April 2008 Archives

I absolutely despise Internet Explorer. It is a complete turd of a program in every conceivable manner. It's insecure, it doesn't follow web standards when displaying web pages, it's integrated into the OS so if it crashes it brings down your entire computer, and the list goes on and on and on, but I won't belabor the point any further. Most of my gripes are with IE 6 and earlier but the latest version of Internet Explorer -- version 7 -- isn't that much better, so it goes out with the bath water too.

From a system administrator perspective, I convert every system I can over to Firefox and go so far as to ban IE on systems that I control. As a web developer, I spend a serious amount of time in the development process dedicated to changing my code to make IE work properly. Every other browser on the planet will display content correctly, but IE always has some oddity that requires a tweak or hack.

As much as I and the millions of other geeks like me hate IE, it simply won't go away. So it was with great interest that I read an older article by Kevin Hale on Particle Tree entitle On the Tenacity of Internet Explorer 6. When I read that adoption rates were flatlining and his question of "Have we basically converted everyone that had a problem with Internet Explorer 6?" I thought perhaps we were finally done with IE6. Unfortunately, after reading the entire article, it's clear that IE6 is here to stay and it's something we're going to have to live with for a long time.

And why is that? Well, it boils down to the fact that the main reasons people were switching was due to the fact of popups, spyware and the like. Now that toolbars have fixed many of those glaring issues, people aren't motivated to switch.

Now, you may think IE6 obviously makes browsing the Internet suck because it doesn’t have tabs and tends to implement CSS and JavaScript poorly. But that’s because if you’re reading this site, you’re probably a designer or developer. Remember: ugly, buggy and slow aren’t enough to make users think it sucks enough to switch (think MySpace and Windows). In hindsight, the best thing to happen to Firefox was probably the rise of file sharing networks, spyware and pop-ups. Basically, everything that made the web suck. Everything that made the web a safer place to browse, made Firefox less relevant and quelled the urgency that made an alternative to IE6 a necessity.

It disappointments me to now end to have to agree with his conclusion. I'll still push Firefox, Opera and other alternative browsers every chance I get, but it sucks that the reason that there are so many Zombie Computers is due to ignorance and lethargy. I know that I'm a geek and that this falls into my domain expertise, so you might chalk this up to the ramblings of a nerd, but we're not talking small numbers here - botnets number in the hundreds of thousands. Their impact can be felt everyday in the billions of SPAM messages that are sent from them every day.

All gloom and doom aside, Hale's article did leave me laughing in the end. It may not end positive, but it does end on a funny note.

Just goes to show that it has to be in your face popups of wangs and cooters to make you download something different.

I've been a big fan of the ReCAPTCHA service since it launched and was eager to implment it on my blog when MT4 was released last year. It was a complete kludge to get it working, but I eventually did figure out the voodoo necessary. You would think I'd leave well enough alone, but alas, I did not. I attempted to upgrade to the latest version, failed and then took the long road back to version .01.

How It All Began
For starters, I decided to upgrade to version 4.1 from version 4.01 of MovableType. I exported my entries and comments, deleted the entire site from the server and then did a clean install and import. Once I was sure everything was running properly, I began adding my plugins back and saw that there was an update for the MT ReCAPTCHA plugin. That's when I played with fire and decided to upgrade to the new version only to find out it didn't work.

What Went Wrong
The plugin itself installed just fine and the one big change that I saw what that the public and private key information was stored properly now in the plugin. Previously you had to enter this into the plugin itself, so this was a nice change. There could be other enhancements, but that was the one that I noticed.

So far so good, but as I walked through the rest of the instructions, I ran into a huge snag.

8. Edit Javascipt index template, to remove these lines of code which calls delayShowCaptcha... [snip] ...If your install does not have these lines in JavaScript index template, these lines should be in GlobalJavaScript, which is a global system template.

Guess what, there was nothing in the Javascript index template that matched the calls I was looking for. Moreover, there isn't a GlobalJavaScript template in the default build of 4.1.

Hitting a dead end, I tried rebuilding the site in the hopes that everything would work anyway, but of course it didn't. No errors, but no display of the ReCAPTCHA code either.

Time For A Rewind
Luckily, I had copies of my templates and the old plugin, so I figured I'd simply revert back to what I had previously. Things didn't work out that way because in an effort to get the new version working, I'd made changes in the "Blog Settings" as well.

"No problem", I thought, because I could just pull up Josh Carter's original reference of how to implement version .01 of the plugin. Unfortunately, it appears that he's moving his site to TextDrive and that page is no longer available. CRAP!

Doing a Google Search and then pulling up the cached version though did save the day and I was able to get my blog configured properly again. *WHEW*

Plugin Redux
With everything back up and running properly, I decided to indulge in one more whim. I kept the templates and blog settings like they were for .01 and just dropped in the .02 version of the plugin. My hope was that the problem existed with the templates and not the plugin itself, but that didn't work either.

So as it stands, only the hacked .01 method has successfully worked for me. The new version simply doesn't work in any way shape or form. Looking in the forums, I see that other people are having trouble with it too, so at least I'm not alone.

Given the fact that Josh's site is down and that I can't seem to find the earlier version of the plugin, I'm thinking I might need to create a post specifically on how to get this working as a resource for others. Maybe even go so far as to provide the original plugin. I don't know. What do you think?

Since switching to Mac OS over a year and a half ago, I have been in hog heaven. Truly. Almost every day I'm reminded of just how elegant and, dare I say, FUN it is to actually work. I'm not kidding, it's a true joy and I'm reminded of this nearly daily because I also work in Windows every day and I'm reminded of just how painful computing can be on the other side.

A good portion of my day involves network management and I use a wonderful little tool called Remote Desktop to manage the many Windows servers I'm responsible for. RDP is primarily a Windows program, but, thankfully, Microsoft has Mac Version as well. I've been using the beta version of RDP 2.0 for quite awhile now and it's performed quite well. I use it on a daily basis and can report no real problems with it. Well, that was until recently.

About a week ago, I was prompted with the following dialog box when I launched RDP:

Updating software on the Mac is a fairly common experience and it's rather quick and easy so there was no reason for alarm. I selected the button "Download Latest Version" and was directed to the Mactopia site, which is Microsoft's Apple Software section, and it was with this one click that the "Microsoft Experience" kicked in.

1. Instead of taking me to a page dedicated to Remote Desktop, or even directly to the download file itself, I was taken to the Mactopia home page. "Hmm... oooook."
2. Left to my own devices, I had to search for what I was looking for until I found the link in the navigation for the Remote Desktop page.
3. Once on that page, I then had to find the link to download the latest version and select it.
4. That link sent me to the bottom of a new page which showed me another link to actually download the file. Of course that was after I figured out what the heck I was looking at.
5. After waiting for the download to start for about 30 seconds with nothing happening, I click the link again... and again...
6. I refresh the page and it's then that I see that there's a "Details" window that's changing. So I click the link again, see that this small window in the bottom right corner of the page is providing me with details on the download.
7. I scroll several pages of details until I find the actual download link at the bottom of the iframe window and click that bastard.
8. The file finally downloads

But Wait... There's More
After all that hullaballo, the file is finally on my hard drive and I go through the install routine to update the program. I relaunch RDP and I'm surprised to find that the same dialog pops up. "What the?!" Starting the process AGAIN I read the RDP page more closely and see in the sidebar the following:

I had to read that sidebar a couple of times to make sure that I understood it, but what I read was correct. After a convoluted 8-step process just to download the program and then go through the install routine, I learn that there was no need to do all that. Microsoft HASN'T actually released an update and not only that, they have no real indication when it will be ready. Just sometime in the next two months. And just to add insult to injury, instead of releasing an interim program with a revised expiration date, you'd prefer that I see this damn nuisance screen 800 times a day until you get around to releasing a new version.

W o w .

This is yet another example of where the user experience leaves me wondering "I'm I the first person to do this?" So much of what I do with Microsoft products leaves me feeling like I'm the first person to even try a product, much less run into a problem. This one thing may seem small from your side of the fence, but since switching to Mac OS, I have less and less of this kind of problem. When the "Microsoft Experience" rears its ugly head, it's now it's pulling from a deep, deep well of past pain and suffering.

I guess I'll just have to wait until Microsoft releases an update in a month or two and just do what Microsoft suggests and dismiss the update button. Question is, how will know that there's been an update if I'm ignoring Microsoft's own update notifier?

Bunch of ass-hats.

I just upgraded the blog to version 4.1 Personal so that I can kick the tires and become more familiar with all of the new changes. Just on my initial inspection, I can already see that this is what 4.0 should have been. Well, they don't call it "cutting edge" for nothing I guess.