Firefox was getting slower and slower when opening new tabs and windows (near the point of being unusable). I realized that the default bookmark location was set to the toolbar (to emulate Safari?), so cleaning that up has now sped things back up. (currently super-speedy again)

• the Degree Confluence Project – The goal of the project is to visit each of the latitude and longitude integer degree intersections in the world, and to take pictures at each location. The pictures and stories will then be posted here.
• xACT – an all-in-one GUI for Shorten, FLAC, and shntool derived from MacFLAC by Scott Brown. Also uses md5sum and sox. (supports APE file decoding)
• Postfix Enabler for Panther – Postfix Enabler can help Mac OS X users set up a totally functional buzzword-compliant mail server in less than a minute, the Mac Way. It sets up SMTP, POP3 and IMAP services, with or without SSL support. It even sets up SSL test certs so that you can test the SSL connection. Also, it enables SASL Authentication so you can connect to ISPs who require the SMTP connection to be authenticated. Or, the other way around, it allows you to enable SMTP-AUTH on the server, so you can authorise remote users who need to send mail through it.
• That Was Then, This is Now – comScore Media Metrix celebrates its eighth anniversary with a comparison of top sites in January 1996 and January 2004. Hint: Think consolidation.
• Eben Moglen’s Harvard Speech – The Transcript – good fun from Eben Moglen’s address and Q & A at Harvard February 23
• How Microcontrollers Work – good intro explanation
• RSS Ads – RSSAds provides an economic model that allows content publishers to offer full feeds of their content via RSS.

• Alternatives to Rackshack (SCO fallout) – I asked for some feedback on WHT for hosting alternatives. At this point ServerMatrix looks like the best deal w/ a good rep (Cel 1.7GHz/512MB/1x200GB/1000GB transfer for $99 setup + $109/mo)

• uPortal Roadmap – JSR 168 via adapter in v2.3, 3.0 will use Portlets internally (using Pluto)
• Meta-Directories: Cutting Through the Hype
• Meta-Directory Implementation
• Novell DirXML vs. Critical Path* CP* Meta-Directory
• Sun ONE Meta-Directory Deployment Guide 5.0 SP1
• The Paradox of Fair Use – a very good presentation by Siva Vaidhyanathan

I’ve been a happy Rackshack customer (now EV1Servers.net) for over two years now. I’ve recommended them to all my friends that need cheap, reliable, unmanaged dedicated servers (power and network has been rock solid, current uptime going on 308 days [that was when I did the remote Red Hat to Debian conversion]). Reading this on /. made me pretty sad: SCO Identifies EV1Servers as Linux Licensee

jasonhamilton writes “EV1Servers.net has been identified as a Linux licensee, giving them the dubious title of being the first dedicated hosting company to have a licence agreement with SCO.
Rather than ‘eliminating uncertainty from our clients’ hosting
infrastructure’, as Robert Marsh (CEO of EV1Servers) claims, some users
of EV1 appear to be somewhat upset.”

Anyway, I don’t think I’ll be recommending them anymore. While I wasn’t planning on moving (and can’t really spare the time), I probably will be looking into it when I get a chance.

Of course, that means hanging around and doing searches through at WHT, hearing the horror stories, and deciding which is least horrific.

• FastServers.Net
• ServerMatrix
• ServerBeach (hey, they offer Debian OOTB)

As traditional when putting off work, I’ve gone digging through crap. This time, we’ve turned up an old homepage. Wee.

Of course, it had an ugly disclaimer slapped on it (thank you Board of Trustees), but nothing a little LayoutFooterOff couldn’t take care of.

Creating a good web-app interface for laptop retreival could be a good afternoon project…

• Create a phone home script to track your Mac
• hostreg – A tool for remote reporting in “obfuscated” environments (eg. A program that might help you get your stolen crap back.)
• Mac OS X get ip address in script
• DynDNS.dk IP Update Script – This is a SysV Init script which update DynDNS.dk with the current IP address.
• GnuDIP Dynamic DNS

Frank Boosman takes apart Orson Scott Card’s ridiculous arguments against gay marriage

In the first place, no law in any state in the United
States now or ever has forbidden homosexuals to marry. The law has
never asked that a man prove his heterosexuality in order to marry a
woman, or a woman hers in order to marry a man.

Any homosexual man who can persuade a woman to take him as her
husband can avail himself of all the rights of husbandhood under the
law. And, in fact, many homosexual men have done precisely that,
without any legal prejudice at all.

Ditto with lesbian women. Many have married men and borne children.
And while a fair number of such marriages in recent years have ended in
divorce, there are many that have not.

So it is a flat lie to say that homosexuals are deprived of any
civil right pertaining to marriage. To get those civil rights, all
homosexuals have to do is find someone of the opposite sex willing to
join them in marriage…

This is so nonsensical, it’s amusing. Card to gays: “You can marry! Just not each other! What’s the problem?” Does he actually believe this?

Best Passions blurb I’ve read:

I’m just thrilled that so many people can get so excited watching a good, old-fashioned public crucifiction. It’s nice to know that some things never change.

Hmm, ok, I guess this does beat out cool-2b-real. McDonalds, I’m living it! Hmm, is there a ‘mockery’ VoteLink?