Marked for Dearth

Something seems different around here. To preempt speculation (”did he get a haircut?”), I’ll come clean and reveal that Blogger has relaunched, affording subscribers a host of new features and 26 new templates to choose from. Though I have little discernible artistic talent, my abilities for choosing among professionally designed templates are widely respected. And so, witness the new look in all of its stylish, standards compliant glory.

Eyecandy aside, some of the new functional features may affect the way you read and interact with this blog. For instance, each post now lives on its own page. This cleans up PermaLink URLs somewhat without breaking older anchor-based links. Also, in the (rare) event I post something you deem worthy of comment, you’ll now be using Blogger’s own comment system instead of HaloScan to share your thoughts. Unfortunately, the switch from the latter to the former will make all past comments unavailable.

Unfair? Comment below…

BlogSpot has been a bit temperamental lately, so I’m considering switching hosts. Maybe I’ll change blogging tools while I’m at it; I’ve been hearing good things about WordPress.

Of course, doing nothing remains a tempting option…

OneLook, a meta dictionary that I use regularly, has several good things going for it: speedy page loads, an unobtrusive, almost Google-like layout that is a pleasure to navigate, and Wikipedia hooks.

Recently, OneLook rolled out a feature that I thought was particularly blog-worthy: reverse dictionary lookup. Now, you’re probably familiar with the idea of a reverse dictionary - you might open one if you know what you’re trying to say but can’t find the right word(s). They’ve been around for years in book form, but OneLook’s is the first useful implementation I’ve seen on the web.

I took it for a spin using my favorite dictionary test word: “an alignment of celestial bodies.” OneLook developers realized that two people might not define a word using precisely the same language, so the result page contains a long list of candidates instead of a single “I’m feeling lucky”-style hit. This time, OneLook nailed the right word.

There are other cool things it seems to do fairly well, like answer basic identification questions (e.g. “Who killed Alexander Hamilton?”) and solve crossword puzzle clues (e.g. “What’s an eight-letter word for ‘ancient pyramid’?”).

SpoofStick for IE has finally been released. Also, SpoofStick for Firefox has been revved up to version 0.06.

Get both here. If you’ve got a bug to report or feature to suggest, shoot an email to: spoofstick [at] corestreet [dot] com

I managed to snag a preview account for Google’s Gmail web mail service. Coverage in both the blogosphere and mainstream press has been extensive. For instance:

• Mark Pilgrim evaluates Gmail with five different web browsers and complains of several usability problems.
• Kevin Fox replies: “Accessibility, for the visually impaired, for those who love Firefox’s keystrokes, and for those who use Lynx as their browser of choice, is very important to the Gmail team.” A few days earlier, Kevin tried to assuage some privacy concerns by contrasting the kinds of personal data that different web mail services collect.
• Liz Figueroa, a state senator from California, is apparently drafting legislation to block Google from releasing Gmail.

Let others opine on these issues for the moment; I propose a quasi-experiment that might make for an interesting future post.

Text ads have been displayed next to only about one quarter of the emails I’ve received so far. Where they have appeared, I’ve judged them to be highly relevant. It seems that Gmail only displays ads when it can be reasonably certain (algorithmically speaking) about the subject matter of a conversation.

To test accuracy, I’m soliciting “interesting” emails (also to be entertained). For instance, you can start off writing about undead pirates and transition to discussing the types of choke collars preferred by dog obedience schools. Or, consider starting with an overview of luminous tubes and moving on to the pornographic-image mosaic of John Ashcroft’s face. Let your imagination guide you.

The address is: mayzenshtat [at] gmail [dot] com.

Feedback for the SpoofStick Firefox extension has generally been very positive. Here’s a cross-section:

The information superhighway needs a standard system of roadsigns that Aunt Tillie can trust. The SSL lock was and is helpful, but we need to do more. Spoofstick suggests an important next step. (Jon Udell)That makes so much sense, I can’t believe no one ever did it before. (visitor to Vastly Important Notes)

THIS GUY HAS A RELY USFUL PRODUCT BECUZ ITS TO HARD 2 LOOK AT THE ADRESS BAR AND TELL WHERE U ARE!!111!!!!! (Wendy Edwards on Orkut’s “INTERNET” community)

Udell and others have noted that releasing the Firefox version before the IE version seems a bit odd. The main reason for this is that writing Mozilla/Firefox extensions is about a hundred times (113.7 to be exact) easier than writing IE plugins. You define the UI in XUL, the behavior in JavaScript - save, archive, and view. No compilation, no messy proprietary APIs or toolkits to deal with. Simple and standards-based. In a month or so, I’ll write a postmortem and reflect on the development process for both browsers in greater detail.

On a less technical note, when I learned that “spoofing” was also known as “phishing“, I lamented that we had not called the program “PhishStick”. I vow that, from now on, every pun that can be made will be made, without regard to the potentially short life of its appeal.

[P.S. - Version 0.05 is out.]

This post is going to read like a sales pitch. Apologies in advance…

Check out SpoofStick, a simple Firefox plugin I developed for CoreStreet. For any page that you view in your web browser, SpoofStick prominently and unambiguously displays only the most relevant domain information, increasing your situational awareness as you surf.

SpoofStick should make it easier to identify “spoofed” web sites. These are fake sites (e.g. http://signin.ebay.com@10.19.32.4/) that pose as legitimate ones in order to gather confidential or sensitive information, alter data transactions, or present false or misleading data (definition). Glance at the SpoofStick display, and you instantly know where you really are on the web.

Still using Internet Explorer? Switch immediately, you poor, disadvantaged soul! Or, if you don’t care for my evangelism, rest assured that an IE version will be released soon.

Phew! Now back to the premium content my readers have come to expect (mainly pics of delighted fat women reaching for cake).

Kudos to the Nature Publishing Group for finding the perfect stock photograph to accompany an article. What better way is there to illustrate people’s genetic predisposition to food cravings than with a dumbly overjoyed obese woman grabbing at a whole cake that is just out of her reach? I mean, the cake does look crumbly and delicious, so I can understand her enthusiasm.

But still.

One woman’s account of riding a motorcycle through the Chernobyl disaster area is back online, complete with new photos and commentary.

Back in January, Paul Graham wrote a thought-provoking essay on “moral fashions”, behaviors/beliefs considered moral/proper by the inhabitants of a particular time/place. Hmm - that may be one slash too many. Anyway, it’s in your best interest to read it. Here’s a representative excerpt:

If a statement is false, that’s the worst thing you can say about it. You don’t need to say that it’s heretical. And if it isn’t false, it shouldn’t be suppressed. So when you see statements being attacked as x-ist or y-ic (substitute your current values of x and y), whether in 1630 or 2030, that’s a sure sign that something is wrong. When you hear such labels being used, ask why.

On a somewhat related note, recent world events have led me to the irrefutable conclusion that harmful memes are behind most of the world’s problems. Expect a more complete, more rant-like treatment of this topic in the near future.