Glass Houses, Yahoo and MS. Glass Houses.
Google announced their new Buzz product yesterday, and both Microsoft and Yahoo were quick with their responses. Microsoft was all, '...that's a dumb idea. Besides Hotmail has had linking with external sites forever.' And Yahoo was like, '...we had the original Buzz.' Here's my feeling on their positions.
First, Microsoft. Hotmail? Really? Have you really looked at Hotmail lately? It's horrible. In fact, last I heard, it could be a detriment to getting a job. Sure lots of people probably still use Hotmail (not that I know personally of course), but your problem is, no one is excited about using Hotmail.
Second, Yahoo. Buzz.yahoo.com? Really? I don't know if you noticed or not, but Buzz.yahoo.com is a straight rip on Digg. Try to innovate next time. Or better yet, take those resources and pour them into Flickr. It's about the only viable business you have left.
A (cosmetic) fix for those Feedburner tracking URLs
I'm a huge Google Reader nerd, and a few months ago, Feedburner (an RSS feed provider) started generating long URLs that are used to track outbound clicks in their feeds. Here's an example:
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/01/solar-eclipse-images-show-dazzling-corona-detail/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
Everything after that question mark (in red) isn't necessary to the user, and is only needed for the feed owner to track clicks from their feed. This isn't a big deal by any means, but it is kinda annoying to me. I parse my river of RSS feeds and occasionally pass along interesting links to my twitter feed, and I prefer to send the cleanest URL possible. Sure it's shortened automatically with bit.ly, but it still bugs me, so I've been looking for a solution to clean up the URL.
I'm not a big JS coder, but I figured there had to be a Greasemonkey script that would do the trick, and after doing a bit of searching, I found the solution over at userscripts.org. Enter FeedBurnerTrackingQueryStripper. This little Greasemonkey script does the trick perfectly. It's strips the tracking information from the URL after the page loads. So the feed owner is happy, and the user is left with a simpler URL.
Getting the “Model Identifier” for a Mac via ARD
With the recent release of a new firmware update for the latest version of the Mac Pros, I was wondering if there was an easy way to query a bunch of systems for their Model Identifier. This is a unique name for a particular model of Mac, that can be found in the Apple System Profiler app. Some examples are "MacPro3,1", "PowerMac10,2" & "Xserve3,1". Minor revs in a particular model will typically be denoted by incrementing the number after the comma, while major updates are before. Apple Remote Desktop can give you the "Machine Model" (Report>System Overview...>Machine Model), but this is a dumbed down name of the system that isn't specific enough for this purpose.
Brick and Mortar shops almost worthless?
Ok...that's an over the top header, but I swear I'm often left with this feeling lately. Heading to BestBuy is a great example. Sure you walk in the store and it seems filled to the brim with stuff, and it definitely is. However more often than not, I feel like I walk out of there without what I was looking for. A battery for this, or a charger for that, lens covers, etc. And it seems to be getting worse, not better.
Migration to Dreamhost nearly complete…
UPDATE: Migration complete! 1and1 cancelled! Yay!!
I've been meaning to get all of my domains off of 1 and 1 forever. A few weeks ago, I was motivated and started the migration. Thankfully none of my domains are very busy, so it was an easy transition. Domain registration changes are much easier nowadays too, thank god. The old NetSol challenge-response system always seemed to be a pain in the ass. Dreamhost servers seem to be much faster too, and it's really nice to finally have all of my domains under one roof for both registration and hosting.
