Quick and Dirty Blog

Grok Headline matches for Quick and Dirty Blog

Quick and dirty typesetting with APT

Quick and dirty typesetting with APT 04/28/2004 04:33 AM
If you need a markup language to create nicely formatted documents, Linux has plenty of them to choose from -- DocBook, TeX and LaTeX, Lout, the roff family, and of course (X)HTML and XML. So do we really need another? I didn't think so, until I ran across Almost Plain Text (APT), a simple system for marking up text in which most of the formatting is done using indentation and ordinary keyboard characters. Using APT's command-line formatting engine, you can output APT documents to PostScript, PDF, LaTeX, and HTML.

A quick and dirty CSS hack: PNG
backgrounds

A quick and dirty CSS hack: PNG
backgrounds 04/09/2004 04:04 PM
With the expanding support for PNG in modern browsers, Internet Explorer's lack of support has become increasingly frustrating. Here is a way to try to bypass its limitation without javascript: PNG for recent browsers, GIF for the others.

Building A Quick-And-Dirty Guestbook
With patGuestbook (part 1)

Building A Quick-And-Dirty Guestbook
With patGuestbook (part 1) 03/11/2003 01:23 AM
Want to plug into what your site visitors actually think? All you need is a little time, a dollop of imagination and a copy of patGuestbook. More, inside.

Building A Quick-And-Dirty Guestbook
With patGuestbook (part 2)

Building A Quick-And-Dirty Guestbook
With patGuestbook (part 2) 03/11/2003 04:11 PM
In this concluding article of our two-part series on rapid guestbook implementation with patGuestbook, find out how to tweak patGuestbook a litle more by controlling the viewable entries, customizing the user interface, and protecting access to the administration module.

Quick-'n-Dirty methods to determine
which competing label is better: "Cell
Phone" or "Mobile Phone"?

Quick-'n-Dirty methods to determine
which competing label is better: "Cell
Phone" or "Mobile Phone"? 04/28/2004 11:39 AM

On the SIGIA-L mailing list, Stephanie Berger recently asked: "My cohorts are not sure whether to use "cell phone" or "mobile phone". Any evidence that one is better than the other, or one is used more often than the other?"

This is a good example of the kind of labeling questions information architects face all the time. The answer to these labeling questions will depend on the target audience (a better label for whom?), on business requirements (maybe the business want to promote one term over the other) and on the context in which the label will be used.

I'll discuss the conversation that followed here and afterwards point to some useful tools for if you have a labeling question yourself.

Andres Sulleiro: "Without any empirical data I will go with my own opinion. [...] A quick survey of the phone carriers seems to suggest that "wireless" (as in "wireless phone", "wireless customer") is most common among US carriers, though you see some references to "mobile" as well. T-mobile, a European company, uses "mobile" which is more common in Europe as well as being the name of the carrier."

Method: check what other websites call it.

Jason Cho: "I think "cell" is more widespread in the US as Andrés noted. "Call my mobile" can sound pretentious to Yankee ears. But I would think everyone understands the term "mobile" on a business card."

Method: personal experience.

Peter Van Dijck (and others): "Google for "cell phone" (including quotes): 6,230,000, Google for "mobile phone": 6,360,000. Looks like a tie, assuming your audience is similar. Just pick one and make sure your search engine knows both terms."
Christina Wodtke: "Y ahoo for cell phone : 16,800,000, yahoo for mobile phone: 21,200,000. What does this really tell you? you'd have to know who each engine indexes, how much of the web, etc.. better to use a magic 8 ball. ;-)"

Method: check popularity of the terms on the web.

Peter Van Dijck: "My next step would be to find out what people search for on your site,
or if not available, on the web (assuming that's more or less your audience). Google adwords can help."

Method: Find out what people (preferably your target audience) search for.

Dave: "I like "mobile" for the reason that Christina stated (forward compatibility); USers and non-USers will equally understand it. Also, it is more interoperable w/ most of the vCard based addressbook programs out there. I don't know any that are using "cell" or "cellphone" ... I also like the clear and easy two word approach of "mobile phone" ... I'm always wanting to say "cellphone" where "cell phone" is really the more correct version. "cell" though just doesn't feel like a real word b/c the "cell" doesn't fit a meaning to me. I know what it means if I am forced to think about it, but it really doesn't mean anything to me at all."

Method: personal experience, check what software programs use.

Christina Wodtke: "> As can Ove rture's keyword tool (couldn't find URL straight away).

You also might consider some adaptation of the freelisting technique on a subset of your target. E.G., a write in survey: what portable electronics do you own, then analyze for use of "cell phone" and mobile phone".

Method: freelisting technique.

Eric Reiss: "Having worked closely with several telecommunications companies, including Tellabs (US), Nortel (Canada), ADVA (Germany), and NetTest (Denmark), this discussion is one I've heard before. Europeans generally don't recognize the term "cell phone." North Americans seem to accept both "cell" and "mobile." ATT insists on promoting the term "wireless." In most instances, we've agreed on the word "mobile" since it is understood by the widest audience. Nortel, for instance, used "cell" almost exclusively until the late 90s, but now leans toward "mobile." I think there is a trend here."

Method: ask the subject matter experts.

Pabini Gabriel-Petit: "There's also Wordtracker.
[...]
In this vein, you might try just walking up to people, holding up your cell/mobile phone, and asking them what they call it."

Method: Analyze what people search for.

Method: Find out what labels your users use.

Quick-'n-Dirty methods to determine which competing label is better.

So, as a review, here are some of the methods used to determine which label is better.

1. What do you think?
Method: personal experience/insights.

2. What do your users think?
Method: freelisting technique.
Method: Find out what labels your users use: show them the item you're trying to label and ask them what it is. (You could build an online tool for this).
Method: Find out what people (preferably your target audience) search for / check popularity of the terms on the web. Ove rture's keyword tool. Google adwords. Wordtracker. Google and Yahoo both list how often a term is used on the web (use quotes around your terms!).

3. What do the experts think?
Method: ask the subject matter experts.
Method: check what other websites/software call it.

Gotcha's: be careful when using these techniques. You are looking for a label that works for your audience and your business requirements. Most of these techniques use audiences that may be very different from yours, and most are indicative only (ie: they're not hard science). Use your judgement.

Contractor served troops dirty food in
dirty kitchens

Contractor served troops dirty food in
dirty kitchens 12/14/2003 08:37 PM
Contractor Halliburton served troops dirty food in dirty kitchens Well, Bush served up clean turkey and these guys were busy overcharging the Pentagon on energy so they could reap big bucks...Cheney remains in his gopher hole.

New Kevin Sites dispatch from Iraq:
Dirty for Dirty

New Kevin Sites dispatch from Iraq:
Dirty for Dirty 06/01/2004 02:09 PM
NBC combat correspondent and weblogger Kevin Sites is in Iraq today. He's just posted a new entry on his blog -- a series of interviews with American soldiers.

[O]nce they finally do get home--they will still be faced with the complex task of finding their way in a civilian society again. And while they're eager to leave their weapons and Kevlar behind, the violence they've experienced here will likely be with them in one way or another, always.

Derek Ellyson says his memories have already hardened, fixed in his mind. "You never forget the faces. I can describe to you every dead person I've seen out here. What their faces looked like, the position they were laying in." Sorokin agrees, "War brings a lot of ugly things, you see a lot of ugly things you see other people dead and sometimes when you see somebody dead you see the face of death--the way the guy died. It could be an enemy it could be an ally it doesn't matter."

Yet living with those images of death is part of the job--the same one that requires them to pull the trigger. Before going to war soldiers have always had to ask themselves if they'd be willing to die for their cause. But there is a second part to that question which for some, is more difficult to answer: would they kill for it? For most if not all in the 3rd Platoon--the question is already moot.

Link, Discuss

Dirty dirty foreigners

Dirty dirty foreigners 05/26/2004 05:54 AM
As the dirty immigrants we are, we bring not just noxious cooking smells and our weird culture to this place, but disease too: Anna and I have utter bastard colds, and we're feeling quite sorry for ourselves in the process....

Technical CEOs Add 'PRO Quick Coaches'
When They Hire Sales Professionals: New
PRO Products Compliment 'CEO Quick
Coaches' to Win More Business

Technical CEOs Add 'PRO Quick Coaches'
When They Hire Sales Professionals: New
PRO Products Compliment 'CEO Quick
Coaches' to Win More Business 08/17/2004 02:04 AM
PRO Quick Coach products enable technical CEOs to seemlessly integrate new sales professionals into their companies while simultaneously running their early-stage, small businesses. [PRWEB Aug 17, 2004]

Trouble finding content for your bl0g?
Heres an idea: Make your bl0g into an
answerbl0g

Trouble finding content for your bl0g?
Heres an idea: Make your bl0g into an
answerbl0g 12/19/2004 03:32 PM
This is a new "trend" that I am seeing amongst some of the blogs I follow: People have started reading their keyword logs and begun answering the questions that their visitors obvisouly have. Mind you, some of the questions that...

Yahoo! Search bl0g Launched (Jeremy
Zawodny's bl0g)

Yahoo! Search bl0g Launched (Jeremy
Zawodny's bl0g) 08/20/2004 06:41 AM
ysearchblog commentators .. background information .. some background info .. weitere Details .. Jeremy Z ..

jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/002431.html
track this site | 5 links

Wish-of-the-Month Club, Part 1 of 3 -
Archives - Blog - 0xDECAFBAD Blog

Wish-of-the-Month Club, Part 1 of 3 -
Archives - Blog - 0xDECAFBAD Blog 06/18/2004 04:58 AM
0-Click Shopping(tm), using Amazon's Web Services .. Automatic wishlist purchases with Amazon's API .. Make your own wishes come true, once

decafbad.com/blog/2004/06/16/wishofthemonthclub1
track this site | 5 links

Why dirty PCs are better

Why dirty PCs are better 04/09/2004 04:01 PM
ZDNet Apr 9 2004 2:08AM GMT

Dan gets down and dirty

Dan gets down and dirty 12/04/2003 06:02 PM
Spreading Santorum. Dan Savage intensifies his smear campaign against Sen. Rick Santorum. How far is too far? How low can he go? Here's some background on the whole dirty, frothy affair. The Santorum-Savage feud was also previously discussed here. (first link is NSFW)

Thanks, Bloggies! BB wins best group
bl0g, and bl0g of the year!

Thanks, Bloggies! BB wins best group
bl0g, and bl0g of the year! 03/14/2005 05:29 PM
Xeni Jardin: Boing Boing pal Scott Beale informs us that our blog just won Group Weblog of the Year at the Bloggies. OMG! What a huge honor! Thank you, Bloggies. We honestly didn't expect this, and we are deeply moved and grateful. There were many other deserving blogs up for awards, backed by talented folks who work very hard, and we raise our collective pirate-eye-patches in their honor: check 'em all out. On behalf of my blog-mates Cory Doctorow, Mark Frauenfelder, and David Pescovitz; our wise "band manager" John Battelle; our sysadmin par excellence Ken Snider; and the rest of the team and extended family that makes Boing Boing possible -- a humble thank you. But most of all, we are grateful to you, our readers, for wasting otherwise productive time on our collective scrapbook of "wonderful things," and for pointing us to even more of those wonderful and undiscovered things each day. We're really sorry that we couldn't make it to SXSW in person to accept the award, but we hope you'll join us in celebrating in person tomorrow at ETCON ( all five of us will be in the same place for the first time). Boing Boing sprouted online a little over five years ago, from paper zine roots planted by Mark Frauenfelder and Carla Sinclair. It is a privilege to blog for you. With you, we look forward to another adventurous year of link-discuss to come. Link

Update: Holy crap! Reader Nathaneal Heasley sez, "Not only did BB win best group ‘blog, it won “blog of the year/best weblog overall� – congratulations!" For those keeping track, this is the second year in a row Boing Boing has received these two awards: Link to 2004, Link to 2005. Man. We're speechless, and overwhelmed by your generosity.

Air your dirty laundry

Air your dirty laundry 07/11/2004 12:10 AM
New York Daily News Jul 11 2004 3:06AM GMT

Down & Dirty FTP in the Finder

Down & Dirty FTP in the Finder 12/24/2003 07:40 AM
Jonathan Gales presents this week's PowerUser Monday. It details how to mount a FTP server right in the Finder. Although you don't get all the benefits that modern FTP clients offer, it's something you can do on every Mac in about 20 seconds without any downloads. Head over to this week's Power User Monday.

Like Pixels? Check out MacDesign

Dirty business

Dirty business 11/14/2003 03:31 AM
Salon Nov 14 2003 2:31AM ET

Down And Dirty With Panther

Down And Dirty With Panther 10/28/2003 11:06 PM
By Clark Mueller (MacTeens via MyAppleMenu)

Dirty Bombs

Dirty Bombs 11/10/2003 10:47 PM
Dirty Bombs
Federal investigators have documented 1,300 cases of lost, stolen or abandoned radioactive material inside the United States over the past five years and have concluded there is a significant risk that terrorists could cobble enough together for a dirty bomb. (warning - Salon link)

"The U.N.'s Dirty Little Secret"

"The U.N.'s Dirty Little Secret" 12/10/2003 10:15 PM

Much ado about a dirty bomb

Much ado about a dirty bomb 05/23/2004 07:31 PM
Unlike JFK's war, Bush fights for Iraqi liberty .. Don't give Iraqis self-rule all at once .. Don't ask peaceniks to make any sense .. Much Ado About a "Dirty Bomb" 6/24 .. From Mark Steyn: .. holdouts .. review

suntimes.com/output/steyn/cst-edt-steyn23.html
track this site | 3 links

CNN is a Dirty Bomb

CNN is a Dirty Bomb 09/19/2004 07:18 PM

« If Finnish artists made missiles, I'd guess that this is what they'd look like; the Puuinen KKKK. Tall. Erect. Pointy. Wooden. Geometric. Stylish. »

I've been thinking about going home to see the family I've not seen for nearly 3 years, but the presidential election's circus-like slimefest and fear-mongering, like the 'nuclear terror' special CNN ran tonight, gives me a migraine at the thought of entering American airspace since I figure if I don't get bombed out of the sky or get trapped in the US if something like a dirty bomb did happen, I'd get the "Welcome to Gitmo" travel package from the US customs guards when I refuse the anal probe on presentation of my passport. Dammit, I want to go home and have some Ted Drewe's frozen custard before they close for the season and get some real damn BBQ that you just can't get anywhere else even though plenty of places on the planet try to fake it. I dream sometimes about a big, thick, juicy porterhouse steak and cornbread. I crave food, folks and fun but, in spite of whatever the US media crackheads have been smoking to report 'the world being safer' thanks to the US military, out here in reality I'm just not sure that my desire to visit home exceeds my desire to not get in the way of some wackos when tensions are clearly on the rise. Perhaps I need to send a telegram to the people of America.

YO, AMERICA, NO ONE GIVES A SHIT ABOUT WHO SERVED WHERE AND WHEN AS DUMBYA HAS ALREADY BEEN PROVEN A LIAR AND HIS RATINGS STILL ARE BETTER THAN KERRYS STOP SHUT UP ABOUT THE FUCKING TYPOGRAPHY AND AUTHENTICITY OF THE STUPID FUCKING NATIONAL GUARD DOCUMENTS ALREADY STOP IT AINT HELPING STOP REALLY STOP PLEASE START ASKING QUESTIONS ABOUT SHIT THAT MATTERS LIKE EDUCATION, ECONOMICS AND MAKING NICE WITH THE REST OF THE WORLD NOW THAT EVERYONE HATES US AND MOST OF US LIVING OUTSIDE THE US PRETEND TO BE CANADIANS WHEN ASKED [EXCEPT IN FINLAND DURING WORLD HOCKEY FINALS] STOP MAYBE TALK ABOUT ALL THE DEAD BODIES OR SOMETHING STOP ANYTHING ASIDE FROM THE COMPLETELY POINTLESS AND UTTERLY AGGRAVATING IDIOTIC EXERCISE IN TRYING TO OUTSNAGGLE THE SPIN MACHINE STOP GEORGIE WAS AN ALCOHOLIC DRUNK DRIVING COKE SNORTING LOSER WHOSE DADDY GOT HIM WHERE HE IS TODAY STOP GET OVER IT AS HE IS AN UPSTANDING CITIZEN COMPARED TO MOST FOLKS THESE DAYS STOP PLEASE SEND CHEEZE-ITS AND CORNDOGS STOP MY HEAD IS GOING TO EXPLODE BEFORE NOVEMBER STOP

Dirty tricks

Dirty tricks 05/18/2004 06:17 PM

Scientists Say Dirty Bomb Would Be a Dud
(AP)

Scientists Say Dirty Bomb Would Be a Dud
(AP) 06/09/2004 01:59 PM
AP - The "dirty bomb" allegedly planned by terror suspect Jose Padilla would have been a dud, not the radiological threat portrayed last week by federal authorities, scientists say.

Iraq: US dirty tricks

Iraq: US dirty tricks 03/11/2003 11:53 AM
Interesting story in the Guardian today: Revealed: US dirty tricks to win vote on Iraq war Secret document details American plan to bug phones and...

DSL in Germany gets cheap and dirty

DSL in Germany gets cheap and dirty 12/29/2004 09:47 AM
The Register Dec 29 2004 1:19PM GMT

Where Sharing Isn't a Dirty Word

Where Sharing Isn't a Dirty Word 11/15/2003 05:33 AM
The University of North Carolina has a wealth of information available on ibiblio, its massive digital library. And it's free. Michelle Delio reports from Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

How "private" became a dirty word

How "private" became a dirty word 02/01/2005 09:42 PM
The Social Security debate has devolved into a language-police action, in which the White House desperately tries to stop anyone from calling its proposal "privatization" -- even though, until recently, that was exactly what its supporters actually called it. Apparently, the "p" word didn't poll well, since it had some vague relationship to the reality of the plan to ditch Social Security, so out it goes. And now it's verboten not only to advocates for the plan, but also for those in the media who want to avoid being accused of taking sides.

Here's Josh Marshall's reprint of the transcript of a Washington Post interview with Bush, in which he complains that a questioner who used the "p" word was "editorializing." The reporter then points out that Bush himself used the word just a couple months ago. (Here's the full Post transcript.)

The administration is trying to play the same game with the AARP. When the senior citizens' lobby produced a poll that showed wide opposition to Bush's plans to begin dismantling of Social Security as we know it, the GOP complained that the poll was "skewed by politics." Why? The poll dared to use the "p" word. (More on this from Marshall and Matthew Yglesias.)

This desperate effort to hide the truth by renaming it is as futile as it is comical: It's a perfect instance of "Don't think of an elephant" (or, for Fawlty Towers fans, John Cleese's classic "Don't mention the war!" routine). The more pressure the White House puts on Americans to stop thinking of the proposal as "privatizing," the more opportunity they give opponents to point out that that's exactly what it is -- and to ask why the Republicans are running from an accurate description of their idea.

Any time you hear a Bush supporter protest that "No one is talking about dismantling Social Security, just reforming it!," you can show them this quotation from a prominent advocate for the president's plan (from Sunday's Times Week in Review):

"Social Security is the soft underbelly of the welfare state," said Stephen Moore, the former president of Club for Growth, an antitax group. "If you can jab your spear through that, you can undermine the whole welfare state."

That doesn't sound like "reform," now, does it? It sounds like the violent release of 70 years of conservative Republican hatred of Social Security and resentment at its success and popularity. In this view, Social Security is not part of a "safety net," at all; Moore wants us to associate the retirement program to which we've all been contributing all our working lives instead with "welfare," a word so unpopular we banished it from the political vocabulary in the mid-'90s. If you want your Social Security, Moore's saying, you're a freeloader! You just want a handout! You're a welfare queen!

Somehow I don't think that message will be very popular. Unlike welfare, Social Security is a program that most middle-class Americans have personal experience with, either themselves or through members of their families. This is one part of the far-right agenda that even Bush and Rove may not be able to re-frame, re-label, re-brand and sell.

The original user of the "soft underbelly" metaphor, of course, was Winston Churchill, who was talking about trying to get at Hitler by invading Italy. Putting aside the Godwin's Law implication here (Moore equating Social Security with Nazism?), it's worth noting that the "soft underbelly of Europe" turned out to be a lot tougher to jab than the Allies imagined. Social Security may similarly prove to have a tougher hide than its enemies think.

Charge That Dirty Bomb Guy

Charge That Dirty Bomb Guy 03/13/2003 10:22 AM
On June 9, 2002, American dirty bomb suspect Jose Padilla misplaced his constitutional rights while in police custody. If anyone finds his right to a speedy trial, legal representation, or due process, please call the ACLU immediately. (03-12)

Dirty Water MUD Engine

Dirty Water MUD Engine 07/22/2004 01:02 PM
Initial SF project

Dirty Spyware Trickery

Dirty Spyware Trickery 01/05/2005 01:18 AM

I had to remove some nasty spyware yesterday from an employee's home machine. It was an IE search toolbar (I'm not going to say the name since I'd rather take a shotgun blast to the face than give them any publicity) that generated a JavaScript error when this app tried to secretly send the search terms to a remote URL.

While troubleshooting, I noticed an odd phenomenon: I couldn't get through to any anti-spyware sites to download anything. I'd get "Page Not Available" errors. CNN came up fine, but sites like Lavasoft and even GRC just wouldn't work.

Ad-Aware was already installed, so I fired it up and had it check for updates. It came back very quickly and said no updates were available. I was suspicious because I knew this employee wasn't in the habit of running Ad-Aware (hence her problem).

Then it hit me: I'd fallen for the oldest trick in the book — a hacked HOSTS file. I cracked it open, and — sure enough — the app had written a list of perhaps 200 anti-spyware sites and sent them off into oblivion (127.0.0.2, 127.0.0.3, etc.). So it wasn't that Ad-Aware had the latest data file, it was that it coudln't contact its mothership for an update (you think it would have thrown an error message rather than just announcing that no updates were available).

In the end, this was a nasty one to get rid of. You needed to fix the HOSTS file, shut off all start-up tasks, reboot in Safe Mode, delete the executables (in a hidden directory, naturally), and put dummy files in their place, named the same and set to read-only.

A real mess, but that HOSTS file thing was what really got me. How friggin' slimy can you get? And this wasn't a blantant malware app on the surface — it made all sorts of claims that it provided "important benefits" to the user and that it wasn't spyware.

So, why exactly do you need to prevent the user from visiting a site that may help them uninstall you, again? I feel so naive.

"airs some dirty laundry"

"airs some dirty laundry" 08/12/2004 03:24 PM

Different decade, same dirty tricks

Different decade, same dirty tricks 08/05/2004 12:03 PM

iPods dirty little secret

iPods dirty little secret 12/02/2003 12:45 AM
There is a site out there claiming the iPod battery is only designed to last 18 months and Apple is...

Google's dirty little secrets

Google's dirty little secrets 08/08/2004 12:25 PM
San Francisco Chronicle Aug 8 2004 2:44PM GMT

It's a Dirty Job, but They Do It,
Secretly, in Iraq

It's a Dirty Job, but They Do It,
Secretly, in Iraq 06/19/2004 01:17 AM
The treatment of raw sewage in Baghdad late last month was an impressive accomplishment in a city where sewage plants were in disrepair for the last 10 years.

Words that sound dirty but aren't.

Words that sound dirty but aren't. 04/01/2005 01:52 AM
Words that sound dirty but aren't. I'm a big fan of the white-breasted nuthatch. You?

"Will Gas Wells Dirty Alpine Air?"

"Will Gas Wells Dirty Alpine Air?" 12/27/2003 08:57 PM

Grok Description matches for Quick and Dirty Blog
GrokA matches for Quick and Dirty Blog

Quick and Dirty Blog

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