- Macromedia Flash Paper 2
- This looks like it'd be really useful.
- Synchronicity Squad: Minneapolis Teapot Exploration: Introduction
- Interesting story. Anecdotal evidence that all things are connected.
- God bless the re-inventers
- Re-inventing the wheel is OK when it means you get a faster car that's easier to drive as a result.
What is the year's end good for if not lists?
Posted December 22, 2006 at 02:26 AM
Following Jason Kottke's lead, my cities (in alphabetical order):
* Astoria, OR
* Austin, TX*
* Galveston, TX
* Houston, TX*
* Las Vegas, NV
* Nashville, TN
* New Braunfels, TX
* Portland, OR
* Seattle, WA
* Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
I'm sure I'm missing some. Not too shabby, though, all three "coasts" represented, if TN counts.
- A better Array::indexOf for Prototype
- I wrote an alternate
Array::indexOffunction for use with the Prototype Javascript Foundation and posted it at Advogato. You can use it to find the index of an element with anEnumerableusing an arbritrary function to do the comparison, or by matching properties within an object. It's very useful when you have an array of objects and you need to find a specific element.
- Break Your Cingular Contract Without Fee, Thanks 2 Txt Msg $ Raise - Consumerist
- im so n2 ths. I was planning on cancelling after the new year anyway, even with the $150 cancellation fee. This makes it all that much sweeter.
New search module
Posted December 20, 2006 at 04:24 AM
I replaced the Rollyo search box with one provided by technorati. Unfortunately, it only searches blogposts and not ReBlogs. I presume because in the RSS feed, ReBlogs don't link to youxylo.com, but instead they are linked to their original source. This works out fine if I want to provide a blog post-only search box, but not so much if you want to search the site for something that was ReBlogged. Providing the ability to search ReBlogs will either require a change to the way ReBlogs are represented in the feed (like by implementing some kind of redirect from youxylo.com based on a link id) or by providing a separate search box altogether.
- Frank van der Salm, Photography
- Beautiful.
- Because it's become a meme
- I prefer recursion. On another note, symbolic systems seems like a good explanation for my academic track. I think I'll use it.
- Walk on water
- Best use of water, cornstarch and a conrete truck. Ever.
- UMPCs Hacked to Run Mac OS X
- I never really "got" the idea of a tablet PC. But I'm thinking maybe until now it's because they all ran windows.
- Package Source Code inside Mac OS X Applications
AppDNA is a small XCode shell script which efficiently packages a Mac OS X Application's source code into the application itself. The resulting embedded project directory is fully functional, allowing the code and resources to be examined, modified and re-built. The application is self-compiling when a Release build is performed.
Interesting.
- Wooster on Spring
- I really wish I were in New York right now.
- notMac Challenge :: Home
- This sounds like a good candidate for something that ties into Amazon's S3. Like a program that runs in the background, listens for .Mac activity and uses S3 for storage.
- David Choe co-founded Napster?
- Suddenly Facebook has so much more credibility with me.
Something More Than a Machine gets a little more social
Posted December 13, 2006 at 03:23 AM
Blog Posts (not ReBlogs) will now have additional links at the bottom of the permalink page to do nifty stuff like email the post to someone else, add it to digg or delicious and check Sphere for related posts.
The links will only appear on the archived permalinks, and not on the main page.
UPDATE: Actually, this feature is being implemented via Feedburner's FeedFlare suite, which doesn't seem to work consistently. So, depending on how everything is working on their end you may or may not see it on any given blog post.
- U-Stor-It
- I know this has made the rounds already, but it's always worth mentioning. The more I see this kind of stuff, the more I like it. I just hope Texas has struck down that silly law requiring "prefab homes" aka "mobile homes" to have wheels by the time I'm ready to do this.
- Logo Quiz: Hair Care or Digital Audio
- I got 13 out of 14. I'm guessing it's because I'm better at recognizing the digital audio logos than I am the hair care.
- Evolving Logo
- This has me thinking like a harlequin (a la The Traveler). It'd make a GREAT authentication scheme.
The worst of Best Practices
Posted December 8, 2006 at 04:10 AM
The Good
My bank is making an effort at providing better security for online account access.
The Bad
I can't trust it.
The Backstory
For weeks, after logging in, I've been prompted to opt-in to a program that is supposed to improve security by providing answers to security questions -- they call it multi-factor authentication. Given the option to "do it later", I always passed. That is, until I was presented with three questions I never supplied answers to and no access to my account without the correct answers.
I call the number that is suggested when I run into problems. They tell me it was supposed to be gradually implemented over the period of a few months and the deadline passed for voluntarily opting in. I was aware that they were trying to implement this feature, I was not aware that it would be mandatory. I asked if I could opt out altogether, I'm happy enough with an account number and password. They tell me that it was mandated by a federal regulation, but weren't able to give me any information about what regulation mandated this change, specifically. Nor are they able to give me any details about where and how this supposedly private information is stored and to whom access is afforded. Either way, they would be happy to temporarily change the password to an arbitrary number, not of my choice, which when used would prompt me to select and answer the security questions. Each of which are somewhat personal in nature and frequently crop up at other sites (for password reset/retrieval) and most staggeringly are all questions for which the answers can be found in public records! To top it off, and to make things easier no less, I'm given the option to bypass this step in the future for the computer I'm using at the time, or for any other computer I authorize in the future.
Yep, sounds secure to me.
On the subject of Best Practices
I'm still impressed by the American Express technique of partially occluding the user name when returning customers log in... and no silly third-party solutions that may or may not have been federally mandated.
- Wooster Collective: A Live Meeting of Bigger Geezers
- This sounds like fun. David Choe, The London Police and more painting to the tune of a live performance by The Dandy Warhols. Bonus for following the link to the Dandy Warhols site: Wear 3D glasses. I always wanted to do that, in fact, it was one of my motivations for learning flash, so I could maybe have some animated stereogram action on the site.
- Widgets on the Web
- My Final Project for a Human-Computer Interaction/Usability course demonstrating the use of mini-apps/widgets on the web. Some examples include a Google Maps widget and an image viewer.
- Obsession for the moment: Chainless bicycles
- This looks like a good candidate for yet another side project. If I wear pants while riding my current bike, I have to roll up the right-hand side to avoid getting the pant leg caught in the chain. My bike has too many gears as it is.
- New stuff from the octopus project
- I freaking want this.
- Urban Street Bazaar
- Dec. 9th, 10th 2006 at the Dallas Farmers Market
- LIMBO
- This looks interesting.
- buZ blurr
- I'm really digging this.
- Museum of Contemporary Art - Syndey Australia
- The nav menu at the top is probably the best executed flash-based top-level menu-based navigation I've seen, ever. And while you're there, check out the James Angus exhibition for cool moebius strip sculpture.
- Sketchfighter 4000 Alpha
Remember those super-cool space ships you doodled on graph paper in Middle School? Pen strokes furiously waging massive intergalactic battles in History class with the fate of humanity hanging in the balance?
How'd they know?
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