Netscape: AOL Pulls the Plug In February

Poor Netscape looks like it is finally doomed to the bit archives. In February of '08 AOL is formally pulling the plug on the browser that started it all (Mosaic really did I guess, but Netscape was the first browser to hit the main stream).



You ruled the Internet till about version 4 Netscape, then marketing forces and good old Microsoft started to kill you. Your son, Firebox, will live on to avenge you.

Read more [HERE].

Good Into Javascript OOP Tutorial

I'm pretty good at procedural Javascript, but I'm a little behind on object oriented Javascript. Some of my more recent client side projects could have really benefited from some JS OOP knowledge, so I decided I better bone up a little bit.

Anyway, here is a link to an old, but still very relevant, OOP Javascript tutorial. There are two parts, just toggle the 1/1 in the URL to 2/1 when you are done with teh first part.

http://www.sitepoint.com/article/oriented-programming-1/1

[Update 1/22/08]

Here is a pretty good ebook on Javascript-

http://eloquentjavascript.net/contents.html

Lame: Chinese Intelligence Works for the NSA

Pretty sad. Chinese intelligence set up a translation service company, and then used that company to contract NSA gigs translating NSA Chinese signals intercepts. This gave the Chinese a pretty clear view of what our capabilities are. Wonderful.

Read more [HERE].

Originally referenced on http://haftofthespear.com/

Reason Number 4837 To Hate Safari

How come images will not upload correctly with freaken Safari? And then only on more recent versions?

A possible answer is here...

http://www.neurofuzzy.net/2006/07/09/safari-and-php-file-uploads-solved/

Yet another reason Safari sucks. Apple is slick, and the fearful as well as the new hip hop web developers who don't know any better, flock to Apple. I'm sorry, Apple sucks, always sucked, and still sucks. So does M$, but at least their crap works most of the time. Yes, I know younger developers will rail against IE6 because it isn't "standards compliant". True enough, but they forget IE6 was made when IE was pushing the standards, not trying to comply with them. DHTML? XMLHTTP? innerHTML? All that came from IE. The standards came after IE innovated the web to a point where all their web 2.0 stuff could work.

Merry Chrismas from the Electric Sheep Company!

The Electric Sheep company, one of the early hawkers of Second Life to fad prone corporate marketing types, gave 22 employees pink slips for Christmas.

Read more [HERE].

The article is from Second Life's Reuters bureau, which is run by Electric Sheep, so to be fair they are trying to be transparent I guess. My view is that Electric Sheep will survive, and actually are positioned to do well for the future as they expand into another arenas. Just the early experiments with corps in Second Life where just that, experiments that, as in my opinion Electric Sheep knew, where pretty doomed to failure. They took a lot of willing customers with big wallets for a ride. At the same time, both the customers, and Electric Sheep gained from the experience. Corps will be wiser as they invest in virtual enterprises, and Electric Sheep did learn valuable lessons that will be able to be transferred to other platforms. The big question is whether or not alternatives to Second Life will mature fast enough to keep Electric Sheep large enough to survive as is as virtual worlds develop.

GUID's in Classic ASP

I found a great article on generating and using GUID's in classic ASP here...

http://classicasp.aspfaq.com/general/how-do-i-generate-unique-guids-from-asp.html

All-in-all classicasp.aspfaq.com is a great resource for those of us who still support and develop with classic ASP.

Here is the function you need.

Function GetGuid()
Set TypeLib = CreateObject("Scriptlet.TypeLib")
GetGuid = Left(CStr(TypeLib.Guid), 38)
Set TypeLib = Nothing
End Function

Playing God: Scientist Hope to Create New Artificial Life Forms

Mankind is at it again, this time hoping to create completely new "artificial" life forms from scratch.

Read more [HERE].

Virtual Worlds... An Insight From Oscar Wilde

I've blogged a few times about virtual infidelity, gender bending, virtual sex, and all the sick and twisted stuff that goes on in Virtual Worlds like Second Life that I have observed people do.

I was watching a pretty far out video clip from http://www.goodfight.org/ on U2 and Satanism. Not sure if I would take every rock stars profession of being satanic at face value. I think many of them blab such nonsense because they are trying to be anti-conformist. But in a deeper, darker sense, they might, even though they don't realize it, give voice to what subconsciously they know they are really doing, and that is why I find the video interesting.

Anyway, there was a quote from Oscar Wild on the video clip that I think applies to virtual worlds.

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth. ~Oscar Wilde

What do you do when your mask (avatar) is on?

The New Media Further Solidifies: Jackass 2.5 Set for Internet Release

This popped up on my radar today and I almost overlooked it. Upon further reflection though I realized this was significant. What am I talking about? A movie being released not direct to video...not direct to DVD...but direct to interent. I take this is a sign of things to come, though I predict we are really more like 8 years out on this then 2, but more an more of these type of releases will show up as time goes by.

Jackass 2.5 is being set for direct to internet release, a further sign of the new media's maturation.

Read more [HERE].

I found the link on www.drudgereport.com

The Bear Awakes: Last Minute CFE Talks Fail

Russia pulls out of the Conventional Forces Europe treaty.

Read more [HERE].

UK Accepts EU Treaty, Gives up 60 Veto Powers

The UK gave in and signed away much of its sovereignty to the greater EU recently. The Union Jack will never be the same.

Read on [HERE].

Fear of Girls: Brutal

This is awesome, but it hits a little close to home.

If you have ever played D & D, check out the "Fear of Girls" videos [HERE].

USAF: It maybe isn't your daddy's air force, but it most likely is his plane.

An article provided by spacewar.com details the USAF's delima of having a lot of old planes flying around and not enough budgets to cover the cost of replacing them. This article is actually more optimistic then others I have read.

Read on [HERE].

Classic ASP...is that Connection object or Recordset Object Closed?

To say some of the legacy code that I'm working is Sphagetti code would be an understatement, it is more like a pasta house. Include after include after include. To be honest, I actually like coding like that sometimes...I know, blasphemy to the OO crowd. But in many ways our site has grown out of control. Open connections, recordsets not being closed, yadda yadda yadda.

So I found this cool article
http://classicasp.aspfaq.com/components/how-do-i-determine-if-a-vbscript-based-object-exists.html

So, I have this include file that opens all these recordsets and command objects. On some pages these objects are closed, on others not. So a quick fix to make sure these objects were closed so the SQL server wasn't being killed and our server memory maxing out was something like this...


if isObject(someobj) then
if not (sombobj is nothing) then
if someobj.state = 1 then
someobj.close
end if
set someobj= nothing
end if
end if

This should pin things till the rewrite, or until I go through and really tiddy up the code. someobj can be either an ADODB recordset or an ADODB connection. For command objects just remove the if somebj.state if then and it should work.

Google's New Charting API: Pretty Cool

Google has released a free charting API to the world. You won't create uber beautiful charts like I've seen other 3rd party components create, but hey, it is free.

Check out the specs [HERE].

The green empire once again makes it hard to resist coming under their control.

Originally posted by www.ajaxian.com.

Lifespan of Worms Increased

This article from blog.wired.defense is actually pretty interesting. It talks about one DoD funded scientist that is doing some interesting experiments that have yielded significant life span increases in simple organisms, along with other possible ways to save wounded soldiers by putting them in a suspended animation state.

In the Bible you hear about people living to be 800 years old. Most Christians put that off as myth, others explain it with voodoo science. Maybe something along the lines of what this researcher is into, if the environment on earth was much different before the flood, might explain things.

Regardless, the article is worth a read.

Another Internet Bubble?

Of course...so let's put it to music.




Stole from www.amix.dk.

The NIE and Iran. About Face and Why

The latest National Intelligence Estimate did an about face and now says Iran isn't developing nukes. I don't buy it. I found the article below to be interesting, and unfortunately not suprising.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2007/12/nie_an_abrupt_aboutface.asp

Why can't we throw people who twist facts (whatever party flavor they be) in jail? What is this crap?

Mike Huckabee

Well, a lot of my Christian friends are starting to fall in love with Mike Huckabee. He is a former pastor that stands up for a lot of moral issues that I and many Christian's think need to be stood up for. But over all I'm unimpressed.

Why?

• Huckabee is from the establishment. The establishment is corrupt. Thus I don't really trust him. He has to prove to me he is the man. The one time I saw him in a debate, he didn't.
• It is easy to stand up for moral issues. I applaud him for his conservative stances. But no where do I see on his issue page on his web site anything about stemming the outsourcing of our economy. After going to Detroit a few times, and seeing what it was and what it now is, I think raising tariffs is a huge deal. All the arguments I've heard against doing so are a bunch of crap that are now starting to be proven false. Our dollar is devaluating, and things are only going to get worse for Americans. All this crap about the benefits of outsourcing our economy are lies. The only thing we gain is a short term boost in our standard of living while we mortgage our futures. The rich gain hugely as they sell out the middle class and the poor. We see evidence of their massive gains in CEO pay increases vs. average pay increases for most workers. Moral issues are hugely important, but so is our way of life and our standard of living. I'm afraid I'm with the libs on this issue. I wish no ill will towards the rest of the world and I'm happy to see the standard of living of many countries increasing, but I'm against seeing this increase at our expense.

So I see Huckabee is a conservative rich boy from the elite class who because he has some moral fortitude misguidedly thinks he can toss his hat in the ring and fix things. I doubt that from his class perspective he can even identify all the problems that need to be fixed.

Next.

Ron Paul still has my vote, even though he is crazy.

Classic ASP: MARS

I've cleaning up a bunch of classic ASP code and basically I'm taking about 10 stored procs that execute in sequence on a page and just creating one uber stored proc that brings back multiple records sets (I didn't write the first version of the page). For future reference, since I always forget this, the syntax is...


Set myrecordsetobj=myrecordsetobj.NextRecordset()

No special stuff needed on the stored proc's end, just use multiple selects.