn’t spring forward every April. Starting this April, however, they’ll change their PCs to Eastern Daylight Time. The few who observe Central time set their computers to Central, and will also make the switch. Tally predicts the changeover will create havoc with the widely used Microsoft Outlook calendar application. When the time changes, he said, appointments will still be listed according to the old Indiana East time. The calendars of Central time Outlook users, in turn, will continue to list appointments according to Central time.
With a nationwide shift in daylight-saving scheduling slated for next year, Indiana’s experience offers a preview of potential glitches in store for the rest of the country. Starting in 2007, daylight-saving time will begin on the second Sunday of March rather than the first Sunday in April, as it does today. Daylight-saving time will end the first Sunday of November, a week later than it does now.
I heard on the radio yesterday that computer technology actually plays a much bigger roll in the growing gap between high-wage and low-wage employees than does immigration, such that those opposed to immigration should also be opposed to computers. I suppose one could look at the legislature mucking around with timekeeping as a way of creating demand for IT jobs, and thus slowing, ever so slightly, the rate at which IT efficiency disempowers low-wage workers.
My favorite DST bug was when Windows first started doing DST compensation automatically. The first time Windows computers were trusted to “fall back” an hour there was a bug such that several computers set their clocks back, and then set their clocks back, and then set their clocks back again . . . some computers ended up three, four, five, six hours behind . . . (more…)
2 Comments
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/03/07/customer-service-rant/
So, we use Bugzilla at work, and our users are mostly comfortable with it. On the other hand, there’s a popular “ticket tracking” system that is designed to track IT-type issues, which are considerably different from, although similar to, bugs. So, I have been asking around for advice . . . one reason I like RT is that it is simple for the user to send an e-mail directly into the system. A response was “well, then you don’t get enough information to solve the problem, so making the user fill out all the information in a web interface is better.” This . . . this, is one of my peet peeves:
Ah, personally, I HATE any system that makes “reporting a bug” any more cumbersome than absolutely needed. You need to make it as easy as possible to record that “something is wrong” and then query your customer for missing data as needed. All these “customer service” forms that have ever forced me to supply 5, ten, fifty pieces of frequently irrelevant data, and then ask me to explain my problem in a tiny little window . . .
No. Tools need to accomodate customer needs, and customer needs low barrier to entry. My cynical take on requiring the user to answer twenty questions is that you gain “efficiency” by making it sufficiently cumbersome for a user to report trouble such that the user will simply tolerate all but the very biggest problems, meanwhile cursing the jackasses over in the support organization with their “talk to our dumb*ss web interface” mentality.
A good compromise is to capture the user inquiry, and then, if there’s a standard questionnaire that needs filling out, have them fill it out.
Just, ah, my 2c. :)
I am so exhausted right now. Where has all my energy gone? Grr!
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/02/19/chicago-wireless/
As reported in the AP:
CHICAGO – The nationwide rush to go wireless appears poised to extend to its biggest city yet. Chicago is launching an effort to offer wireless broadband, city officials said Friday, jumping on the Wi-Fi bandwagon as similar initiatives proceed in Philadelphia, San Francisco and smaller cities.
Well, that is the coolest news about my home town that I have read in a while. Municipal WiFi? In the yuppie neighborhoods and in the ghetto? Speedy Internet for all the schoolchildren and the tourists? Amen to that!
Meanwhile, in a parallel universe, we awoke yesterday to find snow on the ground . . . in California! Well, sure it was up on Mount Diablo, and it had been rained away by the afternoon, but it merited a celebratory call home to Mom in Chicago, where there is no snow at the moment, but there is certainly cold.
And next year . . . wireless!
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/02/09/advice-for-salespeople/
“There’s two kinds of vendors in this world, my friend. There are those that, when I ask for a quote, send me an Excel spreadsheet, and those that are likely to get my business.”
It is more complicated than that, but:
- If I check “I prefer to be contacted by e-mail” on the form, don’t call me.
- If I have already filled out my company’s name, you are not allowed to mis-spell it.
- If you are a Data Center company named “Colo(Whatever)” then don’t send me a quote for “collocation” services. Paper documents are collated, servers are co-located.
- If I ask for 1 unit of bandwidth, don’t raise your price by sneaking in a second unit of bandwidth.
- Dude, who offers Data Center tours twice a week?
- SysAdmins don’t always have ready access to Microsoft Excel, and Word documents can break when you e-mail them to a customer running a different version. Nobody wants to pay “Err: 5” for services. Text or PDF or death!!
By the way, I need to hire a SysAdmin . . .
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/02/04/boycott-yahoo/
I wrote a letter to Yahoo! today. I am curious what answer I will get:
Hello,
I live in the Bay Area. I have friends who work At Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft. I am a big Google fan, but I am also all about Flickr!. I purchased an account even before Yahoo! bought them and have since written a Flickr plugin. I have followed the recent controversey over google.cn’s launch, and I have come to the conclusion that Google is doing the right thing:
- They will openly censor searches in accordance with Chinese law.
- They will not offer services that would put them in a position to compromise privacy: mail, blogs.
I have heard press reports that Yahoo! and MSN have cooperated with the Chinese government to reveal the identity of Chinese Bloggers, and have them arrested. This is wrong. And as a user, as someone who pays Yahoo! … I want to know, what are you guys doing about free speech in China? Wouldn’t you agree that disengagement in business activity that leaves you involved in arresting people is the way to go? What is Yahoo! going to do?
Do I need to stop using Flickr if I want to feel good about using the Internet? Do I need to encourage others to boycott Yahoo!, as consumers once boycotted companies engaged in human rights violations in South Africa?
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
-danny
Perhaps, you too, should contact Yahoo!, or perhaps Microsoft, to express your concerns. I will post any reply I receive here.
-danny
3 Comments
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/01/30/gapers-cubicles-redeyes/
The past week has been good. Saturday was the excellent Birthday Party #30. Sunday I got some work done, then I was getting up to pick up Jessica at the airport when she called and reported that her Southwest flight had landed 40 minutes early! So, I met her at the BART instead. Monday and Tuesday I was out-of-sync, and Tuesday at work was spent doing some emergency resuscitation of a dead laptop . . . Wednesday morning, I think it was, I was back on my game, and on the bus ride in to work, I saw something really cool: a full traffic break.
I had been wondering why the Southbound traffic was so sluggish. Then, all of a sudden, I saw the traffic evaporate in the Northbound lanes, which were led by a Highway Patrol car, weaving to a full stop, four lanes of traffic behind him. Everybody stopped, and the officer got out in the middle of the highway, to remove some chunks of wood. A guy in a white pickup truck at the head of the third lane hopped out to help remove debris, as our Southbound traffic sped away. “Northbound 680, all lanes stopped at Danville to remove debris. Gapers Southbound,” is how that might have been reported on Chicago radio.
Gapers. Gapers is a traffic delay that you get when drivers slow down to gape at something interesting along the highway. “Something interesting” usually means a traffic accident. And in many cases, it is only reasonable to slow down, just to make sure people aren’t leaking from the incident into the traffic lanes. For my part, I thought the full traffic break, during rush hour, was a sure sign that we are civilized: we empower a single cop in a patrol car with the power of Moses, to part the rolling seas of a busy highway, to make 70MPH a dead stop. I heard an opinions piece on the radio some months back, a guy from India felt that Stop signs were emblematic of America’s true power. In India, nobody would ever stop at a stop sign, so the government doesn’t bother with traffic control. In America, people will come to a full stop nearly every time, even if they don’t really need to, because our civilization is in such a state that people respect and understand the legitimacy of our laws. (more…)
2 Comments
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/01/29/photos-flickr-04/
Hello,
I have written a basic WordPress plugin to present a Flickr photo stream from a WordPress blog.
Photos Flickr provides for basic browsing of a Flickr photo stream from within a WordPress blog.
You can see this plugin in action at http://dannyman.toldme.com/photos/ and if you would like to try this plugin yourself, you can read more about it at http://dannyman.toldme.com/photos-flickr/.
Thanks,
-danny
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/01/25/battlestar-galactica-paid-download/
[From an e-mail I sent to the Sci-Fi Channel . . .]
Hello,
I don’t have cable, and my only access to TV shows has been via Netflix and Internet downloads.
I am very excited that you folks are now offering paid downloads of Battlestar Galactica! Bittorrent works great, but I’d like to see you guys compensated for the creative work and production costs, right? And since I only watch a few shows per month, the $2/episode is definitely a better value than buying Cable access, which is overpriced for my needs.
UNFORTUNATELY, the iTunes store is a closed, proprietary system, that can not be accessed from my home entertainment center, which runs on FreeBSD. So, even though I own a video iPod … I can not easily obtain the downloads from your vendor … and if I do somehow get to the iTunes store, I have no idea if they’re DRM-protected, which would block me from watching your show on my entertainment center anyway. :(
Please … please try to either:
a) Convince Apple to open up iTunes access to third parties. A while back, the open source community reverse-engineered the iTunes protocols so that Linux users could access this resource, but Apple locked these consumers out again.
b) Consider adopting Google Video as a sales channel — they have the capability to sell videos via traditional web browsers, which would allow ALL computer users to access your content, increasing consumer accessibility and sales for Battlestar Galactica.
Failing that … can I Paypal you guys $2/week for the episodes I have been obtaining via Bittorrent? :)
Thanks,
-danny
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/01/23/daylight-saving-sucks/
I am one of those contrarian freaks who despises Daylight Saving Time, regarding it as a stupid fix to a problem that does not exist. You want more daylight after work? Set your alarm clock ahead and get to work an hour earlier! Don’t go changing my schedule . . .
Most people . . . normal people, don’t feel strongly about DST. “Yeah, it is annoying to change all my clocks twice a year, but then I don’t mind the extra daylight in the evening.” Of course, my last job I was working 7AM-3PM anyway, so I was saving Daylight . . .
So, enough bitching. Let’s talk turkey. Let’s talk Operational Qualification for third party auditing of a production database system. When I run the regression tests for PostgreSQL-7.4.8, the “horology” regression test fails. The README for this version reports that this may happen if you run on the day of DST switchover . . . or if your Operating System naively applies current DST rules retroactively. But, in my case? Huh, just don’t get it: (more…)
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/01/12/glowing-green-pigs/
The BBC reports that Taiwanese researchers have bred fluorescent pigs:
Scientists in Taiwan say they have bred three pigs that glow in the dark.
The pigs are transgenic, created by adding genetic material from jellyfish into a normal pig embryo. Taiwan is not claiming a world first. Others have bred partially fluorescent pigs before. But the researchers insist the three pigs they have produced are better. They are the only ones that are green from the inside out. Even their heart and internal organs are green.
As a coworker mused “green eggs and ham.” (more…)
1 Comment
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/01/12/beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep/
This is a test.
This is a test of the new WordPress admin interface via Sidekick 2.
The web servers in your area, in voluntary cooperation with danny, his web site, and RSS feeds have devised this test in order to distract you in case of boredom. (more…)
2 Comments
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/01/12/google-updater/
So, the pattern with Google projects seems to go like this: release something mediocre and not so interesting, and over time, it gets a lot better.
Case in point: Google Video. At first, I saw no utility in this disorganized beast that only supplied video within the confines of a web browser. Ah, but the times they have been a changin’! Now you can buy videos from Google video, and unless the content provider has DRM, you can download the Google video in a file, and watch it without a stinking web browser. It is my fervent hope that before long, I’ll be able to download the shows I like to watch for about $2/hour, and I won’t have to deal with the gorge-your-brain-on-crap-all-you-can-eat buffet of mediocrity that is Cable.
Well, we’ll see if things go that way. But I think the TV industry is ready to learn from the opportunities missed by the music industry. And I think that while Apple Video store has an early lead in this territory, the Google Video store shows more promise, as it is in the business of making video available to the widest audience possible, where Apple is in their 1980s business of giving people an incentive to buy their proprietary hardware.
But what really gets me excited is Google Updater. What’s this? Well, they aren’t touting Updater, they’re touting Google Pack, which is a software bundle that Google thinks you should download. The pack is mediocre–Norton Antivirus? Norton is the suck! The Pack software litters up your desktop with icons . . . grr! And since Google is making your decisions for you, Google decides that you need Firefox with Google Toolbar. Okay . . .
So, Pack is mediocre, but Google Updater . . . now this is what excites me! It is a tool to update new versions of software. Nothing so magical about that–we have been automating software update deployment in the Unix world for years now! The cool thing is that Google is releasing a tool to do this on Windows. I hope they’ll release an API, as this would be very useful for IT folks. I think this will ultimately come to pass . . . much as Google Video ultimately let you download and buy video.
But why I really want Google Updater to be unleashed as a generally useful tool, is because this sort of framework for tracking and updating installed software really ought to be a part of the OS–it is in Unix land–but Microsoft has . . . well, let us say that they have not chosen to innovate in this direction . . . and Microsoft is ever so jealous of Google, with Ballmer throwing chairs around. If Google gets into the business of improving Microsoft’s core product, man, that’s gotta scare a few in Redmond.
And nothing proves that you’re doing no evil more than sticking it to the man.
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/01/03/standby-for-maintenance/
Upgrading WordPress to 2.0, which promises mucho new features . . . let us see . . . the site may be wonky for the next few hours?
Damn, that was easy. We’ll see what bugs crop up . . .
. . . well, I still need to figure out how to reverse the posts in some categories, but that is no biggy. Please chip in comments here, just to see if the new anti-comment-spam feature is doing its thing properly. :)
Cheers,
-danny
4 Comments
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/12/29/i-am-lame/
So, I discovered yesterday, that if one goes to Google, and types i am lame, then my web site is the first hit. Don’t that make me feel special?
But I didn’t drag you here for my inverse ego thing, here’s some cool videos that I have seen recently:
Internet Musical — World of Warcraft Monsters praise the Internet, in song. Best. Video. Ever!
Climbing Russian Kids — Man, talk about making good use of a post-utopian wasteland. Hollywood should steal these kids for stuntmen.
Sushi Documentary — Everything you shouldn’t know about sushi.
Devil Dogs — Lucian Reed went to Iraq to take photographs. This video is a valuable glimpse at how our folks are doing over there.
I have decided that Google Video is mostly tolerable. It’s not standard CODECs in files . . . probably they have some decent reasons, but unlike RealVideo, or QuickTime, they don’t require you to install spyware on your computer and watch the video in a little 2″ window. So, well, okay, maybe forcing you to stream . . . why? Maybe that is somewhat evil, but it is definitely less evil than “Video on the Internet” that has come before, and easier for the masses than Bittorrent . . . though it’d be neat . . . give it time . . .
1 Comment
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