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EricLaw's IEInternals : HTTP/HTTPS Port-Blocking in WinINET

2010 Mar 26, 5:16Interesting point that web browsers block HTML FORMs from submitting to some ports in order to avoid malicious servers from getting clients to do their dirty work. Of course it requires the host on the other side of that port to be able to interpret the HTTP request as something relevant to the protocol they actually expect.PermalinkCommentssecurity web browser ie http html form technical

Banksy Pop Up Cinema | LIMITEDHYPE

2010 Mar 3, 2:59'Imagine watching Raging Bull in a dilapidated ring, or Shawshank Redemption in an abandoned prison. That is the concept behind Banksy’s latest stunt, for the UK premiere of his film “Exit Through the Gift Shop“.'
PermalinkCommentsmovie art banksy cultural-disobediance street

Protecting Browsers from Extension Vulnerabilities

2010 Feb 27, 10:06A web browser add-on security research paper that describes the Google Chrome security model. "We propose a new browser extension system that improves security by using least privilege, privilege separation,
and strong isolation. Our system limits the misdeeds an attacker can perform through an extension vulnerability.
Our design has been adopted as the Google Chrome extension system."PermalinkCommentssecurity design google chrome firefox addon plugin web browser technical research adam-barth system:filetype:pdf system:media:document

Panopticlick

2010 Jan 29, 10:28"Is your browser configuration rare or unique? If so, web sites may be able to track you, even if you limit or disable cookies." Examines HTTP headers and browser features and reports if your configuration is unique (mine is). Good info for anyone looking at creating an anonymous browsing plugin or servicePermalinkCommentsweb security privacy eff education identity surveillance cookies cookie anonymity anonymous technical

Post Position » A Note on the Word “Zork”

2010 Jan 15, 6:03The derivation of the word Zork.PermalinkCommentshistory language english game if interactive-fiction zork mit

Android eBook Reader And Makers

2009 Dec 13, 1:27

I was reading Makers, Cory Doctorow's latest novel, as it was serialized on Tor's website but with no ability to save my place within a page I set out to find a book reading app for my G1 Android phone. I stopped looking once I found Aldiko. Its got bookmarks within chapters, configurable fonts, you can look-up words in a dictionary, and has an easy method to download public domain and creative common books. I was able to take advantage of Aldiko's in-app book download system to get Makers onto my phone so I didn't have to bother with any conversion programs etc, and I didn't have to worry about spacing or layout, the book had the correct cover art, and chapter delimiters. I'm very happy with this app and finished reading Makers on it.

Makers is set in the near future and features teams of inventors, networked 3d printers, IP contention, body modifications, and Disney -- just the sort of thing you'd expect from a Cory Doctorow novel. The tale seems to be an allegory for the Internet including displacing existing businesses and the conflict between the existing big entertainment IP owners and the plethora of fans and minor content producers. The story is engaging and the characters filled out and believable. I recommend Makers and as always its Creative Commons so go take a look right now.

PermalinkCommentstor aldiko cory doctorow g1 makers ebook android book

How Robber Barons hijacked the "Victorian Internet"

2009 Dec 2, 3:00"These are tough questions, but the horrific problems of the "Victorian Internet" suggest that government overreach isn't the only thing to fear. In 1876, laissez-faire "freedom for all" meant (in practice) the freedom for Henry Nash Smith to read your telegrams if he didn't like who you supported for President. It meant freedom for Associated Press to block criticism of Western Union, and even to put potential critics and competitors out of business. And it meant freedom for a scoundrel to hijack the system at his leisure."PermalinkCommentsnet-neutrality internet government politics communication telegraph technical

Waooooooow, Ample SDK - <Glazblog/>

2009 Dec 1, 5:55A cross browser javascript implementation of SVG, XUL, portions of HTML5 and more. Check out their demos. "Ample SDK, a must-see: cross-browser (Gecko, Webkit, Opera, Chrome, and even IE 5.5+ !!), XInclude 1.0, XML Events 1.0, XML Schema, SMIL 3.0, REX 1.0, XBL 2.0 (!), SVG, XUL (cross-browser !), HTML5, XForms, ..., superb demos (SVG-based @shepazu in IE, wow...), dual MIT/GPL licensing terms, open-source"PermalinkCommentstechnical browser svg xul webkit opera ie javascript web html5

I Love Local Commercials - Sponsored by MicroBilt Corporation

2009 Nov 5, 2:07Two guys sponsored by MicroBilt to travel around the country and make totally awesome commercials for local companies. Includes such gems as Salt Lake Community Barbering & Cosmetology School: "Your hairdo is only limited by your immagination. And how far along we are in the semester.", as well as Cullman Liquidation: "They're used. Some of them have stains. We cover that up."PermalinkCommentsvia:boingboing video advertising commercial tv monthly

Museum Day 2009 | Smithsonian.com

2009 Sep 25, 5:32Smithsonian sponsors a free museum day with free admission to museums across the US tomorrow (2009-09-26)PermalinkCommentsfree magazine museum

Comcast Digital Switch Impact on My Windows Media Center

2009 Sep 25, 2:19

Amateur wireless station (LOC)Irritatingly out of line with what their commercials say, in my area Comcast, under the covers of the national broadcast digital switch, is sneaking in their own switch to digital, moving channels above 30 to their own digital format. Previously, I had Windows 7 Media Center running on a PC with a Hauppauge PVR500 which can decode two television signals at once setup to record shows I like. The XBox 360 works great as a Media Center client letting me easily watch the recorded shows over my home network on my normal TV.

Unfortunately with Comcast's change, now one needs a cable box or a Comcast digital to analog converter in order to view their signal, but Comcast is offering up to two free converters for those who'd like them. The second of my two free converters I hooked up to the Media Center PC and I got the IR Blaster that came with my Hauppauge out of the garage. I plugged in the USB IR Blaster to my PC, connected one of the IR transmitters to the 1st port on the IR Blaster, and sat the IR transmitter next to the converter's IR receiver. I went through the Media Center TV setup again and happily it was able to figure out how to correctly change the channel on the converter. So I can record now, however:

  1. I can only record one thing at a time now
  2. Changing the channel is slow taking many seconds (no flipping through channels for me)
  3. The Hauppauge card can't know if the channel change worked. So if it tries to change to HBO (I get it for free with one of the Comcast packages) which is encrypted and the converted won't show, the channel doesn't change but the PC doesn't know it and ends up recording some other channel.
To fix (3) I need to manually go through and remove channels I don't have from the Media Center. To fix (1) I may be able to get a second IR transmitter, a third digital converter, hook it up to one of the other inputs on my Hauppauge, and go back through the Media Center TV setup. There's no fix for (2) but that's not so bad. All in all, its just generally frustrating that they're breaking my setup with no obvious benefit.PermalinkCommentsdigital tv hauppauge mce cable windows media center comcast

Dive Into HTML 5 by Mark Pilgrim with illustrations from the Public Domain

2009 Aug 21, 3:26"Dive Into HTML 5 seeks to elaborate on a hand-picked Selection of features from the HTML 5 specification and other fine Standards. I shall publish Drafts periodically, as time permits." Lovely design.PermalinkCommentsvia:waxy reference programming howto design html5 typography mark-pilgrim html web development technical

IEBlog : Engineering POV: IE6

2009 Aug 12, 4:55"As a browser supplier, we want people to switch to the latest version of IE...", "Dropping support for IE6 is not an option because we committed to supporting the IE included with Windows for the lifespan of the product.", followed by a large number of comments from irate webdevs who missed the point.PermalinkCommentsblog microsoft ie ie6 dean-hachamovitch technical

DSpace@MIT : Parallel and Distributed Computation:Numerical Methods

2009 Jul 27, 5:27"Parallel and Distributed Computation:Numerical Methods", Bertsekas, Dimitri P.; Tsitsiklis, John N., 2003-11-21PermalinkCommentsprogramming mit pdf algorithm distributed parallel math todo technical

IE8 Search Providers, Accelerators, and Local Applications Hack

2009 Jul 25, 3:23

There's no easy way to use local applications on a PC as the result of an accelerator or a search provider in IE8 but there is a hack-y/obvious way, that I'll describe here. Both accelerators and search providers in IE8 fill in URL templates and navigate to the resulting URL when an accelerator or search provider is executed by the user. These URLs are limited in scheme to http and https but those pages may do anything any other webpage may do. If your local application has an ActiveX control you could use that, or (as I will provide examples for) if the local application has registered for an application protocol you can redirect to that URL. In any case, unfortunately this means that you must put a webpage on the Internet in order to get an accelerator or search provider to use a local application.

For examples of the app protocol case, I've created a callto accelerator that uses whatever application is registered for the callto scheme on your system, and a Windows Search search provider that opens Explorer's search with your search query. The callto accelerator navigates to my redirection page with 'callto:' followed by the selected text in the fragment and the redirection page redirects to that callto URL. In the Windows Search search provider case the same thing happens except the fragment contains 'search-ms:query=' followed by the selected text, which starts Windows Search on your system with the selected text as the query. I've looked into app protocols previously.

PermalinkCommentstechnical callto hack accelerator search ie8

Apple Admits British Man Invented iPod in 1979, Uses Him to Win Patent Lawsuit - Apple - Gizmodo

2009 Jul 16, 3:28"I was up a ladder painting when I got the call from a lady with an American accent from Apple saying she was the head of legal affairs and that they wanted to acknowledge the work that I had done"
PermalinkCommentshumor history music apple legal patent ipod ip

Michael(tm) Smith - WebKit destined to get its own content sniffer

2009 Jun 22, 3:09"Web/browser-security maven and coder Adam Barth has been working on implementing a content sniffer in WebKit, based on a content-sniffing algorithm that was originally specified in the HTML5 draft, but that's now specified as a separate IETF draft that Adam is editing and that's titled, Content-Type Processing Model."PermalinkCommentsmime mime-sniffing webkit http technical

Wallace and Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death | 2009 Seattle International Film Festival | Nick Park | United Kingdom - Films

2009 May 25, 10:19"Wallace and Gromit return-this time as purveyors of the Top Bun bakery, despite the fact that 12 other local bakers have disappeared in the previous year. Now it's up to Gromit to solve the mystery while Wallace woos new love interest Piella Bakewell."PermalinkCommentshumor movie wallace-and-gromit animation claymation for:hellosarah

Architectural Styles and the Design of Network-based Software Architectures

2009 May 3, 10:03"Architectural Styles and the Design of Network-based Software Architectures - DISSERTATION submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in Information and Computer Science by Roy Thomas Fielding 2000"PermalinkCommentshttp rest paper web architecture development api webservices roy-fielding

WP_Identicon :: Dammit Jim!

2009 Apr 20, 3:35Generate an icon for anonymous blog commentors that's easier to remember than an IP address.PermalinkCommentsblog anonymous web internet hash comment icon image avatar
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