Yeah, that’ll do it.

Catch them all!

My compatriot has such enthusiasm for my linkblog that my non-linkblog-oriented posts have been overwhelmed. We cannot go on like this.

So, I have made a linkblog-oriented post. Here. Let all future Click Here related material accumulate thusly.

Yeah yeah, I should actually make a real blog post. I’ll try.

I’m toying with the idea of allowing “micro-comments” on the links. I don’t know if it’s a good idea, nor have I found the time, but it may happen. Also, a submission form. I’ll try. (I actually have been developing it, in case you doubt me. I’m a strong believer in incremental/lightweight/agile development. First I created a list of links, then archives, then permalinks. Like a glacier on steroids, I churn relentlessly onward. Crushing metaphors underfoot.)

Over to you, Bartleby.

Hi, I’m DB. You may know me as the guy who used to post on this blog. Well, I still do, just not as often. You see, I have been trying to alter my life to the extent that I can get up in the morning without first fighting a massive internal battle against the forces of sleeping in, and start work without wishing I was still home in bed, a headache just one bright light away.

It has been quite successful, and my archives page shows a large part of the reason why. Simply put, I don’t spend as much time writing anymore. I check my RSS feeds and my email, and I go to bed. It’s a win, but not for my blog. Which is kindof a loss. I was going to write a post about how I don’t get time to write enough posts anymore, but, well, I haven’t found the time to write it. Which is a real kick in the teeth, actually. Thanks, universe.

Even when I find time to write I rarely find time to finish. One of my friends once asked me why it was so hard to keep the post rate up (given I was only doing about one per week). He figured, it only takes about 20 minutes to write a post, right? Well, not for me. This is how much I can do in 20 minutes. My typical blog post – such as there is, but one with some body to it and maybe a few links and/or pictures – takes perhaps 4 hours. Many of them are months in the planning, involve 30 minutes trying to find that one link I saw in 2003 that would be really appropriate right now, and 10 minutes deciding if that fourth joke in paragraph three is just pushing it a bit too far. Some of this time could be put down to perfectionism, but frankly, I’m not here to write shit. The idea is to achieve something. Anyway, it’s bloody hard work, very draining, and very rewarding. I would highly recommend it, but I suppose that’s hypocritical given the current situation.

One of the side effects of this is that I have, amongst the apparent 23,000 word count of my toblog scratch file, a fast-building list of really good links that I should totally show to others it’ll be awesome! Well, this problem I can fix. I have long been considering some kind of Daring Fireball-esque link feed, and its time has come. Introducing Click Here! Also available on the front page.

Incidentally, I do still plan to post. But I have adjusted my goals. Once a fortnight. For sure. Maybe. In between, I’ll be blogging vicariously through my links. See you there.

Firefox 2

Hot on the heels of IE7, Mozilla have released Firefox 2, and yeay, twas downloaded twice millionfold. What is new in Firefox 2?

• Built-in session restore. So you can undo closing tabs, or restore your tabs after a crashed session, including all form data, etc. This saves me a couple of extensions, and should be a more thorough implementation. Good stuff.
• Spell checker. Will save me a few ctrl-clicks. The thing with spell checkers, though, is how many words they don’t have. For example, and you’d think they’d know this one, but Firefox isn’t in there. I might just buy a Mac.
• Phishing protection. Not sure if I really want this, but I guess it’s one of those things that you don’t really cry out for until just after it would have been handy. Good phishing sites are actually quite hard to spot, so this sounds like a good back up.
• New theme. Shinier. Yeah, I was pretty happy with the old theme too, but apparently this has some nice tweaks. Such as side-scrolling tabs, or a go button integrated into the address bar, both of which I have tweaked/disabled.
• Close buttons on tabs. This is great for new users, and I totally support it. Having said that, I am switching it off right now.
• A new website. Ok, not really part of the browser, but it’s pretty good. The best bit remains that prominent download link that actually downloads the browser. Take note, every other piece of software I have ever tried to download.

So, nothing too exciting in there (the rendering engine is basically the same as Fx 1.5). But that’s fine – why go changing something so good? The people, they love it. (See the Firefox crop circle on Google Maps!) The latest statistics tell us that the gains continue – various sources suggest Firefox is approaching a global share of 15%.

Anyway, perhaps you remember Firefox Flicks? Efforts are now underway to, with the community’s help, get those ads on TV. And do you remember Blake Ross, co-creator of the Firefox project? He has since been working on another project, along the lines of a web-based local operating system for desktop PCs. Doesn’t sound that great to me, but then, he is Blake Ross. Fear him.

Thunderbird

Yeah, no one ever talks about Thunderbird, so I only have one piece of news: future Eudora Versions will be based on Mozilla Thunderbird. However, I did find this buried in my linkpile: Thunderbird with tabs! And there’s some info about that at this broken link.

Sunbird & Lightning

Yeah, pretty quiet on this front too. However, Sunbird and Lightning 0.3 released recently. I dunno, I use a text file to do my calendaring.

The Platform

At the heart of every Firefox beats a Gecko. You may need to be hardcore to find these interesting, but I really enjoyed these words from two of Mozilla’s most important contributors: Boris Zbarsky and Brendan Eich.

Mozilla Is In No Way Affiliated With the Foo Fighters

Yeah, so I was in The Warehouse the other day and saw CDs on special and bought everything on the spot. Specifically, The Ramones – Greatest Hits, REM – Greatest Hits, and Foo Fighters – The Colour and the Shape. However, when I got home, I realised I was one of those losers who buy music that they already own. But what, I hear you asking, does this mean for you? Specifically, what can you get for FREE?! Well, here at Rambleschmack we’re pleased to present a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get a second-hand CD for, yes, FREE!! Get nostalgic about the Foo Fighters before they were shit! Call now for FREE!!, and we’ll throw in a bonus FREE waterfront stadium! Our operators are standing by! CALL NOW!! FREE!!

Was the headline I heard. I kinda wondered how they managed to say it without thinking gee, I’m sure there’s some irony in here somewhere…

Tube of You

• Paxilback – Gray Kid parody of Justin Timberlake’s Sexyback
• Pole Position Commercial! (Atari)
• Fortress Europa, fast and informative
• Rube Goldberg Officeplace Contraption
• The Bloggers

Insights Into Worlds You May Not Know

• Did Eskimos put their elderly on ice floes to die?, found while investigating:
• Eskimo kissing, interestingly enough very similar to the Maori hongi, which developed independently on the other side of the world. See it in action!
• 830! How a carpenter got the highest Scrabble score ever.
• Nachos, anyone? – Word stories – Oxford English Dictionary
• The Outsider, the story behind the latest film from the director of π
• What’s The Worst Web Application You’ve Ever Seen? I mean, wow. I couldn’t really believe it was serious until someone in the comments noted it was screen-scraping a terminal application. Still, that has to be just about the worst possible way they could have done it.
• The Non-Expert: Defenestrate Your Résumé! Fantastic. CVs are full of so much bullshit. I love people who list things like “honest” and “reliable” on their CV – gee, really? I’ll just hire you right now then!
• The internet, summarised in three panels

Hey team, sorry about my absence there. We’ve just been wrapping up a major rebuild of our website at work, and meanwhile a month sneaked by between posts here. I actually have been writing. Writing chunks of prose is the fun bit. Editing/finishing is the hard work bit that you have to find time for. Man, those people who post to their blogs every day? Superhuman.

Big Day Out

So, they’ve just announced some of the acts for the Big Day Out, and damn, always such an impressive list. Check this out. (Key: yeah!, meh/who?, nooo!)

• Tool
• Muse (hot damn)
• Violent Femmes (I always feel like I should be a fan, though)
• The Killers
• Peaches (who?)
• My Chemical Romance (I’m sure they’ll be popular with the kids.)
• Spank Rock (who?)
• Jet (uncertain)
• Eskimo Joe
• Scribe (uncertain. Did you see Dave’s review on Newclear? He panned him.)
• Evermore (uncertain. Their new stuff kindof sucks.)
• The Veils (who?)
• Shapeshifter (who?)
• The Mint Chicks (but I don’t really know)
• The Tutts (I say this having heard one song by them)
• Minuit (woo!. Did you know they are currently touring Europe? Oh yeah, and check out their music videos on YouTube.)
• Opensouls (who?)

$110 bucks, which is pricey but come now, it represents an excellent value for money. There will be more to come, so keep an eye out.

YouTube

We all know how wicked YouTube is, especially seeing as we are not the ones paying for it. (Who is, exactly?). Well, rumours abound that Google is considering buying YouTube for $1.6 billion, which is quite a lot – did you know YouTube is less than one year old? Anyway, I hope they don’t fold it into Google Video or something. Make the most of it while you can!

• Disk Drop
• Guiness World Record for most T-Shirts worn at one time.
• singing on the beach
• Gnarls Barkley – Crazy EXCLUSIVE Slow Version LIVE!!
• Portal Demonstration from Valve’s EA Summer Media Event

Also, the secret to happiness in life is to go to YouTube Top Rated and check out all the Daily Show and Colbert Report clips there. The stuff on Foley was awesome, as was this. By the way, The Daily Show is screening in NZ on C4 @ 10pm Tuesday nights at the moment.

Folk-Comedy Duos

So, Kiwi comics net big US TV series, and indeed, Comic duo put Kiwi accent on US TV. And, I just discovered you can buy an album of theirs, too – Folk The World Tour. Incidentally, we are talking about Flight of the Conchords. You knew that, right? There will apparently be a doco about their US tour on Channel 3 on Thursday the 19th.

I also came across an article on Stuff titled Katie Holmes to star as Posh Spice. Remember when Katie Holmes and Posh Spice were hot? They should have made the movie then.

I recently posted my simple backup script. To complete your Rambleschmack Multimedia Experience™, I’ve made a video of the backup script running and posted it on my other site. Insane, huh? Insanely good or insanely bad, though, no one’s quite sure yet.

Incidentally, you can watch the whole Apple WWDC ‘06 Keynote if you wish. Like many things Apple, it’s really awesome – as long as you can put up with the arrogant wankers. Your call. If you want the highlights package, I suggest you make sure you catch the Time Machine demo, about half way through, and the iChat demo, just before the end.

Incidentally, if you are not familiar with OS X, hit YouTube or something and have a look at Fast User Switching and Exposé. The first time I saw fast user switching, I was just stunned aye. As one who dabbles in the programming, I could really appreciate just how frikkin’ hard it would be to abstract it so well. As one who dabbles in UI design, I could appreciate what a well-conceived and executed abstraction it was. It is just brilliant. It is what technology should be – making things easier, simpler, better. Loosely related, I also found The Graphing Calculator Story to be a good read, one of an apparently endless number of fascinating Apple stories. (Hit up folklore.org to catch them all.)

And, uh, stop press: just saw this classic video of Steve Jobs on Microsoft.

So this one is hilarious. A senator in the US, who for some insane reason is in charge of internet legislation, including the recent (and scary) net neutrality issue, explains for us how the internet works. Basically, it is a series of tubes. Extract:

I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o’clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why?

Apparently it was being held up behind all the other Stuff on the internet. The tubes were flooded… anyway, I don’t want to dazzle you with the technical details. We’ll leave that to The Daily Show.

• YouTube – The Daily Show: Ted Stevens and the Internet
• YouTube – The Daily Show: Rips Republicans on America Values
• YouTube – The Daily Show: Net Neutrality With John Hodgman (To fully enjoy this one, you may need to have a quick glance at the Get a Mac TV Ads)

Don’t worry, though – the Senator has a letter from a big scientist confirming his theory.

There’s been a bit of excitement recently about people switching away from Apple (gasp!) and, more generally, of openness. Not of open source, necessarily, but in terms of your data. It is an insidious threat. We don’t have an iTunes Music Store here in New Zealand (or decent broadband, for that matter) but I find the idea of DRM-infected music horrific. It’s selling aplenty, but I’ll be buying CDs, thank you.

I remember back when we first got a Windows (3.11, for Workgroups) PC and it came with Microsoft Works. I made what must have been some stunning achievements in literature, only to discover that the files were not even compatible with freakin’ Word. Likewise for Publisher. I mean, I don’t mind if all of the formatting doesn’t survive the trip, but how about a textbox? I’ve tried viewing the actual source for one of those files before and it is indeed horrific. Now, I still have some files from those days, and they are effectively locked away from me. This is unfortunate, but considering most of the stuff I made then was utter crap, I haven’t got too upset about it. However, it is part of a much larger problem – one I need to start thinking about more seriously before I lose much more.

The basic analogy here is that keeping your data in accessible formats is like backing up your data: it’s the kind of thing you don’t worry about until just after you should have been. Then you worry a whole lot, all at once, and it is about as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum. Does your stuff matter to you? My stuff matters to me. I’m worrying.

To follow along with the conversation (the interesting bits, at least), you want to start with Mark Pilgrim’s When the Bough Breaks, advance to John Gruber’s And Oranges, then return to Mark Pilgrim for Juggling oranges. Also have a read of Tim Bray’s Time to Switch? Finish it off with some HahahaLOL. If all that wasn’t enough for you, Joel Spolsky has a completely unrelated but really interesting piece titled My First BillG Review.

The result of it all? Well, Tantek suggests some safe formats. I like to write my docs in XHTML anyway (have I mentioned, Office is shit? [Breaking: Apparently not anymore]). But the main point to take away is that – like backing up – this is something you really ought to give some thought to now. Otherwise in ten years, you’ll be giving it lots of thought – thoughts like damn.

Hardly a rarity, but I have here for you varied tales of incompetence. They hurt us so, and all we can do is laugh.

Anil Dash, blogging on Vox, provides the story of installing The GIMP, appropriately titled It’s hopeless. He is so right. Particularly, mirrors. It’s hard to describe the stare I give my computer screen when I get asked to choose a mirror. You’re a computer. You’re supposed to do this lame shit for me. How hard is it to get that? And then a screenshot of truly stunning UI design. The entire dialog is completely absurd, but the level of absurdity, how far they take it, it’s an absolute slam dunk. Linux never fails to impress me – just in the opposite way to, you know, the good way.

Have you seen the NYT’s sexy new website? Join me there now for a review of Motorola’s Q: Lovely Phone; Ugly Software. I hate to spoil it, but basically he admires the hardware and disses the Hell out of the software. Guess who made that software? It’s one of those things I find incredible. “Well, our last Microsoft software was pretty expensive, and completely sucked shit, so… I think we’ll go with them again. Yeap.” You munters.

It’s important to express yourself as a nation. So, when a new mall opens, it is only appropriate that Auckland shoppers cause motorway chaos. Regular readers may remember last year’s iBook stampede (much more impressive, as us Kiwis don’t do consumerism nearly as well as the US or UK). On this occasion, the Auckland motorway network was gridlocked because there were Bargains. I saw the coverage on the news, shots of people just carrying boxed TVs around. It was like watching ants, or as the commentator called it, “sheeple.” And it was horrible.

Did you hear al-Zarqawi got the Bomb? Bush says Zarqawi death may ‘turn the tide’ towards “… a more peaceful world for our children and grandchildren.” I hate to be an apologist for al-Zarqawi, I’m reasonably sure I would not like him much if I had met him, but I just find it so distasteful when people rejoice in killing. Yay! The world is now a better place! 18 Wheels of Justice, motherfucker!

And good news, all: Petrol price relief on horizon. That’s news to me, I thought – where’s it coming from? Sources in the oil industry? Major players in the Middle East? Well, no – it’s even better than that: turns out our Reserve Bank governer is omniscient.

Motorists can expect some relief from high petrol prices, with the Reserve Bank predicting a drop of 13 cents a litre by early next year.
…
The bank’s policy statement said “petrol prices are assumed to have reached a peak and are projected to fall to around $1.58 a litre by early 2007″.
…
Asked why he forecast oil prices would fall, Dr Bollard said it was because they were so high and “what goes up comes down”.

Seriously, that was the whole paragraph. Maybe we should also ask Paris Hilton for her input?

I’m currently pondering whether to watch the opening match of the Soccer World Cup, which kicks off in a couple hours at 4am NZST. I expect the temperature then will be about fucking freezing degrees Celsius. And I mean, 4am. But it seems it’ll be one of the few played live, instead of in easily-consumed and utterly meaningless highlights packages. Check out ONE Sport’s World Cup TV Schedule. On their incredibly shitty website. (Here is the alternative.) Seriously. How freakin’ hard?