Author: Jeremy Butler

Before installing FF 2 on my Windows XP box I’d heard of “improvements” in tab behavior that I suspected would annoy me (e.g., “close” buttons on individual tabs instead of just one; which at least can be un-improved through about:config). However, what I didn’t expect is that there would be new bugs in the tab implementation that would affect how I read Slashdot’s daily “headlines” email on Gmail.

In the “old” days, when I clicked a link in the Slashdot-headlines email message, FF 1.5 opened a new window and shifted the focus to it. (Incidentally, this is also what MS IE 7 does so I presume this is the intended behavior.)

FF 2.0, in contrast, opens a new tab and shifts the focus to that tab. Each of these behaviors irritates me.

And the crappy thing about this is that in Options -> Tabs I have set “New pages should be open in…” to “A new window” (not a new tab) and UN-ticked “When I open a link in a new tab, switch to it immediately.”

In FF 1.5, I could work around the focus shift with a simple ALT-tab and, moreover, separate windows fit the way I read the Slashdot headlines. Separate tabs do not.

So, in sum, as much as I love FF and prefer it over IE (and as much as I love the new spellchecking feature–which, incidentally, just marked “spellchecking” as an error), I may have to back-step to the almost-latest version.

Bug or feature?

On my Comcast DVR (a Motorola DCT6400 series unit, the 6412 III), the unit mutes itself if it is initially off and turns itself on to record a program.

Now, that’s fine, you wouldn’t want the TV to start blasting something at 3:00 in the morning. But here’s the bug/feature that annoys me: you cannot UNmute it. The mute button on the remote won’t do it. The unit itself has no mute button on it. So, if you want to use the unit’s second tuner to watch another program while one is recorded you’re out of luck. Or, you could, I suppose, watch it without audio.

I called Comcast about it. After about 15 minutes on hold, I got through to a customer rep. She was nice, but slow to diagnose the issue. I think I eventually mentioned that the DVR was off and had turned itself on to record something. Then she realized it was the DVR mute “feature” and told me to press a series of buttons on the remote to fix it. But she didn’t know the correct series.

While talking to her on the phone, I Googled around and found a key series that did work. There are several spots on the Web that explain this, but the clearest one is over here:

1. Press the “Cable” button at the top of the remote to put it into Cable Box control mode.
2. Press and hold the “Setup” button until the “Cable” button blinks twice.
3. Enter code 994. The “Cable” button will blink twice.
4. Press (do not hold) the “Setup” button.
5. Enter code 00141.
6. Press whatever button you want to map the mute function to.

The author, Judi Sohn, goes on to explain how to program in the 30-second commercial skip that I adore:

1. Press the “Cable” button at the top of the remote to put it into Cable Box control mode.
2. Press and hold the “Setup” button until the “Cable” button blinks twice..
3. Type in the code 994. The “Cable” button will blink twice.
4. Press (do not hold) the “Setup” button.
5. Type in the code 00173 (for 30 second Skip).
6. Press whatever button you want to map the skip

Ah, the Internet is a beautiful thing.

Comcast? Not so much.

I’m not the only one who observes the craposity of software.

Robert McLaws, a .NET Developer, recently commented on Microsoft’s licensing policies for the upcoming release of Vista, the new Windows operating system. He called them “pure and total crap”.

He’s complaining — and rightly so — about the lack of discounts for persons buying multiple license for Vista. As he puts it:

You know what? I think the regular and upgrade prices are totally reasonable. The upgrade price on Home Premium was even $100 cheaper than what I expected. But obviously Microsoft didn’t listen to a damn word I said when I talked about the discount for additional licenses. This is pure and total crap. Microsoft has completely screwed the pooch on an outstanding opportunity to get everyone to upgrade to Vista legally and inexpensively.

I know one family that wants to move to Vista… they have 4 computers. There’s NO WAY IN HELL they’re going to pay $588 for an upgrade copy of Home Premium plus 3 additional licenses. It’s just not going to happen.

I’m not even going to mince words here. Microsoft, you REALLY boned this one up. I’m really glad that 40 influencers in one room telling you about how important the additional license problem was meant absolutely nothing.

His article can be read over here.

Sometimes it’s not the software that’s crappy. Rather, it’s the humans that attack that software that are filled with crap.

Three weeks ago, crappy humans attacked screensite.org, the site we put together to assist film/TV students and teachers. They used a vulnerability in PHP-Nuke (on which ScreenSite was built) to hack in and then defaced the entire site with drivel. I had known PHP-Nuke was open to attacks, but I had not had time to patch it.

And yesterday, some crappy human attacked the guest book on Blog Ian, which is built on J.A.G. (Just Another Guestbook). This jerk (actually probably a robot employed by jerks) posted links to Cialis and Viagra sites. When I locked the guest book and ostensibly made it read-only, the crappy human still found a way to hack in and post his/her crap. So, evidently there’s a security hole in J.A.G. that permits spamming. I guess this is not surprising since J.A.G. has not been updated in three years, but, still, it’s disappointing that crappy humans would take advantage of its vulnerabilities.

These hacks of PHP-Nuke and J.A.G. raise a larger issue: are PHP and MySQL — on which both of them are based — inherently insecure platforms for Web-application development?

It seems like every LAMP application I’ve used has required security-based patching — often quite urgently. Most recently, I read that Coppermine had a big hole in it that needed filling. It is discouraging me from developing applications on my own in PHP/MySQL. If major applications, with large programming teams, fall prey to such hacks, what chance do I have to make a secure application?

It’s a sobering thought.

Anyone who’s bought a new computer recently knows that it comes preloaded with all manner of crap you do not need or want: ISP software from AOL/Earthlink, MSN/Hotmail solicitations, “support” software that pitches useless extended warranties, anti-virus software that stops updating after six months, buggy DVD players, “trial” or “lite” applications that are crippled and/or expire in 30 days, and on and on.

This was on my mind because I recently bought a new Dell desktop. In general, I’m pleased with it (for one thing, it’s phenomenally quiet), but it did come with typical preloaded crap and I’ve been removing crappy apps one at a time. I could have saved myself the trouble, however, if I’d earlier discovered Jason York’s “Dell De-Crapifier”:

http://www.yorkspace.com/2006/04/38

Its sole purpose is to remove preloaded crap from Dell machines.

Great idea!

This is a story about two crappy pieces of software: Microsoft Internet Explorer and PHP/SWF Slideshow.

In the spring of 2006, MS IE changed the way it handles so-called “Active Content” such as embedded QuickTime movies and Flash animations. Ostensibly it was “forced” to do so after losing a patent lawsuit. How convenient that it screwed up the movies/animations of its competitors, but not its own stuff.

Now, the interactive aspects (links, navigation buttons, etc.) of such content do not initially work and the user is presented with the prompt to:

“Click to activate and use this control.”

This problem is explained in gory detail by Adobe/Macromedia, one of the companies greatly affected by the change. And Microsoft has published a workaround for it, but it’s very awkward.

Okay, so this is pretty annoying, but the situation gets crappier.

I searched the Web recently for a little slideshow application that I could insert into the TCF Website in order to display new stuff entered into the archives. I found what I thought was the perfect solution: PHP/SWF Slideshow. It hooks right into PHP/MySQL and displays images in cool ways–with dissolves and wipes and even one animation that appears to be dropping into the frame. Nice.

But not free. Generally, I prefer open-source software for things like this, but this app seems so perfect that I asked my department chair for the $45 to buy it. Only after purchasing it did I discover it was bitten by this IE bug. I emailed them to ask when they were going to update their software to deal with it.

Their reply, in entirety:

Sorry, we’re not implementing the workaround at this time. This is currently left up to individual users.

We’re joining companies like google to recommend the switch to other browsers.

Oh. I see. So, this application will only work with Web browsers used by 13% of Web users. The remaining 87% will not be able to use it.

And that is some pretty crappy software.

P.S. Nowhere on their site do they explain that their app only works for 13% of Web users.

(It’s not always software that’s crappy, sometimes hardware ranks high on the craposity scale, too.)

It didn’t seem right to me that the audio of a $700 camcorder would be superior to that of one that cost over twice as much. So, I went search for help.

I asked all my video/film-maker friends and they could give me no definitive answer. I finally broke down and shipped the camera to a certified Panasonic repair house, K&M Electronics in Atlanta.

I must say they were very prompt in responding, even thought they were less than helpful. They called me a few days later to say that they could not replicate my problem. They input audio at -10dB and it recorded perfectly at -10dB. They also dismissed my homegrown tests as meaning nothing.

Thus, according to Panasonic’s official repair dudes, this camera is operating perfectly.

Talk about aggravating!

I took my issue to the forums at creativecow.net. An individual there responded with the following:

Unfortunately, your particular camera is simply a right royal pain in the neck to operate.

One of this camera’s known weakesses is that there are no audio knobs, just a stinkin’ menu. You need audio knobs and a meter to set levels properly. I don’t know about the meter, but I do know this particular camera has no knobs.

If you plan to do any serious shooting — and you plan to use the audio — and you don’t want spend all day setting levels, you might want to think about a different camera. This thing’s gonna drag you down.

If you have any acquaintances who have oohed and aahed over it, see if you can sell it to them, bite the bullet, and get what you need. Don’t sell it to a friend, because they know where you live.

Great. I’m stuck with an expensive camera with crappy sound that I should unload on a complete stranger and then leave town.

About a year ago I applied some of my textbook royalty money toward an expensive mini-DV camcorder, the Panasonic AG-DVC30. The image is great, but the sound level has been very low and it’s been this way since the first day I used it.

Recently, I made a more “scientific” study of the sound levels. I set up a standard color bars & tone in Premiere, positioned the camera about 10 feet from the speakers and then tried various mic settings. I imported them into Premiere and looked at them with an audio meter. ‘Course, this does not relate to any objective scale, but the relative levels are perhaps significant. And I did set the loudness of the tone so that it was roughly equivalent to humans talking.

When I use the built-in mic and the default settings, I get a reading of

-30 dB

Which seems very low to my ear. When I attach an external (shotgun) mic and connect the cable to the “mic” input, I get the same thing:

-30dB

However, when I attach the external mic to the “AV in/out” setting (which, I know, is not supposed to be used for mic recordings, but I’ve been forced to use it in order to get audible levels), the level jumps up to:

-6dB

But if I shoot the same thing using a modest, consumer-grade Canon camcorder in exactly the same location, I get:

-12 dB

Which sounds “normal” to my ear.

When I first got the camera, I tried all sorts of shenangans to raise the audio level and posted pleas for help on various support boards. Nothing ever came of it. Now the warranty is running out (has already run out?) and the issue is bugging me again.

Okay, so I just acquired my FIRST iPod ep of The Office.

I was prepared for its itty-bitty image, but what I didn’t expect is that it’s presented in the wrong aspect ratio!

Ipods default to a display of 320×240, I’ve come to realize, which is our old pal 4×3. Since The Office is TV-widescreen, it should be letterboxed–even on the iPod–to a height of 180, because 320×180 = 1.78×1. But it’s not! It’s 320×192, or 1.67×1.

I guess Apple figured it needed to fill as much of the height of the itty-bitty screen as possible, but the result is that everyone is just a little squeezed:

when they should look like this:

I suppose the actors don’t mind looking a little thinner… but sheesh!