2008 Oct 29, 3:45Apparently the government routinely suppresses patents when they fear the invention may harm national security. 5002 total patents suppressed at the end of FY07 according to PTO. "...U.S. Patent and
Trademark Office's record of the number of patent applications kept from public scrutiny under the Invention Secrecy Act of 1951, which allows the government to lock up a patent application on
national security grounds, even if the inventor has no connection to the government."
patent wired article government security 2008 Oct 29, 3:09Video showing some more interesting touch screen ideas from Microsoft Research. A touch sensitive sphere that can accomodate multiple users and a table which projects one image onto itself and
another image onto objects beyond itself: "But hold another piece of a translucent glass in the air above the table, and it catches a second ghostly image. This trick is in the tabletop glass, which
electronically flickers between translucent and transparent 60 times per second, faster than the eye can notice."
research microsoft video touchscreen table 2008 Oct 28, 11:23
If you view a plain text document in Internet Explorer 8, for instance the plain text version of Cory Doctorow's book
Little Brother and press F12 to bring up the developer toolbar, you can see that IE simply takes the plain text, sticks it inside a
tag, and renders it. This means that word wrapping isn't supplied and the only line breaks that appear are those in the document. However, since the text document is converted to HTML it means I can implement word wrap myself using a bookmarklet:
javascript:function ww() { var preTag = document.getElementsByTagName('pre')[0]; preTag.style.fontFamily="arial"; preTag.style.wordWrap='break-word'; }; ww();
After adding a favorite and setting the favorite's URL to the previous, I can view plain text documents, and select my Word Wrap favorite to apply word wrap and non-fixed width font.
browser technical ie wordwrap 2008 Oct 27, 1:39Rubber-hose cryptanalysis is first defined by Marcus J. Ranum on Oct 15 1990: "..unless you resort to the rubber-hose technique of cryptanalysis. (in which a rubber hose is applied forcefully and
frequently to the soles of the feet until the key to the cryptosystem is discovered, a process that can take a surprisingly short time and is quite computationally inexpensive)"
humor cryptography rubber-hose security 2008 Oct 25, 6:51
Windows allows for application protocols in which, through the registry, you specify a URL scheme and a command line to
have that URL passed to your application. Its an easy way to hook a webbrowser up to your application. Anyone can read the doc above and then walk through the registry and pick out the application
protocols but just from that info you can't tell what the application expects these URLs to look like. I did a bit of research on some of the application protocols I've seen which is listed below.
Good places to look for information on URI schemes: Wikipedia URI scheme, and ESW Wiki
UriSchemes.
Some Application Protocols and associated documentation.
|
Scheme
|
Name
|
Notes
|
|
search-ms
|
Windows Search Protocol
|
The search-ms application protocol is a convention for querying the Windows Search index. The protocol enables applications, like Microsoft Windows Explorer, to query the index with
parameter-value arguments, including property arguments, previously saved searches, Advanced Query Syntax, Natural Query Syntax, and language code identifiers (LCIDs) for both the Indexer and
the query itself. See the MSDN docs for search-ms for more info.
Example: search-ms:query=food
|
|
Explorer.AssocProtocol.search-ms
|
|
OneNote
|
OneNote Protocol
|
From the OneNote help: /hyperlink "pagetarget" - Starts OneNote and opens the page specified by the pagetarget parameter. To obtain the hyperlink for any page in a OneNote
notebook, right-click its page tab and then click Copy Hyperlink to this Page.
Example: onenote:///\\GUMMO\Users\davris\Documents\OneNote%20Notebooks\OneNote%202007%20Guide\Getting%20Started%20with%20OneNote.one#section-id={692F45F5-A42A-415B-8C0D-39A10E88A30F}&end
|
|
callto
|
Callto Protocol
|
ESW Wiki Info on callto
Skype callto info
NetMeeting callto info
Example: callto://+12125551234
|
|
itpc
|
iTunes Podcast
|
Tells iTunes to subscribe to an indicated podcast. iTunes documentation.
C:\Program Files\iTunes\iTunes.exe /url "%1"
Example: itpc:http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=35
|
|
iTunes.AssocProtocol.itpc
|
|
pcast
|
|
iTunes.AssocProtocol.pcast
|
|
Magnet
|
Magnet URI
|
Magnet URL scheme described by Wikipedia. Magnet URLs identify a resource by a hash of that resource so that when used in P2P
scenarios no central authority is necessary to create URIs for a resource.
|
|
mailto
|
Mail Protocol
|
RFC 2368 - Mailto URL Scheme.
Mailto Syntax
Opens mail programs with new message with some parameters filled in, such as the to, from, subject, and body.
Example: mailto:?to=david.risney@gmail.com&subject=test&body=Test of mailto
syntax
|
|
WindowsMail.Url.Mailto
|
|
MMS
|
mms Protocol
|
MSDN describes associated protocols.
Wikipedia describes MMS.
"C:\Program Files\Windows Media Player\wmplayer.exe" "%L"
Also appears to be related to MMS cellphone messages: MMS IETF Draft.
|
|
WMP11.AssocProtocol.MMS
|
|
secondlife
|
[SecondLife]
|
Opens SecondLife to the specified location, user, etc.
SecondLife Wiki description of the URL scheme.
"C:\Program Files\SecondLife\SecondLife.exe" -set SystemLanguage en-us -url "%1"
Example: secondlife://ahern/128/128/128
|
|
skype
|
Skype Protocol
|
Open Skype to call a user or phone number.
Skype's documentation
Wikipedia summary of skype URL scheme
"C:\Program Files\Skype\Phone\Skype.exe" "/uri:%l"
Example: skype:+14035551111?call
|
|
skype-plugin
|
Skype Plugin Protocol Handler
|
Something to do with adding plugins to skype? Maybe.
"C:\Program Files\Skype\Plugin Manager\skypePM.exe" "/uri:%1"
|
|
svn
|
SVN Protocol
|
Opens TortoiseSVN to browse the repository URL specified in the URL.
C:\Program Files\TortoiseSVN\bin\TortoiseProc.exe /command:repobrowser /path:"%1"
|
|
svn+ssh
|
|
tsvn
|
|
webcal
|
Webcal Protocol
|
Wikipedia describes webcal URL scheme.
Webcal URL scheme description.
A URL that starts with webcal:// points to an Internet location that contains a calendar in iCalendar format.
"C:\Program Files\Windows Calendar\wincal.exe" /webcal "%1"
Example: webcal://www.lightstalkers.org/LS.ics
|
|
WindowsCalendar.UrlWebcal.1
|
|
zune
|
Zune Protocol
|
Provides access to some Zune operations such as podcast subscription (via Zune Insider).
"c:\Program Files\Zune\Zune.exe" -link:"%1"
Example: zune://subscribe/?name=http://feeds.feedburner.com/wallstrip.
|
|
feed
|
Outlook Add RSS Feed
|
Identify a resource that is a feed such as Atom or RSS. Implemented by Outlook to add the indicated feed to Outlook.
Feed URI scheme pre-draft document
"C:\PROGRA~2\MICROS~1\Office12\OUTLOOK.EXE" /share "%1"
|
|
im
|
IM Protocol
|
RFC 3860 IM URI scheme description
Like mailto but for instant messaging clients.
Registered by Office Communicator but I was unable to get it to work as described in RFC 3860.
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office Communicator\Communicator.exe" "%1"
|
|
tel
|
Tel Protocol
|
RFC 5341 - tel URI scheme IANA assignment
RFC 3966 - tel URI scheme description
Call phone numbers via the tel URI scheme. Implemented by Office Communicator.
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office Communicator\Communicator.exe" "%1"
|
(Updated 2008-10-27: Added feed, im, and tel from Office Communicator)
technical application protocol shell url windows 2008 Oct 25, 10:22My Xbox has a blog and my Wii has an email address: "Email a chum's Wii: You'll need to have a record of those damnably unmemorable friend codes for anyone you want to mail, but once you do it's
simple: just drop a message to w[friendcode]@wii.com. For instance, w1234567891011@wii.com."
wii howto email nintendo tips via:sarah 2008 Oct 24, 9:29"Standards Suck publishes video podcasts made by Anne van Kesteren, Marcos Caceres, and Lachlan Hunt about Web standards. We want to give the community an insight into standardization by critically
looking at what goes on behind the scenes at the W3C."
w3c blog video css html html5 xhtml web interview 2008 Oct 23, 2:18I had no idea lingual prescriptivists vs descriptivists were split in a partisan manner: '... The Secretary [of the Department of Education] released a report that includes dire warnings of impending
doom...The cause of this immanent catastrophe is, of course, those pesky linguists, the libertarian destroyers of good usage who claim that, well, anything goes. According to the report, "the
language problem has now reached the crisis level and we are now experiencing a severe epidemic of bad grammar that will affect the very fiber of our nation." The Secretary added, "an alarming number
of children are suffering from the bad advice given by those socialist, left-wing, atheistic linguists and we just gotta do something about it."'
humor language politics grammar 2008 Oct 23, 1:58"The table can sense the level of liquid inside a glass, making it possible to tip off a waiter that it's time for a refill."
microsoft surface research restaurant refill 2008 Oct 15, 2:53Stylish blog that looks like it has interesting cultural and business related articles and links (not just weird/humorous).
blog web advertising monthly design culture business 2008 Oct 15, 10:47The artist Harriet Russell encodes the destination postal address of her letters with anagrams, crosswords, and other puzzles: "Despite fears of a Royal Mail backlash, Russell found the system more
than willing to play her game. The crossword edition was returned completed with the comment "Solved by the Glasgow Mail Centre". Only 10 of the 130 letters posted lost their way through the system,
some held particularly testing anagrams, others were without a postal code."
humor puzzle crossword art mail postal-system harriet-russell book 2008 Oct 14, 11:45A bit of interesting history on Apollo 7 on the 40year anniversary of its launch: "More surprising yet, this was the first US spaceflight in which there was major friction between the crew and
Mission Control."
history space nasa apollo apollo7 article 2008 Oct 13, 2:40Watch out for too good to be true washing services (or free network traffic anonymization): "The laundry would then send out "color coded" special discount tickets, to the effect of "get two loads
for the price of one," etc. The color coding was matched to specific streets and thus when someone brought in their laundry, it was easy to determine the general location from which a city map was
coded. While the laundry was indeed being washed, pressed and dry cleaned, it had one additional cycle -- every garment, sheet, glove, pair of pants, was first sent through an analyzer, located in
the basement, that checked for bomb-making residue." From the comment section of Schneier on Security on this topic: "Yet another example of how inexpensive, reliable home washers and dryers help
terrorists. When will we learn?"
security history laundromat ira terrorism bomb 2008 Oct 13, 11:52"Some of the questioners said they were scared of an Obama presidency, and one woman said she couldn't trust Obama because "he's an Arab." McCain shook his head. "No ma'am, he's a decent family man,
a citizen, that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues, and that's what this campaign is all about."
politics obama mccain article 2008 Oct 13, 10:53"This is an FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions list) for the 2008 United States Presidential Election. I need to disclose up front that I am an Obama supporter. However, with the exception of the very
last question, this FAQ is designed as a collection of factual information (such as the latest poll results) and of analysis that is as objective as possible."
via:kris.kowal politics election obama mccain 2008 Oct 11, 12:44GPL Java Prolog library. "tuProlog is a Java-based light-weight Prolog for Internet applications and infrastructures."
development java language jvm prolog tuprolog logic programming 2008 Oct 10, 3:35Apparently thanks to the Open House Project, US legislation can now have real and permanent links. I'm kind of surprised that legislation would exist so freely on the Internet without real links. The
Open House Project is "a collaborative effort by government and legislative information experts, congressional staff, non-profit organizers and bloggers to study how the House of Representatives
currently integrates the Internet into its operations, and to suggest attainable reforms to promote public access to its work and members."
internet url link uri politics 2008 Oct 7, 12:21
Last Thursday I saw a bunch of college friends that I hadn't seen in a while, despite all of us working at Microsoft, and Saul and Ciera who were visiting. We had dinner at Typhoon! which I haven't
been to in quite a while. Daniil and Val brought their cute child. I got to see Charlie and Matt who I'm not sure I've seen since my 25th birthday. There was much nerdiness. I need to remember to
organize such a night myself sometime in near future so I don't have to wait another year to see them.
On the weekend Sarah and I went out to dinner at Carnegie's, a former
public library in Ballard, Seattle that's now a restaurant. I saw the restaurant's website in Matt's delicious links and thought it looked interesting. The exterior and entryway look like a public
library, but just inside its redone as a sort of modern version of french classical with a bar and two dining rooms. No pictures since my replacement camera only arrived today, but there are
photos available. They serve french cuisine which was good and
not as expensive as I would have expected. An interesting place, although its a bit of a drive and I'm not sure if we'll be going back soon.
carnegies personal restaurant weekend nontechnical 2008 Oct 3, 5:29I thought the disemvowelment of trolls was a pretty funny punishment -- much better than simply removing the comment: "Disemvowelment is - obviously enough - the act of removing the vowels from a
passage of text, as well as a pun on the word 'disembowelling'. A number of blogs and websites do this to offensive text which has been placed in their 'comments' section. ... This site exists
because I couldn't resists the challenge of trying to re-emvowel disemvowelled text. This is a challenging task, as the disemvowelled word 'dg' may well have been 'dog', but also 'dig', 'dug',
'doge', diego' and so on. I have a first cut of this functionality at the re-emvowel link at the side of the page. A more advanced version is in progress."
tool disemvowelment web comment forum troll language 2008 Oct 1, 1:49One of the values in this enum is named 'STGC_DANGEROUSLYCOMMITMERELYTODISKCACHE'. After reading (and re-reading to make sure I word broke correctly) I'm left with the lingering impression that I've
had an extensive conversation with whoever named this variable. Anyway, I thought it was a fun name.
humor software msdn microsoft reference
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