Yesterday google launched the Google Blog Search Pinging Service. A simple way to be included in Googles blog index and search.
Read more here: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/got-blog-will-ping.html
Powerset (http://www.powerset.com) looks interesting. At present the company is in “semi-stealth” mode. Gathering investment as well as developing their natural language search engine.
Powerset’s Barney Pell has someinteresting stuff to say on the topic.
http://www.barneypell.com/archives/2006/10/powerset_and_na.html
Well worth a read, some interesting concepts with respect to the way that search engines work nowadays.
Search engines are keyword based and at their heart are really just boolean based searches against their index. They take your search term and stripout out what are known as stopwords leaving just the keywords. Stopwords are words such as a, about, from, of, for and the like, these would only complicate the results of a boolean search as they are such common words.
Pell and gang demonstrate that in some searches these words are acutally useful. For example, take these three search terms:
When for, about and by are all stripped out we are only left with Books children, and the search engine cannot distiguish between the three quite different purposes of the queries.
Pell says that we are all searching with an impovourished, pidgin english at present, I for one would welcome a more natural approach at times. I’m sure like me, many of you have sometimes come across a particular search that never seems to get the results that you’re after, or at the most it takes a long time to get the right string of keywords and advanced search options. Imagine what searching is like for the less techinacally minded out there who don’t speak keywordese. NL searching, if it works and is marketted well to that larger group of people, could be very successful.
If though, when it launches, it doesn’t have a toolbar-esque plugin then I will find it very difficult to remember to use it. When I want something my mouse cursor always goes straight for my Google toolbar.
Oranges version of the HTC Breeze/MTeoR is up on their swiss website, complete with a link to the getting started PDF.
Shame that video calling has been disabled, even the camera has been removed from the front.
It is just me or are USB keyboards slow? Everyone that I have ever used has a little bit of trouble keeping up with my typing sometimes. Is this something that anyone else has experienced?
Perhaps it’s just poor membranes and the completely unpositive feel. That’s it I’m going to finally bite the bulllet and get a nice Cherry M8 mechanically switched keyboard.
There you go, ordered. Matter of fact my boss was kind enough to pay for it.
Cheers Brian!
I’ve just downloaded Windows Live Writer (WLW), Microsoft’s desktop/offline Blog composer/writer software.
Set up was very easy, I simply game the address and login details of my blog. Not only did WLW determine what my blog was running on, but it also has downloaded and used my CSS.
Editing in the WLW is therefore truly WYSYWIG as I am typing I am seeing everything styled by the CSS from my site. I’ll do a screen shot.
There you go, all I did was ALT-PrintScreen and paste. Looks like it’s inserted a thumbnail with a link. Ah yes it has, there are plenty of handy properties to choose where it links to and how big it is etc.
I’m quite enjoying this, let’s try and publish now.
– edit –
Well that published fine, I forgot categories as always though. I can also do those here, it’s picked them up. Can’t add any new ones though. Still I think I may find this a useful place to store the longer type of heavy thinking articles.
Ahah! I have just discovered you can also open and edit from a list of existing posts. I was wondering how you did that. Overall this is quite a handy utility.
Having recently acquired some unix hosting I’ve been experimenting with various PHP/MySQL based applications. WordPress for example that this blog runs under, as well as Joomla for CMS and phpBB for forums.
Having been a long time user of ASP applications some of my experiences have been quite refreshing, especially with respect to ease of installation on shared space in some cases.
Now just the other day I decided I needed a Wiki for a new project. I’ve been using the ASP.net driven FlexWiki for some time now and have been very happy with it’s ease of install and the small changes I usually want to make to look and feel. When it came to choosing a unix based option I immediately plumped for MediaWiki, it seemed an obvious choice being that it runs the most famous Wiki out there, WikiPedia.
Oh how wrong could I have been though. When it came to skinning it to get a look that suited my purpose, it became a complete nightmare. The skinning system is a complete disaster area and it requires more work than I have time for to get your head around it. Yes it can be done, as witnessed by the Mono-project website or the Mozilla Dev site, but it’s a complete bitch. The mixture and muddle of markup and PHP code is just simply unprofessional.
So I had a look around and after a while searching I came up with a beautifully easily skinnable Wiki software. PMWiki has a great philosophy behind it’s code base and a simple skinning system that is a joy to behold after wading through the nightmare depths of MediaWiki.
I shall enjoy designing a nice template later tonight.
Sigma’s new D-SLR the Foveon X3 powered SD14 is looking very nice. The teaser site has some very luscious photography on it, mostly portraiture, that has the look of well scanned transparencies rather than digital pics.
I must admit I find the whole Foveon sensor concept very appealing, yet I’m never likely to go the Sigma route now that I have a collection of EF mount lenses. Now if Sigma were able to build bodies with different mounts as they do with their excellent range of lenses then I expect you’d see many many more people thinking about upgrading to a Sigma body. Especially if the sample images from the SD14 are anything to go by.
Also announced at the same time though is the new Sigma DP1 compact digital camera. This a similar Foveon X3 sensor as the SD14 with the same 14 mega pixels. So if you’re looking for a compact and want to try out the whole Foveon lark then this seems the perfect route for those of us that can’t see ourselves switching to a different mount for our SLRs.
It has a prime lens equivalent to a 28mm. Looking t the pics it also has a large LCD screen, and manual controls. Looks promising.
Here’s one for anyone who feels like they are the opposition.
I designed a t-shirt today for my fabulous wife. Unfortunately spreadshirt don’t make a shirt she considers long enough. Here it is anyway. Available in three colours.
If you’ve ever wanted to add convincing hair or fur to a photograph then look no further than this quick tutorial.
http://www.digitalmediadesigner.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=19756-3
Just saw this old vid on YouTube, funniest thing I have seen in a long time.
The BBC are currently broadcasting a four part radio programme about peak oil. Presented by Tom Mangold and titled Driven by Oil it is broadcast on Radio 4 on mondays.
On the BBC website you can listen to past shows.
I’ve updated my Millenium/Gollancz SF Masterworks List to include all the latest releases and even a few that are not quite released yet. They are now upto seventy in number.
Have fun reading.
I’m thinking about creating a dynamic list where you can sign up and select the ones you have purchased so you have a quick way to tell which ones you still need for the collectors out there. Anyone think that’s a good idea?
http://www.teknohippy.net/masterworks
An incoming link (http://notesfromthegeekshow.blogspot.com/2006/09/stuff.html) made me realise people must actually use the list, so you have them to thank.
Katherine, Erin and I have just returned from a permaculture course. If you also attended and were looking for the forum then you’ll find it here.
Our office block is protected by a keypad. The entry code is 4 digits long and the pad has the numbers 0 to 9. Now I noticed the other day, and have discovered that this is quite common with these entry systems, that there is no kind of punishment for getting the number wrong. The pad just looks at the last 4 numbers you have typed.
So you can try numbers over and over at quite a high speed till you get the right four, with no delay enforced for getting anything wrong.
So I’m thinking, could you make a small device with 10 solenoids that tried every number in turn? How long would it take?
There’s 10,000 four digit combinations, or 40,000 keypresses, but as it only looks at the last four digits we can seriously shorten that.
For example if I type 012345 then I’ve just tested 0123, 1234 and 2345. I looked about a bit and found something called de Bruijn sequences. A de Bruijn sequence is the shortest sequence containing all possible words of a certain length.
So it turns out that the shortest sequence is 10,003 digits long. Googling about some more I discovered this site, which generates de Bruijn sequences for you.
Say for example the keypad can manage 10 digits a second then we need 1000 seconds to try every possible combination. That’s roughly 15 minutes. Not bad down from an hour but I’m sure it could be faster.
Now, the person who regularly resets the code on my building is obviously fond of history, as the codes are always famous dates.We have not, for example, ever had a code that didn’t start with “1″.
I expect many people come up with a year or a day/month combination when asked to generate a 4 digit code. I wonder how many people pin numbers start with 0, 1, 2 or 3? Given this is there a way to order the sequence to increase the probability of an earlier win?
Humans are rubbish at being random. If we concentrate on years then it would seem to make sense to check 19[0-9][0-9] first or just the first 2000. If we are thinking many people choose day/month combinations such as then we shoud check for [0-3][0-9][0-1][0-9] or for US month/day [0-1][0-9][0-3][0-9].
To test any of this we really need sample data to work on. I reckon we need a sampling of the kind of 4 digits humans would choose, that would be a good start. How to go about gathering that data though?
Just have a quick test here with a pic from a recent holiday. I got up early in the morning to take this one.
I’ve ditched the spam prone BlogWorksXML and hooked up some WordPress joy. Frankly it’s far superior.
Someone just said this to me and it really sums up how I’m feeling today.
“Here I am, brain the size of a planet, and they’ve got me parking cars.”
Today while hunting for repeats of the BBC programme, It’s Not Easy Being Green, I stumpled across the Strawbridge Family’s supporting website.
http://www.itsnoteasybeinggreen.org
Take a look, quite an interesting lively forum.
I’ve just wasted half an hour of my life working out why IMG tags are missing and have been stripped out of the HTML source on my directors laptop.
The key to it was some Javascript that had been injected.
Function SymError()
So if you see this it’s Norton Internet Security and it’s advert blocker at work, seems there’s a list of banned words for images. One of which is “banner”.
So there I am using a perfectly self descriptive image name of main.banner.jpg, which just happens to be an innocent header image spanning the page, and it’s gets wiped out by some lazy cunt at Symantec.
Seems many strings are just wripped out. Here’s a full list. Images of certain sizes are also stripped out as well.
Blocked Strings
CLink
%23CLink
%2Fads%2E
%3Fad%2E
&ad_
&banner=
-ad.cgi
-ads/
.ad.
.ads.
.ads/
.bluestreak.com
.eshop.
.net-on.com
.webconnect.com
/199.78.52.
/?ad.
/ad-
/ad.
/ad/
/ad_control
/ad_image
/ad_track/
/adbot.
/adclient.
/adcontent.
/adcouncil/
/adgifs/
/adgraph/
/adimages/
/adinfo/
/adjuggler/
/adlog.
/adman.
/adnet.
/adnet/
/adpics/
/adpopup
/adproof/
/adredirect/
/adrevolver/
/ads-
/ads.
/ads/
/adsales
/adserv
/adspace
/adsrc
/adv/
/advert/
/advertentie
/advertise/
/advertiser/
/advertisers/
/advertising/
/adverts/
/adview.
/banner.
/banner/
/banner=
/banner_images/
/banners/
/by.banclk?
/clickover.
/cyberfirst
/follow_ad?
/generate_ad.
/graphics/advert
/htmlad/
/jbanner/
/liveads/
/nph-bounce?
/nph-load?
/nph-redir?
/promo_gif/
/promos/
/promote/
/promotions/
/rankem.cgi?action=
/sponsor.
/sponsor/
/sponsors/
/videobanners/
/viewad/
1-2-free.com
199.172.144.25/2
?acb=acb
?ad.cgi
?ad=
?Adcode=
?adlink
?adserv
?adv=
?advertID=
_ad.
_ads/
a32.g.a.yimg.com/7
ad.doubleclick.net/click
ad.infoseek.com
ad.linkexchange.com
ad.preferences.com
ad.tw.doubleclick.net/ad/
adbanner
adbot.com
adcenter.in2.com
AdClick
adcount.hollywood.com
adlink.htm
adlink.preferences.com
adman.medius.net
adoptimizer
adredir.asp
ads.adsmart.net
ads.clickagents.com
ads.imagine-inc.com
ads.imdb.com
ads.infospace.com
ads.lycosasia.com.sg/RealMedia/ads/
ads.narrowline.com
ads.realmedia.com
ads.softbank.net
ads.usatoday.com
ads.washingtonpost.com
ads.web.aol.com
ads.web21.com
adserver.adtech.de
advertisements
advertising.com
alladvantage.com/go.asp?refid=
allpolitics.com/ads/
ar.atwola.com
badservant.guj.de
banner_ad
bannerad
bannerexchange.com
bannerpower.com
bannerswap.com
BF_Home_AD
bfast.com/booklink
cc-dt.com
click1.wisewire.com
click100.genesis.com
click2.wisewire.com
click2net.com
clk_thru^
commonwealth.riddler.com
count4all.com
crosswalk.com/click.ng/transactionID=
dirtycash.com
ds.cybereps.com
exchange-it.com/click.go?
eyeblasterscript
fastclick.net/w/click.here
findcommerce.com/tracking
flycast.com
focalink.com
GeoAD?
globaltrack.com
globaltrak.net
hg1.hitbox.com
home.keycity.com/addd2000/ok.shtml
http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/a
images/mainad
imgis.com
impartnet.de/cgi-bin/
infoback.net
infoseek.com/redirect
java.yahoo.com/a/1-/flash
java.yahoo.com/a/1-/java
java.yahoo.com/a/a-/flash
java.yahoo.com/a/a-/java
linkexchange.com
linksynergy.com
mantel/
maxcash.cgi?
mediahits.com/click.fcg
mediaserv.247media.com
mirror.qkimg.net
movielink.com/media/imagelinks/MF.ad
movielink.com/media/imagelinks/MF.sponsor
netads.hotwired.com
netbanner.com/cgi-bin/
nrsite.com
pagecount.com
pathfinder.com/r0/marketing
pathfinder.com/sponsors
pegasoweb.com
pennyweb.com
progcgi.ads/
qksrv.net
rd.yahoo.com/M=2
rd.yahoo.com/M=3
rd.yahoo.com/M=4
rd.yahoo.com/M=5
rd.yahoo.com/M=6
rd.yahoo.com/M=0
rd.yahoo.com/M=1
rd.yahoo.com/M=7
rd.yahoo.com/M=8
rd.yahoo.com/M=9
register-it.netscape.com/
mbclick.com/
rn11.com
safe-audit.com
service.bfast.com
showad.asp
smartclicks.com
spinbox.
stats.hitbox.com
submit-it.com/images
telecom-pros.com/images
test1234567890
textchange.com/cgi-bin/
tracker.clicktrade.com
tracker.tragedoubler.com
us.a1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/a
valueclick.com
vk4Voam2y
vwWzJwWLv9m2Cr
websponsors.com/cgi-bin/
webunion.com/cgi-localbin/click.cgi?
weg352o643t322c463h321a
ww3.cybercity.com/tw/adexe/
www.247media.com.tw
www.admax.com.tw/
www.admax.com
www.ads.warnerbros.com
www.anonymozer.com/cm/door.cgi?
www.asiad.net/
www.banner.com.tw/
www.bannerwomen.com
www.clickadhere.com/
www.clickxchange.com/fr.phtml
www.cyberone.com.tw
www.epaper.com.tw/cgi-bin/adm/ad_red
www.halee.com/advert/
www.link4link.com/cgi-bin/
www.marketspace
www.modchip.com/clickcgi/click.cgi?
www.netvigator.com.tw/popad/
www.nj.com/adverts
www.nrsite.com
www.search.com/Banners
www.warehouse.com/netbuyer/ticker/
www.whispa.com/tracking/
www.wishing.com/webaudit/
yahoo.com/adv/
yahoo.com/CategoryId=0
yimg.com/images/compliance
Blocked image sizes
Images:
125x125
160x600
180x150
234x60
240x400
250x250
300x250
336x280
468x60
88x31
120x90
120x60
120x240
