2009 Jun 26, 5:44A person with nearlyfreespeech.net hosting their web content recalls how they setup awstats
awstats statistics nearlyfreespeech.net linux howto tutorial technical 2009 Jun 22, 3:28Details on Firefox's DNS prefetching: "The Firefox implementation takes this approach one step further than just pre-resolving anchor href hostnames. It uses the prefetch logic on URLs that are being
included in the current document. By this I mean that it uses the prefetch logic on things like images, css, and jscript that are being loaded right away, in addition to anchor links which might be
clicked on at a slightly later time."
dns dns-prefetching html performance networking firefox mozilla technical 2009 Jun 22, 2:55"To speed up browsing, Google Chrome resolves domain names before the user navigates, typically while the user is viewing a web page." In addition to noting what and how they do it, and how web devs
can control it, they give a few stats on how much it helps.
google dns chrome dns-prefetching browser networking performance technical 2009 Jun 22, 2:53"Firefox 3.5 performs DNS prefetching. This is a feature by which Firefox proactively performs domain name resolution on both links that the user may choose to follow as well as URLs for items
referenced by the document, including images, CSS, JavaScript, and so forth."
dns firefox mozilla networking performance dns-prefetching technical 2009 Jun 20, 9:43How to use the WIA APIs in C#. WIA is Windows API to get images from scanners and cameras. And, as I found out, if you want to use the API in PowerShell try '$deviceManager = new-object -ComObject
WIA.DeviceManager'
video scanner api wia csharp howto programming camera image photo .net webcam technical 2009 Jun 20, 9:39If you have Office installed you may have an OCR library sitting on your hard drive just waiting to be used via C#...
ocr microsoft office .net automation scanner camera windows technical 2009 Jun 19, 5:36Eric Lawrence (yes, THE Eric Lawrence) has a blog on IE networking, security and other stuff.
eric-lawrence blog technical ie ie8 network security 2009 Jun 19, 10:12
I'm excited by HTML5's video tag as are plenty of other people. Once that
comes about and once media fragments are adopted, linking to or embedding a portion of a video will be as easy as using the correct
fragment on your URL thanks to the Media Fragments WG who has been hard at work since the last time I looked at fragments.
However, until that work is embraced by browsers, embedding portions of videos will continue to require work specific to the site from which you are embedding the video. On the YouTube blog they
wrote about how to "link to the best parts in your videos", using a fragment syntax like '#t=1m15s' to start playback of the associated
video at 1 minute and 15 seconds. Of course if you want to embed part of a Hulu video it will be different. Although I haven't found an authoritative source describing the URL syntax to use, you
can follow Hulu's video guide on linking to part of a video and note how the URL changes as you adjust the
slider on the time-line. It looks like their syntax for linking to a Hulu page is to add '?c=[start time in seconds](:[end time in seconds])' with the colon and end time optional in order to link
to a portion of a video. And the syntax for embedding appears to be "http://www.hulu.com/embed/.../[start time in seconds](/[end time in
seconds])" again with the end time optional.
For more sites, check out the Media Fragments WG's list of existing applications' proprietary fragmenting
schemes.
hulu technical media fragment wg url youtube video html5 uri fragment 2009 Jun 17, 7:16"Use cases and requirements for Media Fragments"
video uri fragment internet web w3c 2009 Jun 15, 4:46"This was such a fun project - this is what users of Internet Explorer 6 see when they visit Momentile." Funny image. There's just two things I don't like about this: (a) it makes me feel sorry for
IE6 when the only thing anybody should feel in relation to IE6 is the urge to upgrade to IE8 and (b) I hate it when websites get all preachy and try to convert you to another browser.
humor webdesign ie6 ie browser comic 2009 Jun 12, 12:20"We have discovered remotely-exploitable vulnerabilities in Green Dam, the censorship software reportedly mandated by the Chinese government. Any web site a Green Dam user visits can take control of
the PC. According to press reports, China will soon require all PCs sold in the country to include Green Dam. This software monitors web sites visited and other activity on the computer and blocks
adult content as well as politically sensitive material."
censorship china hack security internet greendam 2009 Jun 12, 12:17Propaganda poster styled RTFM.
humor tshirt mao rtfm internet art propaganda 2009 Jun 12, 9:02"Because linking to sources and resources is the key gesture to being a citizen of the Web and not just a product on the Web...If, on the other hand, you want to embrace the traits that make blogs,
Twitter, and so many other online communication tools a vital part of the daily life of your readers, your news site shouldn't feel like an endpoint in the conversation. It should feel like the
beginning."
via:sambrook journalism news internet web article link 2009 Jun 10, 3:36
I've made an OpenSearchDescriptionToHTML XSLT that given an OpenSearch description file produces
HTML that describes that file, lets you install it, or search with it. For example, here's a Google OpenSearch description that uses my
OpenSearchDescriptionToHTML XSLT.
I had just created an OpenSearch description for WolframAlpha at work and was going about the process of adding another install link to my search provider
page so that I could install it. Thinking about it, I realized I could apply an XSLT to the OpenSearch description XML to produce the HTML automatically so I wouldn't have to modify additional
documents everytime I create and want to install a new OpenSearch description. While I was in there writing the XSLT I figure why not let the user try out searching with the OpenSearch description
file too. And lastly I made the XSLT apply to itself to produce HTML describing its own usage.
Incidentally, I added WolframAlpha at work to replace my FileInfo search provider for the purposes of searching for information about
particular Unicode characters. For instance, look at WolframAlpha's lovely output for this search for "Bopomofo zh".
technical xml wolframalpha opensearchdescriptiontohtml xslt opensearch 2009 Jun 5, 3:27Looks cool and includes things like Keyboard Cat and Looong Cat.
game nintendo video scribblenauts internet meme 2009 Jun 1, 2:03Wow, read this without expectations of what its about. This is the second identity-theft/Internet/personal-relationships story I've read. It makes me think we need VeriSign to do cert verification
for personal relationships but then I must remind myself that this must not be very common...
via:swannman identity identity-theft story psychology web blog joey-devilla 2009 Jun 1, 11:07
When I heard that
Live Search is now Bing one of my initial thoughts was how'd they get that domain
name given
the unavailability of pronouncable four letter .COM domain names. Well, the names been used in the past.
Here now, via the
Wayback Machine is a brief, somewhat speculative, and ultimately anticlimactic
history
of bing.com:
-
2003 July: The first archived version of bing.com features "bing! is a small device (e.g., possibly even a small
Band-Aid(R)-like sticker!) that vibrates when a person's cell phone rings." I can't recall 2003 cell phones, were they big enough to require this device?
-
2004 August: Site for the same device is rewritten and looks much better, IMHO.
-
2006 June: The domain is now parked by easyDNS. I guess the "bing!" device didn't work out?
-
2006 November: Its now "BING*" and they won't say what they're working on ("we're still in stealth mode") but they are
hiring C#/.NET developers.
-
2007 January: And they're gone. Without even exiting stealth mode. Too bad, I liked their logo. Their domain is now for
sale...
-
2007 February: Looks like EasyMail buys the domain and offers a physical mailing service in Australia: "By simply clicking
a button on your computer, mail is beamed electronically to a bing post office. Your mail is automatically printed, folded, enveloped and dispatched into the Australia Post network the very same
day."
-
Present: Now its the new home for Live Search of course.
The new name reminds me of the show Friends. Also, I hope they get a new favicon - I don't enjoy the stretched 'b' nor its color scheme.
microsoft technical domain history search archive dns bing 2009 May 31, 7:52"jeffgrako: HOLLA IF YOUR AT THE #FIRE"
humor video satire culture internet fire college phone 2009 May 29, 2:50
I like the idea of QR codes, encoding URLs and placing them
on real world objects, but the QR codes themselves are kind of ugly. To make them less obvious I thought I could spray QR codes on to an object with an infrared reflective paint and shine infrared
light on the QR codes, since most cameras, for instance the camera in my G1 phone, pick up infrared that our eyes do not.
In my search for infrared paint I've found a seller of IR ink (via programming forum) and an Infrared Paint Recipe (via IR FAQ).
In looking for this paint I've found that it comes up a lot in relation to the military for things like paint markers that are visible at
night with proper equipment, and paint that absorbs IR light to make vehicles less obvious to night vision goggles. Even though the first
reflects infrared light and the second absorbs it websites end up refering to both as infrared paint which made it difficult to search.
Additionally I found links to some other geeky infrared projects:
ir paint technical ir infrared qr qr code 2009 May 27, 3:01"The Microsoft Connect service is a web-platform for communication between Microsoft Software Engineers and their developer community... Unfortunately the sign-up and feature request process is a
little confusing, and long-winded, so I have put together a guide to help people get to the right place."
microsoft internet ie ie8 ie9 html5 canvas humor reference screenshot