Category: Technik & Software

Just got 26 requests from some bot or script looking for unprotected installations of phpMyAdmin. Continue reading “phpMyAdmin scanning”

So, I just got the Flock Developer Preview (build 0.4.8).

It’s like Firefox on drugs. Blogger drugs. Pretty neat looking, it works (well, it’s basically just rebranded Firefox with some extras), and it might even bring the revolution it so loudly speaks of on the website. At the very least, its “feed” button is large and obvious.

They really should get a GUI/usability person working on the interface though. Having fields not accessible by keyboard is unacceptable. The improved search box never tells you how improved it is until you notice by chance – the interface is not obvious, and confusing. And then the freaking Options dialog is too narrow for its contents, how did that get by QA?

Flock’s tools are quite nifty though. I’m writing this post from within Flock, via the prominent “Create blog post” button and XML-RPC. (It insists on putting <br /> before every </p>, I have no clue why. It also assumes I use HTML, when I use Markdown.)

Oh, and– as soon as you enable del.icio.us synchronization for your tags, the default favorites (naturally) get automatically added to your delicious account. And thus, Flock gets the top three spots at del.icio.us popular list within hours. Honi soit qui mal y pense.

More as I play around with that thang.

Greg Yardley raises some good points about Flock’s target market and competition.

Technorati Tags: Computer, Flock, Software, Ramblings, Web

(English version below)

Alternate weigern sich standhaft, einen Austauschlüfter für den defekten Chipsatzlüfter auf meinem Mainboard zu versenden. Sie beharren darauf, dass ich wegen eines Lüfters von weniger als 2x2cm Kantenlänge, an dem ein bekanntes und vom Hersteller bestätigtes Problem auftritt, das dazu noch offensichtlich zu erkennen ist, meinen Hauptarbeitsrechner stilllege, dann mehrere Stunden Arbeit für den Ausbau der Hauptplatine aufbringe, empfindliche Elektronik mit der Post versende (und dabei einen Garantieverlust riskiere), um dann in ein paar Tagen bis Wochen (wenn’s schnell geht) dasselbe Spiel nochmal andersherum spielen zu dürfen.

Continue reading “Geballte Kompetenz | Concentrated Competence”

The chipset fan on my ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe motherboard is starting to make unhealthy noises, after little more than 5 months (bought in April 2005). That‘s what you get if you buy ‘Deluxe’ versions, I suppose? I’m not sure whether I should be worried for the chip, since I have the great ThermalRock OceanDOME chassis (with lots of fans and great circulation), but it’s not exactly a sign of quality if essential parts like this fail within less than half a year!

Let’s see how ASUS support handles the matter. If you believe forums and the internets, they should be quick with a new “improved” fan. Here’s hope. (Their support form tells me “Server connection failure, please retry”, and upon doing so, “Your request already submit” [sic]. Who would you believe?)

Also, if you have a suggestion for a third-party replacement fan, I’m eager to hear. I have the Gigabyte nForce 6600GT Silent, no SLI, but a new fan shouldn’t be much larger than the old. Bonus if it can be swapped without taking out the motherboard (I’m not too keen on recabling everything).

Update: ASUS is officially replacing failing fans now. Contact them and send them your mainboard serial number.

Ich fühle mich – ja, wirklich – sehr geehrt, dass ich die neue Version des Telefonbuches (1.4.0.2.8 – 0.9.10.12, mit Datum 2005-08-29 12:36:48, wenn man der Fußzeile glaubt) testen darf. Bald sogar in mehreren Sprachen.

Die neuen Seiten sind beinahe benutzbar, der erste Eindruck recht positiv. Allerdings war die alte Version auch so umständlich, dass man sich eigentlich nur noch verbessern konnte. Kleinigkeiten, wie etwa, warum die Redaktion in den FAQ konsequent “um’s” statt “ums” schreibt, und was sie zu ausgerechnet zur Aufnahme jener technischen Fragen bewogen hat:

Warum soviel JavaScript?
Um dem Anwender mehr Komfort zu bieten, können diese Funktionen auf der Client-Seite nur mit JAVA-Script realisiert werden.

Gibt es einen Überlastungsschutz? Load-Balance?
Selbstverständlich ja. Der Überlastungsschutz und Load-Balance sind Bestandteile einer seriösen Anwendung.

Gut zu wissen, oder? Wahrscheinlich schreiben auch nur seriöse Anwendungen ECMAScript falsch, und dann sogar das falsche nochmal falsch. Vielleicht ist “JAVA-Script” aber auch nur wirklich sehr, sehr seriös. Wogegen diese Anweisung im Quelltext unseriös gewesen wäre, aber zum Glück auskommentiert wurde:

<!--<meta http-equiv="Page-Enter" content="blendTrans(Duration=1.0)" />-->

Schöne neue Welt.

Asa Dotzler says Firefox 1.5 is almost ready. I wonder whether it will finally get the handling of soft hyphens (­) right. Bugzilla says it’s not so.

And here I was hoping for a standards-supporting, mature browser. Maybe I’ll switch to Opera after all. They might not be Open Source, but they’re open to user demands, something Firefox development seems to lack at the moment.

(Don’t spam the bug, there’s a link to a mozillazine forum thread in the last comment, use that.)

Just helped fix the last bug holding back deviantSKIN. I like how all the deviantART modding and prodding is coming along. There’s GalleryStats and EasyReply by Micah Goulart, both now incorporated into the dA mainline, mp3chuck‘s dA skins, bluspeed‘s deviantMessage (and soon, daSKIN) extension, and of course, all the user scripts.

Am I wrong if I like to think that dAmnhack helped kick it off?

It’s official, my computer is le dead, kaputt,
broken. That means, of course, that my productivity has gone through
the floor, as I am stuck with my old, slow, 256MiB-of-RAM laptop, which
also features a full hard disk (well, with only 20GiB to start with…).

The cause of the troubles, I suspect, is the mainboard. I had defect
RAM before, but I just don’t believe that RAM is burning out every few
weeks. Also, the IDE bus is behaving erratically, and random
bluescreens are the order of the day. When I tried to install a fresh
Windows on a new harddisk, hell broke lose, and well, here I am,
posting from aforementioned laptop.

So, don’t expect any new hacks, user scripts, photos or the likes in
the next weeks, until I can get my hands on a real machine again.
Donations are welcome, but not tax-deductible – feel free to transfer
funds to paypal@moeffju.de.

PS: I lost some data in the crash. It’s a good thing to have backups
– of the wrong disk. Or, asking Murphy, why is the harddisk that
crashes never the one you just backed up? Please mourn for my data.

You probably know GreaseMonkey,
the user-script and power-to-the-people extension for Firefox. Now the
power to change comes to that other browser, too: Enter GreaseMonkIE.

Many scripts work, except for those that use Firefox-specific code,
and some using XPath. In general, it’s far less comfortable to use
GreaseMonkIE – then again, using IE is less comfortable already, so
people might have gotten used to it.

GreaseMonkIE requires the .NET framework.

Update – GreaseMonkIE is no more.

To improve your deviantART browsing experience, have a look at the JavaScript hacks.
There’s one to toggle all deviations by one deviant in the message center (subscribers only), and one
that adds the deviation thumbnail next to the comment box, but more are to come.

This is an update to deviantART.com, the sane way.

To sanitize the layout of deviantART.com, put this in your user stylesheet
(userContent.css in Mozilla/Firefox, use the ChromEdit extension).

/* deviantART: sanitize layout */
body#deviantART { padding: 2px 4px !important; margin: 0 !important; }
body#deviantART div#head h1 { margin-top: -60px !important; }
/* Remove ads */
body#deviantART div#sponsors { display: none; }
/* Move Journal / Settings / Profile links and Search box */
body#deviantART div#deviosity {
    position: absolute !important;
    top: 5px !important;
    left: 150px !important;
}
body#deviantART form#devart-search {
  position: absolute !important;
  top: -20px !important;
  right: 0px !important;
}
/* Remove Christmas bar */
body#deviantART div#bar-countdown { display: none !important; }