This just in
I found the following at the bottom of a Bethany McLean column at Fortune.com:

This just in from my friend Garrison: Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Just thought it was sort of cool.

UPDATE: A mention about this at Snopes.
posted by Eric J | 11:13 AM

Sporting the NEW Mac

You're right. That's NOT the new Mac. That's my "new" G4 dually with the 17 inch flat display. It makes work so much more fun. Because I'm running OS X at work now I'm going to finally shell out the $99 for .Mac and start synching up my PowerBook and work Mac. Holding off on Panther for now... maybe for Christmas. Anyway, I love my Mac. Do you love yours?
posted by Eric J | 11:26 PM

Blog Circles
I've stopped reading blogs. It wasn't a conscious decision and it's not complete abstinence but my daily consumption of blog-goodies has plummeted from nearly fifty to less than five. And now I'm blogging about NOT reading blogs. Exhibit A: Blogging folds in upon itself. The image of the painter who is painting an image of himself painting an image of himself...

It is interesting to me that as my daily diet of blogs has declined, my desire to blog has only increased. What has also changed is my motivation to blog. I'm not nearly as conscious of my blog audience anymore and I'm much more interested in simple, self-expression. After all, this is MY blog and while I have no desire to blog in a total vacuum (if I did I wouldn't publish it on the Web and it would be called a diary, not a blog) I am not nearly as concerned about meeting perceived audience expectations as I was in days past. And it's no surprise that such an awareness is somewhat liberating and refreshing.

Looking back at the history of this blog I realize that October was a milestone in my life as a blogger. It was this month, last year, that webraw/blog became a "Blog of Note" on Blogger.com and I saw the audience grow exponentially. And now, a year later, I'm still as addicted to this "phenomenon" as ever before but for different reasons and in different ways. Or, maybe they're the same reasons that I had when I began blogging in the first place. Maybe, somehow, I lost my way and now I've come full circle, back to my blogging roots. Back to simple self-expression. Back to saying things just because I think they should be said. Not because they'll result in witty comments, traffic spikes or links on Kottke.org but just because I feel like saying something and saying it for the world to read... or completely ignore.

After all, you can't ignore a blog if it doesn't exist.
posted by Eric J | 10:06 PM

Google Phone
Got an email from a fammily member today warning me about "Google Phone."

The message contained all the typical phrases identifying it as the dreaded "email forward," which is SPAM's little brother. You know, that "extra important" email some family member would normally NEVER send but decided that THIS particular message was so critical, humorous or touching that you just couldn't live without.

>> Folks, I tried this and it does work.

>> I don't normally forward items HOWEVER this one totally surprised me -- and, yes, it worked on my telephone number.  Good to know what is out there available to the public -- and ways to protect your privacy.

The above phrases are red flags and quite often result in immediate deletion of the message. However, I decided to continue reading this one and learned about this new, sinister threat to my privacy.

>> Google has implemented a new feature wherein you can type someone's telephone number into the search bar and hit enter and then you will be given a map to their house. Before forwarding this, I tested it by typing my telephone number in google.com. My phone number came up, and when I clicked on the MapQuest link, it actually mapped out where I live. Quite scary. Please look up your own number.

>> Read below for details. Think about it--if a child, single person, ANYONE gives out his/her phone number, someone can actually now look it up to find out where he/she lives. The safety issues are obvious, and alarming.  This is not a hoax; Mapquest will put a star on your house on your street.  In order to test whether your phone number is mapped, go to: www.google.com

>> Type your phone number in the search bar with dashes (i.e. 555-555-1212) (dashes ¬ spaces very important) and hit enter.  This will divulge your name and address.  You will see a link option to the right for Mapquest(click on it), which will use the address to provide a map to your home or place of business. If you want to BLOCK Google from divulging your private information, simply click on the telephone icon next to your phone number. I removed my name, but it takes 48-hours. If you are unlisted in the phone book, you might not be in there, but it is a good idea just to check.  Please forward on to friends and family

THIS ONLY WORKS IF YOUR NUMBER IS LISTED>

If you haven't already tried finding a number I'll save you the trouble and confirm that it's all 100% true. Alarming isn't it? Well, not really.

What Google does is known as "reverse phone number lookup" and has been available online for years, pre-dating Google. In fact, I think I remember a similar buzz about Yahoo (before they were using Google to power their Web searches) doing pretty much the same thing a few years ago.

The "safety issues are obvious, and alarming" is the phrase that fascinates me the most. In reality, the safety issues aren't so obvious, they only seem obvious because of what is implied by the message. Singling out Google and then providing "instructions" on how to remove your number from the service gives alarmed readers a bogus solution (it does remove your number, but ONLY from Google) and a false sense of security (if your phone number is not unlisted, you can be found).

I've always been somewhat fascinated at the way people are impacted by the Internet and Net technologies. There is a very apparent "herd mentality" in humans and it seems to become amplified and accelerated on the Web. This is clearest when involving hoaxes but it's most fascinating to me when it involves factual information (like the above email) shared without all the details or out of context.

Misunderstanding and half-truths seem almost acceptable on the Web because so many people just don't quite comprehend the details. I think it's because of this lack of comprehension (which is also found in the medical, scientific, financial, legal and other specialized professions) that many just accept assumptions as fact and trust what they've heard instead of investigating to find out what's really true and more importantly, what context that truth exists.

So, I do my part to inform the ignorant but it will never be enough. You're welcome.
posted by Eric J | 10:39 PM

Are you read for the NFL Network?
Hell yeah! Just saw a commercial for the upcoming NFL Network and all I can say is, "it's about damn time!"

I never understood why we have a Golf Channel, an Auto Racing Channel and a planned Gambling Channel but zilch for the greatest sport on the planet. Finally, a channel devoted to Football... though it is NFL only.

And I guess that's my only complaint. It should be the Football Channel with college, NFL and maybe even Aussie Rules all on the same station. Makes more sense. But hey, it's a start.
posted by Eric J | 4:58 PM

Zeldman's standard mantra applied to redesigns
In the latest Macromedia Edge newsletter to appear in my inbox Jeffrey Zeldman (Eric's Web Hero) takes a look at coding web sites for easier redesigns. In the article he moves pass tables through the div tag to content oriented css with structural labels.
posted by Lannie Byrd | 12:56 PM

An Unofficial Panther (Mac OS X 10.3) Review
I don't have Panther and probably won't install it for a few months. I'm not one of those renegade beta-tester types. Freaky system freezes and sudden OS crashes? Been there, done that. I'll just wait for the "stable" version to roll out in a couple of months.

So, about this review. Well, here goes: Panther Rawks. It's totally awesome. The new enhancements to the Finder are amazing. Several new features were much needed and some older apps seem to run much faster now. There are still some little bugs and a few interface things that I don't really like but other than that it's great. I also noticed it does this weird thing when I launch a few applications but I'm sure they'll fix that with the next OS update. Seems like it was a bit rushed but that's par for the course in the land of Software Development.

So, I give Panther version one a glowing 3.5 out of 5 stars. And I'm betting the next release will bring it up at least one full star.

I should mention that this review is environmentally friendly and 100% recyclable. It can be used for 10.4 or whatever Apple ends up calling the next release (I vote for Fishing Cat). Just copy and paste. Presto.

PS: I know that Panther isn't officially "Beta" but we're only kidding ourselves if we think that it's anything other than beta. When we hear, "This is the official release" we all know that there's an understood, but unspoken "wink, wink; nudge, nudge" that accompanies the release.
posted by Eric J | 2:02 AM

FedEx Man
The FedEx man stopped by today and left a package from Google on my front porch. Behold, my BLOGGER HOODIE!


posted by Eric J | 3:50 PM

What Web Person Would You Like To Meet?
Yesterday's ALA post got me thinking about all the Web folks that I'd really like to meet. These are people I admire, who have influenced me somehow or just provided some sort of inspiration. And when I say meet, I don't mean shake hands at some conference or a book signing or something. I'm talking about hanging out and having lunch or a beer or something.

Curt Cloninger (accomplished)

Jeffrey Zeldman

Doc Searls

Douglas Bowman

Joshua Davis

Lawrence Lessig

Chris Pirillo

Jason Kottke (only to ask him "Why are you so damn popular?")

Tim Berners-Lee

Yeah, I guess that's a pretty ambitious list but hell, why not. So who's on your list? Who have you crossed off your list?
posted by Eric J | 11:37 PM

A List Apart Reborn
Goodness, I MUST get this site overhauled in a big way (monthly lament of redesign laziness). A List Apart is all new and kicking ass. It looks fabulous. I kind of miss the orange-greenishy yellowBrown of the old site but I'll get over that in about... 3... 2... 1... ok, I'm over it

Let me explain a little bit about ALA and what it means to me. First of all, Zeldman is one of my heroes. I've never met him, never read his books (though I really need to) and only know him through his great articles, his blog and ALA. He's not a "Guru" in the way that Jakob Nielsen, Dave Winer, Joshua Davis, Eric Meyer, etc. are to the Web. He's just like a really smart guy who simply "gets it." And he "gets it" in a way that few others do and not only does he "get it" but he's able to communicate what he "gets" in a way that lets the rest of us "get it" along with him.

So, he started ALA a few years ago. It was "for people who make Websites." The tagline (sadly missing from the new ALA) "from pixels to prose, code to content" was the simplest, most descriptive and catchy tagline I'd ever read. I litterally spent days trying to come up with a similarly well crafted tagline and ended up with "digital sushi for your mind." Now you know why I don't earn the BigBUCKS.

Anyway, ALA was like a friend to me. It taught me about CSS. Helped me understand PHP. Gave me some basic design tips. Even provided inspiration for some of my finest writing. In fact, this very site is loosely modelled after ALA (very loosely). It is that spirit of freely providing tips, tricks, tutorials, guidance and more to Web developers of all skill levels that motivated me to make this site.

One day, I hope to meet Zeldman and just say "Thanks." I think a tear just rolled down my cheek. God I'm a sentimental... wait... Oh CRAP. That wasn't a tear. That was a freaking SPIDER!!! Oh my God. How the hell did a spider get on my face. Jeez. This is soooo not cool. Ack... ok. Well, it felt like a tear for a minute till the now squished arachnid started moving horizontally across my chin and I was like, "hey, tears don't move horizontal."
posted by Eric J | 10:19 PM

File under Lazy Web
I watched a bit of Office Space last weekend and chuckled when I noticed that all the PC's in the movie were running Mac OS. It wasn't really that odd because many movies use Macs or the Mac OS as their props but it made me wonder exactly which movies DID use Macs. Surely some zit-faced Mac geek somewhere has compiled a list of popular movies that prominently feature Macs (or the OS) as their computer props. So, I ended up at Google. To my surprise, there is not an easily discoverable site that has such a list. Hmmmm.

Right after my search I read about the Wikipedia (an "open source" encyclopedia) in the new WIRED Magazine and thought, "hey, why not?" So, now I've concocted another hair-brained idea and am looking at WiKi software to see if I could create a sort of IMDB Wiki for movies that feature Macs. Maybe I'll end up being that zit-faced Mac geek, without all the zits of course.
posted by Eric J | 12:47 PM

Goggle.com
Don't know why I never thought about it before but if this ain't a case of cybersquatting I don't know what is (LINK WARNING: Extreme Popups). The funny thing is, I don't think ICANN can do anything about it because Goggles really don't have anything to do with Google. The whole misspelled URL thing is a fascinating phenomenon to me.
posted by Eric J | 7:53 PM

Your Browser on Acid
Browser Tripping is fun. Go ahead, take a hit, sit back and ride it out just like you did in high school. It's fun and you won't be seeing trails days after you're done... I don't think you will anyway.

link via the lab
posted by Eric J | 7:27 PM

Thanks Mr. Wood (not Kerry but Matt)
Cubs are cursed. Poor fools. Steve Bartman's life in Chicago is over (he's the foul ball guy). But that's not what I want to talk about. I just figured out how to restrict searches in Movable Type. It wasn't all that hard. Took about 45 minutes of trying to make sense of the manual and a post to the MT Help Forum (thanks for the suggestion Matt). So, now my last obstacle for full blog conversion is gone and I'll have to find other excuses to keep me with Blogger.

I will say that MT is pretty slick, robust and very customizable but it does take some patience and a bit of luck to get it working the way it should. Blogger (and I'm sure TypePad) is so much easier.

Ok, bottom of the 9th. Cubs have one last chance. I don't know why I put myself through this but I'm gonna watch them lose one last time this year.

UPDATE: Cubs lose. Get out of town Mr. Bartman.
posted by Eric J | 10:23 PM

Learning to say NO!
Can you build an calendar application? Sure, no problem. Can you create an ecommerce Web site and build the product database from scratch? Yeah, piece of cake. Can you develop a script that will sort my email by country of origin and attach an image of the flag associated with that country? Uh... yeah... I think so. It'll take a while but... yeah, sure. I can do it.

Crap. I gotta learn to say NO! I'm not Linus Torvalds or Jeremy Allaire. I'm just... me.
posted by Eric J | 10:07 PM

Solution for comments spams
This is a pretty cool MT plug-in solution for comments spams. I don't really have a need for it right now but it's good to know there's a solution should the SPAMbots target my MT comments.
posted by Eric J | 10:48 AM

Checking that Mail
Anyone gotten their free Blogger Hoodie yet? Don't be shy. Let me know. Yes or no.
posted by Eric J | 9:40 PM

Kill Bill: A Review... sort of
I, like many Americans, saw Kill Bill (Vol. I) this weekend. I have been a Tarantino fan since I first saw the "Madonna Speech" scene in Reservoir Dogs during the early '90s. Then the Tarantino scripted True Romance had me begging for more. While Quentin didn't direct this underrated classic, his unique style is evident throughout the film. If you've never seen True Romance you MUST rent it NOW. It contains what is probably Brad Pitt's finest performance EVER!

So, my expectations were high at the premier of Pulp Fiction in 1994 and I was not disappointed. In fact, I was blown away. That movie rates high in my personal Top Ten Great Movies list and I occasionally pull out the screenplay just to read some of that incredible dialogue.

Skipping Four Rooms we can move to solid, pleasing and very watchable Jackie Brown. While not quite Pulp Fiction the flick definitely delivers. Just the scenes with Bridget Fonda and Robert De Niro are enough to earn a thumbs up from this critic. And once again, Jackie Brown provides ear-pleasing dialogue guaranteed to satisfy.

And, now we finish this chronological journey with Kill Bill. After a directorial absence of almost six years I expected much from Mr. Tarantino. I read the buzz, watched the trailers and heard (some of) the soundtrack. On Oct. 10th I was ready and somewhat excited as I bought tickets to see his "Four Star Epic" film.

I knew something wasn't quite right when I sat down in a nearly empty theater a few minutes before the lights dimmed. This was the exact same theater that was packed for The Hulk, Star Wars II and even Jeepers Creepers II (I was tricked into that viewing). Ok, maybe it was the "R" rating of the fact that we were at the 7:45 showing and not 7:15? Yeah, that must be it.

I won't continue to bore you with a scene-by-scene review of the movie but I'll sum up my post-Kill Bill feelings with one word: Disappointed. I was disappointed for two reasons.

1. The entire movie seems to be a giant inside joke. And not a very funny joke either. It's primarily injecting aspects of other films and film genres (can I hear the word "chop-socky" one more time please) into a supercool, self-aware flick of Tarantino-hip proportions. Yet, unlike his earlier films which yanked material from more mainstream pop-culture, this film is replete with obscure sub-culture references that only the most avid student of the genre will "get" and appreciate. I compare it to an industry specific joke, something like "Why did the two Web designers use standards compliant XHTML transitional to build that new site?" (insert punchline here). Only those familiar with the terminology and what it means would get the (bad) example joke.

2. No Dialogue. Tarantino has a gift for dialogue and it was all but missing from this movie. I didn't realize how important that dialogue was in his other movies until I noticed it missing from Kill Bill. There is no "Madonna Speech" in this movie. There is no "Royale with cheese" either. In fact, I can't remember a single, memorable line (that wasn't part of a trailer promo) except for the part when Uma is talking to Vivica's daughter about "feeling raw."

So, was it a bad movie? No. And I bet it will get better upon repeated viewings. However, it was a disappointment and I can't say it was a GREAT movie. Will I go see Vol. II? Yeah. Maybe not on opening night but I'll see it. I just expected more from Tarantino. Or maybe, just maybe, I'm not cool enough to "get" it. I can at least admit that maybe the movie was so cool, so unabashedly hip that I just missed it entirely. I am 30 you know. It could happen.
posted by Eric J | 3:41 PM

The Reflex Tester
My response time was 0.22 seconds with no cheating/guessing. See if you can beat that!

The Reflex Tester

Link via SVN
posted by Eric J | 9:27 PM

{Spam?}
Is there some impending SPAM legislation that I don't know about requiring SPAMMERS to add {Spam?} to their email subjects? Or is this the feature of some SPAM filtering software possibly implemented at the ISP or Hosting level? Beginning last week, I've been getting a lot of emails that look like this:

Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 07:08:32 +0800 (CST)
From: Sarah Williams
Reply-To: Sarah Williams
To: ericj
Subject: {Spam?} www.webraw.com
posted by Eric J | 4:04 PM

Need AMP on Mac OS X?
Just set up AMP (Apache, MySQL and PHP) on my Mac running Jaguar. While this extremely helpful tutorial was written for OS X 10.1, it still works for 10.2 with a couple of modifications.

1. When setting up the PHP support, there is no line with the text "AddType application/x httpd-php .php" in the httpd.conf file. So skip it with no worries.

2. When setting up your MySQL security settings I kept running into a "command not found" error referring to mysqladmin. The problem was that I needed to enter the entire path (/usr/local/mysql/bin/) BEFORE entering "rehash; mysqladmin -u root password newpassword" and after that, all worked fine.

I'm sharing this because it's difficult to find a clear, step-by-step tutorial of how to set this up on OS X 10.2. Maybe it's out there but I haven't seen it. I'm no genius about this stuff. I just know how to follow instructions and it helps if those instructions work correctly.

PS: I know that I didn't really need to set up the 'A' part of AMP. But thanks for reminding me.
posted by Eric J | 3:19 PM

From Penny-Arcade
My sentiments exactly.
posted by Eric J | 10:01 AM

The Devil Has a New Name
How do you spell DEVIL with only five letters? Wait, Devil is five letters. Damn. Ok, how do you spell Devil with five DIFFERENT letters? Hmmmm...??? EOLAS! That's how.

Looks like this Eolas/Plug-in legal patent thing is headed down the wrong road. You know, that road where everything sucks and the greedy little bastards cause a dramatic shift in the way the Web operates. Yeah, that road. If you don't know about this case I'll provide a brief summary.

A company called Eolas (also known as the Devil) claims that it owns some patent on plug-ins. They want lots of money or threaten to take their metaphorical plug-in ball and march to their metaphorical home. They are demanding this cash from Big Bill Gates (aka Microsoft) but he is currently refusing to pay.

You may not know but plug-in technology is the glue that holds the very fabric of the Web together. Without plug-in capability all hell will break loose. It won't be pretty.

Here's a quote from EOLAS about the suit:

"Eolas and the university are willing to resolve the case on a very reasonable basis," he said. "In view of the amount of the verdict and the accrued prejudgment interest, we'd be willing to give them a paid-up license, if they were willing to take out a license."

Translation: Give us the money or we break the Web.

Well, I must be going. I'm looking for photos of the EOLAS execs on Google so I can make a proper effigy to burn. It will be my first one so I want to do it right. Wish me luck.
posted by Eric J | 11:41 AM

USPS

Thank you Sarah Hatter for restoring my faith in the United States Postal Service. A couple of weeks ago I received a wonderful Mix CD in the mail. Yes, THAT CD. And yes, I had wondered aloud about the status of this CD in the past but as the kids are prone to say, "It's all good."
posted by Eric J | 10:59 PM

Unbought stuffed dogs
I have every intention of moving this entire site over to Movable Type and indeed, completely redesigning it as well. Progress has been made towards the Movable Type conversion but I've hit a tiny snag. I completely and fully converted one of my other blogs to MT but discovered that the search feature currently searches all blogs managed by this particular MT install. That means that a search on another blog for "monkeys" will possibly return results from all my blogs (I currently have 5). This is no good because I want to keep each blog's content separate.

I know that there is a solution but the MT documentation only seems to show search restriction tutorials for the advanced search and I haven't had time to dig through the Web and find the solution. So, while I've achieved fabulous success with one Blogger-to-MT conversion, I've received a bit of a setback with this particular blog.

And then there's the redesign. I have the sketches. I have the idea. I have the basic plan. I even built a new, and hopefully original, logo (I'm big on logos). And yes, there's even a new site motto that totally abandons the overly metaphorical "digital sushi for your mind." It's all coming soon... but not that soon. There is yet another delay as I work on various projects.

So, why am I recounting all this site-specific minutia? Well, mainly for my own personal reasons. Also to illustrate that plans for personal projects, ones that never directly generate revenue, often take a back seat to those other, financially lucrative projects. I guess it will be another delay for the big changes to take place here.

However, the content should still keep rolling... er... start rolling again very soon. No promises but there really are several content items planned for the next few weeks. So, stay tuned if you're so inclined.
posted by Eric J | 6:54 PM

What happened?
Sometimes life happens and plans change. We do our best to adapt but sometimes we just need to crawl up in a corner and whimper for a while. Then there are those times when we need to post cryptic blog entries that have very little relevance to actual events in the author's life. And of course, there are those times when they say "how are you doing today" and when they really mean "paper or plastic?"
posted by Eric J | 2:47 AM

Patents, copyrights, trademarks and smells
I've been researching the laws about patenting fragrances and from what I've learned, fragrances really can't be patented. A company can patent the specific formula, but not the scent itself. Also, technology has dramatically changed the fragrance industry. Today, a scent can be quickly broken down into its components and reproduced by imitators by using advanced chemical technology. This has resulted in an extremely competitive marketplace where image is as important as the fragrance itself.

Since I don't know a lot about the history of the fragrance business I'll just make a general observation. There is money to be made in selling smells. Even in such a highly competitive business, with cheap imitations available, new fragrances are being churned out regularly. Which brings up an interesting question in my mind... why is this business prospering (or at least innovating) without strict and even punitive protections for its product?

Hmmmmmmm.

I bet you can guess where I'm going with this. I admit, the copyright issues dealing with music aren't an exact parallel with fragrance patents but it does cause one to pause and think about the reasons given for the draconian copyright laws. The primary pro-copyright argument I've heard is that without strict copyright protection the musicians won't have the motivation to create. But the lack of protection hasn't killed the fragrance industry, it has just changed it.

I'm no idiot (let's not argue that) so I'm not saying that copyrights on music should be removed. But I'm questioning the need to have almost century long protection as an incentive to create. Wouldn't an artist feel just as compelled to create that hit record if he were protected for 5 or 10 years?

From my perspective, the music industry just refuses to think differently. They choose to sue grandmothers and pre-teens instead of rethinking their entire industry in the face of inevitable technological advancements. Maybe they could learn something from the Fragrance Industry. After all, the RIAA already smells. ;o)
posted by Eric J | 2:58 PM