Quotes

The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them.

- Albert Einstein

This quote has been randomly selected, I have no control over the quotes displayed here.

Broken Droid

Well, I got to get the new Motorola Sholes (Verizon Droid) in an attempt to reduce my phone bill from AT&T, which was quite high. This will not be a review as there are plenty. This is a post to announce the destruction of the first Verizon Droid to the best of my awareness. The phone was accidentally left at a restaurant and when I got it back, it was destroyed. Asurion has already come through and replaced the phone, for which I am very thankful, and glad I bought the insurance. For the community and my own record of stupid things I have done, I will now post the photographs. I am being strongly urged by the community to disassemble the phone and take pictures. Any input?

For photos: http://www.michaelpurcell.info/gallery/v/Droid/Destroyed/

Luster over Functionality

The State of Delaware has released they’re new public sex offender’s registry. It is quite an improvement upon the antiquated registry they once displayed. However, I have quite a few reservations of my own. Apart from lacking any originality the registry is entirely written in Adobe Flex, a flash/AIR based product produced by Adobe. Now I agree that luster has it’s place in IT, however that place is far down at the bottom in the list of priorities. Functionality and security must always be the foremost concern in any application. Obviously my opinion is quite biased since I am the founder and developer of DelawareOffenders.org. But let me list a couple of reasons not to use flash for a production grade product.

• Accessibility – Good luck getting that screen reader to work with Adobe Flash (yes, it is possible if the site is designed well).
• Bandwidth – The registries application is over 1.9 megabytes. This does not take API communication into account!
• Browser interface interference, the user cannot use browser features like history, favorites, text based find tools, and of course the back button.
• Search engines – Flash applications are notorious for causing SEO problems.
• Printing – Many systems still have trouble printing flash based web sites.
• There is more, but my point is quite justified so far.

A sex offender’s registry is by far the least appropriate place for such an application. Unfortunately many things on this project were not implemented correctly, especially the mapping system. New information will soon become available to DelawareOffenders.org, including vehicular information for sex offender’s.

While DelawareOffenders.org currently cannot receive updates, rest assured a patch is on the way. Within hours the new registry’s flash application was reverse engineered and a new back end is in the works. Unfortunately I do not have as much time available as I would like to devote to this, so please bear with me for a little while.

The above article is strictly my opinion, if anybody has a problem with the above stated disagreements, feel free to leave a comment.

Live Writer

I am not one to post frequently to a blog, and that is something that I would like to change. Sadly though, my urge to post usually expires as soon as I open Firefox. This time however I took things a step further, I decided that perhaps my postings would become more frequent if it was a bit ‘easier’. I decided to explore what options lay about in the realm of desktop blogging software.

For those that are unfamiliar with desktop blogging software, it is simply software which allows you to post to your blog using an installed application, instead of going through the entire login procedure. After browsing for a bit I found that most of my Google results took me to various non-free applications. This simply would not do, I was not necessarily looking for open source, but I was not intending to pay for such a trivial need either.

Almost hidden in the clutter of one of the many software reviews I was reading, lie Windows Live Writer. Now first off, my opinions of Microsoft software lean both ways *growls as he is forced to turn off sticky-keys for holding shift too long…*. It is in my humble opinion that they have written some impressive applications in their history and for that they deserve credit. However, I also have numerous negative view points towards them (and others) as well, just far too many too list here.

Windows Live Writer appeared too be an aesthetically beautiful application. The fact that it bared the copyright signature of a large corporation ultimately gave me the instinct impression that it would have the functionality I craved as well. Once more it appeared to be free. That sealed the deal.

I set-off downloading the application, filled with a bit of worry that it would only support some propriety blogging service. After completing the download, I scanned the application for malware (yes, I even scan Microsoft software) and proceeded too install it. With Microsoft pushing for migration to Windows Vista, it was no surprise that the application and it’s installer had the look and feel of something running behind the Aero theme. The installation was complete.

I followed the instructions in the account setup wizard, and was thrilled to see that WordPress was supported. I entered my pages URL and waited. Strangely, while waiting for the procedure to complete I decided to browse for some more reviews, and instead of my Firefox window coming up, the entire Windows GUI began flashing (almost as if refreshing) repeatedly, odd. To my dismay I then heard the sound of a Windows error message! The client failed to resolve the hostname of my blog.

I first of course attempted to resolve the host myself, perhaps my DNS server was not running, nothing like a 4:45AM debugging session. No, all was well. My newly installed copy of Norton Internet Security was blocking the applications queries. So after disabling it, the install went off without a hitch.

Very pleased, the application started smoothly taking me straight too a form for a new post. I quickly browsed the menu’s and I must say I am thus far completely satisfied, this is one point for Microsoft I suppose. I now lay here typing up this post merely as a test of the software’s abilities, and so far it has passed.

So perhaps now, my post will be more frequent. As for now, it is 5:20AM, and I do believe I am keeping my wife up, so I will say good night now, before I incur any injury.

Mike