Did you know ...

Did you know you can order bugs by the pound over the Internet?

The Top 10 Ugliest Couches in America. My brother had a couch for a while that could have been a contender in this. When I asked him why he would buy such an ugly couch, he said "Hey, it was cheap. And it came with a matching chair."

David Talbot: Democracy Held Hostage. In other words, look out for hidden agendas within the decisions coming out of the Bush Administration.

I just checked my error logs and added up the number of failed requests generated by the Code Red and Nimba exploits of Microsoft's IIS server. To date, there have been 164,425 requests. My site runs on FreeBSD boxes running Apache, so I'm immune. But the number of requests is astonishing, running an average of 10-to-1 of legitimate HTTP requests.

The article I ...

The article I linked to last week about the Scientologists portraying themselves as mental health workers in the wake of the WTC disaster has mysteriously disappeared from the Sacramento Bee web site. The press release from the National Mental Health Association still seems to be intact, though. Update: A reader from Sacramento writes in informing me that any article older than seven days is removed from the site and to the archives, which costs $2 per article to accesss.

Something Awful: Scientology vs. The Taliban

A map of the Apple Stores, both open and proposed.

In the same vein as Toonses the Driving Cat comes The Angry Siamese, two crime-fighting Siamese cats who drive around in a Ford Mustang. I love the Internet.

One of the best photo essays I've ever seen: 13 Days: World Trade Center

The Renaissance of ...

The Renaissance of Anti-Intellectualism

Arianna Huffington: The Land of the Free?

The Conformist: Why They Hate Us

Betty Bower, America's Best Christian is a hilarious parody of Christianity in the United States. Gotta love "How to Spot a Terrorist" and "Bettty Bowers' Cristian Crackwhore Ministry". I can only imagine the truckloads of hate mail the owner of this site gets.

How sad it is that people are resorting to such close-minded tactics. It's perfectly OK to have a dissenting opinion. It's perfectly OK to voice that opinion. One of the founding principles of this country is that of free speech. Apparently, the majority of people in this country have forgotten that. Or possibly they were never taught it in the first place?

Interface Mafia: Redesigning ...

Interface Mafia: Redesigning the Mac OS X Dock

Steven Champeon says that we all must be tolerant of others, regardless of race or religious belief. Right on.

OpenWave: Top 10 Usability Guidelines for WAP Applications

Forgot your phone charger? Can't find a power outlet? Maybe you need this wind-up charger for cell phones. [via ResearchBuzz]

Devx: Designing Effective User Interfaces for Wireless Devices

Johan Hjelm: How to get information to mobile devices

Wireless Developer Network: Graphical User Interface (GUI) Fundamentals

Nice overview of the industrial design of wireless security devices.

Dan Gillmor: More tax breaks for rich should be last on agenda

Geocaching is a new sport that takes advantage of emerging technologies like GPS. Players in the game stash inexpensive items all over the world, hidden in Tupperware and other waterproof containers. Other players then use cheap GPS units to track down the caches. It's kind of like a high-tech treasure hunt.

Several readers have ...

Several readers have mistakenly associated my approval of some of the things I linked to last week, primarily the very racist and close-minded post on the Terrorism.com forum. Please note that just because I link to something doesn't mean that I approve of the content or the point of view. It requires an open mind to realize that it takes all kinds of people to make up the world we live in. Unfortunately, that includes people who write hate-filled screeds, racists, and religious zealots. I often link to articles and discussions that provide alternate and opposite points of view, with the hope that my readers are intelligent enough to make up their own minds about what is written (and not flame me because they are angry about the opinions presented there-in).

Yusef Islam (formerly Cat Stevens): Islam: A Home of Tolerance, not Fanaticism [via PlasticBoy]

How lame. Internet Alchemy (a defunct weblog) which was located at alchemy.openjava.org now points to a porn web site with incredibly lame pop-up windows that don't close when you try to leave the site.

Winterspeak: Why Geoffrey Moore doesn't get it. "It does not take long until upgrades are driven by the supplier's need for more money, not the customer's needs for a better product. This explains Microsoft's legendary "we've added features that just one person requested" attitude."

The Gartner Group is recommending that companies stop using Microsoft IIS. Hmmm, smart sysadmins have been saying this for years...

Nanotechnology, Self-Reproduction & Agile Manufacturing

Robots: Re-Evolving Mind or Mass Utility Robots this Decade, Full Automation this Century

Robocup is an annual competition where teams of robots are created to play soccer against other teams of robots. Way cool!

Taking another weekend ...

Taking another weekend off. I'm flying to the Midwest to visit a friend (and to get away from NYC for a few days). I'll be back early next week. You can read my short essay at the Fray "I Am Not Afraid to Fly."

Torvalds on Linux: They Aren't Laughing Now

I haven't tried this out yet, but it looks promising. LIFT Onsite is a software package for the Mac that will test your web sites against the Section 508 guidelines. Also check out this very clear bullet list of the Section 508 guidelines, organized by checkpoints.

Religion and War: Inseparable: "...when religion is an important force in a society whose leaders have managed to maneuver their society into armed conflict with another society, then it is logical that religion be utilized to motivate individuals to fight, to maim, to kill."

Islam and the Internet: Net-religion, a War in Heaven: "It is extremely obvious to me that the internet is a religious phenomenon...technology itself is always threatening to take the place of religion. Technology is always becoming confused with religion." Huh?

Terrorism Discussion Forum: "Look at the Koran and you will find that Islam is a religion of war, terror, genocide, and conquest -- in other words, jihad (e.g., Sura 9:29). Jihad is pronounced against all those non-believers (harbis) who are in the House of War (Dar al-Harb) and must be conquered and subjugated and slaughtered. Muslims MUST conquer and kill non-believers; that's what the Koran orders them to do."

Paper: The Just War & the Jihad-Religion and War in two world civilizations

Americans United for Separation of Church and State

Hawaii Citizens for the Separation of State and Church. Scroll down to "50 Reasons Why the Bible Must Never be Used in Government"

People still use Microsoft Front Page? How silly...

Airlines are quietly ...

Airlines are quietly starting to offer dramatically reduced fares in order to win back scared customers. For instance, National Airlines is offering a round-trip ticket from NYC to SFO for a mere $100. A round-trip ticket from NYC to Las Vegas is only $75.

A surprisingly argumentive editorial from an African newspaper that points out some of the issues that the U.S. needs to pay more attention to given its role as the world's most powerful country. Worth reading, if you want a non-American point-of-view.

Sacramento Bee: "The National Mental Health Association accused the Church of Scientology of attempting to recruit members under the guise of providing mental health counseling after last week's terrorist attacks."

Microsoft wants to control every aspect of your computing environment. Better believe it.

Walter Mossberg: "It's somewhat suspicious that software from some of Microsoft's fiercest rivals just happened to be partially disabled in some way by Windows XP."

The giant cables that provide Internet connectivity between Europe-Japan and US-China have been damaged, bringing Internet access in Asia to a stand-still. While this is an unfortunate incident, the optimist in me is hoping it will slow down the amount of spam we've all been getting from unprotected/misconfigured mail servers in China and Europe.

Fray: Missing Pieces, ...

Fray: Missing Pieces, is a collection of first-hand stories from last week's tragic events. I was too frazzled to get my account submitted in time to beat Derek's deadline.

Get your rm -rf /bin/laden t-shirt today. Using humor to vent anger. Better than war and senseless killing, I suppose.

Computers vs. Net devices: "At the end of the day, the only solution we could come up with was to delete all of the Windows files and perform a "clean install" of Windows, which also required the user to reinstall all of his software. It's like having to rebuild the engine on a car just because of a failed sparkplug."

Richard Dawkins: Religion's misguided missiles

UIWeb.com: The myth of optimal web design

Dan Gillmor on the new Microsoft Internet Worm:

This is not an "Internet worm" -- and the headline writers and reporters covering the story need to get it straight. This is a Microsoft worm, and it once again gets spread through the opening of Outlook e-mail attachments. I'm sick of this. I'm sick of Microsoft's selfish and casual attitude toward its users' safety. For some time now, I've been politely telling public relations people who send attachments that I don't open them for security and bandwidth reasons. From now on, I'm simply going to delete all e-mail that comes with an attachment unless I have specifically asked for it. Period. So go ahead and send me an attachment. You'll guarantee that I won't read or answer your message. Enough is enough.

JRTF is a java component to generate Microsoft Word RTF documents dynamically using servlets. You can specify text formatting, alignment of tables, etc.

More reports of Microsoft trying to abuse its monopolies. Is anyone surprised anymore by anything Microsoft does?

Cnet: Java percolates ...

Cnet: Java percolates at Sprint PCS

Postponed or cancelled conferences (with new dates):

• Gnomedex, Des Moines, IA (October 13-14, 2001)
• Apple Expo 2001, Paris France (cancelled)
• Internet World Fall, NYC (December 10-13, 2001)
• National Computer-Assisted Reporting Conference, Philadelphia (no new date yet)
• O'Reilly P2P Conference, Washington D.C. (November 5-8, 2001)

At the LEGO Direct offices in NYC, there is a wall mosaic of the NYC skyline made out of LEGO. Very cool. I hope the LEGO artist, Eric Harshbarger, decides to leave the WTC towers in the mosaic.

Eric Meyer has created a page that shows some of the cool things you can do with CSS1 in standards-compliant browsers.

Good news! Mitchell Baker has decided to stay at mozilla.org, despite being laid off by Netscape/AOL last month.

Linux as a Replacement for Windows 2000

Taking some time ...

Taking some time off. Regular updates will resume in a few days.

Infographics: "In many cases, more effective than just words and photos, infographics can quickly help us grasp information and timelines in a visual and easy-to-follow manner."

DaveNet: Mir Tamim Ansary on Afghanistan

Which Way is South? I realized today that every time I got disoriented in Manhattan, I'd simply walk to an Avenue and look in both directions. If the towers loomed over the skyline, that was south, and I'd be able to figure out what direction I needed to walk in to get to where I needed to go. When I was first learning the NYC subway system, I did this constantly. Now that the towers are gone, how do I determine which way is south?

Foraging For Food: Yesterday afternoon, I left the back door open to let in some fresh air. I was watching TV and surfing the Web in the living room when I heard a noise in the kitchen (where the back door is located). I went to investigate only to find a black squirrel dragging a bag of potato chips off the counter. When he spotted me, he ran out the door, jumped on the porch railing, and stared at me to see what I would do. Brave squirrel!

More About Bush: I'm getting a lot of feedback from my comments on President Bush. Many people are misinterpreting my opinion. I did not like Bush before he was elected, and I still do not like him, despite the good job he is doing in dealing with this national crisis. Please remember that what makes this country great is that it's made up of a very large and diverse population, with different beliefs, opinions, and points of view. You may disagree with my perspective of Bush, and that's perfectly fine, but please respect my opinion -- as I respect yours. Anonymous flames full of name-calling are simply not appropriate.

Wow! I just ...

Wow! I just checked my web logs. My traffic for Tuesday was well over 1 GB (114,595 hits), about ten times my normal traffic. Yesterday was about 800 MB (113,552 hits) of traffic. Today was 368 MB (69,172 hits), still more than twice my normal traffic.

Hire Me: Some of you already know that I am no longer employed by CollabNet. I resigned from my position there two weeks ago for a number of reasons and have been chilling out for a while before I start a job hunt. I'm primarily looking for positions in the NYC area (but am open to discussion). Here's my resume. Let me know if you know of any open positions that might be a good fit.

America, The Good Neighbor. A reader informs me that this is just an updated version of this speech.

It's getting ridiculous. Yesterday, they evacuated the Empire State Building and Penn Station because of bomb threats. This morning, LaGuardia airport was evacuated because of a bomb threat. And just now, I heard they evacuated Grand Central Station and the surrounding buildings because of a bomb threat. They also just evacuated the Port Authority. This madness has got to stop.

Escape From New York: I spent the entire moring on the phone with car rental agencies trying to rent a car so I can get out of the NYC area for a few days. A local Speedy Rent-a-Car location told me "we don't send cars to Kansas, there's a 150-mile radius around NYC area" despite the fact I've rented from them before and driven to Michigan. When I asked why, the guy on the phone said "A plane crashed into a building" and hung up on me. I also stopped in yesterday at this very location and got a quote from them for renting a car to drive 2400 miles. I'm reporting them to the Better Busines Bureau. I also called Budget, National, and Hertz. Budget and National had jacked up their rates to almost double the normal price, citing "low inventory" and "availability" as being the cause. I reserved a car through Hertz's web site (at their normal rates), and then called to confirm the reservation. The Hertz representative on the phone told me that none of the Hertz locations were allowing any cars to leave their Manhattan locations, so I had her cancel my reservation. I never thought trying to get out of NYC would be so hard.

So, I have bought a plane ticket on Midwest Express to fly from LaGuardia to Kansas City tomorrow. If LaGuardia is still closed, I'm stuck. The only consolation I have is that Midwest Express will honor the ticket for up to a year, with no change or refund fees applied (a great airline).

Desperately Seeking Strong Leadership: A reader flamed me yesterday about my views on President Bush and his [lack of] leadership qualities. Normally, I ignore such flame-bait, but a NY Times Op-Ed article is saying many of the same things I am saying. Bush is clearly not cut out to be a leader. His, uh, speech, uh...this morning, uh, made that, uh...pretty clear. And please, let's stop with the religious comments. A political leader in Bush's position should not be mixing church and State (faith-based initiatives). You can criticize me all you want about my views of Bush, they are not going to change anytime soon. May I also remind readers that CamWorld is a personal Web site, and that if you do not like my views, opinions, or commentary you are more than welcome visit any of the millions of other Web sites on the Internet to get different perspectives.

O'Reilly Releases DocBook: The Definitive Guide Under the GNU License

Here's an excellent map from the NY Times showing the buildings in NYC's Financial District. [via DesignWeenie]

Request: I'm considering ...

Request: I'm considering renting a car and taking off for a few days. I might drive to Des Moines for the GNOMEdex conference this weekend (which may not happen). If you're in the NYC area and want to share the driving with me and attend the conference, email me and we'll talk about it -- not sure if I'm going yet, but I do feel like getting out of town for a while until things return to normal (if ever).

12:02 AM: The events of yesterday are not over. We are a country who is seeking strong leadership and direction, and we have yet to see it. A four-minute poorly-written speech delivered nearly twelve hours after events began is clearly not enough to sway my opinion of President Bush. I hope to see Bush inform the country today of his administration's plans on how we, as a country, are going to deal with this tragedy. I hope to hear that our intelligence community has learned of who is responsible. And I hope that we take swift and serious action in response to the thousands of innocent people who needlessly died. Anything less will be seen as a failure of Presidential duties.

12:13: AM: This photo (link removed because some jerk replaced it with porn) of people standing at the windows of the World Trade Center shortly before the collapse brings it all home. Here's another photo of people jumping/falling to their deaths from the towers.

12:42 AM: Jason Kottke has an excellent collection of links to sites and weblogs covering the tragedy. Some of the amateur photographs are truly amazing.

12:55 AM: This Amazon Donation page for the American Red Cross seems to be getting an extraordinary amount of hits and donations. Tragedy always unites people.

1:39 AM: Reports are saying the hijackers used knives and box-cutters to hijack the four airplanes that ended up being used as giant flying bombs. Apparently, knives up to four inches are allowed to be carried on board. Unsubstantiated reports now say that the hijackers used plastic-handled devices with razor blades stuck in them. They also started killing stewardesses to lure the pilots from the cockpit in order to gain control of the plane. The knives were constructed from pieces hidden in shaving kits.

11:44 AM: Apparently, passengers on the flight that crashed near Pittsburgh rushed the hijackers, which resulted in the plane crashing in rural Pennsylvania instead of it's intended target (said to be Camp David or another target in D.C.).

12:32 PM: Investigators in Boston have found luggage containing a copy of the Koran, a fuel consumption calculator, and a videotape of how to fly commercial jets. They have also seized a rental car that contained Arabic-language flight training manuals.

8:04 PM: This very cool infrared satellite photo taken at 11:55 AM yesterday shows the sheer impact the WTC collapse had on the island of Manhattan.

8:08 PM: More and more evidence is pointing to Osama bin Laden as being behind yesterday's terrorist attacks.

9:30 AM: CNN.com: ...

9:30 AM: CNN.com: DAY OF TERROR

9:50 AM: I was supposed to be in Manhattan this morning for a doctor's appointment at 9:30 AM, but skipped it. I have no answer to why I skipped it (a feeling?). I've never been so glad I listened to my intuition.

10:00 AM: The terrorist events in Manhattan and D.C. today are truly horrific. Our country will never be the same again.

10:20 AM: There are no numbers yet, but I'm guessing thousands of people died in these attacks. All air traffic in the U.S. has been halted. Most of lower Manhattan is being evacuated. What our President does in response to these attacks will be a test of his administration. Expect retaliation. Expect war.

10:50 AM: Most of the cell phone networks in NYC are overloaded, and it's near impossible to get a connection. Manhattan is truly an island of isolation today. Manhattan is paralyzed.

11:20 AM: There is soot falling out of the sky outside my apartment in Brooklyn. Surreal.

12:03 PM: Damien and I just got back from the grocery store. People seem pretty calm, but horribly shocked. The stores are packed and the supply of bottled water is gone.

12:22 PM: Outside the hospital down the street from my apartment there is a guy holding up a sign saying "We need blood."

12:27 PM: The news channels are showing Palestinians cheering and chanting in the streets. Disgusting. The people responsible for today's events have no idea what they are in for.

12:43 PM: NYC DOT Traffic Webcams

1:20 PM: I took some photos from the roof of my apartment in Brooklyn. Not very good shots, but here they are.

2:10 PM: I just heard that the commercial plane that crashed near Pittsburgh was actually shot down by Air Force jets because it wasn't responding. The TV says that that plane was likely a hijacked jet headed for D.C. Update: The Pentagon now says this is a rumor, and not true.

2:32 PM: Yahoo Most Popular has some amazing photos of the World Trade Center burning and then collapsing.

3:14 PM: The founder and CTO of Akamai Technologies was on one of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center.

3:37 PM: A friend from the midwest tells me that gas prices tomorrow are going up to $2.65/gallon because some of the gas refineries have closed due to terrorist threat. It's not just NYC and D.C. that are being affected. The whole country is feeling this.

6:01 PM: CNN is reporting cruise missiles hitting the city of Kabul, Afghanistan. I think Osama bin Laden is based in Afghanistan. Are these actions related to today's terrorist attacks?

6:31 PM: Today's events remind me of the 1998 movie The Siege, in which New York City is attacked repeatedly by terrorists. In the movie, martial law is declared and people of Arab descent are rounded up and put in concentration camps in Brooklyn. I fear that the U.S. is on the verge of declaring war and our racial biases are going to come out in full and innocent people are going to be hurt.

6:56 PM: Doc Searls has posted an email from Eric Raymond about today's terrorist attacks and the problems of panicking politicians.

7:10 PM: Jon Katz, Our New Pearl Harbor

8:38 PM: Bush's speech not only sucked, it had no substance. Note, though, that he made sure to insert the religious bent into his speech. I was not impressed. The American people want a solid response, not a poorly-written speech from a bad public speaker. Robert Scoble has a Letter to President Bush outlining some of the things most Americans would like to see Bush talk about.

10:39 PM: CBS just reported that they caught somebody going over the George Washington Bridge with a truckload of explosives. Wow. 11:48 PM Update: This turns out to be a false report and the van had no explosives.

11:06 PM: This NY Times article picked up my quote from above. [via Scripting News]

11:21 PM: Disgusting. Reports are coming in that gas prices have gone up to $5.00/gallon in some parts of the U.S. There is no justifiction for this. The gas companies are taking advantage of a scared people during a national tragedy. Anyone trying to profit off this time of confusion and fear should be punished. It's simply wrong. Perhaps we need the Bush administration to mandate a nationwide gas price freeze, dropping the prices to a pre-tragedy level, and only giving price control back to the gas companies after this is all over. Given the influence the natural energy companies have on the Bush administration, this is pretty unlikely. Perhaps instead of Bush spouting some religious spiel like he did in tonight's speech, he can step up to the plate and act like a real President and stop unscrupulous people and companies from taking advantage of the American people.

11:34 PM: Lots of the niche cable TV channels are offline today, all with screens saying they're off the air due to today's tragedy. Channels like: Home & Garden Television, Do-It-Yourself Channel, and The Food Network. I wonder if all these channels are taped or broadcast out of New York, and if so, were their offices affected?

NYC area weblogs covering the news:

• Bill Seitz's Web-Seitz
• Grant Barrett's WorldNewYork
• Deanland
• East/West
• Ultrasparky
• Super Hyper Demon Child
• Q Daily News
• Joel Spolsky's Joel on Software
• bgirl

ComputerWorld: Debunking Microsoft ...

ComputerWorld: Debunking Microsoft

Christina was trying to take a picture of a cupboard, but my big head got in the way.

Derrick is a man I look up to, in more ways than one.

Here are my pcitures from WEB2001. Sorry, all you're getting is a directory listing, no annotation.

My slide presentation from WEB2001: A Guide to Open Source Technologies for Project Mangers [Powerpoint format]

I'm sitting here ...

I'm sitting here next to Derrick Story (of O'ReillyNet) in the Online Lounge at WEB2001, where a fast wireless connection rocks my world (beats the slow dial-up in the hotel room).

This SearchEngineWatch story lists me as the creator of Blogdex. Oops, looks like someone needs to do their research...

Someone spent a good deal of time building this spoof of the O'Reilly web site. Funny.

XML Magazine has ...

XML Magazine has a great interview with Adam Bosworth of Crossgain (since acquired by BEA) about next-generation Web services and XML. [via RealWorldASP.net]

Business Week: The Fiber-Optic "Glut" -- in a New Light

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire won the Hugo Award for Best Sci-Fi Novel. It makes me wonder how much influence wide-spread popularity has on this decision. For instance, one of the most original Sci-Fi novels I've read in the past five years is Jim Munroe's Angry Young Spaceman, but I fear that such a novel will be ignored simply because it's not backed by a huge publisher with lots of money to spend on marketing.

CotDC: The Tao of Windows Buffer Overflow

Comparing Microsoft IIS and Apache HTTP Server. "Keeping up with the security holes is just too costly. The manpower costs of dealing with the flood of security problems that have plagued Microsoft's webserver can cripple an IS department or an entire small business. Microsoft has issued 21 security bulletins for IIS 5.0 alone, a number that is increasing at the rate of about one every three weeks."

The Rising Costs of Software Complexity

The Visual Language of Experts in Graphic Design

Wow! Hewlett-Packard to Acquire Compaq in $25 Billion Deal

NY Times: In ...

NY Times: In Technology, Supply Precedes Demand

Fiber-to-the-Home links:

• Palo Alto: FTTH (Fiber To The Home) Trial
• Wired: Coming Soon: Fiber to the Home
• Business 2.0: Fiber Is Coming Home -- But Not Soon
• Technology Review: Fiber Optics to the Home
• White Paper: Towards a National Data Grid/Fiber to the Home
• Teledotcom: Fiber Home Economics

The Hacker's Diet: How to lose weight and hair through stress and poor nutrition

You're the largest software company in the world. You are implementing an unpopular, privacy-invading, monopolistic series of technologies into your operating system and Web browser. Lots of people have figured out what you are up to. So, what do you do when the press asks? You play dumb.

Request: A very ...

Request: A very good friend of mine is thinking of relocating to NYC from the Midwest, and is looking for an entry-level to intermediate-level position in the Web/Internet industry. The market right now is pretty tough, but if you know of any open positions, please feel free to pass them along to me for consideration.

I will be in San Francisco this week, speaking at and attending the WEB2001 conference. If you'll be there, track me down and say hello.

I found a good screen printer to get my CamWorld t-shirts done, but there's not enough time to get them done quickly, so I'm going to wait and get them done later this year. Thanks for all your recommendations!