asm

Writing large programs in assembly language is almost impossible – they always turn out to be small!

Fall

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Pidgin forks

From Slashdot: “Pidgin Controversy Triggers Fork“:

Pidgin, the premier multi-protocol instant messaging client, has been forked.

And this is not the first controversy either – the other one I remember was with protocol icons. Did not end up like that, patch was accepted as an option. This time – no such luck.

Hacked back by WordPress.com?

I’ve blogged 3 days ago about WordPress.com blog being hacked and rogue post appearing in the feed.

The post contained screenshot from my Google Reader page showing that rogue post.

Today I find this screenshot missing on my blog:

I do have a backup of the original screenshot, of course. But the the question is why it is missing?
Did WordPress delete it? Do not know, I’ve sent email to support and will post if I receive reply!

WordPress.com Blog – hacked?

Just opened my Google Reader and what do I see as WordPress.com Blog post?

Seems like someone posted spam entry there… Was it hacked? Or just an accident?

Here is the footer of the post, if anyone is interested:

Blogging here

Spent time today trying to cleanup this blog a bit.

I love wordpress, but there are some usability issues. handling templates is one of them. No preview available. No conformation when selecting new template.

As a result – screwed blog by accident. Of course did not have any notes on how it was formatted – had to reinvent the wheel.

Would be nice to be able to define couple customized layouts – one default for example, and test one – to try different templates, colors and widgets. Oh, well.

So much for tags – love that idea, but it does not translate to Categories logically all the time. Example – I had “Computers and Internet” category. All good, but this name is too long for a tag, which should be simple one-work label. Converted to just “computers”.

Another issue is a layout. That’s more my personal quest for the best.  I’d like to use full width of the screen – to be able to post wider items. On another hand – wide text is hard to read, better to limit the width. But with 3-column design, middle column isn’t too wide. On the other hand – 3-column layout may look too cluttered (and it probably does!).

Decided to keep current layout anyway…

Open Source and user’s feed back

You would think that Open Source projects would excel in several areas, including listening to user’s feedback…
Not really true overall, but big projects with large customers base usually good in implementing feature requests.

Unfortunately, there is one exception from this rule – Pidgin Purple (formerly GAIM).

I’m still on last beta version of GAIM and was looking into upgrading to the most recent version of Pidgin, hoping it will bring enhanced stability and new features. Since I usually use applications in their portable incarnations (from PortableApps for example), I couldn’t test Pidgin before – there was no portable package for it and I did not have time to make one myself.
Just today I found some unofficial packages on PortableApps forum and decided to give Pidgin a try.
To my biggest surprise, I found one missing feature – there are no protocol-specific icons in the buddy list anymore…
You can see what protocol contact is by holding mouse over it – tool tip will have protocol icon, but you are out of lack if you just glance over contact list…

Hoping that I’m missing something, I checked all possible options – nothing. Finally, when to their bug tracker to find some interesting and worrisome discussions..

Judge for yourself. There is a very long discussion in ticket 414. Ticket itself is closed with status “wontfix”.
And the most interesting is this paragraph (left by user “elb”, someone from Pidgin team, I presume):

Adding a “me too” to this ticket is NOT USEFUL. If you do not have a solid use case that is NOT discussed above or on the thread on this topic on devel@pidgin.im, save your time and ours by not replying. If you DO have new information, please send it to devel@pidgin.im, do not comment on this bug.

Ok, you do not want me to even vote on this feature? You are not allowing me to even comment about it on your public site?
Why then, in another (although, duplicate) ticket 1863, the same user comments this:

There is no indication that there are “thousands upon thousands” of users “just like you”; there have been a dozen or so users requesting protocol icons in the buddy list, compared to the *millions* of Pidgin users out there.

Well, I find this quite arrogant. And this is really disturbing to hear such things from advanced, long standing Open Source project…

I will probably pass on migrating to Pidgin this time. Wonder how many others will do the same. Oh, sure, I understand that it is possible to create plug-in to make protocol-specific icons come back, but WHY? Why would this standard feature in current GAIM or any other multi-protocol client should magically disappear from project?

There is an explanation on why this step was taken in Pidgin Design Guidelines. But I don’t buy it – that “uniformity” is good in theory (or can simplify life of the developer), but in practice… In practice you should care of your customer base need or want, and let them raise their voice, and listen to it!

Technorati Tags: pidgin, opensource

MS ISA Server 2006 and FTP

Technorati tags: computers

Technorati tags: computers

After upgrading ISA server to 2006 version, I was surprised to find that my FTP behind it stopped working in passive mode. Having quite smart FTP server installed I blamed MS ISA for this and did not have time to look at this deeper… until I found a need for this - had to move my Blogger blog from 1and1 hosting (expired free one) to my own server. And Blogger refused to publish the blog unless I have passive FTP working.

FTP client was getting 500 response – that FTP server sent bad response. Quick capture on ISA server showed that my FTP server was too smart – it actually was configured to return correct IP address in PORT command (the external IP, not default internal one). This, turns out, is “bad” thing from ISA server FTP filter prospective. Turning advanced NAT support on FTP server, making him return internal IP, fixed this – now ISA server could replace that IP with the external one it knows about.

But that got me thinking – software gets smarter, you try make it better and as end result – there is some stupid “simplification” (or “assumption”) made by other developer broke functionality.

Granted, if I’d read the docs for ISA server, I might have caught this, but sorry, RTFM is the last thing I’d do.

Already history

Started _programming_ – 1981

Started Mainframe – 1983

Started PC – 1988

I find this article Very nostalgic – ‘80 Mbytes of storage for under $12k!’ and other ad favorites through the years (via /.)

Skype hidden emoticons

While I’m at it, I’ll repost a list of hidden Skype emoticons I found long time ago here:
New emoticons in Skype 2.5

There are 8 hidden emoticons in Skype 2.5 4 old ones:
(mooning)
(finger)
(bandit)
(toivo)

And 4 new ones:
(drunk)
(smoking) (smoke) (ci)
(rock)
(headbang) (banghead)

Since that post, many new were discovered. Some examples:

(headbang)
(poolparty)
(swear)
(bug)
(fubar)
(tmi)

And flags like:
(flag:RU)
(flag:US)

Tip: To see them in Skype without sending to your party, copy/paste them instead of just typing.

Pirate quiz

After reading this comment on /.
Nerdy Photo in Vista DVDs Thwarts Disk Pirates

REAL pirates primarily care about:
a) Can I sell it and get away with it?
b) Can I sail it and get away?
c) Both

Special symbols in file path

I like to organize my files to my liking and sometimes use special symbols in folder names, like:

• #Working
• !Soft
• etc.

All good most of the time, but there are couple of problems I found:

1. Microsoft help files in CHM format do not work if path contains “pound” (or “hash”) sign – “#”
   If you try to open CHM file from such folder, you’ll get “The page cannot be displayed” error from the IE browser which is hosted inside help control.
   There is some lengthly discussion about this and how people mix this issue with another problem:
   CHM help files error: The page cannot be displayed
   That other problem is described here: KB896054
2. Java have issues running from folders with “!” in side folder names. You may see different errors depending on the application.
   As an example, Sun’s tzupdater.jar throws java.lang.ExceptionInInitializerError if executed from such folder.
   Note 1: The problem appears to happen while trying to access resources in java.util.ResourceBundle.getBundle.
   Note 2: Appears to be fixed in JDK 1.6
3. Microsoft batch files hate “!” signs everywhere if delayed variable expansion is enabled via “SetLocal ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION” command. Not only it will ignore single “!” in commands like “echo hi!”, but magically, folders with “!” disappear – statement like If exist C:\!Apps\myfile.txt will return false even if file is there. (and no, quotes will not help here).

When next time you decide to create a folder or file with special character in it – think twice first if it may create problem for you going forward…

Translation of Macrovision Response to Jobs on DRM

Must read:

Daring Fireball: Translation From PR-Speak to English of Selected Portions of Macrovision CEO Fred Amoroso’s Response to Steve Jobs’s ‘Thoughts on Music’

Source: “Macrovision’s Response to Steve Jobs’s Open Letter”.

New car

My new horsey – Subie…

From My New Car

Technorati Tags: Cars

Going portable

Here is one site I really like… I actually like the software available there.

PortableApps.com – Portable software for USB drives | Your Digital Life, Anywhere™

Now you can carry your favorite computer programs along with all of your bookmarks, settings, email and more with you. Use them on any Windows computer. All without leaving any personal data behind.

This is useful set of applications and not only for USB stick, but for regular installation as well!

Technorati Tags: computers