Monthly Archives: April 2006

WordPress Most comments

Here’s the SQL to find which of your WordPress posts have the most comments:

SELECT wp_comments.comment_post_id, count(*) as commentcount, wp_posts.post_title, wp_posts.post_date FROM wp_comments, wp_posts
where wp_comments.comment_post_id = wp_posts.ID
group by wp_comments.comment_post_id, wp_posts.post_title, wp_posts.post_date
order by commentcount desc

Safe surfing for the kiddies

Every parent must wonder when their kids get to computer-using age, about installing monitoring/pr0n-site blocking software. I’ve pondered it myself, but not gone down that road yet, since there’s other methods of avoiding nasties.

What I’ve done with my kids is to set them up with an account each on the computers, and set up their browsers (both IE and Firefox) with Google Safe Search turned on. It will stick if your browser is accepting cookies.

They’ve also been shown how to customise their accounts with their own wallpaper, colours, bookmarks/favourites etc, which is a motivation for them to properly logon as themselves when using the computers. Not that it’s hard with XP; just point at the name/face from the Logon/Switch User screen. (One of the two machines is Win2K, so no Switch User capability, but we survive.)

As an added bonus, their accounts are standard users, not Admin, preventing them downloading and installing software. My account has a password, but theirs don’t (surprised they haven’t objected to that actually).

They’ve been taught not to download programs without permission anyway. Through the school internet policy they know to close any browser window/tell an adult if they see anything “making them uncomfortable”.

And I’ve taken the advice that a wise man once told me: while Net Nanny etc have their uses, nothing beats the kids being educated in what they should and shouldn’t be looking at, and placing the computers in a public, visible part of the house, rather than tucked away in a back room.

Considering graphics tablets

Wacom graphics tabletI’m considering buying a graphics tablet — a Wacom or similar — to stave off any hint of mouse-related RSI. I know I use computers a lot, at work and at home, and recently I have had noticeable wrist pain on occasions. Accordingly my work mouse is now on the left, and my home mouse is on the right, taking advantage of my mouse-ambidexterousnous. (Is that even a word?)

I don’t even know if there are any brands other than Wacom to look at. No others appear to distribute these kinds of products in Australia. (I think I recall Wacom being around in the 80s… they must be doing something right.)

From the looks of it, using the pen/tablet is relatively straightforward, with the only gotcha being that right clicking is marginally more difficult. Left click, double click, drag and drop, all easy. Some of the Wacom packages actually come with a mouse, but I wouldn’t see the point of this; I’d assume I’d keep my old mouse.

They do appear to be primarily aimed at graphics use, which is not my primary concern, though from time to time I do graphics work which would benefit from it. Wacom do have some information on tablets reducing RSI. The smallest size has an A6-sized pad, which on paper provides enough accuracy to handle even big screens.

Two ranges, the Intuos3, which appears to be aimed at professional use, starting at AU$349 ($305 street), or the Graphire4, aimed at domestic use, starting at AU$149 ($139 street). The Intuos does have a number of extra features and better performance.

Will go shopping at some stage and try them out, I think.

I’ve also been told that a few minutes daily squeezing a tennis ball is a good way to help ease any mouse pain. Will try that too. A tennis ball is cheaper than a tablet (though probably less geeky fun).

The disposable diaper and the meaning of progress

Is the disposable diaper the industrial equivalent of the Intergrated circuit?

Modern nappies can hold two cups of fluid without wetting the wearer. And they’re both thinner and more effective than the original nappies – because doing so made manufacturing, distribution and stocking cheaper.

Myself, I think that they quality and reliability of disposables is astonishing for what they’re expected to do.

The rise and fall of Commodore

“On The Edge: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore” tells the oft-missed-by-the-geek-historians story of Commodore. The web site has some free chapters, including one describing the creation of the Commodore 64:

If you’ve ever wondered why the C64 has the same case as the VIC-20, it’s because we didn’t have any time to tool anything up. We just put it in a VIC-20 case and spray painted it. Everything about the Commodore 64 is the way it is because of just an unbelievably tight time constraint on the product.

Making programmers productive

Oh God, yes! Joel Spolsky on what makes a programmer the most productive:

A programmer is most productive with a quiet private office, a great computer, unlimited beverages, an ambient temperature between 68 and 72 degrees (F), no glare on the screen, a chair that’s so comfortable you don’t feel it, an administrator that brings them their mail and orders manuals and books, a system administrator who makes the Internet as available as oxygen, a tester to find the bugs they just can’t see, a graphic designer to make their screens beautiful, a team of marketing people to make the masses want their products, a team of sales people to make sure the masses can get these products, some patient tech support saints who help customers get the product working and help the programmers understand what problems are generating the tech support calls, and about a dozen other support and administrative functions which, in a typical company, add up to about 80% of the payroll. It is not a coincidence that the Roman army had a ratio of four servants for every soldier. This was not decadence. Modern armies probably run 7:1. (Here’s something Pradeep Singh taught me today: if only 20% of your staff is programmers, and you can save 50% on salary by outsourcing programmers to India, well, how much of a competitive advantage are you really going to get out of that 10% savings?)

For myself, it’s silence that’s missing from my workplace. Ringing phones, the printer, the guy with the loud sneezes… all of these conspire to slow down my day, with music via headphones helping to minimise it.

Outages and response times

Cam ponders web hosting SLAs and wonders what’s reasonable. For his hosting, they guarantee 99.99% uptime, which works out to 52 minutes per year. (His outage was about 9 hours, or about ten years’ worth).

Bad stuff happens. We all know that. Even if it’s the most reliable setup ever. But there’s some major factors in determining what’s acceptable:

Frequency — If it’s happening too regularly, then there’s a reliability problem. They need better hardware, better software, whatever it is, needs to be fixed. Cam reckons it’s the second time in a few months.

Response — Obviously, you want a quick response, and a quick (and reliable) solution. There’s also sorts of monitoring tools out there these days. Typically anything like a full outage should be known about within minutes. A reputable web host will have substitute hardware ready to switch-on and go just as soon as that nice recent backup is restored.

Communications — Any third party like this has to keep the customer informed. There’s no excuse for not doing so. SMS alarms, emails, phone calls, whatever. (I wrote about alarms recently for my work blog.)

BTW, Cam’s also having troubles with his iPod… or more accurately, Apple’s 90 day warranty on replacement units.

I reckon he’s jinxed, myself.

AI Software forcing newspapers to be clearer and more relevant

The New York Times explains that journalists are now having to make their articles clearer and more relevant to gain search engine recognition, while subeditors are having to do the same thing to headlines.

I suspect that the Herald Sun’s trick of interposing an unrelated photo and a provocative headline (e.g. “Child molester caught” next to a photo of the PM) will eventually be affected by this.

Piracy Is Good?

Mark Pesce delivered a presentation, “Piracy Is Good?“, on May 6th, 2005 at the Australian Film Television and Radio School in Sydney. In it, he asserted that bittorrents exhibit demand-driven bandwidth supply, and are thus a better utilization of bandwidth than terrestial television broadcasting. Which is an apples and oranges comparison. But that’s where the title came from.

He then goes on to note that viewers are shunning broadcast television in preference for web-acquired content. He attributes this to the advertising, as I have done in the past. He asserts that Watermarks – or bugs – in visual entertainment are going to become more ubiquitous, inserted as advertising at production time (so, instead of the Channel9 logo in the righthand bottom corner, you’ll see… Nike). I predict someone will become annoyed enough to invent a watermark remover. Oh look, they already have.

So Mark Pesce is wrong. The advertising is going to have to be more subtle and harder to remove. But initially it’s going to be less subtle – animated, say – to annoy the simple-minded watermark removal programs.

Technology will march on, and auto-adapting watermark removers will be developed, and then you’re looking at product placement. I wonder how that will work with sci-fi programs? “Worf, take us to warp factor nine. We have to get to Chase Manhatten Bank to do a funds transfer; I prefer their friendly service and forward-looking technology.” Perhaps we’re looking at the death of sci fi? And historical dramas? And documentaries aren’t looking too hot either. Neighbours should be fine. Perhaps merchandising will be how shows make their production budget.

An observer has noted that the order of release of content is becoming arranged by profitability – so you’ll see more TV shows released on DVD, then broadcast when sales drop off. The world’s gone all topsy-turvy.