Of portals and such…

When I first started using the internet, web portals were all the rage.  I remember I used Excite, even having an @ Excite email address.  There was also Alta Vista and others.  With the advent of Google the web portal went into decline although its shell is still visible at such places as Yahoo and MSN.  Back in the day, web portals were utilized as a means of keeping you confined within the walls of a single service.  Even today if you sign up with comcast internet they set Yahoo as your homepage and you can see how many folks then use Yahoo as their email and then go on to use yahoo finance and yahoo sports, etc…  The portal made the web sticky, it kept you within the walls of its corporate owner as much as possible.  Remember how folks used to think that AOL WAS the internet?  To a large degree Google helped break down these walls.

[Edit: Sure there are modern portals called Personal Pages, like Netvibes, iGoogle, My Yahoo, etc...  Unfortunately, the amount of data that they need to pull make them fairly useless as a home page, and even more unwieldy to use as a new tab page. Even after pulling the data you need to wait while your PC renders all the ajaxy stuff.   I dutifully test each release but continue to find them all to be to slow for my taste.]

Still, I am partial to the concept.  It continues to make sense to me.  So for a number of years I have maintained my own portal.  Recently I have come up with a way to make it more useful…that is what this post is about.

First I installed about:tab a Firefox extension from Mozilla labs.  About:tab monitors what you type into the Firefox address bar and presents you with links to the sites you type in the most on your new tab page.  After a few weeks it was clear which sites I was typing in the most.

Then beginning with my original portal page, I incorporated the sites that I had been typing in the most.  I dropped extra text, dropped javascript widgets, and took a cue from the Google monster and dropped the unnecessary colors.  The result (posted to an unused domain) is that I rarely have to type anything into the address bar.  And my homepage and new tab page are fast and useful.

I simply type “foggytown” and hit shift+enter (to add the http and .net) and viola, links that meet 98% of my needs are ready to get clicked on, no matter where I am accessing the internet from.

Of course setting the new portal as my home page goes without saying (or it did till I “said” it).  To further make things easier, I replaced the about:tab extension with New Tab Homepage which puts your homepage into any empty new tab that is opened.

This whole process took about an hour of work.  I estimate that it saves me a full minute or two each day, meaning I get my time back in one or two months…after that it is all extra free time.

This method gives me quick, typing free, access to the websites that I use most.  My new and improved home page is here…but don’t copy mine, make one that fits your needs.  After all, we all have different habits and requirements.

My personal web portal, plus Mozilla Lab’s Weave (a browser sync extension, Firefox 3.5 required), gives  me a smooth and continuous browsing experience–regardless if I am using my desktop, my laptop, or my work computer.  (When my phone needs upgraded, a major consideration will be the ability to run Fennec.  Fennec is still in early development and only supports a limited set of platforms.  With my phone having about two more year of  life left to it, I can wait for its progress.)

Thankfully, the web continues to evolve and we are not stuck with dodgy sites like Yahoo and AOL…to steal a phrase from Mozilla: take back the web.

Edit: I forgot to mention that adding some search fields to the portal makes it much more useful.  I use search fields for Google, Bing, and Wikipedia…you can get the code by “viewing source” on the portal page.

Cannabis Truths

This post is a comment of a google knol, found here.  I wrote the following as a comment on that knol, since I doubt the comment will be approved, I re-post the comment here.

Truths, half-truths, and outright lies…

I will not spend my day going through this propaganda piece point by point. Suffice it to say that most of the information has already been disproved. I will only touch on two of the most egregious fabrications.

Marijuana as gateway drug: Marijuana leads to hard drug use in the same way that kissing leads to pregnancy. Yes, many people who become addicted to hard drugs had previously smoked marijuana. Simple correlation does not mean cause and effect. The author, a self professed rehab specialist, knows this; it is one of the most basic building blocks of the scientific method. I could state that 95% of heroin addicts ate processed foods before trying heroin, would that mean that processed foods are a gateway drug to heroin? Obviously not, and to state such a thing would be ridiculous, just as ridiculous as the author’s statement. In fact, in our medical clinic we are finding cannabis (the proper term for marijuana) to be quite useful as a harm reduction substitute. Our clinic has used cannabis successfully to detox alcoholics, to taper and discontinue methadone, and to wean patients from poly-pharmacology. In each of these interventions there was significant increase to patient life satisfaction and health. Cannabis, properly utilized, is a potent tool for the treatment of addiction, a gateway drug back to reality. Cannabis dependence is always secondary to another problem, quite often PTSD or ADHD.

Cannabis Potency: Modern horticultural practices has led to some increase in cannabis potency, but how you interpret this change is the key to understanding it. Drug war zealots (and their cohorts in the treatment industry) use increased potency to try to convince people that today’s cannabis is inherently more dangerous than the cannabis they experienced in the past, there is no evidence that this is in fact true. Many parents who used cannabis in college know that it is not the harm that the prohibition industry wants them to believe it is, these parents may even condone cannabis use in their college aged children. The potency issue is trotted out in a tired attempt to have these people believe that somehow today’s cannabis is not the same as the cannabis their own experience has already shown to be safe. It is a scare tactic, nothing more. Increased potency simply means that it takes less to achieve the desired effects. This is a good thing, smoking anything is bad for the health. Higher potency means fewer pyrolitics and other harmful by products of the combustion process. It is far better to achieve the desired effect with a few tokes of high grade cannabis than to smoke multiple cannabis cigarettes of lower grade product.

All consumers of cannabis should consider obtaining a vaporizer device. A vaporizer heats the cannabis to a level that the active ingredients can be inhaled without bringing the material to a combustible level, thus avoiding the by products associated with smoking.

The most worrisome side effects of cannabis consumption are those propagated by the anti drug zealots, including legal prosecution and job loss.

Edit: Knowing that my comment would never be approved, I went ahead and reviewed the knol.  My review follows:

From the title “Marijuana: is Rehab Necessary?”, one would expect a treatment of both sides of the issue.  However, if this were one’s expectation, one would be disappointed.  The article regurgitates the same old tired dogma that the DEA and ONDCP have been reciting for years.  Even though studies have discounted nearly every point made in the article, none of this research is mentioned.  There is no research backing up the claims made by the author, so he/she states it as fact and neglects to include a single reference to back up the claims.

To understand the bias at work here one needs look at a single line:
“Smoking marijuana can be habit-forming just like cigarette smoking, even though it lacks addictive nicotine found in cigarettes. One danger of marijuana addiction is…”

The author states that marijuana is habit forming, which is true as any behavior repeated enough can become habit forming.  Then the author compares marijuana to nicotine, but then admits that marijuana has no addictive elements.  Then the author continues as if he/she had not just made the concession.  This type of anti-intellectual argumentation will convince no one.

The rest of the article is equally weak and ineffectual, short on facts but long on unsubstantiated bias.  Had the author not prefaced the article with a question, I would not have bothered with it.  A better title would be “Marijuana: Why I Think It Is Bad.”

There are multiple links to a marijuana treatment facility in the same city as the author resides.  This article was nothing more than a poorly planned propaganda piece.  Pieces of the article were cut and pasted from the linked website…this piece is not true, has no facts to back it up, and is a poor example of an informative article.

Rockstar Energy Drink and Michael Savage

Almost to funny to be true.  Right-wing hate monger Michael Savage tied to Rockstar Energy Drink.  Rockstar was founded by Savage’s son and has Savage’s wife on its board.  Ha Ha.

The Rockstar website used to name Michael Savage (nee Weiner) as co-inventor of the beverage.  Janet Weiner (Mrs. Savage to the right ring fringe) is listed as the CFO.  And Savage’s son, Russell Goldencloud Weiner is the president and founder.

The funny thing is that Savage named his kid Goldencloud!  Or did the kid just make it up?

Either way, you can’t make shit like this up.

Making Plans for Autumn

Those who know me know that I like to take a 6 week trip on a yearly basis.  Last year it was a roadtrip back to Michigan and a month in Colorado, year before it was upstate New York, before that Glacier NP and Yellowstone, etc…  It is one of the benefits of my job, as long as I get someone to cover me, I do as I please.  It makes up for not having any benefits.

I was thinking of heading up to Maine for the fall color change, after all I have never seen a Moose in the wild…  Recently however, I’ve decided to do a 500 mile plus float trip on the Missouri river instead.  I discovered that the Missouri is open water from Sioux City Iowa to St. Louis Missouri, 730 miles.  Once I made this discovery, the Big Muddy started calling.  After all, what reader of Huck Finn or Tom Sawyer hasn’t wanted to get a raft and mimic these all American mythical heroes?  Certainly at 44, my time to accomplish this is getting short…so this is the year.

I am going to drive to Columbia Missouri in September and leave Shadow with my brother, then have my dad drive me and Smokey up to Sioux City (or just south of there)  and drop us and our rafts off at the river.  From there it is just over 500 river miles back to Columbia.  500 miles is my goal, it seems that this length is what separates a trip from a trek.  Decatur Nebraska to Booneville Missouri is 495 miles…close enough to that 500 mile length to meet my needs.

The trip is still in the early planning stages, I’ve bought maps and found some internet guides and also priced out a couple of rafts and supplies.  I am going to spend the time between now and the trip learning everything that I can about floating the Big Muddy.  I’ve never done a boat trip other than short canoe rentals.  I’ve opted for a pair of cheap rafts, one for me an the Smokester and one for supplies and gear…I don’t want to wrestle a dog in and out of an unstable canoe or kayak.

I don’t know anyone else that can take enough time off work to accompany me…so it seems that it will be a bonding time for Smokey and me.

I’ll give more details on the trip as the time for it approaches…

2 New Albums: Steve Earle and Yusuf (Cat Stevens)

Two new albums were recently released, a tribute to Townes Van Zandt by Steve Earle and a new album from Yusuf the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens.

Steve Earle’s new album Townes a tribute to Townes Van Zandt covers both little and well known Townes Van Zandt songs.  It is interesting to see a singer songwriter do a tribute album.  For the most part Earle pulls this album off.  It is no secret that Earle admires the music of Zandt, he has been covering his songs for years and has even named his son in his honor.  Earle’s gravelly voice does not always do the songs justice, but there is enough good stuff here to satisfy most Earle fans.  Amazon is currently offering the album in download format for $2.99.  At that price the album only needs a couple of great songs to justify the price and it does that and more.  I recommend the album for all die hard Earle fans, others might want to shy away from this album.

Yusuf’s new album, Roadsinger is a return to the sound of early Cat Stevens…much more so than the previous album An Other Cup.  If you enjoy the pre-pop Cat then this album is for you…

The song To Be What You Must opens:

I have journeyed, endless miles
Seen many others, where I took rest a while
On this boat called “near and far”
To be what you must, you must give up what you are.

Classic Cat…highly recommended.

and, lest we forget, The Bottle Rockets new one should be out very soon.

Edit: The  Bottle Rockets new one won’t be out till August 11.

Edit 2: The Steve Earle album is actually way better than I thought earlier.  I wrote the above after listening to it twice…but a few more listens shows that it is quite excellent.  Like any Earle, it sounds best when turned up…

Happy May Day

While May Day has early European pagan beginnings, it is the 1886 Haymarket Riot that really got it going here in the US.

Like the latter 1968 police riot, this too had its roots in over zealous police and a government bent on suppressing dissent.

In 1884 the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions set the goal of an 8 hour workday to be implemented by May 1, 1886.  When that day arrived there were rallies across the nation, 10000 in New York, another 10000 in Milwaukee, 11000 in Detroit, 80000 in Chicago…One hundred and thirty odd years before the tea baggers, up to half a million rallied around the nation.  In Chicago a general strike was called to aid the workers locked out of the local McCormick Harvesting Machine Company plant.  On May 3, police and pinkertons fired on the crowd killing-accounts of the time say-between 2 and 6 workers.  The following day workers rallied in Haymarket Square.

As the rally wound down, someone threw a pipe bomb killing a police.  The police opened fire on the crowd, some in the crowd were armed and fired back.  Eight police and four workers died, sixty police were injured (mostly by friendly fire) and an untold number of workers were injured.

Eight anarchists were rounded up and put on trial–the trial never linked them to the bombing, but convicted them simply for being anarchists.  All eight were found guilty and seven were sentenced to death.  Two of the seven had their sentences reduced on appeal.  The night before the planned execution Louis Ling killed himself, leaving four for the state to hang:  August Spies, Albert Parsons, Adolph Fischer, and George Engel.

Never were any of the eight connected to the bomb, they were selected only to set back the labor union.

Today as we leave work after our 8 hours, we should pay a special tribute for the 8 martrys who helped us win it and we should look forward to the 6 hour day and the 4 day workweek and our cry must be FULL EMPLOYMENT NOW.

Besides remembering these 8 and the sacrifices they made for us, we should also take time to get down on bended knee and smell the flowers…happy May Day.

It’s Just the Flu…

As the media pounds the drums of fear regarding this latest outbreak of swine flu, and the right wing establishment uses it as an excuse to demand the closing of the border and further limiting legal immigration and even free passage, it is worth pointing out that this is just the flu.  The US has just had its first death from this strain and as I write this CNN, Fox, and MSNBC are all leading with this fact.  Schools are being shut down, sporting events canceled, and public gatherings are being suppressed.  As Shakespear might have said, this is much ado about nothing…or more precisely, much ado about nothing much.

The fact being overlooked is that people die from the flu all the time.  We have already had 13000 deaths from the flu in the US this year, a typical year sees 30000 flu deaths.

So can’t we turn down the hype, quit calling for the shutting of the border, stop with the surgical masks, and just get a grip.

Want to avoid the flu?  Then remember to wash your hands.  That’s it, just wash your hands with soap and hot water…Louis Pasteur will be impressed with your modernity.

Dorked over by Corel…

When I quit pirating (stealing) software, I needed a photo editor that was both full featured and cheap.  Gone was Photoshop, and testing of others began.  After trying virtually every editor out there, I settled on Corel Photo Paint.  I bought version X, upgraded to X1, and then upgraded to X2.

I found the DRM distasteful, a constant running process to prove that I am not a thief.  I lived with it despite my misgivings.  I still can’t figure out why a company that I gave money to would constantly accuse me of stealing what I have bought and paid for.

Yesterday I installed my bought and paid for software into my newly installed Win7 RC, when I attempted to activate it I got the error message that the program had already been activated the maximum number of times.  It might as well as blared “Stop Thief!”

A hindrance, maybe not a big deal.  The error message contained nothing to do if the error was an error.  So I went to Corel’s site and called support…sorry out till Monday.  I called the phone activation number…sorry out till Monday.  I left an online support request…we’ll get back to you in 4 or 5 days.  WTF?  I bought this software, I only installed this software on a single computer.  Granted I reinstall my OS more than most…  I run a lot of beta software, I dork my install often, I install and run the latest Win7 builds, but I did not steal Corel’s software, I bought and paid for it and I have the reciepts.

It is ironic really, Corel is accusing me of being a thief while they are busy stealing from me.  I’ve noticed that those who are most afraid of crime are the same ones committing crimes, they call it projection.

I have been a good customer to Corel, and the thanks I get is accusations of thievery…gee, nice doing business with you too.

I filed a complaint with the BBB demanding a refund.

So while I wait for that complaint to wind its way through the system, I find myself in need of a photo editor.  Of course I would love to use Photoshop…but it costs $700!!  Photoshop elements is a bloated piece of crap…I bought and paid for version 4 and never used it.  I downloaded the trial of version 7 and found that it has gotten worse.

Any advice or suggestions?

(GIMP does not meet my needs, I need more wizard based editing that it gives.  I find that Picasa attempts to take over my computer…I don’t like it.  I currently have Windows Live Photo Gallery, but it does not quite meet my basic needs…ugh!!!…back to the beginning.)

Edit: I just got off the phone with Corel tech support.  First I called their activation hotline, but it is impossible to do anything at that number, you can’t get a person on the line or any help with activation issues.  Next I called their support number and after 10 minutes of navigating voicemail I got a person on the line.  He informed me that I would only get 2 more activations and if I ever needed more than that then I would have to re-purchase the software and get it on disk next time (he claimed that if you buy disks then no activation is required).  When I informed him that that was not part of my EULA and that I would not accept having to re-buy software that I already own, he hung up on me.

So what is up with that?  Does Corel not realize that I am their customer?  I have been a pretty good customer up until now…  I am off to amend my BBB complaint, as an alternative to a full refund I guess I will take a credit toward buying the disks.

I am also going to test Photoshop Elements some more, see if I can’t make it usable some how.

Edit: Corel responded to the BBB complaint with the offer to give me the disk without the restriction, I must pay for shipping and handling.  I accepted the offer, it seems reasonable.

I am pleased with the resolution because Corel has the best product in this price range.  Photoshop elements continues to suck.

This is my second time using the BBB with both outcomes being positive.

Advice for Safari Developers

When I say advice for Safari developers I mean Apple employees not web developers targeting Safari.  As regular readers know, I’ve been somewhat tough on Safari since its release for Windows (see here and here for examples.)

With the release of version 4, Safari seems like much more of an option for Window’s users.  It seems that Apple may even be trying to gain some market share (which depending on who you ask is around 8% right now).

Since I’ve moved my bookmarks into the cloud, I am more open to exploring the pluses and minuses of alternative browsers.  After years using Firefox I recently used IE 8 for a month or so and now I am on to Safari.  I have it set as my default browser on both my laptop and desktop.

With the exceptions of cold start up time and a few rendering issues, Safari works for me.  Still even though it is adequate, there are a few issues that make me unlikely to use it beyond the week trial that I have planned…I thought I would write these up.  I don’t think these issues are just that I am used to something else, but I believe these are real usability issues.

1) On all other Windows browsers if you type C N N into the address bar and hit control+enter, the browser adds http://www. to the beginning and .com to the end thus taking you to cnn.com in this example.  Safari does not do this.  And it isn’t that you need to substitute command for control as it is with most other Apple keyboard shortcuts, no this feature is missing in action.  [edit: it would seem that this feature has actually been implemented.  Lack of feedback when pressing a link can easily replace this issue.  In any other browser when you click on a link it will briefly change color to indicate that an action has been detected, Safari lacks this visual clue.]

2) This might be personal preference, but I hate the close tab button being on the left side of the tab.  This is contrary to every other browser out there.  Firefox and IE make up about 90% of the browser market, so wherever they agree becomes a de facto standard.  The other browsers should either conform or state the reasons that made them break the de facto standard.   There may be good reasons to do it some other way, but they should be stated so the user knows they did not do it just to be different.

3) Apple and iPhone users should stop stating that Safari Mobile gives you the full internet.  This is so patently false that it destroys whatever credibility they have.  One might ask, how I know this to be true and the reason is simple.  If Safari Mobile gave the full web, then there would be no reason for iPhone only web sites, the very fact that so many major websites make a special version just for iPhone proves conclusively that Safari Mobile does not give the full web experience.  It would seem that the iPhone has done more to splinter the web than anything since Explorer 3/4.

4) Finally, the search box needs to be customizable…sure Apple makes bank off Google, but at the expense of the user–why can’t I search live.com or Amazon or Wikipedia from that box?  (If I am missing something, please let me know.)

Some things I like about Safari 4 (come on, you didn’t think this post was just to rip on Apple, did you?) are the UI, the speed, and the find in page feature.  The UI looks good, it is very usable.  To me it, along with Explorer 8, has the most usable interface available.  Once opened, Safari seems very fast.  It will occasionally hiccough with DNS and stall out when a link is pressed, but I chalk this up to the fact that it is a beta, assumably Apple is working on this issue.  I like the way the find on page feature works and it is very clear and doesn’t leave you searching for where the text is highlighted, Explorer should learn this feature from Safari.

I’ve only been using Safari for a couple of days and when my experiment is over, I will switch back to Firefox and/or Explorer…but still it is nice to see some competition in the browser market.

What do you think?  Is Safari the better browser for your needs?  Why or why not?

New Distros Released, Linux Keeps Getting Better

Just a couple of brief things relating to Linux Mint 6 KDE CE and a new (to me) distro called moonOS.

Let’s start with Mint.  On Wednesday, Linux Mint 6 KDE CE was released.  Based on Ubuntu Intrepid and using KDE 4.2, I think that this is the first usable KDE 4.x distro to be released.   Mint KDE ships with the default Oxygen theme, which is actually very distinctive, but not what I would call beautiful.  Thankfully KDE remains the desktop tweakers choice in Linux desktops, easily customizable.  With this release, KDE 4 finally comes to the masses and it is apparent that a firm foundation has been laid for future development.  The development team at Mint deserves credit for being the first out the door with a usable KDE 4.x.

Also worth noting is that this past Tuesday Linux Mint 6 Fluxbox CE was also released, I am not a fan of Fluxbox so I have no comment to make.  But if you are, then check it out.

The other distro that I wish to mention is a new one (to me) called moonOS.  moonOS comes out of Cambodia and is based on Ubuntu, like Mint it uses the same repositories as Ubuntu.  moonOS uses the E17 desktop which is fairly lightweight and fun to work with.  What sets moonOS apart is the themeing that has been done, it is unique, beautiful, and very funcional.  Check out the screenshots, as you can see it has a very Asian feel to it, at least in this Westerner’s mind.  It seems that moonOS has managed to break out of the sterile machine feel of most distros.  It is clear that a lot of time and energy (and talent) went into this release.  I had no problems getting it up to speed on my Toshiba laptop.  While their are a few niggles in version 2 which was released about 7 or 8 weeks ago, development is underway for version 3.

With Mint’s graduation into the top tier of distros, moonOS has become my favorite up and coming distro…go check them both out…