Make it rain…

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Well, okay, so I knew that it was raining pretty hard as I went to work today. It had been raining when I woke up, and I hadn’t heard it let up at all, and it’s always kind of fun to see the streams running down the hills in the downtown Seattle area.

I didn’t realize that it was this bad, though (if King5 asks you to log in, use king5\@djwudi.com / kingfive)!

After a brief respite, heavy rains resumed Monday in Western Washington and four rivers that spilled over their banks late last week were on the brink of overflowing again. Motorists were finding flooding on city streets, including Aurora Avenue near the Seattle Center.

Something Positive

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I really was planning on getting something done today. Unfortunately, I haven’t — and it’s all Royce‘s fault.

He sent me a link to Something Positive, a web comic that I’d never heard of before.

I’ve spent the entire day reading it. So far I’ve made it from the very first strip from Dec. 19th, 2001 all the way up to April 16th, 2003 — about a year and a half of strips. I’ve still got about six months to go before I catch up to today. Unfortunately, I do need to take a break for a bit, and go out and bounce around for a bit.

Still, the strip is hilarious. Often very wrong, but that just makes it all the better in my book. Go check it out.

And I want my own Choo-Choo Bear!

You’ll understand if you read the comic.

Trust me.

:)

iTMS Link Maker spewing popups?

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It looks like the extra code that Apple supplies when creating links with the iTMS Link Maker is causing pop-ups to appear in some browsers. This is the text of an e-mail I got tonight, and the response I gave. Has anyone else seen this happening, or are there any other ideas of what might be going on? Are new updated versions of IE that have been patched due to the Eolas lawsuit already in the wild?

On Saturday, Oct 18, 2003, at 19:14 US/Pacific, Owen van Dijk wrote:

Hello Michael,

Through a link I stumbled on your weblog. Suddenly I got a popup saying if wanted to install the “iTunes detector” from Apple. I have never heard of such a plugin, not on a PC ( I use windows xp, ie6 ) and not on a mac ( I am also the lucky owner of a powerbook 12\” :) ) could you please explain what this plugin does or why it is embedded in your site?

Wow. Good question.

First off — I’m really sorry about a pop-up showing up! I had no idea that would happen (and, to be entirely honest, I’m not entirely sure why it happened…but I can guess).

With Apple’s release of iTunes for the PC and the revamping of the iTunes Music Store, they’ve made it easier to link directly to items inside the iTunes Music Store. There are two ways of doing this — either with a simple link (like INXS Need You Tonight), or with a more complex link that’s generated using their iTunes Link Maker.

When you create a link with the iTunes Link Maker, it generates two snippets of code — one for the link itself, and one to put in the head of your html page. According to Apple, “The first text box on this page contains code to include in the HEAD section of your HTML (once per page) to detect if iTunes is present or not. This will cause your links to behave intelligently if iTunes is not installed on the user’s computer.” Since I added a link to the iTMS at the bottom of my page (down with the Amazon links), I also added that snippet to the page.

My guess is that that’s what causing the popup to show up on your browser. I’m not entirely sure why you’re getting a popup asking for confirmation, unless it is related to the recent changes being made in IE due to the Eolas patent suit against Microsoft (though I wasn’t aware that they’d actually started distributing changed versions of IE yet).

In either case, that’s something that I don’t want my visitors to have to deal with, so I’ll be taking that code out of there. Thanks much for letting me know about it!

The offending code has been removed from my pages, along with the iTMS link that I had in the ad box at the bottom of the pages. Bummer, but as long as the simple style of linking works, I’ll be able to play with it whenever I want to.

Bayesian spam filtering for MT

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There’s another option in the fight against weblog comment spam now that looks on first blush to be an incredibly effective solution — implementing Bayesian spam filtering on MovableType.

The advantage of this plugin over other solution (e.g. blacklist) is that after certain amount of training, it requires little and no maintence. Training is also similar then importing and exporting blacklists. In addition, it takes whitelist into consideration, not just blindly ban a host or subnet. (This is useful for those who has the misfortunate of been near a spammer). It also consider the whole content, including URLs, IPs, common words, etc into consideration.

The disadvantage is this plugin is that the AI engine is only as good as you train it. If you don’t put in some initial effort to train, it don’t work well. Secondly, if you train it wrongly, you get wrong results.

Looks quite impressive, and I’m planning on implementing it for my hosted sites once I get MT set back up again.

testy.littleville.com

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I’ve been having an odd problem that I’ve noticed in the past, but am just now starting to attempt to track down, in that my server keeps insisting that its domain name is ‘testy.littleville.com’ rather than ‘www.djwudi.com’. Here’s a copy of the nslookup results for djwudi.com…

Server: dsl231-041-022.sea1.dsl.speakeasy.net
Address: 216.231.41.22

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: djwudi.com
Address: 216.231.44.57

…and one for the nslookup results for the server’s IP address…

Server: dsl231-041-022.sea1.dsl.speakeasy.net
Address: 216.231.41.22

Name: testy.littleville.com
Address: 216.231.44.57

I spent some time trying to track down where that particular domain name was coming from (configuration files on my server? oddness with speakeasy.net, ZoneEdit [who handle my DNS services ], or MicroMax Information Services [who I registered my domain through ]?) with no luck until I did a whois on the littleville.com domain and got the following:

Domain Name: LITTLEVILLE.COM
Registrar: NETWORK SOLUTIONS, INC.
Whois Server: whois.networksolutions.com
Referral URL: http://www.networksolutions.com
Name Server: NS2.SPEAKEASY.NET
Name Server: NS1.SPEAKEASY.NET
Status: ACTIVE
Updated Date: 11-mar-2003
Creation Date: 23-jul-1999
Expiration Date: 23-jul-2008

Odd, as I haven’t ever dealt directly with Network Solutions. So, at a loss as to whether or not there’s anything that I can do to solve this, I’ve sent a plea for help with all of the above information to both Network Solutions and Speakeasy.net. Hopefully this gets resolved soon — it doesn’t seem to cause major issues, but it has bit me a couple times during my setup process, and I’d be much happier if my machine knew what its name was!

Update: Turns out it was a simple tweak on Speakeasy’s end:

Speakeasy controls the reverse DNS entries on all of its IP space. When an IP is reclaimed and assigned to a new customer the reverse IP is not updated to the Speakeasy standard.

I have made the needed changes to reflect your domain.

These changes will take effect and begin propagating during our next nameserver update/reload. This happens six times daily, at 11, 3 and 7 pm and am pst.

By the time I got home and found the e-mail, the change had gone through, and my server now correctly identifies itself as djwudi.com. Rock on — thanks, Speakeasy!

Slight IMAP issues

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Work keeps progressing on re-creating the djwudi.com webserver. Last night’s project was setting it up as a working mailserver using sendmail and IMAP. Much progress was made, and I’m just facing one last issue that I can’t resolve, and if there’s anyone out there who might understand a bit more of this end of things than I do, assistance would be greatly appreciated.

I have sendmail and IMAP working for the most part — I can send mail from the server from the command line using the mail command, the server is receiving e-mail, and I can log into the server via IMAP using Mail.app from my G5 to check my e-mail in the account that I set up. However, I’m having no luck in sending e-mail ~~through the IMAP connection~~ from my G5. Every configuration setting I’ve tried just results in an error of one sort or another (either the server refusing connections or (null) errors after sitting and waiting for a while). At this point, I’m more or less stumped.

The steps I went through last night to get the mail side of things set up (so far) are detailed on my rebuilding djwudi.com post. If anyone could give me some pointers, I’d greatly appreciate it!

Update: With a little more work and some pointers from Phil, I got it. Rock on. Progress!

Sources said…

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This is truly a masterful piece of writing — from an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Concerned about the appearance of disarray and feuding within his administration as well as growing resistance to his policies in Iraq, President Bush – living up to his recent declaration that he is in charge – told his top officials to “stop the leaks” to the media, or else.

News of Bush’s order leaked almost immediately.

Bush told his senior aides Tuesday that he “didn’t want to see any stories” quoting unnamed administration officials in the media anymore, and that if he did, there would be consequences, said a senior administration official who asked that his name not be used.

Worthy of The Onion, only from a real newspaper. I love it.

(via Mathew Gross)

iTunes and iTMS for Windows

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Well, the rumors were true — and then some! Here’s some quick highlights of today’s Apple Event:

Hell Froze Over

  • The iPod is the number one .mp3 player on the market, with a 31% market share.
  • Two new accessories (for 3rd generation iPods with the Dock Connector) have been introduced:
    • The Belkin iPod Voice Recorder, which allows you to record voice memos on-the-go and then sync them to your Mac or PC when you’re back home.
    • The Belkin Media Reader, which allows you to move photos off of a camera storage card (Compact Flash, [Type 1 and 2], Smart Media, Secure Digital [SD], Memory Stick, or Multi Media Card [MMC]) and onto the iPod for later import into iPhoto. Never have to worry about running out of space on your camera again!
  • The iTunes Music Store has been upgraded:
    • There will be over 400,000 tracks available by the end of the month.
    • Over 200 independent labels have joined with the iTMS for distribution.
    • Integration with Audible now allows for to be purchased directly through the iTMS interface.
    • Gift Certificates can now be purchased for family or friends through the iTMS. Choose how much you want to give, send it off, and the recipient gets an e-mail. One click, and they’re in the iTMS with credit in their account.
    • Parents can now set up Allowances for children — \$10 (or whatever amount is chosen) per month in downloads charged to the parent’s credit card. Essentially an automatically-renewing gift certificate.
    • Celebrity Playlists — recommendations of songs from popular artists.
  • iTunes for Windows is now available.
    • Runs on Windows 2000 and Windows XP.
    • Complete feature parity with iTunes for the Mac.
    • Rendevouz music sharing over local area networks works between Macs and PCs.
    • iTMS access is built in to iTunes for Windows, just as it is on iTunes for the Mac.
    • Each track purchased from the iTMS is authorized for play on up to three computers — this can be a mix-and-match of Windows PCs and Macs.
  • Two big promotional partnerships were announced:
    • America Online: AOL’s music store now integrates directly with iTunes.
    • Pepsi: 100 million songs will be given away through redemption codes under the cap of select Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, or Sierra Mist bottles. 300 million bottles will be printed, with a one in three chance of winning a free download.

    : http://www.apple.com/itunes/store/books/ “Apple – iTunes – Audiobooks”
    And those are all the key points. Pretty damn impressive! I’ll be playing with iTunes on Windows as soon as I get to work today…

(Much thanks to MacRumors live coverage of the event!)

That Guy

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I’m not a big baseball fan — heck, I’m not a big sports fan — so I haven’t been paying much attention to the baseball games. I’d seen people mention the Cubs here and there, knew that there were big games coming up, but it just wasn’t a big thing for me.

Then the news broke about That Guy in Chicago reaching for the foul ball. So far, I’ve been absolutely disgusted at what has been done to this poor guy — practically within minutes of the event, his name, workplace, and even address had been published across the ‘net, with thousands of angry Cubs fans blaming him for the Cubs loss. Bad enough that the guy might have to wonder whether the ball would have been caught if he hadn’t reached for it — but now he has to worry about his privacy and, quite possibly, personal safety. The handling of the event by the media and various websites has been absolutely horrible.

At least there seem to be as many people also disgusted by this and concerned for the guy as there are people upset with him. Wil Wheaton has a wonderfully written (and funny) open letter to That Guy:

I used to be on this big cult TV show that had lots of very passionate fans. Many of those fans absolutely (and irrationally) hated the character I played on that show. Most of them wrote me nasty letters and heckled me whenever I’d show up at one of their events, they never called my house, or tried to hurt me, but I can sort of imagine what you’re going through. That thing that makes a sports fan wear only paint and a diaper to a ball game when it’s 15 degrees outside? It’s the same thing that makes a Star Trek fan wear the same unwashed uniform for 5 days in a row at a big ass con.

>

I’ve read that just about every Cubs fan in the world is giving you hell for going after that foul ball. Well, That Guy, last time I checked, baseball fans like to catch foul balls. It’s something we do, like paying too much for terrible beer and screaming at a player for not picking up that slider that we’re so certain we’d be able to hit if they’d just put our fat asses in the game. Hell, I’ve been going to 20 or 30 games a season at Dodger Stadium for almost 30 years, and I try to catch a foul ball every single time I’m there. I’ve even had my hot wife flirt with the teenage bat boy in a pathetic effort to score one. To date, I am still empty-handed. But that bat boy, Jesse, is convinced that my wife’s going to leave me just as soon as he gets out of high school.

Rock on, Wil. And good luck and best wishes to That Guy.