Twitter Updates for 2008-08-31

• wanting to play Castle Crashers and a little Geo Wars 2 sequence. #
• sold some links on my site. Disneyland, here we come. #
• setup Sweetcron for dancameron.net. I really like the software, maybe I’ll incorporate it into my main site. #

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Microsoft breaks IE8 interoperability promise

It doesn’t surprise me at all, MS backing down on a promise. What’s o wrong is the “broken page” icon for standards websites. WTH?

(via Microsoft breaks IE8 interoperability promise)

Comment In March, Microsoft announced that their upcoming Internet Explorer 8 would: “use its most standards compliant mode, IE8 Standards, as the default.”

Note the last word: default. Microsoft argued that, in light of their newly published interoperability principles, it was the right thing to do. This declaration heralded an about-face and was widely praised by the web standards community; people were stunned and delighted by Microsoft’s promise.

This week, the promise was broken. It lasted less than six months. Now that Internet Explorer IE8 beta 2 is released, we know that many, if not most, pages viewed in IE8 will not be shown in standards mode by default. The dirty secret is buried deep down in the «Compatibility view» configuration panel, where the «Display intranet sites in Compatibility View» box is checked by default. Thus, by default, intranet pages are not viewed in standards mode.

How many pages are affected by this change? Here’s the back of my envelope: The PC market can be split into two segments — the enterprise market and the home market. The enterprise market accounts for around 60 per cent of all PCs sold, while the home market accounts for the remaining 40 per cent. Within enterprises, intranets are used for all sorts of things and account for, perhaps, 80 per cent of all page views. Thus, intranets account for about half of all page views on PCs!

Furthermore, web standards are discriminated against in IE8 by the icon that appears next to standards-compliant web pages:

The picture shows a broken page. A broken page? Why is broken page icon shown next to standards-compliant pages? The idea, apparently, is to encourage users to escape standards-mode by clicking on the broken page. There’s a dastardly logic here: showing a broken page may make users wonder if they are seeing pages correctly. Authors are probably not too thrilled by having a broken page shown next to their pages, and the only way to avoid the icon is to not trigger standards mode. The message is clear: don’t use standards!

I have a few suggested remedies. First, I suggest that IE8 not introduce version targeting which only perpetuates the problem of non-compliant pages. Instead, IE8 should respect the established conventions which don’t need manual switching between modes. If Microsoft insists on displaying some kind of icon next to standards-compliant web pages, I suggest they use this image instead:

Microsoft has a long-standing tradition of saying the right things about standards, but shipping non-standard products. IE8 could be different. Microsoft have done the hard technical work. They’ve made a promise they can keep. I call on them to make the right choice.

Three Words

McCain and his hail-mary pick.

(via Three Words)

Think about what the Palin pick really says about how McCain views this campaign and how he views his potential responsibilities in national security.

Think about what it says about the sincerity of McCain’s own central criticism of Obama these past two months in foreign affairs.

Think about how he picked a woman to be a heartbeat away from a war presidency who hadn’t even thought much, by her own admission, about the Iraq war as late as 2007.

Think about how he made this decision barely knowing the woman.

Think about the fact that the most McCain could say about his potential war-time vice-president in foreign affairs and national security when selecting her is that she commanded Alaska’s National Guard as governor and has a son in the military.

Think about the men and women serving this country who have every right to trust that their potential commander-in-chief, whatever their party, would have some record of even interest in foreign policy before assuming office.

Think about how the key factor in this decision was not who could defend this country were something dreadful happen to McCain in office but how to tread as much on Obama’s convention bounce and use women’s equality as a wedge issue among Democrats because it might secure a few points here or there. Oh, and everyone would be surprised. And even Rove would be annoyed.

This is his sense of honor and judgment. This is his sense of responsibility and service.

Here’s the real slogan the McCain campaign should now adopt:

Putting. Country. Last.

Twitter Updates for 2008-08-29

• listening to our future president speak. His story pre-speach was great and shows he genuinely wants change. #
• had a feeling McCain would pick a woman VP to pander to the lost Clinton supporters that don’t care about the issues. #

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Why McCain Picked Palin - TIME

It’s a weird pick in my opinion but it makes sense if he wants the Clinton supports that don’t care about the issues.

But her inexperience will help Obama. And some have to think, if McCain is 72 now, would she be “ready” for the presidency.

(via Why McCain Picked Palin - TIME)

John McCain needs to persuade swing voters that he’s willing to take on the Republican establishment. He needs to persuade conservatives that he isn’t squishy about social issues. And he needs to close the gender gap. When you think about it, the real surprise about Sarah Palin’s selection as his running mate is that it’s such a surprise.

Palin may be an obscure 44-year-old first-term governor and mother of five from Wasilla, Alaska, but in many ways she reinforces John McCain’s narrative. She’s risen to power by battling corruption in her own state’s Republican establishment, exposing misconduct by the state GOP chairman and challenging the incumbent GOP governor. She’s pro-life in practice as well as in theory; she recently gave birth to a son that she knew would have Down Syndrome. She’ll be the first woman on a Republican ticket, which could appeal to Hillary Clinton voters and help reduce Barack Obama’s advantage among women. Her son is about to deploy to Iraq. She’s an ice fisherman, a moose hunter and a lifetime NRA member. She killed her state’s pork-laden Bridge to Nowhere that McCain has ridiculed on the trail. She’s a fresh face to counteract Obama’s message of change.

One more point in her favor: In the topsy-turvy election of 2008, the Last Frontier is actually a battleground state—and Palin is Alaska’s most popular politician.

There are, of course, real risks to the choice. Palin’s presence will make it awkward for McCain to harp on Obama’s inexperience, much less play that attack-dog role herself. She’s only served as governor one month longer than Obama’s been running for president, and she’s argued that her youth helped her clean out corruption in Juneau, echoing an Obama talking point. “The age issue, I think, was more significant in my career than the gender issue; your resume isn’t as fat as your opponent’s, that kind of thing,” Palin told TIME last month. “I don’t have 30 years of political experience under my belt but that’s a good thing. I’ve never been part of a good-ol’-boys club.”

Still, it’s a long leap from the Wasilla city council to the White House, and the top consideration for any candidate for the number-two job is readiness for the number-one job, an issue that may weigh more on voters’ minds when the potential number one is 72 years old.

And Palin has not always seen eye to eye with McCain. Her strong support for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge will contrast with McCain’s muted opposition, and though she has no foreign policy experience, she has criticized the lack of a long-term plan for Iraq. She also surprised her state’s conservatives by vetoing a bill that would have denied state benefits to same-sex couples.

Her profile as a good government crusader may not be such an easy sell, either. She was endorsed in an ad by Senator Ted Stevens, who is now under indictment, and she faces an investigation into the firing of her public safety commissioner; there have been allegations that she sacked him because he refused to fire a state trooper who’s involved in a custody battle with her sister.

Palin certainly does have an unconventional profile for a national politician. She won Miss Wasilla in 1984 and competed in the Miss Alaska contest. She’s worked as a TV sports announcer. Her husband, Todd Palin, is part native Eskimo and a champion snowmobiler; he’s known in Alaska as the First Dude.

But politically, in a year where the Republican brand is so tarnished, Palin will help McCain make the case that he’s a different kind of Republican. It might be his best shot to be America’s First Dude.

Sweetcron: Your Lifestream on Your Server

I’ve been waiting for the release for weeks but I’m not sure if I’m going to really need it. I think I’ll just run it at dancameron.net

(via Sweetcron: Your Lifestream on Your Server)

We were pretty excited when we first heard about Sweetcron, a self-hosted lifestreaming application developed by Yongfook. Today, after a bit of a delay, Sweetcron has finally released its software and we immediately downloaded and installed it ourselves. While it is still pretty barebone, Sweetcron represents a great solution for those who don’t necessarily want to participate in the discussions on Friendfeed, but still would like to set up a lifestream.

Installation

Sweetcron is a self-hosted service, so you will need access to a server with PHP and MySQL running on it. After downloading the code, the install is pretty typical for that of self-hosted application. It’s a bit more complicated than installing Wordpress or OpenTape, because you have to enter your data in numerous places and you have to edit your .htaccess when you want to install Sweetcron in a sub-directory.However, if you just follow the steps in the documentation, you should be able to install Sweetcron in less than 10 minutes.

After this, you just start adding your RSS feeds, and you are ready to go.

Final Result

The lifestream itself looks and works just like you would expect it, with a number of little surprises. One of the nicest features of Sweetcron is that it can format every new entry according to where it came from. A digg item, for example, gets a blue background, a Flickr items shows the photo on a green background with the caption underneath, and Twitter posts show in a blue box with your avatar in the top left corner (as long as you uploaded your avatar into the right spot in Sweetcron’s directory structure).

By default, Sweetcron updates your stream every 30 minutes, but you can also set the cron service on your server to update more frequently.

You can write your own posts in Sweetcron as well, but the editor doesn’t handle anything else but pure text and HTML code.

Bring Your Own Services

As of now, Sweetcron only creates your lifestream - if you want to add comments, Sweetcron recommends you install Disqus, and if you want to have a contact form on your site, it recommends you head over to wufoo to create one.

The two default themes are nice, especially the “Boxy but Good” one you can see in the screenshots here. Over time, others will surely start developing more themes and hacking the existing themes doesn’t seem too hard.

Verdict

Sweetcron does exactly what it promises to do. It is important to note, though, that this is not a Friendfeed-in-a-box type service. Your lifestream stands completely separate from every other Sweetcron service (though you could create a master feed for a group by patching all the RSS feeds together and running them through another Sweetcron installation).

For those who just want to have a lifestream on their blog, for example, Sweetcron is a great solution, especially if you don’t mind hacking Sweetcron to fit your own needs.

There are, of course, various other self-hosted applications that have a similar feature set (see Mark Krysnky’s list here), and many of them come as Wordpress plugins, making their installation very easy. Few, though, give you the flexibility of Sweetcron.

Twitter Updates for 2008-08-27

• the last.fm app for the iPhone is awesome, much better than the Pandora app with it’s really low quality stream #

Twitter Updates for 2008-08-26

• wow, sometimes I can’t believe these people on Deal or No Deal. Sometimes I can’t believe we’re watching it. #

Twitter Updates for 2008-08-25

• finished up drafting my 08 football team, entered two this year. Hopefully I pull off another win…doubtful. No Brady, Moss or Witten on 1. #
• looking through the 553 emails I recieved while I was gone on paternatiy leave. #

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Michelle Obama’s Democratic Convention Speech