Unsettling automated objections

Apple's built-in grammar checker:



Oh, erm, well, fine then, I suppose...

Bizarre cake-oriented quote of the day

From The Apprentice (the Irish one):

I don't mind being fired; I've got fingers in lots of cakes.

Fingers in lots of cakes! A chocolate sponge? A swiss roll? A ginger cake? It sounds awfully messy, and altogether rather unpleasant. Are these full cakes, or just slices?

Anyway, the phrase didn't exist on the Internet at all, before; now it is. Yay!

Microsoft appeals to the stupid and proud of it demographic

I just saw his rather amazing ad for Windows 7:



Now, make no mistake. While large software corporations do sometimes incorporate feature suggestions from users, they are not in the habit of making major user interface decisions based on the diktats of random idiots in London taxis. Really, they are not.

This has been a common theme in Microsoft's advertising of late; something along the lines of "Sure, those Macs are better, but they're designed by fancy elitist experts with decades of experience, and used by clever designers and people. Isn't that intimidating! Windows is designed for normal people, by normal people!" I can imagine it actually works rather well, but it's a little off-putting to me.

Wasn't that task bar window preview thing in Vista, anyway?

Argh! Stupid bloody NTL!

So, I mentioned yesterday that UPC (nee NTL and Chorus) were doing a terrible DNS hijack thing. That's annoying and rude, but doesn't have that much impact on most people.

What's considerably worse is when their blood DNS servers go down, as has happened now. I had to locate some alternatives on the Interwebs, using Edge (don't get 3G in apartment) on an iPhone. Bah. Idiots.

Really, if you must fuck with your DNS servers, please ensure that you know what you're doing. As a minor plus, Internet is lovely and fast now, presumably because none of their users can use it because their DNS is not working. Argh.

A mini-review of MarsEdit, a desktop blogging tool

Generally, I write blog posts using one of Blogger's web-based editors. It actually has two; there's the 'new', beta, Blogger In Draft one, which has only been the same for the last few years:



And there's the older standard Blogger one, which has been there since around about the invention of, say, the cat:



These are, well, okay, but they have their quirks. First and foremost, uploading images is a serious pain, and tends to arbitrarily go horribly wrong. Although there are shortcut keys for bold and italic text, these are, on a Mac, non-standard (CTRL-B, CTRL-I), and sometimes just fail to work entirely. If you paste something from another site, weird things will happen; it'll try to drag along its existing formatting, which may or may not work properly. Too clever by half.

So, I decided to give a desktop blogging tool a go. It's called MarsEdit, is available for the Mac only, which I can live with as I only ever write blog posts on the Mac, and costs 30 dollars, with a 30 day free period. Here it is:



It's relatively simple, but really does seem to work well. All the usual suspects are supported; Wordpress, LiveJournal, Movable Type, TypePad, Tumblr, and of course my own beloved Blogger. It's not WYSIWYG, which is quite frankly probably a good thing; WYSIWYG HTML editing has never, despite the best intention of editor vendors, worked that well. It does, however, have keyboard shortcuts for basic HTML formatting, which work very nicely. This strikes me as a decent compromise.

Possibly the nicest bit is the upload facility. To put an image in your post, you just drag it in, and this comes up:



This is far more convenient than the Blogger upload thing, and just pops some HTML into your post; it doesn't make a weird sorta-movable image box thingy, like the Blogger upload does.

It's also, for some reason, just really nice to write posts in a desktop application; it feels far less irritating than using the Blogger webapp.

The preview tool is also rather nice; you get a live preview of your post in another window. You can give it the HTML template from your blog, and it shows you what your post will look like as you type it. Very nice.

There's offline draft saving, and support for tagging/categories, and support for that icky 'enclosure' thing that makes podcasts work, and, well, that's really about it. It's simple, but somehow very good. I couldn't tell you exactly why I like it so much, but I do.

Highly recommended, and I'm pretty sure I'll end up paying the 30 dollars (roughly seven euro cents at today's rate of exchange) when my trial period runs out. This is irritating; the only time I've spent money on software lately was for a few bits and pieces to make my (Windows) work machine a little more tolerable, but it can't be helped.

Eek! UPC doing awful DNS hijack thing!

UPC (formerly NTL Ireland and Chorus) is an Irish cable TV and Internet access provider. They're generally okay. They've just done something slightly irritating, though; if you ask their DNS to resolve an non-existent hostname, it does not, as you might reasonably expect, tell you it doesn't exist; instead, it says it does exist, and resolves it to a UPC search page, searching through Google or something for the domain name, with ads and so on.

Observe. A normal DNS server dealing with a non-existent domain:



UPC's DNS server dealing with a non-existent domain:



... And the awful consequences:



This isn't just irritating money-grubbing on UPC's part; it also has the potential to be a real problem for some people. In particular, some VPN systems use various DNS tricks to figure out when they should activate; this could break them. Various other issues exist. There is also no clear way to turn it off. Ugh, what's next, inserting their own ads into webpages viewed? One US ISP actually does this.

Fun with Cross-platform Interfaces

One interesting, really relatively recent development in computer software is the rise of the large, widely-used, truly cross-platform GUI application.

There are a few approaches to writing these. The first, and certainly historically most common, is to separate application logic from presentation, and build separate interfaces in each client operating system, sharing application logic. This is how things like Photoshop have been built, although Adobe seems to be trying to replace the existing native UI used in Photoshop, Flash et al with some sort of awful Flash-based thing; as you can see here, results are, at best, mixed. The advantage of this approach (separate interface development, not the scary Flash thing) is that you tend to get something which looks like it fits in; the big disadvantage is that it's an extremely expensive, labour-intensive task.

Then, there's the approach, notably favoured by Microsoft, of writing completely separate applications sharing branding, file format compatibility and some application logic on each platform. IE for Mac, for instance, used a completely different rendering engine to IE for Windows, and each had features that the other didn't; the same sort of thing has happened with Office applications. Microsoft Entourage is a particularly weird case; it's part of Office, like Outlook, and serves the same purpose as Outlook, but is branded differently and looks different.

Emulation and simulation is another approach. This is really common for games; most commercial games for MacOS and Linux are actually Windows games, with DirectX calls being translated by WINE or a piece of software derived from WINE. This works quite well for games; it works less well for normal desktop applications, where it has to deal with translating Win32 UI elements into something workable. Normally this is accomplished by just drawing fake Win32 UI elements, as using native widgets would cause sizing problems. This approach is rare for generally distributed commercial apps (an example is Google Picasa), though it's quite common for in-house apps. A related but not identical case is the use of X11 on platforms where X11 is not normally used; some development tools have MacOS versions which just use X11. This generally creates usability problems.

The final category, and the one which is currently seeing most growth, is the use of cross-platform UI APIs. When writing a desktop application with one of these, you don't make Win32 calls, or calls to the MacOS UI kit, or whatever, at all; you use a cross-platform UI API, which will figure out how to display things on each platform. Success rates are variable.

Here's a screenshot from the Eclipse IDE, which uses the SWT Java cross-platform UI library.



It looks really quite MacOS like. This is partly because SWT was really created primarily as a UI toolkit for Eclipse initially, and it really is quite polished at this point. Here's one from NetBeans, another Java IDE. This uses Swing, Sun's Java cross-platform UI toolkit.



Doesn't look too bad, does it? Let's look at another.



Not bad as such, but certainly unusual. You won't often see the little icons in MacOS apps, though they're common on Windows. Eclipse also has these, but to my mind they look a little less obtrusive; they're not out in the empty area on the left:



This one is very weird; note the incorrectly-aligned 'Help' thing at the bottom:



This is just bad UI design, and I think it does this on Windows too; it should really change the size of the options window rather than doing some mad internal scrollbar thing, though, and in any case this is an options pane for a built-in plugin and should really fit properly in the first place:



And finally, HORRIBLE FONT MADNESS. This just looks terribly broken, and I don't understand why they've deliberately changed the default font to an unpleasant Serif one for this window, but no-where else:



Now, to be clear, none of this is a huge issue. These applications are perfectly usable, if a bit funny-looking. However, I think it is something that developers will have to concentrate on more and more as Windows' absolute dominance on the desktop wanes, and Linux and MacOS versions of software become more relevant. It'll be interesting to see where all this goes.

Poor little Nick, the tubbiest Fascist!

The nasty, cruel leftist BBC was mean to him! Horrible David Dimbleby taunted him with his hideous green tie and his Bic pen! Foreign, immigrant Bic pen, from France! Nick writes only with quill feathers plucked from PROPER BRITISH SWANS! Terrible people in the audience asking difficult questions, some of them not even white! Nothing for him to do but to go back to the survivalist compound and have a good wank in front of the lifesize portrait of Adolf!

Really, it was a quite fascinating show. I was vaguely against it to start with, on the basis that he's the head of an illegal organisation (or was; they have supposedly bowed to official pressure and will allow the awful foreigners to defile the BNP meeting halls with their funny clothes and their strange cooking, speaking foreign). But he has destroyed any credibility he might have had. He was really, really terrible. His only comment on his Holocaust denial was that he wasn't allowed talk about it due to imaginary EU laws. He tried to deny giving a speech to some American Neo-Nazis, with a head of the KKK, about how he's going to weasel his way into credibility, and one day will be able to say "every single one must go", then gave in and said, in his defence, that it was a mostly non-violent branch of the KKK.

And then he had a good rant about the gays, the awful, awful gays, who should either be wiped out or be allowed do what they do in private as long as they don't mention their existence, depending on whether the Thatcher or the Hitler part of his split personality was showing. Nice to know he (probably) doesn't necessarily want to send us to the camps.

Really, it was an amazing show, and I would recommend that you watch it if you possibly can. Not only was he unmasked as a disgusting racist (as if any more unmasking was needed), he was unmasked as a rather dim and ineffectual disgusting racist.

Oh, also, according to Dimbleby, more information on Griffin can be found on YouTube. I look forward to the inevitable Downfall parody; until then, this will have to do.

The hybrid lightbulb

As you will no doubt have gathered by now, the evil EU has demanded that we switch to using CFL lightbulbs. People are outraged, of course; while increases in police powers, software patents and so forth can get through without anyone really knowing or caring, the government had better not mess with our beloved lightbulbs. I'm reasonably certain that more fuss was made over the CFLs than has been made over NAMA.

Why are people so annoyed? First, some people don't like to be told to do sensible things. They can take responsibility for their own actions, and it is none of the government's business if they want to drive their SUV at 200 miles an hour while smoking a cigar, drinking gin, talking on a mobile phone and updating their Facebook. This is their right as an irritating person, and it is their duty as an irritating person to lecture everyone else on how the nasty politicians are taking away their freedoms. There is nothing to be done for these people. Except possibly a government ban on suicide.

Then there are those who fear that if they drop a CFL their house will be the next Chernobyl. For whatever reason, mercury is the scary substance de jour; any amount of mercury, no matter how small (as long as it's not from fish, which may safely be ignored unless you're really paranoid), will immediately kill you and/or give your children autism.

The third group have more of a point. These are the people who are concerned by the way CFLs switch on. CFLs don't come on like those large old fluorescent tubes, with lots of flickering and clicking followed by full light; rather, they start off dim and smoothly get brighter. This is actually pretty unpleasant if you're used to normal lightbulbs.

So, here is my idea. Take a CFL. Add a small, powerful incandescent bulb, or LED bulb, or something else with a low lifespan and/or high power consumption. When the whole assembly is first turned on, both will come on such that the sum total output is equivalent to the light output of a 100W incandescent. As the CFL bit heats up, the other bit dims, until eventually it's operating on CFL alone. Light output doesn't change over the whole process. It might be tricky to match colours acceptably, and it'd add some cost, but I think people would pay a premium; the current setup really is quite annoying. I'm actually very surprised no-one has done this yet, and I can't find much reference to anyone even suggesting it.

Not a good week for Microsoft

Beyond embarrassing possible leaks about less-than-stellar Pink project (Microsoft's own smartphone) progress, and rumours of Windows Mobile 7 being delayed til the end of next year, well, Microsoft has apparently managed to lose most or all user data for their T-Mobile Sidekick service. Sidekicks are a type of early smart-phone which store all user data on the server-side; client-side storage is transient. So millions of people have lost all their contacts, emails, text messages, etc. Predictably, they aren't happy.

Given that Microsoft is currently trying to get into the 'Cloud' data service and storage market, with a similar sync product for Windows Mobile 6.5, Office Live and so forth, well, this isn't going to help their image in that space. It will be most interesting to see what happens to their stock price tomorrow...

Wireless! On a bus!

I'm  writing this from a bus to Dundalk (work trip). There is wireless. Wonders of the modern age, eh?

Even in defeat, dishonesty from Cóir

Cóir on the evil, evil Yes side:

“The Yes campaign had no volunteers, had no passion, but they had millions to spend.”

Look, Cóir. It is over. You can stop lying about stuff. It's bad enough that your practically your entire campaign was offensive scaremongering, don't lie about the Yes campaign, as well. That line is just blatantly untrue. And, erm, it's not like you and your friends in the Ganley Party didn't spend heavily yourselves.

Really. Just because you lost, it is incredibly unfair to claim that there were no volunteers on the Yes side, that it was some big plot. I know people who volunteered on the Yes side.

Cowen slips up

Cowen babbling about how much he loves everyone because we signed off on the Lisbon Treaty:

...We face challenges such as China - erm - Climate Change...

Oh, dear. Diplomatic incident much?

Quote of the day, from LORD GANLEY

“We have not succeeded but we did tell the truth and that is something I am proud of,” Mr Ganley said. 

Ahahahahahahahahahahahah.

Tell the truth, indeed. Or Mr Ganley, you do have us on!

I assume he's returning to his underground lair now.

Stephen Fry makes fun of man being shagged by enormous rare flightless parrot

There is no more to be said.

Stupid things I have seen

Oh, dear. Where to start?

Well, first, font madness. There are at least five fonts, none of them very nice and at least two actively horrible, in use there. There are two fonts in the URL, for goodness sakes.

Second, apostrophe criminality in the awful fake handwriting font along the top.

Okay, those are pretty much just minor gripes about typefaces, right? This isn't really a stupid van, you might thing.

AND YOU'D BE WRONG. You may need to click to see it in its full glory, due to Blogger's handling of large images, but... that first picture on the side is captioned "World's 1st HD TV for Bathrooms'. Oh, yes it is. INSANITY.

Wonderful quotes from 1984

John Dvorak, noted windbag, on the Apple Macintosh:

The nature of the personal computer is simply not fully understood by companies like Apple (or anyone else for that matter). Apple makes the arrogant assumption of thinking that it knows what you want and need. [...] The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a ‘mouse’. There is no evidence that people want to use these things. I don’t want one of these new fangled devices.

John Dvorak does not care for your filthy, verminous mouse, Mr. Jobs. Give John Dvorak a hole punch and a daisychain printer, and he will be happy. Go redesign your 'Macintosh' with a punchcard reader, Mr. Jobs.

And as you vote on the Treaty tomorrow...

Spare a thought for poor EURATOM, banished from the Lisbon Treaty after the failure of the Constitution, for being icky and nuclear related and likely to put people off.

I'm not really sure what it actually does, these days, beyond channel EU funding into ITER, but still, it is unfortunate. All alone, beside the big fat blue EU.

Anyway, yes, EURATOM. No matter what way the vote goes tomorrow, you're out in the cold, because no-one wants you. Even Coal and Steel will be in the big blue thing, but not you.

Sad, really, isn't it?

A MESSAGE FROM LORD GANLEY

So, remember, vote Yes to Lisbon, tomorrow. Do not let Declan Ganley or the religious maniacs, or even poor old Joe Higgins (the only vaguely reasonable person on the No side) win.