Log

Here's a little Mozilla styled sidebar. It does auto-hiding (move the mouse cursor over it and then off) and has multiple sidebars built in to a single sidebar. Not tested for IE.

Sidebar II – The Revenge

I've been doing some Python programming for the last couple of days. Now, Python is a pretty cool language, but its main problem is, in my oppinion at least, the absolutely terrible documentation. I can't find anything in there.

Thankfully, there's always the Python Quick Reference (v2.4, v2.3) and the alternative Python Reference (It's a bit out-dated, but still very useful).

Also check out the page of Python Cotchas for some pointers on non-obvious Pythonic behaviour. Very useful for Python n00bs (like myself)

And finally, there's the PDB (Python DeBugger) module.

XUL is an XML dialect that describes user interfaces and it is what Mozilla and Firefox are built upon. You can use XUL to build an interface and then use Javascript to control the application. There's a very interesting introduction to XUL over at DevShed

• An Introduction to XUL, Part 1
• An Introduction to XUL, Part 2

I can't believe how easy it is. Pretty cool stuff.

www.electricmonk.nl has been down for the last couple of days. Since I run this server on my cable internet connection, I sometimes get a change of IP. This time I got three on a single day, which was last friday. Unfortunatelly, I can't change the DNS records during the weekend, since the office where I work is closed at that time and I can't reach the intranet without my current IP in the firewall. So the DNS update had to wait until today.

Some DNSes still need to update their records, but www.electricmonk.nl should be available everywhere again some time tomorrow.

Sorry for the inconvience.

I write web applications at my work and in them I frequently make use of tables displaying information. Unfortunatelly, everybody always keeps asking 'Can you increase the size of this or that limited table column?'. Normally, we use tooltips to display contents that has been cut off, but that often requires some users to mouse-over all rows just to be able to see the full contents.

So I was thinking, wouldn't it be possible to use javascript to dynamically resize table columns? Here's a little Proof-of-concept. It only works in Firefox and is still rather clunky. That's because it started out as a general page element dragger, and was then rebuilt (or rather, adapted) to also resize table columns. Still, this is proof that it can be done.

Now I just need:

• Removable columns
• Editable cell contens
• database fields that can be dragged into the table on-the-fly without having to do a reload
• etc, etc.

Removed the network topology from the Miscellaneous page. It didn't work in the new layout.

When my previous domainname 'nihilist.nl' expired, some company immediatelly aquired it and started hosting a porn site on there. They do this so they can get the visitors that come to the domain for the old site for free without having to advertise.

Since my old MSN account still was at nihilist.nl, namely msn@nihilist.nl, I decided to aquire a new MSN account at the electricmonk.nl domainname. Unfortunatelly, Microsoft Noetwork screwed up the registration process and I had to manually contact Microsoft to get them to reinitialize the registration process. (Talk about userfriendly. I had to use google to find some obscure entry in their knowledgebase just to find out how to do something that other sites offer right there on their 'Register account' page).

Anyway. I've migrated all my contacts (that have been online in the last 2 weeks) to my new MSN account. The old one will be offline from now on. If I haven't updated your contact, please add msn@nihilist.nl to your MSN list.

Recap:
Dead MSN account: msn@nihilist.nl
New MSN account: msn@electricmonk.nl

NOTE: John C. Dvorak is NOT the inventor of the Dvorak keyboard layout. That would be giving the guy to much credit.

In his latest brainspasm misfit, which was accidentally mistaken for an article by PCMagazine.com, John C. Dvorak goes at it again. More ludicrous nonsense by Dvorak! Read all about it! This time Dvorak takes a pretty weak stab at the same Linux community that ridicules him each time he spouts his nonsense into something resembling a tech-column. Here, check it out:

Linux Community Implodes
By John C. Dvorak

The weirdest thing I've seen lately has been the craziness provoked by a feud between tech writer Maureen O'Gara of LinuxGram/Linux Business News and her apparently bitter rival, blogger Pamela Jones (PJ) of Groklaw. It began some time back when the two exchanged barbs over intimations that Jones was somehow a stooge for IBM in the SCO-Linux battle and that O'Gara was somehow a stooge for SCO.
…
So over the past week O'Gara tracked down and photographed PJ's home and PJ's mother's home and posted pics in her column, with veiled accusations that the entire Groklaw site is a front for IBM in its battle with SCO. Once this article appeared, all hell broke loose in the Linux community, with editors scrambling.
Well, duh! There's something the Linux community has that seems to be missing from most of the rest of the world. Ethics. Stalking and posting somebody and their mother's personal information on the internet seems kinda, well, unethical. It could even border on harassement.

Oh, brother. In the olden days, O'Gara would have been given a medal for generating readership. But in today's world of the so easily offended, she's apparently let go instead, and things calm down as the hissy fit subsides.
The times, they are-a-changing. For the better.

That said, the Linux community figures that O'Gara is being paid by SCO or Microsoft or someone bad
Bzzzzzt! Wrong! Sorry Dvorak, you don't make it to the next round. The Linux community said (in general) they wouldn't be surprised if she were. Crazier things have happened. Try crawling out of your cave sometimes.. strawmen are real and so is using them for the purpose of spreading FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt).

It appears to me that O'Gara is just being overly provocative to get readers.
Oh, you mean like that one guy.. Uhhhmm, what's his name? DVORAK, that's right!

I can tell you that my mere mentioning of any of this will result in incredibly hateful attempted postings on this forum and on my moderated blog. What is wrong with these people?
Oh right, it's not like you were asking for it, is it? Please Dvorak, stop being a little child who's mad because the group of cool kids won't play with you and think you're a loon instead.

PCMagazine would do good firing this guy. Dvorak makes me want to puke, really. In fact.. I think I'll ban PCMagazine from now on just because they carry articles by Dvorak.

BAN DVORAK

Update: Slashdot article. Read all +3 posts and above for my oppinion voiced by other people. Thank you.

Update II:

cat /etc/hosts | grep pcmag
127.0.0.1	pcmag.com	www.pcmag.com

cat news.php | grep -C2 dvorak

if (
  strpos(strtolower($item["title"]), "google") === false &&
  strpos(strtolower($item["title"]), "dvorak") === false
) {
  // Show news item

In other words. No more dvorak in my RSS newsreader and no more visiting www.pcmag.com.

I regularly read Joel On Software because Joel is somebody who, for a change, has a brain of his own and who isn't afraid to bitch on certain programming conventions even if the rest of the world thinks they're the Ultimate Solution. I usually tend to agree with Joel.

This time he explains how coding conventions can make your wrong code look wrong.

He also explains the difference between 'Apps Hungarian notation' and the 'Systems Hungarian notation'. Systems Hungarian notation is the notation we all know and love to hate. Apps Hungarian notation is the way the Hungarian notation was actually ment to be, and the one that makes some sense. Apps Hungarion notation is the one where you add useful information to your variable names (e.g. cBeers is countBeers, bufRead, bufWrite, etc). Systems Hungarian notation is the one where you add totally useless information to your variables, like: long int liSubTotal is longintSubTotal.

In college, we were taught to use the (Systems) Hungarian notation and I always found that to be a completely braindead way of hinting your variables. But college professors don't really care, because they have no brain of their own so they just do what all other educational facilities do: teach you bullshit. To quote Mark Twain: "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education."

Anyway, the original paper on the Hungarian notation (clearer, shorter version here) is what later got bastardized into the Systems Hungarian Notation. The original paper still has some, IMHO, idiotic things like prefixing a character variable with ch, but it's a whole lot more useful than that daft Systems Hungarian notation.

Joel also bashes Exceptions again, which I love (the fact that he bashes them, not Exceptions themselves), and then links to this blog post on 'Exceptions: Cleaner, more elegant, and harder to recognize'.

Clearly, Joel is a Practical Programmer and you should read the stuff he writes about, because he's always right. Don't go arguing now! He's just right.

Watch me mother[CENSORED], here we go again..

Latest Firefox fuckups:

• Two major security holes that, in combination, allow remote execution of code, which is nasty to the max.
• A bug in the extension updater caused Flashblock extension to break during update, which might be the cause of the following problems.
• Every time I start Firefox for the first time just after I booted my PC, I get a completely garbled window. It's missing the location bar, search, tabs and my start-up page.
• I found a bug (no idea if it's known yet) where, when I disable 'Allow sites to install software', the auto updater hangs during installation without showing an error or anything.

That's it. I'm switching to Mozilla Suite.