Well, I have been spending some time (don’t laugh) reading spam. I’m actually analyzing spam for generating some new rules for the SpamAssassin Project. It’s seriously good software, check it out. This is some real spam about my favorite science, Penis Enlargement. It is slightly suggestive, so don’t read on unless you are ok with my immature sense of humor. I don’t need complaint emails. Don’t like, don’t read. It’s that simple.
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MacVillage.net News and such
Well, macvillage.net is starting to come back to life again. After a week of server chaos. The backend is starting to look OK, less database errors due to mySQL timeouts, mail seems to be slightly more reliable (admin mail), and such. The NewsEngine 3.0 Project is nearing completion, after 2 days of work. Most of the news sources are found, and building properly, although crontab for some odd reason is acting up (again). Go figure. As soon as I can call and get that straitened out, we should be up and running with news in most categories. Then I need to fix the VersionTracker updates being out of sync.
After that, I will repair/update/remodel/someotherverb the Channel Pages, and move weather into a channel. And fix that annoying mail bug in weather. Perhaps a few layout fixes as well, while I’m digging through the code.
Then onward… to the next project(s).
Well… I figured it out (or ironically ended up on Mozillazine during the brief moment the story was prematurely published). I think Mozilla splitting up into multiple apps is a good thing. Read on to see my hopes for the new Mozilla, and check out Asa’s Blog for some more info.
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Ever have that lazy feeling
Ugh… Just not in the mood to do much this week. It’s classes, the necessary classwork… and nothing else. It’s getting pathetic. Every afternoon I find myself watching reruns of “Home Improvement”, “Friends”, “Seinfeld”… all of which I have seen every episode. And I still watch.
Tonight on the other hand is new Southpark and Chapelle’s Show. Always fun. I guess again I will not be doing much. As I need to get some sleep after. That damn 8:00 class again. We all know how much I love getting up for that class. Oh well… a few more weeks, and summer vacation.
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Mozilla Announcement or April Fools?
As originally posted on Mozillazine (though disappeared). Not sure if it’s real, or if it’s a April Fools Hoax… anyway, here it is:
The Announcement
PROVISIONAL HEADLINE: Major Roadmap Update Centres Around Phoenix, Thunderbird; 1.4 Branch to Replace 1.0; Changes Planned for Module Ownership ModelLEAD-IN: In the most radical change to the Mozilla project since the late 1998 decision to rewrite much of the code, mozilla.org today announced a major new roadmap revision that will see Phoenix and Thunderbird (also known as Minotaur) becoming the focus of future development. 1.4 is likely to be the last milestone of the traditional Mozilla suite and the 1.4 branch will replace the 1.0 branch as the stable development path. In addition, there will be changes to the ownership model that will see a move towards stronger leadership and the removal of mandatory super-review in some cases.
FULL ARTICLE: In one of a string of changes, mozilla.org today announced that future Mozilla development work will be focussed around the stand-alone Phoenix browser and Thunderbird mail and newsgroups client (also known as Minotaur). Mozilla 1.4 will probably be the last milestone release of the traditional Mozilla browser suite and the 1.4 milestone is slated to replace 1.0 as the stable development path.
Aggressive and ambitious changes will take place during the 1.5 and 1.6 milestones to accomodate the switch to Phoenix and Thunderbird. Mac OS X versions of Phoenix will become available but Camino, a project to create a Mozilla-based browser with a native Mac user interface, will continue to be fully supported.
The Phoenix project started life in Summer 2002 as redesign of the Mozilla browser component known as mozilla/browser. It aims to create a browser for average users with a simplified user interface. The Thunderbird project plans to create a stand-alone mail client using the Phoenix toolkit and following its conventions. The project now incoroprates the work of the Minotaur effort to create a stand-alone version of Mail & Newsgroups. It is anticipated that Thunderbird will be available as both a completely separate application and as an add-on to Phoenix, which will integrate more closely with the browser.
The module ownership system will also be refined. Changes will be made so that all code modules have strong leaders who have the authority to make decisive and final decisions. In some cases, the need for mandatory super-review will be removed, as is the case in Phoenix today.
It was also announced that Gecko developers will be freed to make large architectural changes to make Gecko easier to maintain and more extensible.
mozilla.org is making these changes for many reasons. Moving to a collection of stand-alone programs will address criticisms that the monolithic Mozilla suite is too bloated. Annointing 1.4 as the designated stable branch will answer concerns that the 1.0 branch is too far behind the trunk. The new module ownership model should ensure a greater coherency in many aspects of Mozilla, particularly its user interface, which has often being criticised for lacking direction. Many feel that Mozilla’s two-stage review process is overkill in some places and the removal of mandatory super-review for certain areas will tackle this issue. Finally, rearchitecturing Gecko will ensure that Mozilla’s rendering engine remains world-class and does not further suffer because of excessive modularisation and poor design decisions, criticisms that came to light with Apple’s choice of KHTML for its Safari browser.
More information about this new development process can be found in the updated Mozilla Development Roadmap.
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MailHID Almost Ready
Well, for weeks (read: months) I have been working in my spare time on MailHID, a PHP class for obscuring email addresses. Despite a few lingering bugs, mostly with CC, BCC support, auto-learn, and Spam Bot Checking, I am just about ready to go with it. I had a test implementation on this site before I started the blog.
I think by next week (or the week after), I should be at the point where I can start implementing it on MacVillage.net, Accettura Media, and this blog. Will be nice to keep spammers at bay, and still have my email address posted. Reminds me of the mid 90’s.
First let me get something off my chest. Is it possible that America has gotten so lazy that it can’t make a PB&J sandwich? Do we really need them pre-made? Smuckers obviously thinks so [Link]. Good for them to take advantage of a very lazy generation. But one can’t help to wonder how much weaker society can get. I am the first to admit to being lazy, but this is just insane.
I modified the layout a bit today. Notice the new icons to the right, and the pretty blue header. I promise I will eventually re-work the layout. But for now it will do. I should also note the cool quotes on the top. They should change daily. A nice database full of my favorite quotes.
Last note of the day is that my mail is working properly again. mail(at)media.accettura.com was inaccessible for a while, presumably a DNS problem. Over the weekend, Interland moved the Communitech.net servers to their Atlanta data center. No warning, and technical problems don’t look promising to me.
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Well, I’m finally blogging
I finally got around to starting a blog. A place to rant, flame, panic, annoy, pester, bother, and whatever else I want. I’m sure from time to time I will post something useful, but don’t count on it becoming a daily thing.
I know my spelling and grammar is honorific, so if you find an error, send an email to devnull@accettura.com (in case you don’t realize, that’s going strait to the gutter).
I know the design is “out of the box” right now. Don’t worry, it will get customized as time goes on. It’s almost time for the Simpsons, so don’t think it will happen tonight, or this week. But it will eventually happen…. Perhaps. Not feeling great right now. So off to sit in front of the TV.