All Clear: Mozilla is not disabling Umlaut Domains - although the solution is equivalent to disabling them: the browser simply displays the Punycode notation. So you can enter a Umlaut domain and land on the correct server, but that's it.
Archive 15.2.2005 - 21.2.2005
Hack a Bike - keep on hacking in a free world! - no idea how old it is, but the text was new to me. How the Berlin rental bikes were hacked. Even Bruce Schneier commented on it.
Image Headlines Plugin for WordPress 1.5 automatically creates image replacements for headers. However, it probably only handles simple images, so you would still need to place invisible text under the H-tag to ensure that search engines don't just take the ALT attribute of the image for the header. And of course, image replacements have a significant drawback: they do not grow when the user changes the base font size.
Get a Spanner in the Works
Now I'm being pelted with wood here. Well, I'm a good-natured person and it does promote the PageRank. How many gigantic bytes of music are stored on your computer?
7GB of music alone and I don't know how many more GB of audio plays. All completely legally ripped or downloaded. Actually, not much... The last CD you bought...
Haindling, "Achtung, Achtung". Which song were you listening to when the call came?
Kraftwerk, "The Model" (yes, unfortunately the English version - last.fm doesn't have the German one). And yes, I'm an old fart. Five songs that mean a lot to me or that I listen to often:
Grummel. That's by far not enough to even begin to ... Give me 50 ...
Kate Bush, "Babooshka" (my song, and I won't tell you why)
Emerson, Lake & Palmer, "Black Moon" (or anything where they rock - piano not needed, but rock must)
Pink Floyd, "Money" (because that's all it's about)
Steve Miller, "The Joker" (yeah. simple and plain.)
Madness, "One Step Beyond" (because I always feel young then)
Who do you throw this stick to (3 people) and why?
- [Jutta][2], because she writes so little
- [Christian][3], for the same reason and because he needs links for his blog
- [ToJe][4], because he is probably the freshest new addition to the Münster blogosphere
OpenPGPComment for WordPress
OpenPGPComment is a WordPress plugin that allows you to display signed comments properly. Users can sign their comments with gpg, and the server then displays these comments without the signature in the post comments, but offers a popup window with the gpg output as a link. Nice idea.
Digitally signed comments are not only useful for associating comments with users - they also offer advantages for the user themselves. Specifically, it is ensured that signed comments have not been subsequently altered by the server operator. A not insignificant advantage, especially in weblogs, where the server owner usually has significantly more options available.
I would have liked to try it out myself, but it requires proc open - and proc open is only available from PHP 4.3 onwards. And in Debian Woody, there is still a PHP 4.1.2 ...
Paranoia, advanced - so I'm not the only one wondering about these slightly crazy measures. The crazy part: the Americans expect such a show from us. At this point, you almost wish the guy would stay away ...
rdiff-backup and duplicity
rdiff-backup and duplicity are very practical backup tools that use the rsync algorithm to efficiently copy over the network and, unlike normal rsync, also store historical versions. rdiff-backup uses a mirror+reverse-delta format and duplicity uses a base-version+forward-delta format. The latest version of librsync, on which both projects are based, should also transport Mac OS X metadata, so it could also be useful for OS X. I have already successfully used rdiff-backup for Linux backups.
Spammers are really quite stupid ...
... someone is struggling with my trackbacks right now. Every hour. Almost exactly at 25 minutes past the hour. With strongly varying IP addresses. The texts are also very different - and non-spammy. But what is the idiot doing? Trackbacking the same link every time. A link that I already put on the bad link list two weeks ago. Somehow not particularly smart, because everything ends up in the trash directly. Ok, otherwise everything would end up in the moderation queue, which wouldn't help him either.
Rabies (Rabies, Lyssa)
Medicine-Worldwide: Rabies (Rabies, Lyssa) describes rabies and its course in humans. And of course, there is a rabies page on Wikipedia.
Apache Rivet - Integrate TCL as an alternative to PHP into Apache and design dynamic pages with it. Fighting fire with fire?
The Elections in S.-H.
I can't claim that I'm bursting with joy. So far, Hesse has been the epitome of stupid election results for me. But as usual, reality has outdone itself. I can't claim that this causes me any kind of anticipation for the elections in May here ... What is really disgusting about elections: the blabbering of all the social failure politicians afterwards. So much nonsense in one place should be banned. If a Stoiber blathers on that show politics cannot replace real politics - the man who consists only of show and hollow phrases - then the whole thing takes on quite bizarre traits. One could feel like being in a staging of a play of the Theater of the Absurd:
In it, our everyday world is present in terrifyingly distorted forms. The uncanny, as Sigmund Freud, often arises from the overemphasis of psychological reality in relation to material reality. In the theater of the absurd, the characters only perceive the outside world through the prism of their fears, obsessions, and delusions.
Yep, fits. Can I get my ticket refunded and get my money back?
Google-Whack: melted möllemann
Ha, my very personal Googlewhack: gemölter möllemann. I just need to find a dictionary that includes "Gemölter" now.
And of course, all of this is just to solidify my number 1 ranking for "gemölter" ...
mod_dosevasive is an Apache module that attempts to detect DOS attacks and then can hand them off to other mechanisms to block the attacker. It can, for example, generate firewalling rules that block this attacker. However, you should not run it on an SVN host, as an SVN update may under certain circumstances look like a scripted attack ...
Red Alt - Kubrickr
Red Alt - Kubrickr generates a header image for the Kubrick layout from a selection of images on flickr that are licensed under CC. Should be usable for all Kubrick designs where the images have the same dimensions.
I've already toyed with the idea of building something like this myself - we'll see, maybe I'll integrate something like this into my photo plugin. Because I already had changing header graphics before, which I actually quite liked.
Terragen - Landscape Generator
Terragen is a landscape generator for Windows and Mac (Classic and OS X). Very interesting piece with a bunch of parameters that you can adjust. And as it seems quite fast. I have to play with it a bit.
Terragen - Landscape Generator - 1
Yes, it really works very simply. Ok, generating a sample landscape is of course rather randomly controlled - to generate exactly what you have in mind requires much more work. But the whole thing actually gives the impression that you could understand it. The colors come across a bit cool, so I did a slight white balance adjustment towards warmer colors in Photoshop. It also looks a bit harsh and the sharpness between water and land is a bit too blurry for me, but I guess one or the other can certainly still be adjusted with parameters.
Terragen - Landscape Generator - 2
What I noticed with the first experiments: you should stick closely to the physical model. So if the camera position is set to 30 meters above the ground, it also looks that way - you should first think about where the viewer is in your scene. In real situations, you rarely hang 30 meters in the air. You should also play a bit with the 3D preview, as it offers a simple way to optimize the viewing angle.
Unfortunately, there are hardly any plugins for OS X - a plugin that simulates a camera lens both in terms of the angle of view and depth of field would be great. But there is only one for Windows.
What is also not so nice - the vegetation is only simulated by colored spots. Just like snow and sand. Some of the people in the gallery images seem to use their own textures or better presets than those provided. So far I have only used the pre-made surface textures. I need to research further how to get better presets that look more realistic - the ones provided always look a bit thin.
Of course, the presets for extraterrestrial scenes are cool - e.g. the atmosphere presets and the surface textures for Mars. You just have to paint a robot in and you have your own NASA mission.
In case of side effects, contact your software manufacturer ...
Microsoft vs. Wine: Deja Vu on the FUD Front describes how Microsoft's WGA stuff - checking a legal system software according to Microsoft's definition even for updates for normal applications - makes the update of applications that run under Wine or Crossover Office (Windows emulators under Linux) impossible.
Let me spell that out for you: You can have a legal copy of Microsoft Office, and because you choose to run it on a Linux box using Wine, you won't be able to update it.
Bernd das Brot as GDM Theme. For the real fans of Bernd. Everyone else can go home and stare at their textured wallpaper.
Who wants to know how secure or rather insecure the T-Mobile pages in the USA are (they were recently hacked), here is a small analysis: Ethical Hacking and Computer Forensics: Secret Service hacker, how did he do it? The result is that the hacker apparently used normal SQL injection or something similar and that it is quite easy to insert false information due to the system structure of their server.
Google pagerank extension for firefox and mozilla is exactly what it claims to be: a display of the Google PageRank in the status bar of Mozilla or FireFox. Practical if you need to or want to pay attention to PageRank.
HP Photosmart 8750 Printer Announced - hey, that sounds really good. Maybe it could eventually replace my Epson Stylus 3000. Archival-quality prints are definitely something that's still on my to-do list. And there's also a 3-gray ink cartridge available for the HP, which should make black-and-white prints look nice.
heise Security - Know-how - Consequences of the successful attacks on SHA-1 explains quite well what hash algorithms mean in security technology and how the current situation regarding SHA1 is to be assessed. Worth reading.
Pope compares abortion to Holocaust
Pope compares abortion to Holocaust and continues to incite against a modern world. Apart from the fact that his historical knowledge about the elections of the National Socialists in Germany is very simplistic, he offends thousands of women who have had abortions for good reasons. And even if he doesn't like it: the laws are made by the national parliaments and not by the puppet in Rome. And that's a good thing, no matter how stupid our current legislators sometimes are ...
Alternative Rewrite Rules result in a significantly simpler .htaccess, especially one that doesn't constantly need to be updated by WordPress. This is particularly practical if you also use the .htaccess for other purposes. Additionally, Apache is not necessarily faster with the complex Rewrite-Rules from WordPress. I have activated them myself, let's see how WordPress 1.5 performs with these entries. If there are no problems, they will stay that way, because I like them much better than the other variant. And they don't have the problems that the others have - old mod_rewrite can only do greedy matching, which makes creating complex lists of rewrites quite hairy ...
Canon EF-S 60 mm F2.8 macro lens - could be a replacement for the 50/2.5 macro at the right price. Not that I wouldn't like the 50mm, but the 60mm is just the necessary bit longer in focal length and above all it goes directly without adapter down to 1:1. The 50mm only down to 1:2.
The Hypocrite of the Evening?
Höhn unter Beschuss - cute how Rüttgers suddenly discovered his alleged heart for women in forced situations. I have not heard that he has ever advocated for women and their rights during the regular forced deportations that also take place in NRW. Simply hypocrisy and political calculation. So much for the topic of cynicism ...
heise online - When Computer Oldies No Longer Want to Work [Update]. Great, the C64 was a duck and in reality it's something much worse ...
Introducing sIFR: The Healthy Alternative to Browser Text
Introducing sIFR: The Healthy Alternative to Browser Text describes a method based on JavaScript, CSS, and Flash to free text styling from the limitations of CSS and use any fonts.
The technique works similarly to CSS image replacements, except that the replaced text can grow with the page (e.g., if the user has set a larger base font). If a visitor has Flash and JavaScript available, correspondingly marked text areas are replaced by a Flash rendering.
If the visitor has no Flash or JavaScript is disabled, they will see normal text content via the browser's capabilities. Accessibility is thus largely preserved - the HTML remains semantic, and screen readers for text browsers as well as semantically controlled HTML readers should have no problem with it. Visually impaired users with large fonts can also benefit - for example, by disabling Flash, the user's chosen font size will be selected.
It is definitely better than CSS image replacement for headers, as it can adapt to the dynamic environment much better. Image replacements are not zoomed and do not support copying and pasting of content (which is also supported by Flash).
The Technorati Plugin Beta provides a similar list to regular comments - except the links and text excerpts come from the Technorati link cosmos for an article. I'm currently wondering whether something like this couldn't also be done meaningfully with blogger.de - this way you could also catch those who aren't automatically linked via Trackback or Pingback. Of course, you'd have to check for duplicates against the regular trackbacks and pingbacks. Hmm.
BAStats Pre-Release for WordPress 1.5
BAStats Pre-Release - very nicely done. It provides direct insight into referrers, page views, etc. on a web server. Simple time-based filtering and fairly straightforward filters. I have no idea how it processes the data itself - whether there are appropriate data cleanup runs included, since it's still a pre-release. But it's quite nice to sit in front of the website and get live views. And much more manageable than a tail -f on the access log.
One effect of BAStats is that visitors receive a cookie. Anyone who rejects it, no problem - everything works as before. The cookie simply serves to identify a visit.
Commodore 64 as Display Board Controller
The failure of a Commodore 64 at Dortmund train station causes a complete failure of the display board system. A multi-billion-euro company. With thousands of employees. Listed on the stock exchange. Operating a facility like Dortmund train station with a Commodore 64. If only it had been a ZX Spectrum...
Update: Heise has since corrected the report, the computer is not a C64 but an Intel machine running Xenix. Which doesn't exactly make the problem simpler...
Cryptographic method SHA-1 cracked - ouch. If Bruce Schneier's assessment is correct, then that's it for SHA-1. A switch to SHA-256 or SHA-512 seems to be in order (though this had been hinting at it recently anyway).
New Game, New Luck: b2evolution
Today I took a look at b2evolution (as usual, just a brief superficial test flight). It's related to WordPress and that alone is interesting - let's see what others have done with the same base code. So I got the software, grabbed the Kubrick skin (hey, I'm liking Kubrick these days), and got started.
What immediately stands out: b2evolution places much more emphasis on multi-everything. Multi-blog (it comes pre-installed with 4 blogs, one of which is an "all blogs" blog and one is a link blog), multi-user (with permissions for blogs etc. - so suitable as a blogging platform for smaller user groups) and multi-language (nice: you can set the language for each post, set languages per blog). That's already appealing. The backend is reasonably easy to use and you can find most things pretty quickly.
But then the documentation. Ok, yes, the important stuff is documented and findable. But as soon as you go deeper, almost nothing is self-explanatory or documented. Ok, I admit I shouldn't have immediately set out to make the URIs as complicated as possible - namely via so-called stub files. These are alternative PHP files through which everything is pulled to preset special settings via them. Apparently you're supposed to be able to get a URI structure like WordPress with it - the b2evolution standard is that index.php always appears in the URI and the additional elements are tacked on at the end. That's ugly. I don't want that. Changing that apparently only works with Apache tools done by hand (no, not like WordPress's nice and friendly support for the auto-generated .htaccess file) and then corresponding settings in b2evolution. Ok, you can do that - I know Apache well enough. But why so complicated when there's an easier way?
Well, but the real catch for me comes next: b2evolution can only do blogs. At least in the standard configuration. Exactly - just lists of posts ordered chronologically. Boring. Not even simple static pages - sorry, but where do I put the imprint? Manually created files that you put alongside it? Possible, sure. But not exactly user-friendly.
There are also some anti-spam measures, for example a centrally maintained banned words list (well, I personally don't think word lists are that suitable) and user registration. Not much, but sufficient for now. You can certainly do more via plugins. Speaking of plugins, there's a very nice feature to mention: you can have different filters activated for each post. Each time anew depending on the post. Very nice - WordPress has a real deficit there, the activated filters apply to everything across the board - one change and old posts suddenly get formatted wrong (if it's an output filter).
Also nice: the hierarchical categories really behave hierarchically - in WordPress they're only hierarchically grouped, but e.g. not much is done with the hierarchy. In b2evolution, posts from a category automatically move to the parent category when a category is deleted. Also, thanks to the multi-blog feature, you can activate categories from different blogs for a single post and thus cross-post - if it's allowed in the settings.
Layout adjustments work via templates and skins. Templates are comparable to the WordPress 1.2 mode and skins are more like the WordPress 1.5 mode. So with templates everything is pulled through a PHP file and with skins multiple templates are combined and then the blog is built from that. Special customizations can then be done via your own stub files (the same ones that are supposed to be used for prettier URIs) and via those you could, for example, build fixed layouts with which you could simulate static pages.
All in all, the result of the short flight: nice system (despite the somewhat baroque corners in URI creation and quite sparse documentation) for hackers and people who like to dig into the code. For just getting started directly, I find it less suitable - WordPress is much easier to understand and get going with. And to compete with Drupal, b2evolution is too thin on features - just too focused on blogs. You can certainly bend it in the right direction - but why would you want to do that when you could just use something off-the-shelf that can already do all that?
Hmm. Sounds relatively similar to what I wrote about b2evolution almost a year ago. There hasn't been much development there in the meantime.
Nikon Face-Priority AF is another step towards subject-tracking focus
Positivliste soll Marketing-Mails an Spam-Filtern vorbeischleusen - the whole thing is so absurd that I simply can't think of anything to write about it...
sohu-search is a weird bot
The Sohu.com Search Bot Is Acting Strange
The search bot from sohu.com is currently crawling my pages. So far, so good. It uses robots.txt, which is already a good sign. But there are two things that really puzzle me:
First, it accesses every page twice. Once with a HEAD request and once with a GET request. That's pretty stupid for several reasons. On one hand, you can handle it directly using Conditional GET, and on the other hand, it provokes double page generation for dynamically generated pages — because even though the HEAD request only fetches the header lines, for example to calculate the Content-Length, the page still has to be generated anyway (of course, this depends on how the generating system is written).
Second, every few pages it accesses a page called abcdefghijklmn.htm. And I really don't understand what that nonsense is supposed to be. Some kind of keep-alive check? No idea. Very strange.
Study: Vioxx doubled heart attack risk - I said it before, I got that medication for half a year. Just great.
Workaround for IDN Spoofing Issue - Simply block all URIs that contain name components outside of 7bit-ASCII using the AdBlock extension.
APOD: 2005 January 21 - Metal on the Plains of Mars. Cool image - Opportunity finds parts of its own heat shield again. And even a small meteorite to boot. Maybe it will find Beagle sometime too.
Bill Gates attempts to blackmail Denmark
Bill Gates tries to extort Denmark with Navision. After Microsoft bought Navision, the 800 jobs are now being used as leverage against the Danish government to bind it to Microsoft's wishes regarding the software patent directive in Europe.
When you look at which companies are in favor of the software patent directive and what methods are being used (extortion, bribery, lobbying, FUD) to push it through, it really makes you sick. These are practically mafia methods. And the motivation behind the whole thing is probably just as honest as the mafia's.
There's already the first Microsoft denial - so there must be something to the extortion story. In the article about the denial, there's also information about other companies that have put pressure on Poland. And apparently it worked in Poland - at least in part.
It's really disgusting what behavior these companies are displaying - Siemens is extorting the German labor market with the threat of moving its mobile phone division to Poland, for example, and is extorting the Polish government with the same jobs over software patents. The whole mess only works because politicians are unable to talk to each other and actually pursue common European goals - and thus put a stop to these games of the industry giants. Because every politician only wants to secure their own advantage and at most looks out for their own interests in their own country, companies can happily play countries off against each other.
Brandora, R/C X-UFO - hey, cool. Is it powerful enough to carry a small digital camera?
Vocational Training is Being Nationalized
DGB on Training Pact: "Vocational Training is Being Nationalized" - did anyone really believe this absurd training pact would prompt the economy to actually create apprenticeship positions? They're not even interested in training people themselves and thus securing the skilled workers they need. When there's a shortage of skilled workers, it's much easier to cry out for some ridiculous green card projects - and politicians are dumb enough to go along with it. And when you don't need people anymore because profits have risen, you just throw them out.
A mandatory levy is certainly problematic - not because of the levy itself, but because business executives will use it again as a flimsy excuse to lay people off because they supposedly wouldn't be competitive otherwise - but it's probably the only way to force the economy to actually train people.
Of course, the real solution would be if business executives actually used their brains again and maybe even rediscovered their social responsibility. But who still believes in that in times of Esser and Ackermann? Or the Daimler CEO without a Rolex, but with doubled salary despite declining profits? Does anyone really credit these rip-off artists with even rudimentary social competence?
By the way, the whole thing about competitiveness on the international market is quite a farce as an argument when Germany consistently keeps expanding exports and raking in record profits in export-oriented sectors. How does that work if our system is supposedly so uncompetitive on the international market?
Fischer becomes NRW election campaign issue - Rüttgers must really be at the end of his rope if he has to resort to a federal issue instead of regional topics for his campaign. But well-conducted campaigning has never really been his strength anyway. Not that it would be particularly difficult to find regional issues - after all, the Red-Green government in NRW provides plenty of ammunition for that. Only it seems the Union is just too dumb to exploit it - probably because they themselves have no idea how NRW's problems could be solved. But opening their mouths and screaming to be voted in, that they can do ...
::: heimstatt jochen wegner - FARMER POPPE AND THE GOOGLIFICATION and the dumbing down of professional journalism. Why do they present themselves as something special when in the end they do exactly the same thing as the bloggers? (via Schockwellenreiter)
Internet Explorer 7 beta due out this summer - and apparently only for Windows XP SP2. Great. This means all those heaps of broken Windows systems out there will continue running around with the messed-up IE versions. On the other hand - if you look at how IE has developed, do you even want a new version to spread?
junge welt vom 15.02.2005 - Hungerlohn für Nachhilfe reports on the displacement of normal employment relationships by one-euro jobs. It was to be expected that this measure, too, would not really create jobs, but ultimately destroy jobs. But it is already a mockery that among the first to abuse one-euro jobs is the public sector itself ...
Mozilla removes support for umlaut domains
Mozilla removes support for umlaut domains - in my opinion, the only right reaction. The IDN stuff is just nonsense without any real sense anyway. Sorry, but umlaut domains that only work on the web but not in email are just a disaster waiting to happen. And the technical implementation - the fact that only a small subset of Unicode can even be mapped - is also ridiculous. All just to boost domain marketing and stroke the egos of some idiots...
Neohapsis Archives - Full Disclosure List - #0258 - [Full-Disclosure] Advisory: Awstats official workaround flaw - I've now put that part behind password protection and that's the end of exploits. Without proper security measures, you can pretty much forget about awstats.pl - it seems to be a classic Swiss cheese...
News.Individual.DE no longer free from 1.4.
The news server news.individual.de will soon be a paid service because no sponsors could be found. I learned about this through Rabenhorst. It's really a shame that it can't continue to be operated for free. Well, the server's performance is so good that 10 euros is definitely worth it to me.