15 November 2002

Photoblogs PHOTOBLOGS org -- "Created to help people find high-quality photoblogs." It already has almost 300 photoblogs listed, with a user rating system in place to show the "Top 100" on the main page. [Coolstop Daily Pick, Scorcher Radio and Aimee]   [Comment on Shoptalk]

Dublin Gridlock as River Tolka Bursts DUBLIN -- One of the little side effects of slowdowns in infrastructure spending is that traffic will crawl to a halt when heavy rains fall. The problems start with shorted electrical connections, killing traffic signaling and washing out logical driving skills. Recently, much-need drainage systems were given the long finger concurrently with drain cleaning programmes being stalled, resulting in major flooding in north Dublin. Cars don't travel where currents run. Severe weather events like these floods in Dublin are happening in Ireland about once a year. I remember driving through Christmas storms in 1997, when their winds caused over #8364;100m. In December 2000, a major freeze saw payouts totalling €30m to homes and businesses flooded by burst pipes. It's official: Ireland feels global warming effects. Picture with Concord EyeQ camer sent to blog by Nokia 9210i IrTran-P   [Comment on Shoptalk]

Support Salon Salon editor David Talbot has strong feelings about Salon. The online magazine "still stands, in large part because of the nearly 50,000 readers who now subscribe -- over 44,000 for Salon Premium and over 5,000 for the Well and Table Talk. In fact, more readers signed up for subscriptions in October than in any other month since we launched the Premium service -- and November is shaping up as another record month." [Werblog and Marc's Voice]   [Comment on Shoptalk]

Open: Locale Information OPEN -- Members of the Irish Open Mailing List mulled over a problem with a recently built W2K server running IISi5. When running test asp code using the date() function, the date returns in the format dd/mm/yyyy. When running the same code on an NT4 server with IIS4 it returns in the format dd/mm/yy. Both servers return the same locale information ie 6153. Both servers are set with the same country date formats. Thgis is a common problem. Jon Hanna suggests "it's best to avoid relying on locale information of this type on servers. Explicitly render dates using the Format function and a user-defined format string (which also makes it easier to create ISO8601 dates for XML, HTML attributes or SQL Server and RFC2822/RFC822-as-updated-by-RFC1123 dates for HTTP headers). You could still have the ability to quickly change the format if you use a constant defined in an .inc file or a type-library. This would be wise anyway as "dd\/mm\/yyyy" (for the first above format) "yyyy-mm-ddTHh\:NN\:Ss" (W3C profile of ISO8601 for XML, HTML attributes and SQL Server) and "ddd, dd mmm yyyy Hh\:Nn\:Ss G\MT" (for HTTP headers) should be considered "magic strings" and constants should be used for the same reasons as they are for "magic numbers".   [Comment on Shoptalk]

Core Skills of Blogging DIJEST -- What literacy do you need to blog well? We teach these things in "Essential Web Journaling." Know the elements of good blogging. Quickly read and distill elements of a newsfeed. Know how to add rich media to a blog. Appreciate your target audience's connectivity. Keep a thematic interest. Understand the blog's software and web services. Phil Wolff x: 125   [Comment on Shoptalk]

Impacts of Irish Budget Cuts SHANOWEN -- The 2003 Irish National Budget features more cutbacks than initiatives. Cuts are being implemented wherever they can be made. Nearly every government programme announced last December must be unstititched. First Time Buyers' Grant gone. The fact is, the €3600 given to first time homeowners normally helped improved the profit for builders, not to increase the chance for someone to qualify for a new home purchase. Banks did not factor in the grant money to the qualification standards for home loans. If new buyers don't get the money, they stall interior decorating. The government might divert the funding towards building homes for single moms. National Roads Unchanged. Only one major roads project gets the go-ahead. The Government's allocation for scientific research bucks the trend. It gets substantial increases in two departments, but one key programme gets stopped. The science allocation in the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment sees an increase of almost 60 percent. Most of this money flows into the Science Foundation Ireland and Enterprise Ireland. But the Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions has been postponed for at least one year. Funding for the Irish Film Board drops by 12 percent. The Arts Council loses €3.6m. Capital projects in the institutes of technology are slashed by 33 percent. Funding across third level education is down dramatically.   [Comment on Shoptalk]

WiFi Cantennas WINDLEY com -- Aaron Medford has interesting links related to cantennas. Where to buy N-type connectors plus instructions for building and using cantennas. Includes Javascript application that calculates key dimension for parts depening on desired cantenna diameter. Cantenna is a commercial product that costs USD 19.95. [Windley's Enterprise Computing Weblog and dws.]   [Comment on Shoptalk]

Cutting Edge Mobile Games Development OREILLY -- If you want to jump into developing cutting-edge mobile games, O'Reilly have some excellent resources and tips to help you decide between J2EE or BREW, and if you should be considering new networking options such as Bluetooth. [O'Reilly Network PHP DevCenter]   [Comment on Shoptalk]

Sighting: Cray XI An entry-level Cray XI will start at $2.5m, but CEO Jim Rottsolk says he expects the majority of Cray systems sold to range from $5m to $40m. A top-of-the-line machine with 50 cabinets would cost $200 to $300m. That would be the world's fastest computer.   [Comment on Shoptalk]

Grass Root Publishing Tools REUTERS -- Grass root publishing tools are empowering millions with syndication skills.   [Comment on Shoptalk]