Alex Jones: Web Technologist, Barbecue Acolyte, Information Junkie, Austinite

Giving Purpose to Old Flash Memory Cards

On the Refresh Austin mailing list, Paul asked a really good question - what to do with old Flash Memory cards that are small compared to today’s needs. Often these are just thrown in a drawer, box or backpack and forgotten about, but Paul wanted to find a use for them instead of letting them go to waste.

Mark recommended buying some cheap adapters and turning them into thumb drives, which you can then keep in various locations like the office and home for those “just in case” moments. That’s a damn useful idea in my book.

Something else to think about are digital picture frames. Most models come with the ability to extend their built-in memory via SD or CF, so they can be very useful for quite a long while.

Any other ideas out there?

Posted in General, Technology

End of the Line for Netscape

AOL’s focus on transitioning to an ad-supported web business leaves little room for the size of investment needed to get the Netscape browser to a point many of its fans expect it to be. Given AOL’s current business focus and the success the Mozilla Foundation has had in developing critically-acclaimed products, we feel it’s the right time to end development of Netscape branded browsers, hand the reins fully to Mozilla and encourage Netscape users to adopt Firefox.

End of Support for Netscape web browsers - The Netscape Blog

In many ways, it’s surprising that Netscape survived until 2008. It fought giants both internal (AOL) and external (Microsoft) for much of its existence, and what few battles it won were too small and too late in the game to matter.

But, there was a time when I truly loved the browser. I stopped my ears so I wouldn’t have to hear those who would point out its (many) flaws, which only grew more numerous as time passed. I groaned when it was acquired by AOL, but in my heart of hearts, I truly hoped that Netscape would transform AOL instead of AOL crushing the browser. It didn’t take too long for reality to set in, and for the bastardization to commence. I am thankful that the Mozilla Foundation manged to escape, and hope that the upcoming release of Firefox 3 will reignite the joy I had when I first saw Netscape; but that is another post.

I wish Netscape a healthy rest, and think of it fondly in the future, if, for no other reason than the fact that it was instrumental in spreading so much knowledge and entertainment and launching so many careers, including mine.

Posted in Web Development & Tagged: browsers, netscape

Your Billion Dollar President

It’s estimated that the 2008 presidential election process will exceed $1,000,000,000 when all is tallied up. NPR has a new set of specials “crunching the numbers with you over the next few months on public radio and on this website.” The specials, and the daily morning shows, which will start in early ‘08 are “designed for an audience interested in real dialogue, up-to-the-minute news, global perspectives and engaging conversation on and off the air. I really enjoy the clips asking folks of all ages (including children) and levels of expertise (normal citizens and political scientists) how they would redesign the election process.

Posted in Law & Government & Tagged: government, politics

Recent Links: December 17 to December 20

Posted in Quick Links

Recent Links: December 14 to December 17

Posted in Quick Links

Recent Links: December 11 to December 14

Posted in Quick Links

Absinthe Returns

After the first glass, you see things as you wish they were. After the second, you see things as they are not. Finally you see things as they really are, which is the most horrible thing in the world.

Oscar Wilde
Absinthe, the mysterious green liquid of lore and mystique can be distilled and served once more in the U.S.

Posted in Food & Drink & Tagged: alcohol, drinks

Recent Links: December 08 to December 11

Posted in Quick Links

Fixing the WordPress Theme Reset Problem

As I posted in the WordPress forums I’ve run into an odd problem - WordPress occasionally resets my theme to the default version, which is annoying to say the least. After a lot of digging, I learned that the likely culprit is a bit of code in WP meant to protect the user from bad themes, but which has had the opposite effect for me and many other users. Luckily, others have already reported the bug and filed a patch, but the fix won’t be released until the next version of WordPress (2.4), which is slated for late January.

So, I decided to go out on a limb and make the change in my local version with the expectation that the file will be overwritten when I upgrade to the latest and greatest. So, I modified one line as indicated in Changeset 6325, commenting out line 269 of wp-settings.php, which contained validate_current_theme();.

I’m not positive that this will fix the issue, but all of the signs point in the right direction. As the fix is simple, and has been made to 2.4, I feel relatively confident that it is a safe move on my part. I’ll keep an eye on my site and post updates as needed.

Many thanks go out to the great folks constantly improving WordPress!

Update: Well, that theory didn’t last too long. When I hit the site this morning my theme had reset. Grrr.

Posted in PHP & MySQL, WordPress & Tagged: php, themes, WordPress

Recent Links: December 05 to December 08

Posted in Quick Links