My keyboard has a Web button on it, which as you’d expect opens up my web browser.
Like all right-minded people, I have this set up in Windows’ “Set program access and defaults” screen to go to Firefox.
But if I press the button when a Windows Explorer window is open (eg browsing a directory) it goes to IE in that window, instead. Hmmm.
The otherwise very fine Bloglines RSS aggregator isn’t liking this site very much, reporting errors when trying to add the Geekrant RSS feed which works so well for most other people.
Uh, yes the feed does exist. Those who like XML can look at it raw.
It’s doing the same for some other blogs, including my personal one, having rejected it since late December. Very odd. And I’m not the only one.
I’ve contacted Bloglines support, so hopefully they’ll be looking into it.
An old tip, but a goodie… if you don’t like working with popup blockers (or they’re not doing the job for you) grab hold of a hosts file that stops ads displaying, by fooling your computer about where the ad servers are.
Gmail is now open to new (uninvited) members, at least for Australia, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, Turkey or the USA.
Curiously the signup process requires a mobile phone number.
One of the weaknesses of WordPress and most other web-configured applications is that unless you want to go SQL or config-file-wrangling, it’s pretty much only configurable via the web, at least for tweaking, importing posts, setting up most of the options. This is a problem when, for instance, you’re migrating an existing site onto WP, and it’s on a new server, as you can’t get to the wp-admin screens.
The way to do it is to hack your hosts file. Once the new server is running and WP is setup on it, find your hosts file and add an entry to the new server. On Windows, this is the c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts file.
Chuck in a line that says contains your new server’s IP address, and the hostname. Something like:
192.168.0.1 www.evision.com.au
(Whoopsie, real-world example with a fake IP. The new evision site is going live Real Soon Now.)
Save, then away you go. You can see the new site and tweak to your heart’s content, but nobody else will be able to see any of it until you re-delegate.
The catch? It probably won’t work from behind corporate networks, where your computer uses a proxy.
Microsoft have announced they’re going to use the same RSS (feed) icon as Firefox.
Good stuff. For RSS to move into the mainstream, it needs standardisation like this. And we’ve got enough warning to start putting it on our web sites, before the great unwashed see it in IE7.
Now, if we can just figure out the myriad of formats of the feeds themselves…
Google has changed GMail around a bit in recent days.
“Move to trash” is now called “Delete”. Woo hoo.
A trash icon is next to items in the Trash folder.
View some attachments as HTML.
“Web clips” let you view RSS headlines on the GMail screen… but only if English (US) is your display language.
Firefox 1.5 (release version) is out.
They still haven’t fixed my favourite bug.
Scoble writes that WordPress.com has strong comment spam protection, but that it sometimes gets false positives.
I’ve found nothing better for spam protection than WP-Hashcash, which uses Javascript to make sure it’s a human entering the comment, not a robot, but without captchas or other stuff the user has to do. Works like a dream.
The only down side is it doesn’t work with some older WP templates. So while this site is fully spam equipped, my personal blog won’t run it until I upgrade the template (probably a project for Christmas time).
But apart from that, for WPers out there, I can’t recommend it highly enough.
Combined with settings that ensure firsttime posters go straight to moderation (subsequent postings are approved automatically) it ensures that those damn spammers never get their comments published on my site.
I might add that the company I work for (which develops B2B messaging systems) is working on a new site. To encourage them to update it regularly (some might call it blogging, but I’m emphasising “regular updates to existing and potential customers”) I’m building it on WordPress. Given WP’s ability to do a site of static pages and dated entries, it should work very well.
Are Microsoft out of their minds? Why else would they create a blogging service that gives you permalinks like this:
http://spaces.msn.com/members/danielbowen/Blog/cns!1p7f9kFwQWrjKhwo5kIjaf_A!106.entry
If they’re going to make it illegible, they should at least make it short (eg no more than 70 characters or so, so it won’t break in emails.)
Email just had its 34th birthday, and Paul Buchheit uses this occasion to reflect on how GMail has developed.
Mena Trott on why the new generation of net users don’t use email: “To people under 21 or 25, email has always been broken to them. It’s always been spam…” and so they favour blogging (such as LiveJournal) or IM. There’s also talk of personal blogging, and how it’s a record of people’s lives, for future generations. G’Day World Podcast.
How to snatch an expiring (.com) domain — basically, the action happens 75 days after the expiry date.
Ah, the joys of the pr0n industry, always so quick to grab hold of the latest throbbing new technology. They’re already making use of the video iPods.
Some Swedes name their kid after Google. Thankfully only the middle name.
Dimitri Kokken of Belgium is selling his humungous collection of old computers. Gawd knows how he’s collected them all, but they appear to include just about every 8-bit computer every built, including such obscurities as the Oric Atmos, Spectravideo 318, Commodore CD-TV, and a bunch of MSX machines. No Microbees though.