Two reasons to love Apache : 1) the fact that it works, 2) the documentation. [Anyone who’s going to try to replace Apache with some bloated pos is going to do it over my rigor mortized and slightly decaying dead body]. It’d been a while since I set up slightly more complicated access control, so i did a search for allow satisfy and boom, up the access control and mod_access docs pop. Perhaps it’s sad that this type of behavior in software systems is the exception rather than the rule, but still, it made my day. (not too hard considering I woke up feeling like someone had stuffed sandpaper down my throat and put my head in a vise in some sort of middle school shop project gone horribly wrong – feeling much better. hoo ray for robitussin).

See, I’m don’t have an Internet problem. If I did, I’d still be online or something when I should be cleaning. doo-de-doo…

I should reinstall the overlib so I can make tons of tangential comments without disturbing the natural flow of my main tangential comment.

I finally received the Corda-Roy’s extra large bean bag and foot stool that I ordered… um, last year. Sadly, the model was not included. Still, it seems to have been worth the wait (the shredded foam is very comfy) and the bags are the centerpiece of the current mess known as my pad. I’m planning on washing the covers (and doing some hardcore cleaning) tonight.

How the Wayback Machine Works: very nice interview on the O’Reilly Network on the Internet Archive, my current favorite new Internet tool. Touches on why so many of us have faith in the Net and it’s potential as a Good Thing™.

An interesting comment (among many) from Bruce Schneider and Adam Shostacks‘ response on SecurityFocus to Bill Gates “Trustworthy Computing” initiative:

There is only one reason for the Bill Gates Security memo. It has to do with the current consent decree offered by the DOJ in the antiturst case against Microsoft. It forces Microsoft to provide APIs and format information to developers except where security would be compromised.

Claiming that they are now “security conscious” will allow Microsoft to maintain secrecy while claiming they are being responsible for increased security in their products.

I’ve been coming down with a head cold over the past few days, but it looks like it’s finally overtaking me. I was going to finish writing up some stuff and put it online, but I’m just going to sleep instead. In the pipe: why Mozilla is the best browser available, essential windows productivity tools, contemporary web design thoughts, my review of NNG’s Sitemap study.

Oh, I was looking at JZ’s new <forward compatibility> page for his new book. The Mozilla/strict mode trick seems handy, although I’ve never had to use it. If you’re going to validate w/ HTML 4.x, why use tables? Actually, this would be less of a problem if there were different modes for Transitional and Strict rendering, but alas, that’s not how it works. I first saw David Baron’s site back in 1998 or so (more nostalgia). I remember being impressed by his CSS header.

For those interested in what Mozilla quirks mode actually does, DB has written docs for web developers on mozilla.org. BTW, the method I use for compatibility if I must use tables, is to trigger quirks mode by not using a system identifier, which seems like a much better solution if you’re going to be kludging your page with tables for layout anyway.

On this note (which took longer than I expected), I’m heading off to bed.

After a bit of searching, I finally found some resources for dealing with the NeXT carryover NetInfo DB. The MacAddict article Of NetInfo and /etc gives a good start on using nidump and niload. There a presentation slide that has a little info, as does a MacWEEK article on Darwin and using niutil:

[localhost]:~] root# niutil -create . /users/wanda

[localhost]:~] root# niutil -createprop . /users/wanda uid 1000

[localhost]:~] root# niutil -createprop . /users/wanda gid 0

[localhost]:~] root# niutil -createprop . /users/wanda shell /bin/tcsh

[localhost]:~] root# niutil -createprop . /users/wanda home /Users/wanda

[localhost]:~] root# niutil -createprop . /users/wanda realname "Wanda Tinasky" 

I’ll take useradd any day of the week.

When in doubt, take a look at install scripts. Once you find what you’re looking for, manfiles actually help.

I emailed this to a friend who was a former koop employee the other day, but forgot to post it up here. In lieu of real content:

We’ve already proved the existence of black holes (Score:4, Funny)

A famous former surgeon general discovered the first of these monsters a few years ago, and named it drkoop.com (the .com designation is often used to help identify black holes). Then there was altavista.com, webvan.com, and many others. The escape velocity exceeds the speed of VC money. Since nothing can go faster than VC money… Enron, by the way, is not a black hole. It’s a pulsar — a dead star that regularly flashes us with reminders that it’s dead (“Enron doesn’t have any money,” “Enron doesn’t have any money,” Enron doesn’t have any money,” etc.).

I smiled when I saw Paul’s new design because of the “the end” at the bottom of his page. I looked at the xhtml code and thought that he might indeed be using the content autogeneration with pseudoselectors on body, but then I popped up up the page in IE and it rendered; the footer is a background image attached to a div. I’ve started playing around with the autogeneration, pseudo-classes, and various esoteric CSS2 selectors and decided to use them on some wires that I’m doing for production. IE’s performance rendering those is predictably shitty, of course.

hoo ray, i now have my own personal web page!

Hmm… Offtopic=278, Total=646. Interesting (that’s right, the whole thread was bitchslapped). Here’s the user’s journal entry. Good stuff for those who are interested in online moderation systems and community dynamics, or browsing /.

Found the link on a jonkatz post about the Net and community issues. There is some spirited discussion on various online and offline community issues. Oh, and blogging gets mentioned.