Towse: views from the hill » webstuff

Bing

Towse — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 19:26:00 +0000

Have you played with Bing yet?

Go on. You know you want to!

http://www.bing.com/search?q=writers+guidelines

Run your mouse along the right edge to pull up a synopsis of the page featured. Browse through the related links.

Have fun.

Tuesday Flower and Plant Market in La Grand’Place, Brussels

Towse — Tue, 05 May 2009 07:11:00 +0000

The Web cam at La Grand’Place, Brussels has been a favorite since I found it years and years and years ago.

These days the camera only shoots from one end of the plaza (instead of two, when I first found it) and you can only view it (or =I= can only view it) with IE.

Luckily, I have a little app with my Firefox that swaps back and forth between FF and IE. I use that app to be a voyeur on the La Grand’Place.

Right now it’s a bit after midnight in San Francisco.

It’s drizzly in Brussels. I’m watching the setup for the Tuesday Flower and Plant Market in La Grand’Place.

Such a voyeur I be. Come watch with me.

Web design tip for businesses, especially restaurants

Towse — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 22:36:00 +0000

Having a city name on the home page is a good idea.

Having the restaurant address is even better.

Chez Papa Resto‘s Web page doesn’t cough up the address unless you drill down to the “Contact” page.

Address: 4 Mint Plaza San Francisco, CA 94103
Phone: (415) 546 4134
Fax: (415) 546 4128

Internet-resources.com Estimated Net Worth $10,614.20 USD

Towse — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 01:34:00 +0000

Someone dropped me a line today, asking to buy internet-resources.com and its content for something more than $1K and less than $2K.

Coinkadinkly, just now on Facebook I found an ad telling me they could tell me what my blog or Website was worth. Well, why not?

Internet-resources.com Estimated Net Worth $10,614.20 USD

Woo hoo.

How WebValuer got its numbers is anyone’s guess. SiteMeter puts my pageviews and visitors a stretch higher than WebValuer has them. There’s no ad revenue, even though WV estimates $3.84 – 9.60.* No ads, so no ad revenue.

Domains linking (est) 13,685.

Really?

Entertaining for five minutes or so. I need to get back to the guy who was offering cash for the content. (Serious? A scam? A hoax? … No, thanks.)

* His nibs said, “$3-$9/day? That could add up over the long run. …”

Airbrushing History — American Style and the Internet Archives (Thanks! Brewster Kahle!)

Towse — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 18:44:00 +0000

Airbrushing History — American Style by Scott Althaus and Kalev Leetaru. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

AIRBRUSHING HISTORY, AMERICAN STYLE

Legacies are in the air as President Bush prepares to leave the White House. How future historians will judge the president remains to be seen, but one thing is certain: future historians won’t have all the facts needed to make that judgment. One legacy at risk of being forgotten is the way the Bush White House has quietly deleted or modified key documents in the public record that are maintained under its direct control.

Remember the “Coalition of the Willing” that sided with the United States during the 2003 invasion of Iraq? If you search the White House web site today you’ll find a press release dated March 27, 2003 listing 49 countries forming the coalition. A key piece of evidence in the historical record, but also a troubling one. It is an impostor.

And although there were only 45 coalition members on the eve of the Iraq invasion, later deletions and revisions to key documents make it seem that there were always 49.

The Bush White House seems to have systematically airbrushed parts of the official record regarding its own history. How extensively White House documents have been rewritten is anyone’s guess, but in the case of the coalition list, the evidence is clear that extensive revision of the historical record has occurred.

[...]

I remember reading about this a few weeks ago (end of November) and I thought, hm. interesting, but, this isn’t the first time this has happened.

There was a fairly well-documented instance back when Enron was crashing, where the bio for the Honorable Thomas E. White, Secretary of
the Army, was revised to elide a couple paragraphs about all the wonderful things he had done at Enron to “From 1990 to 2001, Mr. White was employed by Enron Corporation and held various senior executive positions.”

Seems folks would learn that you can’t change history in these days of archives without someone poking around and finding out, but … no.

As always, these little glimmers of change are brought to you thanks to Brewster Kahle, whose Internet Archive not only stashes away the original of versions later changed, but also offers up such gems as

The Grateful Dead Live at Winterland 17 Jun 1975

Warren Zevon Live at The Main Point 20 Jun 1976

Betty Boop Betty Boop for President — 1932

India Travel film, India (c1930)

San Francisco San Francisco (1939) from the Prelinger Archives

Wordle

Towse — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 05:40:00 +0000

Learned about Wordle via cygnoir. Played with it with my Delicious bookmarks as the resource.

Saved the Java applet results with CutePDF Writer, then pulled the PDF into Photoshop, messed with it and saved it as a .jpg.

Voilà!

So, a bit early, but heartfelt, nonetheless:

Admire the new favicon up in the address bar

Towse — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 23:40:00 +0000

Take a moment to admire the new hill-related favicon up in the address bar.

FYI. "The Comcast Newsgroups service has been discontinued."

Towse — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 17:54:00 +0000

FYI.

“The Comcast Newsgroups service has been discontinued. We apologize for any inconvenience. If you have already signed up for Comcast Newsgroups, please be aware that this service will be discontinued on 10/25/2008.”

A list of links to Public news servers

And (for a price!) by-golly! Giganews (which had been providing Usenet services for Comcast) will provide service for you too!

MoJo Photo Blog: Aryan Outfitters

Towse — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 05:38:00 +0000

MoJo Photo Blog: Aryan Outfitters: “Coming from five generations of Ku Klux Klan members, 58-year-old ‘Ms. Ruth’ sews hoods and robes for Klan members seven days a week, blessing each one when it’s done.”

The Web is a wonder.

Another Google Chrome Security Flaw Identified

Towse — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 19:53:00 +0000

Another Google Chrome Security Flaw Identified: “critical buffer-overflow”

For Pete’s sake. We were talking about this just last weekend when the Bixby Creek gang got together at Donner Lake for the long weekend.

The question then was, “Why don’t the software engineers at Microsoft check for buffer overflows when they’re designing their software? Especially now when they should be overly aware that they have an ongoing problem?” Followed by, “Why don’t the QA mavens at Microsoft check to make sure the software engineers have checked for buffer overflows?”

For. Pete’s. Sake. People. Microsoft. Google. Anyone writing code.

This is a known issue with known solutions.

Sheesh.