Month: August 2006

A little easier today

There seems to be less friction between the dogs today… I think a lot of Buddy’s “I’m the head dog around here” message was delivered yesterday (which I liken to a hazing ritual) and today seems much lower key.  Banzai even got to play with some toys today (controlling resources — even toys — is one of the ways that dogs show their dominance over eachother.)

Banzai really took yesterday like a champ… With Buddy cutting him off constantly. Hogging all the toys. Not to mention the mounting… But in true puppy fashion Banzai being the younger submitted.  He wouldnt even let me cheat and force buddy to leave him alone to play with a toy…

This is a case where I think the dogs know better than I.  Hopefully in the next day or two the social hierarchy of the household settles down.  I’m really looking to being able to bring Banzai to the dog park next week (when his stiches are healed better.)  That’ll be a whole nother can of worms… 🙂

On client systems and virtual machines (prologue)

I think almost every techy guy has at least one “client” for which they do some sort of consulting work.  Iether its charity work for friends/family/church/whatever, or they know a guy who knows a guy who’s willing to pay a little bit to have something done.

And the great bane of these kinds of clients is that you set their environment up for them, and then leave it alone. Maybe you check the logs every now and again, maybe not. And who knows what you (or they) have put on it. Sure it was the latest version… lets see… when was that… oh gosh! almost a year ago… and nothings been updated!

You get a call.  There have been odd huge traffic spikes… or the machine has been used to send out span… or something… This is when the sky darkens. The clouds roll in.  And that sinking feeling — like you might be too late — sets in.  There are huge gaping holes in this machine… somewhere…  And there’s someone else lurking in this silent house.  All of a sudden theres a lot of work to be done… and while you werent paid enough to sit on this thing and check for updates in every piece of software you did (or didnt) know about… Suddenly this is your fault and you get to fix it.

But… Where to begin… And how to mitigate this kind of damage in the future?

But… But… But… Why didnt they pick ME?!

There’s a lot of talk going around about Ubuntu linux versus Debian linux versus XYZ linuz and why Ubuntu has become popular (even trendy!) But It seems to me that most of this talk boils down to “But I think MY distro is better” whether “my distro” means “I made it” or just “I use it.”

For years now everybody in the linux community has been saying “Linux can make the consumer desktop.” And I always believed it could (though I never (and sill dont) believed it was there yet.) But now that someone has made something people want to use, and like using, there seems to be a lot of “but this was my idea” and “they didnt do that first, this other did” and even “I cant figure out why this is so popular.”

Welcome to Rome! Where you’re free to worship whatever you like, but you have to admit that Ubuntu has managed to make it big. At least in this rome there arent any taxes to pay. But the simple fact of the matter is tht Ubuntu lilnux pulled together the right combination of things at the right time and in the right place. They were different enough to get noticed amongst a sea of toy (and corp) distributions.

As with all great breakthroughs Ubuntu *HAS* stood on the backs of the giants that came before them. But just as in scientific discovery that fact doesnt discount the new things that have happened! Because to *truly* bake an apple pie from scratch one must first create the universe.

I always wanted to be able to draw

DrawSpace is a pretty cool site (read: I havent actually “used it” but I “plan to”) which gives lessons on how to draw… Which is cool because although I’ve always wanted to be artistic… I’ve always proved to be sucessful as an artist in exactly the same measure that your standard brick attains while trying to preform the backstroke…
Perhaps now I’ll not only *NOT* be able to draw, but that I’ve studied and *STILL* can’t draw 😉

Chiming in on the “Cross Domain Ajax” issue

Ok… well… perhaps thats a bit hasty, thats like calling a problem that you’re having with an elephant a “tusk issue” when there are plenty of other good reasons to have a problem with an elephant… A tusk, does not, an elephant make. And I think therin lies a large part of the confusion! XMLHttpRequest doesnt allow cross domain communication. There. I’ve said it. The dirty little secret is out. AJAX has absolutely nothing to do with it. Saying this about AJAX is like calling the Mona Lisa a BRUSH. Thats absurd, right? No, its a very good analogy!

The time has come to give “AJAX” its due on the side of the browser. The issue should be addressed in this way: XMLHttpRequest should function as it always has. It was made, everyone knows it, its loved, and for 90% of all AJAX it is very chewy goodness! Another function needs to be implimented, and browsers need to handle it in much the same way that cookies and stored passwords are handled.

An alert pops up: Domain ABC.COM is trying to access to XZY.COM with your computer. We cannot ensure what data ABC.COM wants to obtain, how they might useit, or how safe this might be. Unless you TRUST ABC.COM, and this communication makes sense, you are advised NOT to allow this communication. Do you want to allow this? Checkbox: “always”, Button: “Allow”, Button: “Deny”

At which point the action is allowed or denied. Ifthe user checked always then the browser should add a one way trust to an internal ACL. ABC.COM is alowed to initiate and maintain communication with XYZ.COM.

XMLGlobalHttpRequest needs, and deserves to be its own beast. Whether the world really *needs* this technology, and whether it’s safe to give it to the world… Well… Historically technologists gives the world tools — which are inherently neutral — and they let the world decide to use them for better or for worse. I dont see any reason for the same natural darwinism not to be applied here.

The next releases of FF, IE, and Opera should have these features in them. Because browsers are in the market to give people what they want… and once this idea comes into use they will realize that they wanted it all along, just never knew it.

Dont tell me a dog fed on kibble doesnt want some real meat… oh yes… it does… but does it *know* it wants kibble? And does not knowing make the desire any less strong? Food (chuckle) for throught