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Daynotes: Week of 31 July - 6 Aug, MM
Daily notes and commentary -- Week 31
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* Updated: 6 Aug MM at 22:22 GMT+2.
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Three domains for the webmaster under the sky. ...
One domain to rule them all. One domain to find them.
One domain to bring them all and in the webspace bind them
In the Land of LeufNet, where the Wikis serve.
More puzzle pieces today, seasoned with serendipity and a touch of audacity...
So now we approach the point when it is time to leap, when the last few pieces
should come together. I have an interval here when I'm not buried in other
work, so it looks like another trip like last week.
Start every day off with a smile and get it over with.
-- W. C. Fields
Somewhere in all this, I have to fit in a trip with daughter to grandparents,
which has been promised for a long time. Web-booking of travel arrangements
has varied from 20 to 80% successful. Unfortunately, the companies behind
these (less) helpful systems seem to assume everything is just fine and have
reduced liveware support accordingly. Thus you at times simply cannot reach
a human in the loop to give the missing bits of info and confirm prices and
schedules. Ah well...
Usability is like oxygen -- you never notice it until it is
missing...
Here's a new wrinkle on improving education. In an effort to lose past
"misperceptions" about poor performance and problems, all the "high schools"
in this city will be renamed in the new school year. There was a footnote
in there, somewhere, about some restructuring into smaller administrative
units as well, but... At least they're trying.
Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important
that you do it. -- Mahatma Gandhi
Tomorrow is another month. I'd better get busy. Somewhere mid August I expect
the tech review chapters to start returning for my attention, and I don't
want too many distractions from tying up the loose ends. Bear with me, postings
may be shorter than usual for a while. (Family calls, I must go.)
Rain? Yes, more rain. Or drizzle. Or downpour. Mainly unseasonably chilly.
And even when the temperature is by the looks of it adequate, it sure doesn't
feel like it. I fear this summer will be a no-show in most respects.
Oh sure, it's green enough, but there's been precious little sense
of "summer" -- instead an ill-defined shifting between May and October, depending
on your optimism setting. And now we're in August, which traditionally brings
us dark, cool evenings, and... rain.
Well, the UK Regulation of Investigatory Powers ("RIP") bill was
recently voted into law, lacking only the Queen's signature before going
into effect on October 5. An apt acronym that (R.I.P.), the law stands a
chance of killing off the UK IT sector, unless everyone.starts using PGP
or better. Already, some ISPs are moving operations outside the country because
of the requirement to link (at their own expense) to the so-called "Government
Technical Assistance Center", a national data monitoring center. One tricky
part of RIP is that companies must hand over any encryption keys when
"requested", and furthermore keep secret that any such request was made.
Just the disclosure of such a request can mean up to five years imprisonment.
Home Office Minister Charles Clarke said RIP would not pose a threat to U.K.
e-commerce and would "help to achieve the government's aim of a strong
and secure e-commerce economy". Clarke also said that "propaganda
is needed" to give the public a better idea of what the bill is about.
Yes, indeed, propaganda is always needed to help the public realize the greater
good of government technical assistance...
For every action there is an equal and opposite government
program.
Where there's a law, there's a loophole. -- Spanish
saying
Ah dear, tomorrow I'm off to Gothenburg again. Same procedure as last week,
at least in terms of travel and timing. This week, I'll be looking specifically
at some likely apartments, because we (family) are moving back to that city
in very short order. Things have been progressing rather nicely, with only
a few pieces of the puzzle still adrift. The past few days have been devoted
to tying up loose ends here in Malmö and nailing down some sort of schedule.
Especially important because the schools start up again in two weeks.
There are several reasons for this move, which I'll get into later, when
things aren't quite so hectic. This is part of the "change is in the air"
I've been hinting at earlier.
As before, see wiki
for any updates while out of town. Otherwise, back by Friday. Have fun, don't
do anything I'd do :)
Another travel day. (Moved evening wiki posting here.)
On the road again. Weather improved as I got further North, after passing
several areas of heavy rain. Once in town, it was sunny and (almost) hot.
I did some preliminary visits to see if the apartment situation had some
new offerings, but no.
This evening met with old friends and saw X- Men. Not bad, considering what
it's based on. It was light entertainment, although it was interesting to
reflect afterwards that one now takes this sort of special effects for granted.
After the film we eventually ended up at a local Greek- Turkish restaurant,
and then wandered "homeward" in light rain and distant lightning and thunder.
Then a late night on a borrowed system with ASDL (nice) to do these web updates.
And not to forget the usual Daygang rounds. Broadband is down in price and
coming fast around here (as low as USD 20 per month flat fee in some
circumstances). In passing, the largeest telco just announced further price
cuts on international telephony. But they're also pushing internet telephony
now, so the playing field is changing rapidly.
Out of town. (Added wiki posting to this page.)
The day started sunny and warm. Ah, I've missed that... Sadly, cloud cover
is quickly increasing, and there's always the risk I may have to stop somewhere
and buy an umbrella if I'm unlucky.
Gameplan for the day involves much running about (it's 10 AM now), so I won't
hang about here. I've a lot of things to do and investigate.
Last night I was reading, as mentioned, the other daynoters. Seems to have
blown up a bit of a stir about using external search engines, or rather some
misinterpreted remarks about this on Dan Seto's site (it seems).
I should perhaps myself clarify something about my site(s) with regards to
search engines. I implemented Freefind's services as general search on Leuf
Com, Leuf Org and Doctor Bank -- as an experiment after Bob Thompson's
endorsement. I was aware of the tracking of users when using Freefind. This
is nothing new -- all external search engines do some kind of user tracking.
If nothing else, many of them provide periodic search reports (search terms
used) back to the subscriber site. How great the risk is that a user database
is generated that might in the long run mean more spam is unknown. Clearly
the search result pages that have banner ads are at least as risky in this
regard as any other page with banner ads.
Anyway, I later implemented a local search script for my Daynotes pages (and
DisISay pages) -- this is the search input form you see on the journal pages
-- and there removed the forms for Freefind. Thus, the search of Daynotes
is perfectly safe from the user point of view.
Out of town / travel.
Mission accomplished: We now have a very nice apartment in Gothenburg arranged
for our arrival. I had earlier checked that I can move my ISDN connectivity
to that address, which is a big factor, given how I depend on this. Broadband
(DSL) seems a distinct possibility later as well, but that's not something
I'm going to worry about just yet.
Next comes the move in about 2-3 weeks' time. More puzzle pieces remain,
but the main ones are now firmly in place.
I'm out of here for now. Early departure back to Malmoe.
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(I'm back. Wiki notes transferred to corresponding slots above.)
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ICANN is promising to introduce two or three new top level domains by November.
That's an exceedingly cautious roll-out of something that's been discussed
for some five years now. I wonder which ones will be added.
So... Are Internet Domains property or not?
This dispute is about whether domains should be seen as something like a
plot of land (property), or instead just a designation for a service, like
a phone number, and not property in and of itself. Domains are funny things,
and opinion is split.
Predictably, perhaps, Network Solutions argues in a recent court
case that it's like a phone company, and that domain names are like phone
numbers, just another "service".
Some legal experts say that although cyberspace is new territory, it should
be regarded as property, based on the amount of resources put into creating
value for domain names.
The results of court cases like this can have far-reaching consequences.
YAGD (Yet Another Gloomy Day -- weather that is)
Today I realized that a couple of stacks of diskettes on the bookshelf were
not only dusty, but totally obsolete in content, unreliable to read, and
unusable for new info. Dump! That's less stuff to worry about for
moving.
Everything is now on a 3-2-1-week countdown, so a certain system of priorities
is in effect. One side-effect is a (for me unusually) ruthless approach to
sifting through the informational archives still in paper form or on diskette.
A lot of this I see was supposed to have been gone through after the last
move -- 8 years ago. So it goes...
Essentially sorting is according to an A-B-C system. First are the vital
items, those that need to be available immediately after the move (and usually
right up until the move). Then there are the things that don't necessarily
need to be unpacked right away, but which you still need to be able to find
(assuming you remember that you have them). This middle group is what can
be sorted out and packed down in the weeks to come. Finally, there's that
pile of stuff that comes in the category of "this can be good to have", or
"this may be useful some day". Don't get me wrong, it often is,
usually as in discovering the need right after it (whatever) is thrown away.
Nevertheless, until that moment, it (and its friends) sit gathering dust,
and are a royal pain when it comes time to move. (It's so much!)
But, perhaps the worst is all the paper. It all has to be looked through,
otherwise it becomes just more sedimentary layers in a box somewhere, forever
lost to any sensible context or search. Most of it can be trashed, but some
is important and needs to be archived properly, or made digital, or sometimes
just linked to when corresponding info exists on the web. Last weekend, I
thoroughly enjoyed trashing about a ton of bookkeeping archives, more than
10 years old. Ah, fleeting pleasures. Now, the sorting is more difficult,
page by page.
Friends of ours are packing down a house into a container, moving back to
the US, so difficulties are relative.
I used to think the brain was the most important organ in the
body, until I realized who was telling me that. -- Erno Phillips
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In northern Sweden, thieves stole a whole house! Neighbors witnessed how
a large truck came one day, simply loaded the small building, built in 1911
by the owner's grandfather, and took it away. The owner was shocked, to put
it mildly, when he later came to the empty lot. Where it went is unknown,
Once, not so long ago, it was Linuxites who were clamoring for refunds
for pre-installed Windows that they never used, having wiped (we assume)
the software from the harddisk. The whole issue was in my and many of my
colleagues opinion ridiculous, and a pointless exercise for the user, largely
because the user is then not interested in demanding any subsequent support
for the bundled software. So big deal, blow it away, archive the partition
image, whatever. As was often pointed out, it's more expensive to buy the
hardware without the software.
Now, corporate Windows users have run into a strange variant of this. It's
common practice for corporate PCs to be procured with pre-installed OS and
software, but for good reasons the company blows this away and installs a
standard image of a corporate-licensed setup on the drive instead (often
called "ghosting" because this does not involve re-licensing). Traditionally,
licensing, warranties and service contracts have considered this to be "the
same" software, i.e. covered by the bundled-product license via the PC vendor.
Turns out that Microsoft is now claiming that the software that comes
pre-installed and the software that is part of a software image are covered
by separate license contracts. Although they might be identical
technically, customers cannot legally replace one copy for another without
incurring consequences. The MS position boils down to that all of the software
in this substitution must be licensed once again when the customized image
is installed. Effectively, the company must pay for two licenses. Wiping
off the bundled software on the computer also voids any obligation on the
part of the PC manufacturer to provide technical support. This, rather than
the dual licensing, is probably the main problem. (MS tech support in such
a case is reported to be $375 per incident.)
IBM Redbooks
are
occasionally good sources of info about NT and W2K, especially if you run
and tune servers. Be warned that the site requires scripting support active
in your browser, or you won't see squat. A recent addition is the 2nd edition
of tuning NT4/W2K servers, freely available as a 6+ Mb PDF download. Look
for "tuning" in the list.
In the technology business, as in love, too much concentration
on detail can often lead to impotence.
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