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Stuff that doesn’t fit in any other category

A Valentine’s Day tale

heart pictureAnd now, for something completely different, although it is somewhat technology related. I've known my wife Marian for close to 30 years. We've only been married for six, though, as we somehow never connected as 20 some-odd years passed. We wound up on different coasts, leading different lives, until fate figured it was time for us to get together.

When we finally did start dating, things moved rapidly, given that we already knew everything about each other--we were married less than six months after our 'first date.' We knew early on that we were going to get married, so that left me with a huge challenge: how do you surprise someone who's 100% certain they'll be getting an engagement ring? To add to the complexities, our relationship was also being carried out via United and Southwest Airlines--she lived in Arizona, and I in Oregon. So I couldn't really just show up on her doorstep with a ring, hoping she'd happen to be home. Or could I?

Read on for the details on how I used my Mac, an instant messaging client, a cell phone, and a good bit of deception to surprise Marian with her engagement ring. Caution, some syrupy romantic stuff will be included. It is, after all, Valentine's Day!

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New comment spam blocker installed

As a follow-up to the captcha post, I think I've implemented a near-ideal solution to allow fast and easy commenting while still blocking the spambots.

I took the advice of Andrew Wooster, linked by Simone Manganelli in comment #3 on the original captcha post, and created a personalized spam blocker using an additional field on the comment form. I also tweaked it just a bit, to provide some benefit to registered users. So as of today, here's how comments will work going forward:

  • If you're logged in: There's no change from how things worked before. Just fill in your comment and submit it. I'm going to assume that the spambots aren't going to take the trouble to register prior to spamming the site :). If that turns out not to be true, I may have to make the below process apply to everyone.
  • If you're not logged in: You'll see one new field on the comment submission form. This field is required, and it's a text field to hold the answer to one of five very simple questions. How simple? They're so simple that the answer is given in the questions themselves. Here's a sample question: "What is Tommy Sample's first name?" Type in the answer, and the comment will be published just as before.

I think this is about the most painless spam solution available, so let's see how it works. Registered users will feel no pain at all, and everyone else will have just a slight (a few characters typed into one text box) hassle, with none of the captcha's side effects. Please let me know if you have any troubles with this new solution.

Update: There are now five randomly-presented questions, as well as a cleaned-up layout. Hopefully the questions are all as simple as they should be; if you're thinking about the answer, you're trying too hard!



Annoying captcha added (sorry!)

Update: The annoying captcha has been replaced.

no spamToday I took the long-avoided step of adding a captcha to the comment submission form. It seems my blog has been discovered by the spambots, and (even with Spam Karma 2 installed) the flood of meaningless spam has gotten too large to ignore. Most of you probably don't see the postings, as I get notified via email whenever they appear, and I do my best to delete them immediately. However, as the number of meaningless comments increased, this process was becoming too time consuming.

So I was left with two options. First, I could allow only registered users to post comments. I don't like that solution, since this is an informal, hopefully fun place to just drop by. If someone feels like leaving a comment, I'd like them to be able to do so without the hassle of registering for an account. So that left the second option--adding the captcha to the comment screen. This is far from ideal, as I know sometimes the stupid things are nearly unreadable, and they present issues to those who have problems with their vision. I wish I had a better solution (a future update to Spam Karma may solve the problems, I hope), but right now, I don't.

So for now, we have a captcha. It's not like there are a ton of comments here anyway, but hopefully this won't cut down on the dialog as much as would happen if I were to add a registration requirement. Please let me know if you have any issues with the captcha; I'm using SecureImage, which is fairly widely used, so hopefully the problems will be minimal. This plug-in does have one nice feature--if you are logged in, you won't see it (so there you have it, one minor reason why you might wish to register). And spammers, please find a better target for your vileness. There's no way I'm going to let any of your drek stay on these pages for any length of time!

And yes, there is more content coming here in the future--I've just been a touch busy with Macworld and macosxhints.com stuff lately!





You know it’s not your night when…

Every couple of months, some friends and I get together for a fun (and very low stakes) night of Texas Hold’Em. Read the Wikipedia entry if you’re not familiar with the game, but it’s basically a variant of a seven card stud poker game. In a nutshell, each player gets two “hole” (private, face-down) cards, then the remaining five cards are public and shared amongst all the players. The public cards are turned over three at once, then one at a time for the last two, with a betting round after each card is placed.

As noted, our game has very low stakes—$10 initial buy-in and then, if you’re eliminated, you can buy in again, but only for $5.00 (so you start with a betting disadvantage against the other well established players). Last night, luck was not running my way—the first $10 had gone quite quickly, and I had maybe $3 left of the $5 re-buy.

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The 24 Rules of the ’24’ Universe

24 logoAs noted in an earlier post, I’m a late-addict to the 24 phenomenon, as I’m now catching up with prior seasons on DVD. So I thought I’d take a minute or two to note some rules of the ‘24’ universe, at least as I understand them after watching the first three seasons…

Technically, I guess there are some spoilers in here, but they’re generic “minor” spoilers in that they reveal nothing about any particular episode or character. So even if you’re planning on watching, I don’t think my list will be too damaging to your enjoyment of the shows (though it may make you notice some things sooner than if you were left to spot the trends on your own).

Due to the length of the list, I’ve hidden it in part two of the post.

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Taking creative license

Recently, I gave in to the urgings of a friend (and my father, who’s been after me for years) and started watching Season One of the Fox drama 24. I had never seen an episode, but had been using my past experience with Fox television as a reason not to watch—the only thing on the network that I’ve ever liked was their football broadcasts. Nontheless, I gave in and asked for the first season of 24 for Christmas.

After I got home, I fired up the first show, and…was hooked in about 20 minutes. Since then, I’ve been staying up later than usual, and waking up even earlier than usual, and have managed to work my way through the first season and part of the second. But this post isn’t really about 24; it’s about ‘artistic license’ as applied by directors of TV shows and movies. In particular, one of the opening scenes in Season Two really caught my eye (click for larger image):

Shot of Lake O in 24 opening

You see, Lake Oswego, Oregon is about 10 miles from where I live, and I guarantee you, it looks nothing like the above image.

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Thanks for buying AnyMovie on DVD!

Congratulations on your recent purchase of AnyMovie on DVD! You are just a few quick steps away from enjoying this fine feature on your home theater system. To get started, here's all you need to do...

  1. Remove the AnyMovie DVD from the bag provided by the store.
  2. Remove the shrink wrap from the AnyMovie DVD. Note that this step will require either exceedingly long and sharp nails, a pair of scissors, or a knife of some sort. Take care when using the scissors or knife that you don't accidentally damage AnyMovie's packaging--we spent hours creating those glorious photos and writing that flowing text. It'd be a shame to damage the package before you even have AnyMovie open!
  3. Remove the decorative slipcover that protects the AnyMovie DVD case, which in turn, protects the AnyMovie DVD itself. Don't misplace this slipcover, though, as you'll want to keep it handy when storing the AnyMovie DVD in your DVD rack. During this step, you may notice that the slipcover and the actual DVD case have identical artwork, front and back. This may lead you to wonder why we included the slipcover, since it appears redundant, increases shipping costs, and eventually increases landfill usage. Don't worry about such things; that's our job. Just rejoice in the knowledge that you'll soon be enjoying AnyMovie on your own theater system.
  4. Using either your sharp fingernails, the scissors, or the knife from step two, remove the sticky anti-theft wraps that we have thoughtfully placed on the top, right, and bottom edges of the DVD case. You may find these annoying, especially as they have a tendency to either tear apart or rip off portions of the DVD case artwork, but rest assured--they're there for your protection. Really. See, if they weren't there, then we'd be forced to charge more for the AnyMovie DVD due to increased piracy. You see, there's no telling how many people would stand there in the store, rip the shrink wrap off the package, remove the slipcover from the DVD case, pry open the DVD case, and remove the disc(s) before slipping out of the store unnoticed. Thanks to these plastic peel-offs, though, we don't have to worry about such things.
  5. Turn the DVD case on its edge, and look at the long side of the case. Notice the two tabs with the words "Open" and the small arrows pointing up. Insert your sharp fingernail, or other suitably pointed object, into the nearly-invisible crack at the top of these tabs, then pry in a downward direction. With luck, the tabs will pop open. If you're out of luck, though, your fingernail will pop off, or your sharp object will break. If this happens, please find another fingernail or sharp object to use to complete this step. If you're bleeding, first apply a bandage to prevent any blood from staining the AnyMovie DVD. (Our warranty doesn't cover malfunctioning discs caused by consumers' bleeding onto the media).
  6. Open the DVD case, and quickly scan through the valuable movie discounts and other advertising we've included to keep your costs down. Again, we're acting in your interests here. Without these inserts, your cost would be notably higher. If you splurged on the Special Edition of AnyMovie, then you may find some interesting-looking related extras. If you bought the standard version, you're now staring at an empty black case, devoid of anything useful other than the disc itself.
  7. Remove the disc from the carrier. Note that this will require at least two hands, and possibly three, especially if you have small hands. Do your best not to touch the disc in any way during this step; you may get a fingerprint or scratch on it, which will, of course, not be covered under warranty (we cannot be responsible for damage caused by the consumer).
  8. Insert the DVD into your player, and then sit back and enjoy AnyMovie!

Yes, I received a few DVDs for Christmas. Yes, I think the packaging for DVDs has gone beyond ridiculous to the point of idiocy. Do I think things will change anytime soon? Unfortunately, no. But I feel better now, having ranted about it a bit!



Macworld: 2005 writings

Macworld logoThe following is what I could find online of my 2005 articles for Macworld. I wrote more than what's shown here, but these are the ones I could find…



New comment tools installed…

Today's lunch hour project was to enhance the comment engine here on Robservatory just a bit. To that end, there are now two new features active:

  • Instead of a generic Recent Comments tracker in the sidebar, a new Unread Comments tracker (thanks to the Smart Unread Comments plug-in) shows only the comments you haven't personally seen. There's also a link to mark them all as read, in case you'd like to catch up right away. (Since the plug-in uses cookies to track the unread comments, everyone's starting point is the same--they are all unread, since the cookies haven't yet been created on your machine). This should make it somewhat easier to keep up with comments posted here.
  • Posting comments is now easier, thanks to the LivePreview plug-in. As you start typing your comment, you'll see a real-time preview (JavaScript required) below the text area. This is pretty slick, as it will preview HTML on the fly, so you can check bold, italics, and links before you hit the Submit button.

Not earth-shattering changes, but they should make working with comments a bit easier for everyone...