Misc. Ramblings

Monday - 10 January, 2000

Learning, sometimes, is about making mistakes. And then getting up, dusting oneself off, figuring out what lesson to learn from this and moving on. If you can learn from others mistakes and thus avoid making a mistake in the first place all to the good. But we're humans. And humans tend to be a stubborn lot. It must be genetic, but in general, we refuse to believe that we can learn from the experience of others and therefore want to go our own way. This tendency is a major reason why we haven't moved very far from the tree we fell out of.

Speaking of learning, Don Armstrong (see last week and below) taught me a lot about the process of downloading web pages for offline reading. It seems that when he does that to my page, the default saved file name is taken from the <Title> tag of the page being viewed. Thus, even though I may save a page as j20000114.html, when he saves the page, it saves as Misc. Ramblings January 10 - January 14, 2000.htm. I'll post our email below and you can let me know if my changing what's in the title tag makes a difference to you.

G'day and Yikes!

Thanks for pointing out the error(s) in the title [something about not knowing what century Dan is in - Ed]. But I'm a little (OK, much) confused about your reference to the "default file name." Are you referring to the Title of the page as you list below or are you referring to the actual name of the file which is j20000107.html?

Just wondering. Mahalo.

Dazed and Confused in Hawai'i,

Dan

----- Original Message -----
From: Don Armstrong
To: Dan Seto
Sent: Saturday, January 08, 2000 1:24 PM
Subject: Re: It IS 2000!

I'm using IE whatever (5.x actually), I say File - Save As - it gives me a default file name which I assume it takes from the HTML title - I accept that, it saves the file. In your case, I later noticed it had the file name as (approximately) "Misc_Ramblings January 3 - January 7, 1999.htm".

This particular interaction of author's and Internet Explorer's actions can be a distinct problem. Heck, lets face it, any action of any software interacting with any person in any way can be a distinct problem - no need to limit it to IE, or even to single out MS. In this instance, though, a number of "Poor Richard's" past journals, saved the same way, gave me troublesome file names because (I assume - hasn't been worth pinning down) of their long, verbose, and complex titles. When they saved, some files had NO extensions, won't open with IE unless I specifically use IE to browse and open them, and I can't rename the files either.

Regards,
Don Armstrong

Dan Seto wrote:

Don,

Ahhh. Now all is made clear. Thanks. I will think about this. Would it be better then to have in the <title> something like <title>j20000107.html </title>? I don't think it would bother too many people if when my page came up it said that rather than what I have now so I'm willing if it would make things better for you.

Let me know.

Aloha - Dan

----- Original Message -----
From: Don Armstrong
To: Dan Seto

You could also - if you wished - add your name - e.g. "dan seto j20000207 extra details ecetera ... " (since that is the way I store it, to group each person's pages together). The point is, it wouldn't be visible. If you view the HTML source, you see that what is in the <TITLE> area is not what is displayed - that shows up, with formatting, a little further down the page. Of course, that's what's in the HTML - I don't know what the software you use to produce the page does, or where it gets the <TITLE> versus visible heading info.

In fact, I suspect, but don't yet know (new to Web pages, although old in the service of old-fashioned data processing) that what is placed in this <TITLE> area plays a significant part in what may be indexed by web crawlers and spiders, or displayed by search engines, or both - else why would "Poor Richard" place all that stuff in there?

Best wishes, Don

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dan Seto"
To: "Don Armstrong"
Subject: Re: It IS 2000!
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2000 06:44:51 -1000

Hmmm. OK. I was hoping to make the title shorter but "Dan Seto j2000207" might work. I'll give it a try and see how things work out. Let me know if it works for you or not. As far as the web bots, I'm not sure what they scan anymore since so many advertisers have abused what is in the <meta> tags. But bots are the least of my concerns.

Aloha - Dan

***** Noon Update *****

Your portfolio full of IPOs? Then go to Infoworld's Bob Lewis here for a prediction that this is the year to get out of such things.

On the security front, you may want to check out Brian Livingston's column here. He talks about a program called ZoneAlarm which monitors all processes running on your PC that access the Internet. You then decide whether or not backdoor.exe is supposed to talking to trojanhorse.com (yes, there is such as site). ;>

Be aware that the install for ZoneAlarm wants you to give it your email address and snailmail name and address. Why this is so I do not know.

Aloha!

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Tuesday - 11 January, 2000

This in from Bo Leuf on yesterday's discussion of downloading pages and the naming of same. As always, pay attention to what he has to say because he is wise and experienced in the ways of the html, among many other things.

----- Original Message -----
From: Bo Leuf
To: Dan Seto
Sent: Monday, January 10, 2000 1:57 PM
Subject: default titles in saved

Dan,

Reading your Dan-Don postings about the default title issue when saving pages from IE. That behavior is really obnoxious. I once got a zip of a subweb in order to relocate it to another hosting. It took me a lot of effort to make usable, because these pages were unfortunately taken from an IE save from the original site. Thus not a single link between pages worked, and it was not a trivial task figuring out which went where.

Sure prompts some folks to use weird titles though <g>.

/ Bo

--
"Bo Leuf"
Leuf fc3 Consultancy
http://www.leuf.com/

----- Original Message -----
From: Dan Seto
To: Bo Leuf
Subject: Re: default titles in saved
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2000 14:10:17 -1000

Bo,

Weird Title Indeed. Sort of like Daynotes MM week 02 <G>?

I've never really saved a page from another site so it wasn't something I was aware of. But now that you and Don have opened my eyes, as it were, to this problem I will try to keep this in mind. But I'm still not sure what the "best" title should be for any particular page so if you have some suggestions, I am all ears. But, since I am also all thumbs, please try to keep it simple.

Thanks for the comment. Sometimes I feel like I'm talking, but no one is listening. Hello? Anyone out there?

Aloha - Dan

----- Original Message -----
From: Bo Leuf
To: Dan Seto
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2000 11:02:19 +0100
Subject: Re: default titles in saved

Dan,

> Weird Title Indeed. Sort of like Daynotes MM week 02<G>?

These are after all strange times...

> I'm still not sure what the "best" title should be for any
> particular page so if you have some suggestions, I am
> all ears. But, since I am also all thumbs, please try
> to keep it simple.

Be pragmatic. A title should be:
- informative about the content
- unique for a page
- be helpful for when the page is bookmarked (which is why Don
wanted "Dan Seto" prepended.

Having to keep in mind the page-saving behavior of IE is not what one wants to consider, since this may change at the drop of a subsubversion. And is useless for anyone else.

/ Bo

> Thanks for the comment. Sometimes I feel like I'm talking, but no one is listening. Hello? Anyone out there?

nobody out here except us cats, hehe. btw, you got any tuna to send<q -- i'm feeling kinda out of tuna with the world... -- s

--
"Bo Leuf"
Leuf fc3 Consultancy
http://www.leuf.com/

----- Original Message -----
From: Dan Seto
To: Bo Leuf
Subject: You Can Tune a Piano But You Can't Tuna Fish
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2000 06:29:51 -1000

>nobody out here except us cats, hehe. btw, you got any tuna to send<q -- i'm feeling kinda out of tuna with the world... -- s

Sorry, can't send virtual tuna fish through our servers. It gets all minced up into teeny tiny pieces and eventually eaten by the Cisco Cantina routers. Dan Bowman did try to send some macadamia nuts once, but they got smashed to bits and bytes also.

Cats Rule

Dan

----- Original Message -----
From: Jan Swijsen
To: Dan Seto
Subject: title-tag

Dan.

The title tag is used to add information to the window title. This helps you see what you have open when the window is partially overlaid (very handy when you have your windows cascaded in Opera for example).

 It also helps in finding what is open when you check the Windows Taskbar, the window-title is copied there. The windows title is also handy in the task-manager (alt-tab or ctrl+alt+del in Windows).

Making the title extra long is not really a good idea because (ex in Opera) the title is also presented in the list of open windows (menu Window) because either that menu becomes a very wide drop down or the names get truncated.

Don may be right that it gets used by crawlers and spiders (and other insects) from search engines, especially since the meta-tags are being abused.

You can pass this on to Don Armstrong as clarification.

As always, all email will be answered. The check is in the mail. We're the government and we're here to help. Etc. Etc. Etc. But actually folks, like my whining above, it's nice to know there are people out there. And dagnamit, if they take the time to email me I'll take the time to answer you back. Really. I promise. Unless of course, the dog eats my email. Your mileage may vary. ;>

Oh, before I forget; "Hello" to my cousin Jackie. She said over the holidays that she saw my site. But she did not seem pleased even though I don't think I've said anything about her, much less anything bad. :> So anyway, if you're still out there. Hi! And hello to any other relatives that may be lurking out there...

I get a kick out of Sjon's tag lines at the bottom of his daynotes page. He changes them often so what I have below may not be what is there when you visit his site. Yesterday's elicits the following:

1	2	1	1
See	programs	crash,	stop.
1	2	1	1	2
See	Sjon	crash,	stop,	abend.
2	1	1	1
Airbag	did	not	help.

Well, OK. Haiku master I am not. Difficult it is to do. Hard do I try to learn. Fail most times do I.

***** Noon Update *****

MEGA-MERGER OF THE CENTURY. Well, OK. But it's just the beginning of the year. OTOH, these are very large companies and the effect of the proposed merger will be felt everywhere.

But now for the rest of the story. Steve Case, CEO of AOL was born and raised in Hawai'i. He attended the prestigious Punahou School from K-12. His family has strong roots here and and a cousin is involved in public service as the Majority Leader of the State House of Representatives. For the full story go here. Note that this link will break at the end of the day so get it while it's hot.

Speaking of rumor mongers. What? We weren't speaking about rumors? Well, we were speaking about mongers now weren't we? No? Well, it's my site and I can segue anyway I want. So there.

Anyway, there are two sites that I visit every Monday morning (after the Daynotes Gang of course). The first is the Power Meower Spencer F. Katt (sorry Salem) at PCWeek.com. The other is Robert X. Cringley at InfoWorld.com (see two other InfoWorld columnist noted yesterday). I've followed Cringley longer but as you all know, his and Katt's are pseudonyms and Cringley's has been used by at least two different authors. An interesting story that was, and is probably known by all already so I will not retell it (a messy business this, what?). The InfoWorld link is the latest incarnation. If you want to see the original, go here. Mahalo to Dr. Keyboard for reminding me about the original Bob.

For a listing of other IT pundits see here. All are great for futzing around when you should be doing other things. And lastly, for today anyway, you might want to checkout Lincoln Spector's HAL 9000 awards here. Open the pod bay doors, HAL. I'm coming home.

Aloha!

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Hump Day Wednesday - 12 January, 2000

Mirabilis, LDT, an Israeli company apparently located in Tel Aviv is better known as ICQ.com. Many people use their services unaware of the risks involved due to hackers, trojan horses, viruses, etc. A whois lookup of ICQ.com finds only either blank fields or fields with a single comma in it. I have never seen this in a lookup. Usually, if the site does not exist it will tell you so. But in this case, it tells you the site exists but fails to display any information about it.

If you find any abuse of their terms of use, other than copyright infringement, they apparently don't want to hear about it since they don't provide an address (snailmail or otherwise) to report same. So why does anyone use their service? You got me. I sure haven't and I never will. :<

Speaking of services. Brian Bilbrey has a link to a "speed test" at telus.net. Please note, (insert Disclaimer here) before we get any farther that Telus provides ADSL services in western Canada and employs fellow Daynoter John Doucette. Anyway, below are the results of running their test at home via a Road Runner cable modem (at 7:00pm HST) and at work via a T-1 (at 6:30am HST). My home system is a 400MHz Celeron with 128MB of RAM. My work system is a Pentium II at 333MHz also with 128MB of RAM. Both systems are running Win98SE. Your mileage will vary depending on where you are in relation to Canada and how many hops you have to go through to get there as well as the congestion of the pipe that you use at the time you use it (see Robert X. Cringley here for more info on the problems with so called high speed connections):

File Size   ---------- 10K 50K 200K 1MB 2MB 5MB 10MB

Cable (MB/s) ---------- 0.49135220 0.29818702 0.22743814 0.40120360 0.38480037 0.40233353 0.39461353

T-1 (MB/s) ---------- 0.71022725 0.59185606 0.56881818 0.44395116 0.55172414 0.49813200 0.57659697

Prices in Canada are much lower for ADSL than here (plug for John's company inserted here). For me to have the same speed as a T-1 via ADSL (through GTE) would cost $90USD/month plus about $20USD/month for an ISP and another $20USD/month for the phone line. That's $130/month vs. $39.95 for the cable modem. Gee, which one makes sense here? I've already done the math for you. One last technical note, even though Telus displays results to nine digits, be aware that probably only the first one or two digits are significant. The rest are probably artifacts produced by whatever calculations that are done to get a result. (John, make the check out to cash [Dan was just *kidding* about the last remark - Ed]).

Aloha!

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Thursday - 13 January, 2000

Chief Inspector Bo Leuf did some deep probing (ahem, cough) of whois databases and found the following regarding ICQ.com noted yesterday:

From: Bo Leuf
To: mail@seto.org
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2000 11:21:31 +0100
Subject: ICQ

Dan,

You posted:

> A whois lookup of ICQ.com finds only either blank fields or
fields with a single comma in it. I have never seen this
in a lookup.

Domain stuff isn't all that straightforward anymore, what with the new "shared NSI registry" and many registrars who individually keep their registrant info. I found your claim sufficiently odd to do some spelunking, suspecting your chosen whois was failing to get info from the whois server that actually held the info, so I first went to NSI central whois...

Domain Name: ICQ.COM (and ICQ.NET ICQ.ORG)
Registrar: AMERICA ONLINE
Whois Server: whois.compuserve.com
Referral URL: domain.compuserve.com
Name Server: DNS-01.ICQ.NET
Name Server: DNS-02.ICQ.NET

Ok, that tells me that AOL has the details. Going to http://www.internic.net/alpha.html should get me the whois that holds this info. The link there said http://whois.compuserve.com/ which turned out to not work. I traced and pinged to discover the site of whois.compuserve.com [152.175.0.24] is hosted as = www01.registrar.aol.com [152.175.0.23]

Hmm. After a while, and since ping responded, I disabled proxy and lo and behold, a page came up referring me to http://whois.compuserve.com/whois, which turn out to be an alias for = http://www02.registrar.aol.com/whois/

Anyway, there ICQ.* all give the same registrant info:

Domain Name: ICQ.COM
Registrant:
ICQ, Inc.
22000 AOL Way
Dulles, VA 20166
US
Created on..............: Nov 17, 1999
Expires on..............: Nov 17, 2001
Record Last Updated on..: Nov 17, 1999

Administrative Contact: Domain Registration, ICQ domains@AOL.NET
703 265 4670
Technical Contact:
Domain Registration, ICQ domains@AOL.NET
703 265 4670
Billing Contact:
Domain Registration, ICQ domains@AOL.NET
703 265 4670

Domain servers: DNS-01.ICQ.NET
152.163.159.234
DNS-02.ICQ.NET
205.188.157.234
---

--
Bo Leuf Leuf fc3 Consultancy
http://www.leuf.com/

OK, I should have known it was under AOL since they bought ICQ.com awhile back. The whois for AOL (which looks a whole lot like the response for ICQ) came back as:

Domain Name: AOL.COM
Registrar: AMERICA ONLINE
Whois Server: whois.compuserve.com
Referral URL: domain.compuserve.com
Name Server: DNS-02.NS.AOL.COM
Name Server: DNS-01.NS.AOL.COM

But what I was hoping for was a contact at ICQ rather than AOL to which to send abuse@ type emails to since that's what Dr. Keyboard was looking for. I guess to do that you would have to go through AOL. It might be interesting to see if AOL has an abuse address to send problems to [And yes they do. It's abuse@aol.com - Ed.]. I will try to do some searching myself to see what they have. Surely, somebody as big as AOL would have a contact address right? We shall see.

Code 404 Request Not Found. I checked my error logs yesterday and noticed someone trying to find a file by using variations of a known file name. That is, file1.html, file2.html, file3.html, file4.html, file5.html, file6.html, file.nom, file.numi, file.nuni, and file.nunt. Any ideas out there why anyone would be doing this (and what .num, .numi, .nuni, and .nunt is)? Could this be some kind of bot programmed to try variations of a file to find others like it? Heck if I can figure it out. If you're out there, feel free to ask me if you're looking for something in particular. But I can tell you, if it's not linked on one of my pages, it probably does not exist. So save your bandwidth (and mine). Mini-Bother.

***** Noon Update *****

She Who Must Be Obeyed and I went out to dinner last night to celebrate her birthday (no, do not even ask). She likes buffets because they have so many different items to choose from. And you don't have to choose. That is, you can try everything and not be considered to be a social outcast. In fact, that's the whole point of a buffet. You can try all kinds of things and it's OK. "Really. Go ahead. We'll even bring you fresh plates and silverware so you won't look like complete *pigs*."

The place we went to is called the Willows. It's known for the stream that used to flow through the property (now replaced by a concrete lined fake stream). And I bet you thought it would be known for its willow trees along the stream. Ha! Gotcha'. But I digress. The food included local selections like laulau, poi, chicken long-rice, poke, ono, and stew (go here for some recipes). Then there's the more standard prime rib, turkey, chicken, and salad greens. All in all, a good time was had by all. And they didn't even have to use any heavy equipment to lift us from our chairs when we were done ;>

Of course, we went to sleep soon after getting home and missed the interview on Letterman with the Supreme She Who Can Not Be Disobeyed. I understand she is running for some office in New York. I was going to say "Too bad for New York" but decided that would be too catty. Oh. Gee. I guess I said it anyway. Meow. I was also going to provide a link to the CBS site relating to her interview but CBS seems to be having problems right now and all I got was a listing of an empty directory (http://www.cbs.com/now/eframeset/). Perhaps they will fix that in time for the next millennium <g>

In response to the above, Mr. Matt Beland sent the following:

To: Dan Seto
Subject: Miz Clinton
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2000 13:43:06 -0700

Happy Birthday to your lovely She Who Must Be Obeyed, by the way...

But I think you got Miz Clinton's title wrong. It should be She Who Will Be Obeyed, Damnit, Because We Need To Save The Children And I Know Best.

Matt Beland
Systems Administrator
http://www.itool.com

In the words of the immortal Socrates: "I drank what?"

Aloha!

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Aloha Friday - 14 January, 2000

We do live in interesting times. See the MS press statement here about Mr. Bill stepping down from being CEO and becoming the Chairman and "Chief Software Architect." Steve Ballmer is to take his place effective 27 January. I do not know what effect this may have on the Justice Department's rumored demands to break up MS into "mini-Bills." But is sure is interesting timing.

Sierra Club sues Hawai'i Tourism Authority (HTA). The morning paper reports that the Sierra Club sued the HTA on Tuesday for not preparing an environmental assessment relating to the HTA's plan to increase tourism. Up to now, this assessment was a requirement only of construction projects in Hawai'i. Since this case is now before the Hawai'i Supreme Court (and I work for the administration of the court) I can not possibly comment...

It was not to be. The America's Cup yacht Stars and Stripes was eliminated yesterday in light winds off of Auckland, New Zealand. America True (2-8) beat Team Dennis Conner (7-3) by 1 minute, 32 seconds in the last of the semi-finals. Thus, the finals are set to have Italy's Prada versus AmericaOne beginning on the 25th of this month. At this point, Prada is still favored to win the challenger series to meet the current cup holder, New Zealand. If this turns out to be the case, it would be the first time in the cup's history that no US boat is in the finals.

Dr. Martin Luther King's birthday is celebrated on Monday. He is one of my heros and if you haven't read the text of the two speeches I have on this site, please do so here and here. The Hawai'i Democratic Party will be part of the parade going through Waikiki on Monday and I will be walking along with them.

I will leave you with this call to action from the "I have a Dream Speech" given on 28 August, 1963.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning "My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my father's died, land of the Pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring!"

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. So let freedom ring from the hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that, let freedom, ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi and every mountainside.

When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every tenement and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old spiritual, "Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last."

***** Noon Update *****

Slackers Everywhere Unite! When you get around to it. Someday. Until then, congregate around http://www.ishouldbeworking.com/ and waste some time looking at sites dealing with humor, sports, the bizarre, and the useless. They describe themselves as being "...dedicated to slackers, goof-offs, procrastinators, loafers, "long lunchers", and web addicted employees worldwide." You know which you are.

Speaking of the dead, philosphers, that is, here is a link to a bunch of them. For when you are in a philosophical mood.

Finally, my two cents on the TV show "West Wing." There is some back channel discussion on this show and while I have never been in politics at that level, I have a lot of experience at the state level. So. What do I think? I agree that it is well-written and well-acted (except for the President. Puleez. Give me a break. If he were real, he would never have made it to the Presidency. Perhaps their scripts are checked by the White House. See the Salon article here). And the kinds of subjects brought up are relevant and well covered. But, as one Daynoter pointed out. It requires you to think about what is going on. This is the kiss of death for a TV show. I expect it will be gone within a year or two, along with "Sports Night", my current favorite TV show. Probably to be replaced by some mindless game show or WB excrement. As for me, lately I've been watching ESPN2 and the America's Cup competition, which in my time zone, runs at the same time as the "West Wing." Do I recommend watching "West Wing"? Yes, I do because it is in fact the best thing on TV (usually) in its time slot.

PS - I may do a posting on Monday, but if I do, it may be later in the day since the parade is in the morning.

PPS - My 43rd birthday is Sunday. Please make all checks out to cash. Thank You.</KIDDING>

Aloha!