Software

I saw a reference to Eurekster today. While I didn’t think the world really needed another search engine, it brings an interesting idea to it. Dare I say that it’s the most interesting new idea I’ve seen since Google?
While Google ranks its pages based on the number of people linking to it, it can still lose relevance. A recent search I performed looking for tips on building things out of brass was a good example. If I’m interested in something that not many people think about–which seems to happen a lot these days–then Google’s system starts to break down.

Eurekster keeps track of what links you visit and how long you stay there in an effort to learn what you find interesting. Then, when you search again, pages similar to the ones you spent time with should bubble to the top.

If you dare, you can also link yourself to other people with similar interests so that what they like colors your results.

I tried using a Genealogy “search group” to see if it colored my results. It did, but the results were hardly earth-shattering.

Time will tell how well this will work. It seems to be use that puts the intelligence in artificial intelligence.

Dave Farquhar

David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He has written professionally about computers since 1991, so he was writing about retro computers when they were still new. He has been working in IT professionally since 1994 and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He holds Security+ and CISSP certifications. Today he blogs five times a week, mostly about retro computers and retro gaming covering the time period from 1975 to 2000.

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Edna is a very easy-to-setup up MP3 jukebox written in Python and licensed under the GPL. I think a radio-like mode can be added to it pretty easily. Here’s the routine that selects songs to play:

  def make_list(self, fullpath, url, recursive, shuffle, songs=None):

    # This routine takes a string for 'fullpath' and 'url', a list for

    # 'songs' and a boolean for 'recursive' and 'shuffle'. If recursive is

    # false make_list will return a list of every file ending in '.mp3' in

    # fullpath. If recursive is true make_list will return a list of every

    # file ending in '.mp3' in fullpath and in every directory beneath

    # fullpath.

    #



    if songs is None:

      songs = []


    for name in sort_dir(fullpath):

      base, ext = os.path.splitext(name)

      if extensions.has_key(string.lower(ext)):

        # add the song's URL to the list we're building

        songs.append(self.build_url(url, name) + '\n')



      # recurse down into subdirectories looking for more MP3s.

      if recursive and os.path.isdir(fullpath + '/' + name):

        songs = self.make_list(fullpath + '/' + name,

                               url + '/' + urllib.quote(name),

                               recursive, 0,	# don't shuffle subdir results

                               songs)



    # The user asked us to mix up the results.

    if shuffle:

      count = len(songs)

      for i in xrange(count):

        j = random.randrange(count)

        songs[i], songs[j] = songs[j], songs[i]


    return songs

A question for Python programmers: I added a few lines to the shuffle routine, right after the line count=len(songs).

      # radio mode -- DLF, 9/7

      blacklist = open('blacklist', 'rb').readlines()

      overplay = open('overplay', 'rb').readlines()

      countb = len(blacklist)

      counto = len(overplay)

      for i in xrange(count):

        for j in xrange(countb):

          if songs[i] = blacklist[j]:

            k = random.randrange(counto)

            songs[i] = overplay[k]
      # end radio mode hack

What it’s supposed to do is load a blacklist and overplay list and, when shuffling, compare the current element against the blacklist, and if it finds a match, randomly substitutes a song from the overplay list.

What it actually does is nothing. Anyone have any ideas?

Dave Farquhar

David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He has written professionally about computers since 1991, so he was writing about retro computers when they were still new. He has been working in IT professionally since 1994 and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He holds Security+ and CISSP certifications. Today he blogs five times a week, mostly about retro computers and retro gaming covering the time period from 1975 to 2000.

dfarq.homeip.net

Nothing frustrates me more than unfulfilled potential. And that’s why Mozilla Firebird, in spite of its amazing strengths–great speed and small footprint, aside from the things it inherited from Mozilla like good standards compliance, tabbed browsing, popup blocking–well, it bugs me. Why settle for being great when you can be the best there ever was and make people wonder if there ever will be anything better?
Every other modern browser I’ve seen lets you turn off GIF animation. I always do. Still ads very rarely bother me. Moving ads do about 99.999% of the time. As it turns out, Firebird still has the capability, the control panel option is just gone now, in order to make the browser less confusing.

To get it back, locate the file prefs.js inside your profile. In Linux, search your home directory; in Windows, use the Find File option and remember that every Mozilla-derived browser you have installed will have one. Once you find it, open it in a text editor and add the following line:

user_pref(“image.animation_mode”, “none”);

Another good option, if you like movement but don’t like looping distraction, is to replace the word “none” with “once”. Then the animation cycles once and terminates.

Shut down your browser if it’s open, then save the file. Close the file, then reopen your browser. You’ll now be able to browse in peace.

There are bunches of other good tips at this page. Here are my favorites:

Disable blinking text by creating the file user.js in the same directory as your prefs.js file if it doesn’t exist (it doesn’t by default), and insert the following text:

// Put an end to blinking text!
user_pref(“browser.blink_allowed”, false);

Disable the marquee tag by creating the file usercontent.css in the same directory as your prefs.js file if it doesn’t exist (it doesn’t by default), and insert the following text:

/* Stop those marquee tags! */
marquee {
-moz-binding : none !important;
display : block;
height : auto !important;
}

Speed up browsing on fast machines by creating the file user.js in the same directory as your prefs.js fileif it doesn’t exist (it doesn’t by default), and insert the following text, which removes a quarter-second delay before starting to render the page:

// This one makes a huge difference. Last value in milliseconds (default is 250)
user_pref(“nglayout.initialpaint.delay”, 0);

Turn on pipelining to speed things up some more by creating the file user.js in the same directory as your prefs.js file if it doesn’t exist (it doesn’t by default), and insert the following text:

// Enable pipelining:
user_pref(“network.http.pipelining”, true);
user_pref(“network.http.proxy.pipelining”, true);
user_pref(“network.http.pipelining.maxrequests”, 100);

Dave Farquhar

David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He has written professionally about computers since 1991, so he was writing about retro computers when they were still new. He has been working in IT professionally since 1994 and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He holds Security+ and CISSP certifications. Today he blogs five times a week, mostly about retro computers and retro gaming covering the time period from 1975 to 2000.

dfarq.homeip.net

This story, 2003 and Beyond is probably already really widespread. It’s a very L-O-N-G but thoughtful analysis of the computer industry of today.
The piece doesn’t paint Microsoft in a very flattering light. One of the things I’ve noticed about most pro-Microsoft pieces on the web is that they say Microsoft isn’t a normal monopoly, because after they got their monopoly, they didn’t raise prices. Well, I’m not necessarily convinced that every monopoly immediately raises prices. A company gets used to a certain level of growth, which increased market share provides. When market share slams into that wall of 100% and stops increasing, revenue stops increasing unless the market grows. Holding prices steady at that point may encourage the market to keep growing. Then, when the market stops growing, if you’re thirsty for continued growth, you start raising prices.

This piece articulates that, and tells what’s next now that the market isn’t growing anymore.

This is the most thoughtful analysis I’ve seen yet of Microsoft’s very recent history and current plans, pointing at XP, .Net, and Palladium and showing which way they’re headed by pointing out the pattern in the most objectionable features of each new technology. It took me a good 30-45 minutes to read, and I’m a pretty fast reader, but it’s worth the investment of your time.

Dave Farquhar

David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He has written professionally about computers since 1991, so he was writing about retro computers when they were still new. He has been working in IT professionally since 1994 and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He holds Security+ and CISSP certifications. Today he blogs five times a week, mostly about retro computers and retro gaming covering the time period from 1975 to 2000.

dfarq.homeip.net