The Hiveware Image Rotator, shared by Mr Zeldman, does one thing and does it fairly well: it shows a random image on each reload. However, the approach the script takes is slightly flawed, and could be improved as detailed below.

My first issue with the script is that it is really only set up to handle two types of files, GIF and JPEG, and then only with the file extensions of .gif or .jpg, so something like .jpeg (fairly common) would not be included. Not to mention the noble PNG is left out entirely. Fixing this, however, leads us to a more fundamental problem: the images are served through the script. This means that the script has to handle the content-type header, something that is messy to do. A better method, I propose, is for the script to merely serve a temporary redirect header, which sends the browser with a minimum of overhead to the actual location of the file, which has a number of tangential benefits including that it allows the image itself to be cached properly, either by a caching server or the browser itself, and it delegates content negotiation and such to the web server, which is most likely infinitely better at it.

So now what we have a script which reads files in a directory, grabs the ones with a user defined set of file extensions, and sends a simple Location header to whichever file is randomly chosen. The complication now that the location of the image is now important in terms of the web server document root. One bonus of Dan Benjamin’s method is you can use images outside of the web root, though I don’t know why anyone would want to do this. The script could ask for two variables to be defined, the absolute path to the images and the path to the images through the web server, but I would like for this to be as ridiculously easy to setup as possible. Another option would be to subtract the $DOCUMENT_ROOT variable from the absolute path given and use that, but that would require people to know the absolute path of the directory they’re using, and like I said I’d like this to be easy as humanly possible. The best solution is to use a relative path; if the users enters nothing it’s assumed that the images are in the same directory as the script but if they aren’t the path can be entered in a relative manner, like “images/random” or “../rand-img”. Easy peasy.

Finally, instead of the plain rand() we’ll use mt_rand, which is about four times faster and slightly more random. What do you get? The Photo Matt Random Image Script. I’ve tested it thoroughly, but if you have any problems don’t hesitate to let me know. It’s just standard HTTP though so I don’t foresee any trouble. Something neat about this is that with the code we just wrote, you can also serve random anything—from zip files to MP3s—just by changing the extension line. Enjoy! Here’s an example of it in action, you should recognize some of the images as the delightful graphics Jeffrey has been putting up, the rest are snips of photographs I haven’t uploaded yet.

If you’re like me, you’ve been very concerned about the direction XHTML 2 has been heading. Very recently I’ve thought to myself that I won’t develop a commercial XHTML 2 site this decade. (Look how long it took them to get simple stuff right!) Only time will tell, but Tantek’s XHTML Considered Hopeful brings back that warm fuzzy feeling that promising new technologies give. Yes, it was going in a bad direction. Yes, it’s coming back.

I’ve lurked on www-html for several months now, maybe it’s time (and I finally have the time) to start seriously reading working draft and lend my voice to the process. That’s assuming of course I have anything cogent to say. I think the lesson to be learned here is if you’re concerned with where the spec is heading, let people know. As Tek says, they’re listening.

(My personal favorite new element so far? Gotta be <l>. Lots of possibilities there.)

A Flight Risk, blog of a “twentysomething” “international fugitive.” A good read if nothing else. Hat tip: Wired. Is it just me or does it seem like all the best stuff at Wired comes from Leander Kahney? Incidentally, he’s the author who used one of my photos in a Wired story a few months ago. I’m still giddy about that.

From a trusted correspondent, talking with a contact who works at the Netscape part of AOL/Time Warner. “He said they had decided that weblogs are the next killer app, and that most of the work at the Mountain View office was going into building a weblog component for AOL. He also mentioned that about 400 people are working on that software. This is in constrast to about 20 who are working on Mozilla.” […] If there’s a problem doing this, please contact me, in confidence, if necessary.

Source. Three comments:

1. I know Dave isn’t crazy about CSS and all that jazz, but could he at least use paragraph tags? Nothing by line breaks is so… never. Paragraphs have been around forever, no reason not to use them.
2. 400 people working on it, assuming that even only 10% are actual developers (is this high?) I find it hard to believe that those 40 people will come upon a technical problem so insurmountable that only help from Dave, in confidence, if necessary, will help them.
3. It also follows that if Microsoft and AOL/Netscape’s respective blogging tools or platforms don’t interoperate, I don’t think it will be because either lacks the technical skill to do so.

This is all pure speculation on my part, and I’m not afraid to admit it. I’m trying to think what kind of effect this could have on the blog world. There are already services out there such as Diaryland, Blogspot, Free Opendiary, Livejournal, Deadjournal, and Easyjournal that make the technical and financial barriers to something akin to blogging nonexistent. I know several people from my old school that might be hard pressed to send an email attachment but used one of the above tools with a degree of proficiency. What’s more these services, particularly OpenDiary and LiveJournal, tend to be very closed communities and don’t mingle much with blogs outside their service. So I think these new services in and of themselves will not be a big deal, however if they hook people on the concept and get them running for more advanced tools, then it could be significant. We’ll see.

Today has been a wonderful day feeling with code goodness. I don’t know why, but I really, really, really like playing around with XHTML. I find I enjoy programming in other languages (mostly PHP, but Python and Perl more now than before) most when it deals directly with XHTML. Anyway, I’m working on some really fun stuff and by this afternoon this site should be even more on the bleeding edge than it was before. Stay tuned.

It’s not Sunday anymore, but if you’ve still got nothing to do you should know that idle hands are the devil’s workshop, so by visiting idly.org, the new home of Adam, you’ll be doing a good thing. It seems that splitting blogs into public and personal is all the rage these days; I know Josh has one coming soon and I’ve been considering spinning something off PhotoMatt for a while. Oh just a side note, both of Adam’s domains are now with Spyder Hosting and rumor has it he’s enjoying it.

I’m proud to say that Julie is up and running. After Sarah and Becca, Julie was next in line to be rescued from LiveJournal but the incredible lack of time in the last month prevented me from finishing anything. Anyway her new blog is now up, and it already has some great entries and poetry. Sweetspastic!