The PandoMonthly interview from last week is now on Youtube, check it out when you get a chance:
In victory you deserve champagne.
In defeat you need it.
— Napoleon Bonaparte
One Million Spam Blocked
Interview with Anil
Two weeks ago I blogged about a radically simpler WordPress, a topic first broached with Anil Dash at the PaidContent conference. The full video from that conversation is now online and only about 20 minutes:
MSN Search Standards
Sam Waudby writes in that the new MSN is (almost) standards compliant. That is really nice. There is one or two silly things, but I think it’s significant that 99.9% of the page including the advertising is XHTML 1.0 Strict. I’m going to point to that the next time someone whines about an ad system messing up their validation. “If Microsoft can do it…”
PubSubHubBub
WP.com is now Pubsubhubbub-enabled, and the code we used to do that is now available as a plugin as well. It took me 30 seconds to add to this blog using the dashboard “add plugin” functionality and searching for “pushpress.” I love it when we’re able to do these simultaneous releases, it falls in line well with WP.com’s goal of all its useful code being available to everyone, for example the custom CSS release.
Happy Birthday Om!
Today the legendary Om Malik celebrates his 50th time around the sun. For many that know him, Om defies definition: He’s first a writer, and finally always a true friend, but in between he’s an investor, photographer, oenophile, closet Bollywood fan, critical thinker, and sartorialist. He’s also been my friend and confidant for over a decade now, and I cannot wait to see what his next 50 years bring for him and the world.
Here’s some snaps of Om over the years, from 2008 to just a few weeks ago when he was blonde for a few days. Happy birthday, buddy. đ
More Blue Skies
It’s been a gorgeous day today, highlighted by a mini-picnic with Heather, Richard, Tantek, and [forgot name] in Yerba Buena park for lunch. I’ll leave you this Friday with Ella’s version of “Blue Skies”. For extra credit compare it with Robert Glasper’s rendition.
Open Keys
I could write about many things, but instead I think I will relate the fact that for the second consecutive day, I locked my keys in the car. The details are inconsequential, and it’s a story everyone has heard before, so let’s start discussing solutions. In computing the key [pun] to failsafe systems is redundancy, so I have decided to take the same approach with the entry system to my car.
I’m going to allow anyone who thinks they would be willing to hold on to a key to my car to apply by email to receive a copy free in the mail. Only requirements are a name, phone number, and meeting my secret requirement which I will not disclose here.
Now I’m sure many of you are concerned with the security model of having numerous copies of my car keys floating around, but the manufacturer (Chevy) of my vehicle already thought of this, separating the entry and ignition functions into two separate keys. This has its advantages and disadvantages, as evidenced by the Saturday lockout when I had my ignition key but not the entry key. Access to my vehicle is something I’m willing to allow because trustees of the keys will be people I trust not to steal something from my car in the first place.
I have a number of people “pre-approved” for keys, including my parents, Grandmother, sister Charleen, Josh, Sarah, Sarah, Rachel, Rene, Rebbecca, Elissa, Iram, Mat, Chris, extended family, and selected staff at Kaveh Kanes, Tropioca, and Get Wired, but like I said before anyone is eligible. These people have been carefully selected for proximity and accessibility—at any given point in my life, I am never more than 5 minutes from at least one of these people. So there you have it! A trade-off of security versus accessibility in real life. We’ll see how this goes…
These limited edition PhotoMatt keys will be accompanied by a Certificate of Authenticity and will be available in several styles to complement any key ring. They will also be hand tested by yours truly to verify that they truly work. Get yours while they’re hot. (Limit one per person.)
WordPress Skills
WordPress + Education
There’s a new mailing list for discussion of WordPress and education. If you’re passionate about these subjects be sure to join the conversation.
The Verge has a pretty epic feature on the history of Palm, Treo, and WebOS. Not many people know this but I started and ran the Houston Palm Users Group after getting a Handspring Visor in high school. PalmOS had apps, connectivity, handwriting input, infrared beaming…
Microsoft iPod
What if Microsoft designed the iPod package? Great video and music. I’ll have to watch this again next time I’m working on a new website, less is more. Hat tip: sillybean.
Biting
When did it get so cold??? I am cold to the point of desperation there. Now I know, some of you native (or born-again) Notherners are reading and thinking “42 degrees? Ha! That’s jogging weather!” and you are probably right. But how should I get warm? I’m not conditioned to deal with this.
Pun-A-Day #7
A woman has twins and gives them up for adoption. One of them goes to a family in Egypt and is called “Ahmal.” The other goes to a family in Spain; they name him “Juan.” Years later, Juan sends a picture of himself to his birth mother. Upon receiving the picture, she tells her husband that she wishes she also had a picture of Ahmal. Her husband responds, “They’re twins! If you’ve seen Juan, you’ve seen Ahmal.”
Rob Paterson writes Why do corporation die so soon and cities donât? Corporations are Machines and Cities are Networks. Along the way he brings it back to WordPress and the Wikipedia.
New Mac Mini
I’ve been looking to get the two noisy linux boxes under my desk into a closet somewhere, because they’re so loud. One is a very very old PII or something running Gentoo that I had to put by the window and open because one of the fans was breaking down and the box was overheating, which caused it to make an alarm-like sound for hours at a time. AHEM. The second box is a fairly new Dell but it’s a server-class machine with TB+ of storage and it sounds like a plane taking off sometimes. The Dell is running Ubuntu, and also using the third screen on my desktop full-time. Having Linux right there (and on the same mouse/keyboard thanks to Synergy) is incredibly helpful for debugging and testing things, plus I could run X-chat full-time. When the new Mac minis came out they caught my eye — something not as dog-slow as my Powerbook, with a proper monitor and keyboard/mouse, could really be a great OS X experience and I’d still have all the command-line goodness at my fingertips. I ordered the maxed-out one online (they didn’t have any in stock at the SF store) and it arrived. So far so good! Almost as fast as my PC (AMD FX55 + 4GB).
Security Advice
Security advice from Bruce Schnier:
“If possible, don’t use Microsoft Windows.” There are some other good tips there too, like microwaving CD-Rs and deleting cmd.exe.
Fewer Bugs in Open Source
Research proves what open source folks have been saying all along: “An analysis of the 5.7 million lines of Linux source code shows that it contains fewer bugs per thousand lines of code than commercial counterparts.”