Thanks for getting it WRONG Mozilla

I thought we'd gotten past all the browser incompatibility mess but apparently NOT. I was developing an XHTML standards-compliant site and was horrified to see that Mozilla browsers seemed to ignore my style sheets. It's like .css just didn't exist. Did a Google and found this from the Legends of the Sun Pig about the "bug."

the real issue: my web server is serving up CSS documents (.css) with a MIME type of "text/plain". And Mozilla doesn't like that. Damn.

This blog is on a corporate server and rather than bother with trying to get the files changed right now (deadlines are looming) I just stuck all the style sheets inline and they work ok I guess. Here's the blog, Beale Street Music Fest. Drop in and say howdy. I won't be blogging it but my colleague Jon W. Sparks will be.

posted by Eric J | 10:55 AM

I'm a Micropundit!

Google Search: micropundit

posted by Eric J | 12:58 PM

Imagine a Wiki world

In the new issue of WIRED, Steve Wozniak (of Apple fame) answers questions about his new business venture called Wheels of Zeus (wOz). Wozniak (or Woz) says his startup offers low-cost GPS-based tracking systems that lets consumers keep up with keys, cars and kids. It's a good read and Woz really is a good guy but one of his answers started my "what if?" engine churning.

Woz: The original idea was to intercept cop signals to report where patrol cars were and display that information in your car via GPS

There may be some legal issues with such a venture (he indicates the cop locator idea began as a joke) but surely there are other, legal ways to achieve the same goal. And that's when I thought of Wiki.

You know those helpful people who flash their lights at oncoming traffic to warn of a cop ahead? What if we take that same helpful spirit and apply it to Web-enabled cars? Imagine in a few years, every car is equipped with a GPS and a Web connection. When travelling you point your GPS/Browser to the Cop-Alert site and punch in your approximate route. The system plugs into a Wiki-styled database that is updated in real time. The information would be updated by other commuters who might see cop near exit 35 on I-40. When they spot him, instead of flashing headlights, they punch the Cop-Alert button and it records your location at the time you spotted the cop.

As others drive near that area, the Cop-Alert software notifies drivers that a cop was spotted there less than 5 minutes ago. As more people punch their Cop-Alert buttons in that area, the level of the alert increases. Maybe 5 people raises the alert to a "sure thing" where only one hit registers a "possible cop."

The idea behind this is obviously to connect commuters in their cars. Imagine a local or even national network of drivers exchanging travel-related information in real time. This could be applied to traffic jams as well. The possibilities are endless. Well, maybe not endless but there's a lot of them possibilities to this idea. I just know it.

posted by Eric J | 08:34 PM

Curse you Blogger!

I'm like Charlie Brown. More precisely, I'm like Charlie Brown when Lucy invites him to kick the football and, after much internal debate, falls for her scheme time and time again. If I'm Charlie Brown, then Blogger is Lucy. Blogger keeps teasing me with promises of goodies (here's the ball, kick it!) and I fall for it and hang around yet again only to ultimately get burned (publishing error... please try to publish again). Don't get me wrong, Blogger is great for the newbies but for power users, it has some serious limitations. However, Blogger keep rolling out little things (free Hoodie) that entice me just enough to stay loyal for another day.

As a Blogger user I'm eligible to test out GMail, Google's new email service (Google owns Blogger now if you didn't know). I just signed up and will be testing it out over the next few weeks. I'll write a proper review after I've had some time to test drive it.

However, here's a few of my initial thoughts.

A Gig of space for FREE! Gahhhhh.... *drooling*

The interface is crisp and clean. Reminds me of Yahoo mail without as many ads. In fact, I don't see any ads at all. I guess those will come with the public release.

There's a prominent feature to create your own junk mail filters. Other free services may offer this but I've never noticed it before on Yahoo or Hotmail.

That's about it. My email address is webraw@gmail.com so send me a message to test it out.

posted by Eric J | 01:00 PM

Spam Is Evil

"Spam is Evil" sounds redundant and it is. It's a truism of life that is so obvious that I believe we often take it for granted. What I mean is that we all hate spam, wish it were gone and dread the daily task of cleaning up our inbox. But rarely do we just sit and reflect on how horrible spam has been for the evolution of the Net. Spam is just pure evil and I mean that in the worst way possible.

I experienced the evils of spam recently in my job. Since I'm talking about my job and most people know where I work I won't give too many details so instead I'll talk in generalities. We implemented site registration several weeks ago. It's an inevitability that I accept and even endorse in certain circumstances, like ours. The key element to any successful registration campaign is to have verified email addresses. Without this basic method of authentication none of the data gathered from registration would be worth the hard drive it was saved on... or something like that.

Now, back to spam. Because spam is so evil MANY Internet Service Providers are trigger-happy in their efforts to defeat spam. If they see a spike in email coming from one IP address, they simply block all messages from that IP. It's obviously a spammer, right? Customers are thrilled that we, the all-knowing ISP, have blocked spam from their inbox. Right? Or, there are the ISPs that simply block messages that "look" like spam. How do they determine what "looks" like spam? I'm not sure.

Lastly there are the end-user software spam-blockers. These are loaded into Yahoo mail as well as email programs. Sometimes they're programs that run independently and they all look at specific qualities within an email and act accordingly.

What I discovered in the last few weeks is that many (no idea how many) of the ISPs and software spam-blockers get it WRONG! Dead wrong. They block perfectly legitimate email (such as confirmation auto-responders) from getting to the end-user. When implementing something on a site that requires e-mail confirmation (of any type), this is bad news.

So, I've learned that not only is spam evil and floods my inbox with Viagra ads each day, but a side effect of the fight against spam is the blocking of legitimate e-mail. In my opinion, this is unacceptable. Is there a cure for spam? Some want to legislate a cure but I'm not so sure that's the proper path. However, I don't really have any ideas of my own.

Did I mention spam is evil?

posted by Eric J | 09:01 PM

Memphis Panhandling Continues

I took my son to On The Border for dinner tonight (the wife was still at work). Food was fine and then as we were leaving this old lady, with a couple of bags of OTB chips, started walking out with us. I smiled and headed to my car. Now getting into the car with a four-year-old takes a bit of time and so as I was getting everything settled that chip lady walked up to me and asked me for some money. I really didn't have any money this time (thank God for Visa Check Cards) so I said, "Sorry lady." She turned and walked away.

Now, I won't recount my bizarre history with panhandlers but let's just say I was inspired as I started backing my car out of the parking spot. I noticed that my son was playing with a Ziploc Bag full of toy money and... well... something deep inside said "Do IT!" and so I did. I asked my son if he'd like to give the lady some of his toy money. He said YES! and then I explained that he'd never get it back. He was cool with that and picked two plastic coins out of the bag to give to the old chip lady.

As I crept the car up towards chip lady my boy rolled down his window and stuck his hand out, clenching his toy change. I got the lady's attention and explained that even though I had no money, my son wanted to give her some of his toy money. She busted out a huge grin and I could tell, this had made her day. She blessed us and all that and my son was really happy and I drove away feeling really strange.

Now, I'm looking back at this event and can't decide what to think about it. On the one hand, my son showed true selflessness by giving the chip lady his toy money. That's good right? But on the other hand, I gave toy money to a panhandler, which really is kind of cool in a twisted way but I'm not sure that would get me nominated for parent of the year. Something inside me says it's all wrong. Maybe because the instinct that drove me to say anything to my son is the same instinct that made me make a panhandler cry a few years ago. But then my son was smiling and the chip lady was smiling and so it couldn't be bad... right?

Where's Dr. Spock when I need him?

posted by Eric J | 09:36 PM

It's a Memphis thang

I just had to mention this someplace. I took my son to the Memphis Zoo today. We have a membership so everything is free. It costs non-members $3 to park and $10 for adult admission. That's $13 (that math class did come in handy after all). Remember that total, it will be important later.

So my son and I were having a grand time at the zoo. Beautiful weather, the animals were active and it wasn't too crowded. We had just seen the bird house (which was really great today for some reason) and were walking around the penguin exhibit (which used to have monkeys and goats though not both of them together) when a heavy woman walked up beside me.

I was holding my son up so he could see the penguins over the railing and this woman smiled and said to me, "I bet he'd like to take one of those home."

"Well, sure I guess so," I responded, smiling back. Then she started fumbling around in her purse, mumbling something and before I knew it she had her drivers license out and some piece of paper and was asking me for money! And no, I have no idea why she had her drivers license out and didn't really want to find out.

She mumbled something about being from Arkansas (I was wearing my new Razorback jacket and matching cap though I'm not really a Hawg fan but that's another story) and being down on her luck and asked me if I could give her some money for food or something. I was absolutely startled and told her that I was sorry but that I had no money (I did have $3 on me). I was also thinking, "didn't it cost you $13 to get in here (remember what I said about admission)? Why didn't you use THAT money to buy some freakin' food instead of panhandling in the zoo you dumbass!"

She abruptly shoved her piece of paper and drivers license back in her purse and scooted away. All I could think as she was leaving was...

I Got Panhandled at the Freakin' ZOO!

And that's when my son piped up. While she was definitely still within earshot he chirps, "Daddy, you does too got money."

Noooooo! Busted. But wait, I am too experienced at the "Memphis panhandling dance" to be thrown off by such an innocent proclamation and I responded, loudly with, "No Son. I DON'T have any money. Remember?!? That's why I couldn't get you that stretchy frog in the gift shop!"

I think she heard me. And my son, realizing the "truth" of my statement said, "oh yeah, that's right" or something like that (he's four). Actually, the real reason he didn't get that stretchy frog was because I'm trying to keep from buying him a toy every single day of the week. It's not as easy as it should be, especially since he had a birthday recently and got lots of birthday money from grandparents. So my attempt to be a good parent sort of paid off in more ways than one... or something.

So, after the panhandling zoo lady was gone from sight I took my son over to the zoo train and bought two tickets for a ride. They were a buck-a-piece.

posted by Eric J | 09:44 PM

It was an accident

I've uh... accidentally downloaded some software from... uh... some p2p programs in the past. I have a really bad memory but I think that at one time I may have installed a program or two on one of my computers and... well... maybe tried out the program, just to like, see how it worked and such. And maybe, if my memory serves me right, those downloads came with a .txt file with a serial number or something and I think some of them were written in pure l337 h@x0r code. Or maybe not.

Well, just a few minutes ago I opened up a similar program I downloaded off some p2p service (purely for investigative purposes for a story I'm working on) and found the following message:

this serial number was accidently inserted into this file and neither xxxxx nor any other involved party is responsible for it or its illegiality... is that a word? so basically, if you think I "made" or "included" this serial number and you want to sue me, I didn't. OK???

by assembling random numbers and letters in random amounts, this serial number was formed. it is included for example purposes ONLY and is not to be used to register the software (if it works). if you use this or sue me for accidently inserting it, you are violating this contract. I am not responsible for anything you have downloaded.

You MUST agree to these terms before reading on. If you don't agree, and you read past THIS LINE (below), I am not responsible for anything provided. (I wasn't anyway.)

---

Read on if you agree...

All that is followed by a lot of scrolling and then the final "random numbers and letters." I really like this guy's thinking here. I'm sure that it's not a good legal defense but the silly mentality behind it is great. Why not do the same for mp3s or movies? "This is just a random bunch of zeros and ones that just happen to form The Godfather Part II." I love it.

posted by Eric J | 02:17 AM

Spamiversary

Thanks a lot nerds.

Is it any surprise that the first spam was pitching legal services? Lawyers really are the scum of the earth.

posted by Eric J | 12:29 AM

I probably shouldn't link to this...

This Commerce Blog is nothing but ads for some Web site. Just thought it was interesting how this guy is exploiting Blogger (owned by Google) to improve the Google Ranking of some site. It's still a worthless site though. Google needs an algorithm to determine worthless sites. How bout we call it the "crap-factor?" Too corny? Yeah, you're right. Well, I'm open to suggestions.

posted by Eric J | 11:56 PM

On life and death

My boss passed away last Saturday (April 10). He was the best boss I've ever had.

A third generation newspaperman, Jimmy Denley had journalism coursing through his veins. He had the kind of integrity that is often missing in this era of Jayson Blair and Stephen Glass. As the director of the New Media Department at The Commercial Appeal, Jimmy led our Web efforts to profitability during a time when many Web sites were seeing red or folding altogether.

I saw his brilliance shine through during the 2000 election fiasco (a time I'll always remember fondly) and then again during the horror of September 11. He had a quiet, yet determined and calculating way of seeing through the chaos to the ultimate goal -- producing a dynamic Web site that offered the news people wanted and needed.

His understanding of news was evident again during the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. I knew that our tiny team would be publishing exactly what was needed to our Web audience under Jimmy's leadership. I trusted him in that and he never let me down.

And I tried not to let Jimmy down. I was the first person he hired to the New Media Department back in January, 2000. I was fresh out of college (at a ripe old collegiate age of 27) and things were truly crazy as we worked vigorously to create a money making news site out of practically nothing. And we succeeded.

I went to Jimmy's funeral today. It was there that it really hit home that he's gone and I miss him. I'm not very good at this sort of thing, remembering those we love and admire in eloquent prose. Others have done it better.

Read The Commercial Appeal Obit.

From colleague Bob Benz.

posted by Eric J | 11:06 PM

If you don't "get" this then...

If you don't "get" this post by Aaron Swartz then you should do us all a favor and go offline, unplug your computer and chunk it in the nearest trash receptacle.

The post is titled, Free Culture Wiki: Piracy Hits a New Low and uses some old-school sarcasm to reveal that Lawrence Lessig's new book is available as a Wiki. How absolutely cool is that? A community book that is wide-open for global editing.

From the actual Free Culture Wiki:

This site is a wiki for annotating and editing Larry Lessig's new book, Free Culture. Editing can be done in several ways. [Corrections can be made directly to the text.] Comments can respond or provide alternative views. Added links can take you to reviews of the book available on the Internet.

There should be a forked version of this book, on the same site/different subdirectory, where it is accepted that readers can even change the work, with additions, not only commenting it.

I will remind you that without the Web, none of this would be possible.

posted by Eric J | 08:34 PM

Big Brother-ish -- but still kinda cool

Putting 40,000 Readers, One by One, on a Cover

When the 40,000 subscribers to Reason, the monthly libertarian magazine, receive a copy of the June issue, they will see on the cover a satellite photo of a neighborhood - their own neighborhood. And their house will be graphically circled.

On one level, the project, sort of the ultimate in customized publishing, is unsurprising: of course a magazine knows where its subscribers live. But it is still a remarkable demonstration of the growing number of ways databases can be harnessed. Apart from the cover image, several advertisements are customized to reflect the recipient's particulars.

This sentence, "several advertisements are customized to reflect the recipient's particulars" is possibly the most important part of the publication stunt. I'd like to see what the customized ads look like. If they simply resemble junk mail or if they really do contain something extra personal.

And another thought, what does the newsstand version look like? Who's house is on that cover?

posted by Eric J | 04:05 PM