Whew - save the servers!

Grok Headline matches for Whew - save the servers!

whew

whew 02/16/2004 09:33 PM

Well, the server is back up and I've got a backlog of stuff I wanted to post about the last few days but I'm having trouble remembering it all.

The weirdest part was that I missed this site most of all. I kept kicking myself for not having a place to jot an idea down, or remind myself to look something up later.

Whew!

Whew! 04/26/2004 03:19 AM
You might just be seeing a little more of me (I'm afraid ;-) in the coming days and weeks. I emerged only today from the veritable cave in which I've dwelt for the past couple-three months. Between editing, writing, and various other projects, I've been more snowed under than I'd ever considered possible. But here I am, batteries about 1/3 charged, knowing just how much juice I have in me--you just have let them drain sometimes to remember where reserve lies.

My good pal Duncan and I just put Mac OS X Panther Hacks (nee More Mac OS X Hacks) to bed (read: sent it to production). We pulled together some fabulous hacks, a wonderful band of contributors, and managed to have a modicum of fun along the way. (I'm still not so sure about his taste in music, though ;-)

We've also just put out a stack of new Hacks books (Excel Hacks, Windows Server Hacks, and Network Security Hacks) and have more on the way (Online Investing Hacks, Flash Hacks, BSD Hacks, IRC Hacks, and Digital Photography Hacks--our first in 4-colour). I also put some writing into Google: The Missing Manual. I did say we've been busy!

All my thanks to my family, friends, O'Reilly extended family, and virtual peeps for being OK about seeing me disappear from sight and iSight for a while there and still thinking to pop in every now and again to check in.

Save time, save effort, save money

Save time, save effort, save money 05/28/2004 04:57 PM
CNET Asia May 28 2004 9:16PM GMT

Whew: HTML View/Source Not in Jeopardy

Whew: HTML View/Source Not in Jeopardy 08/27/2004 01:27 PM
Brendan Eich offers welcome reassurances in a posting entitled "Ev eryone remain calm" -- an explanation of the (thankfully) short-lived idea to remove the ability to view the HTML source code of a Mozilla-based Web page. He says, in part:

Throughout the explosive growth of the web, View / Source has played a crucial role, hard to appreciate if you dumb down your user model based on myopic hindsight and a static analysis of the majority cohort of "end users". Anyway, I wanted to reassure everyone, from our top Gecko hackers to interested web developers to enthusiastic surfers, that Firefox is not about to implode into a bare-bones, ultra-minimalist browser that those important hackers, et al., can't use. Firefox cannot be "all things to all people" without at least some people having to configure an extension or two, but the default features should support the crucial user bases.

(Via Dave Winer)

MIB MP-308 In-Car Cigarette Light USB
Flash Drive FM Transmitter (Whew!)

MIB MP-308 In-Car Cigarette Light USB
Flash Drive FM Transmitter (Whew!) 07/30/2004 09:56 AM

I sent the intern out for ice, and he decided to go to college. Fortunately, he goofs off in class, too, and found me this really swank in-car cigarette-lighter USB flash drive MP3 adapter thingy. The idea is this: you plug in the MP-308 to your lighter, for power. You plug your USB flash drive (up to 1GB) into the MP-308 for data. You press play, and the device broadcasts your MP3s via FM transmitter to your stereo via one of seven selectable stations. I love it; it's brilliant, if a little pricy -- somewhere in the $120 range -- but it would be perfect for someone with a surfeit of flash drives already.

Read - Product Page (Japanese) [MIBJP via Watch.I mpress]

America's Man in the White House
Continues to Lie Like a Thief and Our
Soldiers Continue to Die: When Will the
Spoiled, Lying, Rich Kid Be Held
Accountable? Save the Nation. Save Our
Soldiers. Impeach and Prosecute Bush and
Cheney for High Crimes

America's Man in the White House
Continues to Lie Like a Thief and Our
Soldiers Continue to Die: When Will the
Spoiled, Lying, Rich Kid Be Held
Accountable? Save the Nation. Save Our
Soldiers. Impeach and Prosecute Bush and
Cheney for High Crimes 11/02/2003 06:30 AM

story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&e=1&u=/ap/20031101/ap_ on_re_mi_ea/iraq
track this site | 3 links

Inter-Way Networks announces migration
to Hosting Controller. As part of the
agreement, Inter-Way will deploy Hosting
Controller on 400 existing servers and
offer Windows servers pre installed with
the product.

Inter-Way Networks announces migration
to Hosting Controller. As part of the
agreement, Inter-Way will deploy Hosting
Controller on 400 existing servers and
offer Windows servers pre installed with
the product. 08/05/2004 03:40 AM
Inter-Way Networks, a prominent provider of dedicated hosting and collocation services in Latin America, deploys Hosting Controller (hostingcontroller.com), the company announced on Wednesday. As part of the agreement, Inter-Way will offer Windows servers pre installed with Hosting Controller and it will also deploy the products on 400 existing hosting servers. [PRWEB Aug 5, 2004]

How to save the FCC

How to save the FCC 06/22/2004 09:06 AM
ZDNet Jun 22 2004 1:19PM GMT

Mac Tip: Save as PDF

Mac Tip: Save as PDF 07/16/2004 06:47 PM
G4 Tech TV Jul 16 2004 11:06PM GMT

Save the HST!

Save the HST! 07/16/2004 01:43 AM
Usatoday.com - Wed Jul 14, 08:58 am GMT

Save us all

Save us all 10/28/2003 11:09 PM
This is a somewhat onimous commercial clip of our governor-elect. Is this what the future brings? Oh, and this one...

How Much Should You Save?

How Much Should You Save? 01/23/2004 04:14 PM
Depends if you're single, scared, or have a significant other.

How to save the FCC?

How to save the FCC? 06/22/2004 09:06 AM
ZDNet Jun 22 2004 1:27PM GMT

Do You Want to Save Your Changes?

Do You Want to Save Your Changes? 06/18/2004 02:44 PM

Web apps are great, but they have interface problems. A Web-based interface is just never going to be as rich as a traditional client-server app. Spolsky alluded to this in a post I made yesterday. HTML can really go just so far before you run into limitations. Here's a big one:

That's a pretty common dialogue box, but very hard to do on the Web. Picture this:

Joe User has just spent 20 minutes in the article editing interface of your Web-based content management app. He's worked over this article until it's just perfect, laboring intensively over every word. Then he accidentally hits Refresh and it's all gone. Joe is not happy.

That's the problem with Web forms — there's no real way to stop the user from screwing themselves this way.

After they start work on the form content, they can (1) click a link and navigate away from the page, (2) press the Reset button on the form (never put these on your forms — think about it: when was the last time you used one), (3) close the browser, (4) refresh the page, etc. There's any number of things they can do to wipe out their form data, and it's very hard to stop them. I know this because I tried...

I set out this morning to try and minimize these risks in an app I'm developing. I come away from this process pretty convinced that it's not practical. Here's what I tried to do:

In my page, I bound a JavaScript function to the unload event:

window.onunload = warn_if_form_dirty;

This means the "warn_if_form_dirty" function will run whenever the current page leaves the browser window for any reason. Note that you can't stop the event — the page is leaving no matter what, but you can do a few things before it goes. (If you could actually stop the page from unloading, then pop-up advertisers would have a field day with it.)

I also set two variables:

form_dirty = false;
warn_onunload = true;

The first variable indicates whether or not the form data is "dirty" — whether it's been changed since they loaded the page. The second variable indicates whether or not we should warn them that they're going to lose their data. When should we NOT warn them? When they submit the form. Remember that the unload event fires whenever the page unloads, even if it's because they submit, in which case they WANT it to unload.

I added this to all my form fields:

onchange="form_dirty=true;"

So whenever a form field changes, the "dirty" switch is flipped. And I added this to my FORM tag:

onsubmit="warn_onunload=false;"

Because, remember, if they submit the form, I don't want to warn them. In this case the unload event is fine.

Then I wrote the actual function that will run when they attempt to navigate away from the page while the form is dirty:

function warn_if_form_dirty()
{
if(warn_onunload == true && form_dirty == true)
{
alert('WARNING: You have chosen to navigate away from this page.  You have UNSAVED CHANGES in this form.  If you want to save these changes, click the Back button on your browser to return to your changes and press the "Save" button.');
}
}

So, the system works something like this:

1. User loads the page and starts working. "form_dirty" is false, because no changes have been made. "warn_onunload" is true because we want to warn them.


2. User changes some form data. When this happens "form_dirty" is now true because they have done some work and are at risk of losing it.


3. User accidentally hits the Refresh button (stupid user...). The onunload event fires, the "warn_if_form_dirty" function runs. It finds that both "form_dirty" and "warn_onunload" are true, so it pops the warning.

The warning, for its part, basically says, "you may have screwed up, and here's how to fix it if you want." Remember that I can't stop the event. It would be nice if I could, but the potential for abuse is huge, so you can't. All I can do is tell them what they did, and how to fix it.

The problem: the advice isn't always true.

It would be nice if you could always hit Back and get back to your data, but this turned out to be a lie. I tried it on a number of machines here in the office, and whether or not this is true depends on the browser and on the cache settings.

It seemed to work on Mozilla and Firefox all the time, but IE was fussy. For some people it worked, but for others, IE pulled the page fresh every time. It didn't work more often than it did.

So I come away from his experiment thinking that fighting this scenario is a losing battle. If you're on an intranet, and everyone is using IE with loose security, you could conceivably do some ActiveX mojo to head it off, but that isn't an option for me.

A possible solution: browser developers should build this functionality into the browser. They should detect whenever a user (not script) has changed form data and warn the user if they try to unload the page. Let the user choose to continue or cancel the unload.

If anyone else has thoughts on theories on this subject, I'd love to hear them.

Click here to comment on this entry

Save Betamax

Save Betamax 09/13/2004 06:44 AM
Save Betamax.

Save My Screen

Save My Screen 11/05/2003 03:36 PM
I've been working on the Panther update for FruitMenu, and was planning to add an option to invoke a screen...

How to Save Web Accessibility from
Itself

How to Save Web Accessibility from
Itself 01/07/2004 07:09 PM
An upcoming revision to the Web Accessibility Guidelines is in danger of becoming unrealistically divorced from real-world web development, yielding guidelines that are at once too vague and too specific. Your expertise and input can help create realistic guidelines that work.

Save More Now, Play Much More Later

Save More Now, Play Much More Later 01/28/2004 06:39 PM
If you socked away an additional $100 a month, how much would your retirement improve?

Save on .Mac Renewals

Save on .Mac Renewals 10/07/2004 04:11 PM

Save Disney

Save Disney 12/11/2003 06:11 PM
Save Disney - in a followup to a previous and informative and link-filled MeFi post, a friend sent me a link to savedisney.com today which has three interesting documents: Roy Disney's resignation letter, Stanley Gold's resignation letter, and a letter from Roy Disney to all cast members. There's also links to email and show support, as well as links to all sorts of related informational sites. Is this ingenius guerilla PR from upset employees, or is there something deeper here?

RE: [ISN] How To Save The Internet

RE: [ISN] How To Save The Internet 03/22/2005 05:13 PM
David Gillett (Mar 22 2005)

Will VoIP Save AT&T?

Will VoIP Save AT&T? 12/11/2003 01:13 PM
SiliconValley.Internet.com Dec 11 2003 12:36PM ET

Save 30% on Schedule-It 1.0

Save 30% on Schedule-It 1.0 03/22/2005 05:05 PM
Acutus Trading today announced that Schedule-It, desktop automation software for Mac OS X, has been reduced in price by 30%. Schedule-It is immediately available for US $6.79, reduced from US $8.89.

Schedule-It is a small desktop application that automates the way you use your Mac. Automatically open documents, launch applications, play iTunes playlists and set alarms using an easy-to-set schedule. Easily set multiple events for weekdays, weekends, individual days or any combination thereof. Schedule-It is available for download and evaluation prior to purchasing. Activation codes are available from the Kagi Store.

"Save the Children"

"Save the Children" 01/01/2005 10:39 AM

save your posts? why not

save your posts? why not 03/17/2005 03:20 AM
the simplest ideas are usually the best ones. Its easy to forget that the internet is a relatively new medium. Whats the bet that in the future that we will all be wishing that we still had all of our content that we contributed to "cyberspace" such as reviews, comments, posts... Who knows if 10 - 15 years from now, if the sites we post on will still be up, even stable sites such as MetaFilter may not exist in the future. sites have shut down before, taking everyones content with it. Its a simple idea, why not just store your content, be it on your desktop or a web application? So who wants to start a MeFi label over at bulletin board buddy.

Auto save, anyone?

Auto save, anyone? 03/14/2005 05:38 PM
I feel Adam's pain! The TEXTAREA does generally suck. Maybe someone will come up with a great ajax application for...

"Save the Children UK"

"Save the Children UK" 01/04/2005 05:59 PM

Save a life

Save a life 12/30/2004 02:28 PM
Help earthquake and tsunami survivors who need medical attention, shelter, food, and safe drinking water.

Save Money on Gas

Save Money on Gas 06/02/2004 08:23 AM
There are painless ways to keep gas costs under control.

Will porn save 3G?

Will porn save 3G? 05/05/2004 08:10 AM

Will porn save 3G? Vodaphone seems to think so.

International Herald Tribune - Pornographers to ring up more profit

Antoin doesn't think so. I agree with his analysis.

Have sex, save the planet

Have sex, save the planet 05/04/2004 05:05 AM
Rainforest needs you - so get naked

Save Our Sandcrawler

Save Our Sandcrawler 04/29/2004 01:49 AM
Disappointed by Target’s cancellation of the Jawa Sandcrawler? Frustrated that this long awaited treasure seems to be slipping through our fingers like so much Tatooine sand? Looking for a way to tell a would be buyer how much you want this toy, and perhaps help turn the tide? Have I got the forum thread for you...

Save TV From/With Broadband

Save TV From/With Broadband 06/08/2004 03:49 PM
A recent survey in Europe has suggested that the rise of broadband use is causing people to watch less TV. And if the trend continues, TV networks will probably have to adapt by using broadband connections to make TV more engaging to audiences. The ground has already been broken with people voting for contestants in reality shows like American Idol. So it's just a matter of making TV even more interactive, and incorporating the creative use of digital communication (email, IM, video capture, etc) is just around the corner.

How to Save for College

How to Save for College 04/22/2004 02:54 PM
College is expensive, no doubt about it -- but you can afford it.

SAVE THE DATE!

SAVE THE DATE! 07/11/2004 01:48 PM
Creative Commons will be hosting a book party to celebrate Dan Gillmor's new book, We the Media, which (the good) O'Reilly is publishing, and which will also be available under a Creative Commons license. The date is July 30, in the evening. More details soon. Creative Commons will be hosting a book party to celebrate Dan Gillmor's new book, We the Media, which (the good) O'Reilly is publishing, and which will also be available under a Creative Commons license. (They never got around to having a book party for my book. Oh well. They're busy.) The date is July 30, in the evening. More details soon.

In Debt? Save Yourself!

In Debt? Save Yourself! 07/19/2004 09:31 AM
AmeriDebt's bankruptcy filing is a reminder that we are often our own most able saviors.

SOS for IT Jobs? Save Yourself With SOA

SOS for IT Jobs? Save Yourself With SOA 04/09/2004 04:06 PM
Internet News Apr 9 2004 8:20PM GMT

save me some headache

save me some headache 03/06/2004 02:09 AM
Who can save me some headache and tell me what I'm doing wrong here? I have the following code: <a...

Save Your Portfolio

Save Your Portfolio 08/11/2004 12:08 PM
Tired of watching your portfolio twist in the wind? Tom Gardner has another way.
Grok Description matches for Whew - save the servers!
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Whew - save the servers!

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