aMMusing

In the nearly 4½ years since I began my day job, which I suppose I can’t call “new” anymore, I have hardly worked on what was the centre of my existence for several years before: my home-grown TextStyleM content management system. In fact, over the years I have even let go most of my clients, only creating a new TextStyleM submodule for one client last year and amending some of the MySQL queries in the CMS as a result of a major upgrade of the LAMP (Linux / Apache / MySQL / PHP-Perl) kernels on the server where my remaining clients’ sites reside. However, I have been keeping relatively current in web development with PHP/MySQL, as I have developed a series of applications for my day job — the initiative that earned me that big recognition/cruise last winter. I say “relatively current” because I haven’t changed the software I use — a text editor and FTP client — in about a decade because, really, a text editor is just a text editor and anything that we see online can ultimately be coded by hand.

About two weeks ago, one of my remaining clients came to me for help about uploading material in a new subdirectory within its domain. The client wanted access to upload the material on its own, which means giving FTP access. Normally it would be easier to have the client send me the stuff to upload, but I didn’t “fight” (because I didn’t feel like it) the assurance that “my neighbour and web developer is very familiar with FTP,” even though that statement sent chills down my spine and reminded me of how, a decade ago, I would have people say to me, “My 13-year-old nephew knows all about websites and even created his own webpage, so I’m sure he can help us update once ours is up.” (That’s what got me working on TextStyleM in the first place.) The only warning I gave is that if this guy screws things up, I won’t be able to fix anything until I return to Montréal late this week.

And sure enough, the phone started ringing around 8:30 this morning. But I’m on effin’ vacation and only got up and called the client shortly before noon. As I expected, everything that was “wrong” was totally out of my control, from changing on the template what’s between the bloody <TITLE> tags to correctly sending the files via FTP. Plus, wouldn’t you know it: the site in the subdirectory looks almost fine in Internet Explorer but like total shit in Firefox. I know this is a snooty comment on my part, but I can’t help wonder if this neighbour/web developer is merely using a Mac-equivalent of FrontPage of old without having a clue what the fuck is happening in the background.

This reminds me of my biggest technical weaknesses: I freely admit that, design-wise, I suck. And I always lean towards pure server-side coding rather than fancier (and, I also admit, often more user-friendly) client-side scripting. But, to this day, I seldom fall into the trap of browser-specific compliance issues, or not being able to read a CSS stylesheet, or, for that matter, unwittingly uploading files in ASCII versus binary mode or vice versa.

Additionally, as I mentioned to BeeGoddessM earlier this week, I’m reminded of how sad I feel about having essentially abandoned TextStyleM. As I use a server installation of WordPress to write this blog, I see how it’s a formidable CMS for this kind of online publishing, but I also see how TextStyleM had content management features far beyond anything I’ve seen in other any other CMS. For instance, if an image was deleted, TextStyleM would scan the entire site and REMOVE every reference to that image to prevent gibberish code or a broken image on the affected page(s). Plus, publishing a site in two languages is easy as shit with TextStyleM. However, as BeeGoddessM pointed out five years ago, the interface of my CMS needed to change to become more like the other CMSs out there. I started working on that makeover and it would have kicked ass had I had the time and energy to bring it to fruition. But work and other life-altering events intervened, so it never happened.

Despite how stupid the day job has become recently, I definitely prefer the steady paycheque over the uncertainty of freelancing. But I still feel some sadness at seeing thousands upon thousands of hours of work not leading to anything significant today.

With the on-going attention Facebook has been receiving in the media and among its users about the complexity (impenetrability?) of its privacy settings, one of my FB friends recently posted a link to an article about this very topic and posited that this complexity is one of the main contributors preventing someone like his mother from ever joining the social network.

That article was part of a much larger website by someone named Thomas Baekdal that is dedicated to “showcasing great products, great innovations and great experiences.” But one article that particularly piqued my interest, perhaps because of my day job and the fact I always fall for such geeky topics, was “The Usability of Passwords.”

Considering that just about everything we do today is computer-mediated, we find ourselves having to manage a slew of passwords to gain access to those things. Sometimes, we get to choose those passwords; sometimes, they’re imposed on us. And when we get to choose them, they often not only need to meet certain criteria but also need to be changed periodically. As a result, we often end up creating simplistic passwords that could easily be cracked.

The best possible password, we are often told, would be one that is not a real word and contains a mixture of upper- and lowercase letters, numbers, and special characters, like utY#8asfF7. But try to remember something that’s so unlike the way we think! Thus imagine my surprise (and delight) at Baekdal’s suggestion that a pass phrase like “fluffy is puffy” would be virtually uncrackable.

That one wouldn’t meet the minimal requirements at my job; however, this notion is definitely one I intend to keep in mind the next time I’m forced to change a password.

Most of you probably thought that I fell off the face of the Earth — or at least the Web — with that last post from September 16 remaining there as my last musing. Now that you’re back (and I’m back), you can see that the look of aMMusing has changed.

Which Came First? The Chicken or the Egg?
No, don’t bother answering that existential question. I’m throwing it there simply because it somehow encapsulates the reason for my disappearance. After September 16, I did get quite busy — too busy to blog much. But about 10 days later, when I decided I needed to post something new, I couldn’t get to the sign-in page of my installation of WordPress. In the end, a whole federal election has gone by and I haven’t offered my usual commentary on those vile Conservatives!

I looked around the Web to figure out how I could fix it, but quickly I had to come to the conclusion that it was hopeless because I was using version 1.5 of WP, which is up to 2.6 today. Indeed, it was back in March 2005 that I moved from Moveable Type and adopted a whole new look for aMMusing, and frankly (and typical for me), I haven’t changed much “under the hood” since then.

So, I had no choice. I had to upgrade. But the backend of WP changed considerably in three-and-a-half years. I certainly didn’t want to lose my postings since December 2002, so I studied the code carefully to figure out how each posts gets stored in the MySQL database and developed a PHP script to facilitate the transfer. (By the way, I *HATE* how each tiny edit adds the whole post over in the database. That just needlessly increases the size of the database.) As you can imagine, with about 1,170 entries over the years, the transfer process was slow and tedious and required that I fix all the internal links among posts, although I stopped short of getting rid of likerot to outbound articles.

This exercise made me think about how I should take advantage of the switch to do another retrospective as in April 2005. But, with work and Spanish classes as only a few of my on-going commitments, time is at a premium. Still, I think a retrospective of the last three-and-a-half years would be fun.

Now, though, I have to run to attend Thanksgiving dinner at Cleopatrick‘s parents up in Lanaudière. But welcome to aMMusing 3.0!

Thanks to The Quad for posting this video to my Facebook Fun Wall. Defending net neutrality is a battle we must all undertake. In my books, if Tim Berners-Lee says so, that’s an endorsement equivalent to one coming directly from God.

Since I’m in a sufficiently pissed off mood right now, here’s another quick rant: Windows Vista totally SUCKS. That’s the OS that came with this laptop I’m using, but I don’t care: at the first opportunity, I’m going to find a version of XP for it. Vista is bloated and slow and doesn’t significantly improve XP. I don’t care that any kind of support of XP by Microsoft ends in June; I’ve not found a single compelling reason to stick to Vista. So, since there’s nothing major installed or saved on this laptop, I’m getting the whole thing reformatted down to XP. And I’m sure that will make operating this laptop a much happier experience.

When I heard Esposo’s sad, sad voice on the voice-mail — two messages left via Skype Out to the home landline — my heart just melted. Except for a regular Skype call from a café last Saturday — and even that free connection was unstable — it’s been over two weeks we haven’t spoken. I missed all of his other Skype Out calls — once because my landline was dead, once because I couldn’t run across the apartment face enough before voice mail picked up, and then again last night. But as much as I like the new apartment, I feel disconnected there right now and can’t stand being unable to turn to the computer for anything. Who would have thought that by 2008, a computer that is not ‘Net-connected would be next to useless.

I came back from the broom closet work today to find that the DSL light is still flashing in glorious futility and no technician from Bell called to make an appointment to visit. Last night I was told it could take 24 to 72 hours, and sitting there on the sofa, I thought, “They might call Monday, to make an appointment for the next day, and arrive to determine that something highly unusual (although probably usual for Bell) is going on with the line and, no, they can’t fix it today but in 48 hours” …which would take us to next Friday. So, I called to nudge things along, only to find that, indeed, the status of service starting was changed from 2 April to 14 April, and no sign of an appointment coming soon. The gentleman at the end of the line suggested I call first thing in the morning in the hope of catching a cancellation tomorrow.

But, earlier as I came home, I had found the perfect piece of mail in my box: a pamphlet from Videotron. So, I called the number and asked it my question. “If you answer ‘yes’ to my first question, we’ll keep talking, and if you answer ‘no,’ I’ll stick to the devil I know,” I started. “I’m sick of the comedy of errors from Bell, and all I want is high-speed Internet. So, yes or no: could you have it installed tomorrow.” The lady at the end of the line didn’t miss a beat. “Give me your address, I’ll look it up and I’ll give you a definite ‘yes’ or ‘no.’”

She came back with a “yes.” Between 7:30 and noon tomorrow. And the first month will be free.

I went with it. Placed an order and a deposit, and set the alarm in case they really arrive at 7:30. It’s more expensive than Bell and Bell was going to give the first two months free, but as my mother would say, “Un ‘le voici’ vaut plus que deux ‘tu l’auras’” (“One ‘there you are’ is worth more than two ‘you’ll have it’”). Then, I called back Bell technical to cancel whatever technician might be coming this century or next, and while I’ll wait for Videotron tomorrow, I’ll be calling Bell to cancel the Internet service. I’m prepared for an argument, but where they did not deliver the goods in what anyone would consider a timely manner, any Internet-related fees or deposits I paid them I expect back. As for Videotron, I didn’t look into cable TV or cell phone just yet; being connected to the ‘Net from home tomorrow is my ONLY priority right now.

A part of me regrets not having called Videotron earlier, but then, by the time I called, I had the perfect sob story and it gave someone else the opportunity to tell Ma Bell to go piss up a rope.

Today I discovered that all Business Depot outlets smell the same. I know that’s a terribly odd observation, but I came to that conclusion minutes after entering the third outlet today.

Indeed, I brought back the dud Toshiba first thing this afternoon. It was pronounced a dud by a technician, so I find some comfort in that: I’m not an idiot. Then we arranged a hold on another Toshiba at the downtown outlet but, once there, I found out I could only get the blasted thing tomorrow. Knowing that there were three units sitting at yet another outlet across the harbour, I asked to the people at the second outlet to reserve one of those at the third so that I could go get it immediately, which I did. I insisted, and got, that Toshiba for the initial price.

So, it just over two weeks, I’ve technically bought four laptops. This one works well and I can connect adequately to an unsecured network — adequately enough to download the most recent Windows updates. I’m going to finish configuring this little puppy and that’ll be good enough for now. Later I’ll give more thought to what to do about my network and current wireless router.

Unrelated… A while back, one of my (real life and) Facebook friends had the funniest and most accurate status update: “[Friend's name] thinks IE is a great browser to download Firefox.” I’m smirking right now because that’s precisely what I’m doing on the new Toshiba. That as well as Skype, which has become an indispensible application for maintaining that Mexico — Canada connection…

Fer fuck sake! On days like this, it’s hard to believe I make a living working at a computer all day. But, at the same time, I realize that I do (read, that I’m addicted) because not having Internet access from every computer in the house is driving me crazy.

It all started two weeks ago when I agreed with El Poema that I should get myself a cheap laptop. After work that Friday night, I went to Business Depot and found a Toshiba that met that description, and asked the salesperson if I could bring it back if I couldn’t just plug it into my home network. He said sure, provided I bring it back within 14 days.

I got home and it took over an hour to boot it the first time. Fine …but then I tried to connect to the router/network and was stymied by having to know the encryption key. Damn if I knew what it was!

With everything else I have on the go these days, trying to figure this out is more than I can handle. So, I finally broke down and hired a techie from PC Medic to do a house call. He came yesterday and, although he found the key in two seconds, other complications conspired and he couldn’t get the damn thing to hook up. “That does it,” I thought. The laptop might not be at fault, but I’m bringing it back. On precisely the 14th day.

But then I thought I’d drop by PC Medic. Maybe I could get an equally cheap laptop and it would connect on the first try. I got a recycled laptop that still had XP as the operating system — as opposed to Vista on the previous one — but, once home, it became apparent this one wouldn’t connect, either. Thankfully, the PC Medic people agreed that if I couldn’t connect instantly, I could bring it back the next day and they’d reimburse me, no questions asked.

However, I then found myself with a computer inferior to the Toshiba I had before, so screw that! I brought the recycled thing back to PC Medic. And then I thought, What about if I got another Toshiba, try at least to connect to an unsecured network — for really, the whole point of this laptop is to have a computer I can travel with and connect to a wireless network. So, off I go to another Business Depot location and I get another Toshiba. I even talked them into giving it to me for the same price as the previous one. But where it was closing time and all, I had to go back today to pick it up, reformatted.

So I did. Even though it was considerably later than I said I would come by, it wasn’t ready yet and I had to wait quite a while. Back home, I boot the sucker up …but to make a long story short, this one is a total dud! But what’s more, now my router is a complete piece of toast, which I’m told is because it’s a very unpopular brand la la la la la. (It’s an SMC, in case you’re wondering.) So now, only the computer that’s directly connected can reach the Net. And only one of the two desktops in the living room can “talk” to the desktop in my office.

Needless to say, the dud is going back to the store tomorrow. And where I know Business Depot has several other Toshibas at the downtown store (as of last night, at least), I’m going to insist on getting one and go through this whole song-and-dance all over again.

That’s not going to fix the network/router, mind you. On that front, I’m not sure what to do anymore. I think I might have to get a non-SMC and start the network all over again. But there’s no friggin’ way I’ll succeed on my own. So, now I’m thinking I’ll have to bite the bullet and hire another techie who, I would hope, could get this all done in about two hours …’cause that’s what a techie does, right? (Kaching, kaching!) And then, I would hope to make copious notes so I can dismantle this bloody network, replug it once in Montréal in two months, and it’ll all work like a charm, right?

Can you tell this cascade of incidents has broke this camel’s back?

When it comes to “computer stuff,” some things baffle me. Like…

1. Getting hardware to work. I tentatively bought a laptop this week. By “tentatively,” I mean that I told the salesperson that if I can’t figure out in a few days and with relative ease how to get the blasted thing connected to my wireless router, I would bring it back. For some unexplicable reason, I have no patience for stuff like that. Or a short attention span. But at the rate things are going now, I may end up returning the damn thing.

2. How some days spam e-mails clog my inbox in a manner that resembles a sudden and heavy snowstorm, and then dies down to a trickle or even nothing. It conjures up images of spammers launching an attack and then the people at my hosting company intervening by altering the server-side filtering rules to stop the influx. But then I suspect that, really, it’s more a case of the storm simply stopping.

A while back, I asked my hosting company if they had any suggestion of what I could do to cut down the spam in addition to applying my own filtering rules. I was given an excellent explanation of why it’s such a big problem for me, but implementing a lasting way of stopping the influx would require considerable work on my part. And work is time, which is at a premium for me these days.

I’ve made a few references lately to Facebook, and yeah, what can I say! Initially I resisted, and then one day I fell into it big time and wasted an entire evening. But now I check in once or twice a day for about 10 minutes at a time, and that’s quite enough.

It’s terribly addictive, which brought one of my listed friend to refer to it as Crackbook. And I wonder to what extent it is to 2007 what blogs were in 2003. I mean, blogs are still around today, but I’m sure you’ve noticed that many bloggers have come and gone, and blogs themselves are just not what they used to be. The novelty has worn off somewhat, and I suspect the same will happen with Facebook.

But in the meantime, it’s fun to trace back people you’ve lost touch of. In fact, a few weeks ago, I got together for dinner with Barry, a former neighbour from a decade ago, and then visited Sir Brian, another friend I’d lost touch with. So that’s definitely the positive side of Facebook. But overall, I have to admit I’m trying very hard not to fall into it too much. Fortunately, the novelty of it is already starting to wear off on me. At least a little bit.

And yes, I definitely need to get new pictures of myself to reflect that it’s been years I haven’t worn a full beard and that my hair is now resolutely all silver.