A few pics up on Flickr. Still recovering from travel, more soon. -m

Yes, the devastating two-pronged attack is in full swing. Link. -m

Write up by Duncan Cragg. More and more momentum is building for this meme. -m

According to the authoratative site. Looks like the virtualization markup is getting interesting. -m

A little bit back, Cringely had a brilliant column about billable events and the last mile. Everything the telcos (and others) do these days is primarily aimed at creating billable events. This includes the net neutrality debates.
In fact, at&t is so skilled at revenuing, they can generate billable events out of nothing at all. Here’s a short quote from a recent phone bill:

The FUSF pass through fee charged to some customers has been reduced and credit may be due. Due to the large volume, any applicable credits generated in 2005 or 2006 may appear on a future bill. The average one-time credit will be less than $1.50.

No problem manufacturing extra charges in “large volume” since at least last year, but when it comes to refunds (and very partial refunds from the look of it), it sure takes a long time.

Speaking of long times, another thing the telcos aren’t very quick about is transferring service. Took them 11 days to establish service at my new address, with a $37 billable event to boot. But I’m back online now. If you’ve sent email in the last 2 weeks and haven’t seen a response, it might be a good idea to resend. -m

All right, nofollow is officially gone from here, using the DoFollow plugin. Enjoy. -m

My earlier nofollow post is now officially the most-spammed blog posting I’ve ever written. All this despite a moderation system–the spammers are getting zero benefit from all this. Deterrent techniques are not working; there will always be some small percentage of “unprotected” sites that the bad guys are happy to exploit.

Adding insult, even after I moderate posts, the links still have nofollow applied (by default in WordPress). Later, I’m going to post some analysis on how and why nofollow fails. If you have any ideas, post them in comments below. -m

From mnot: the return of the Link: headers, last seen in RFC 2068, and a new header, Link-Template, which has me salivating over the possibilities.

I wonder, will this lead to better libraries for dealing with HTTP headers? Or at least better developer understanding of the benefits of not just taking whatever Apache or Tomcat or whatever yields by default?  -m

Hey Podcasters out there…post a picture of your mixer on your blog or favorite photo sharing site. As a bonus, you’ll have a “backup” of your settings for future reference. Give it the tag “mixerpic” so we can all find it later. -m

A while back, documenting my Windows XP SP 2 horror story, I mused about when Microsoft would have to throw out the code base and start fresh. Now, I see this, with additional commentary from Rick Jelliffe. Hmm. -m

For a while, I’ve had an iGo Juice 70. They’ve really nailed the “universal” power adapter for notebooks. Input can be 120 volts, 240 volts, 12 volts (auto), or whatever you get on planes. Output is a series of pluggable tips that work well with 8 different models of notebooks, including everything I own.

The worst thing that can happen while travelling (well, not the worst, but up there) is having your notebook power adapter fail. On my recent trip, this happened…almost. The adapter would still light up, and the Mac would show as still charging, but the level of charge would in fact remain steady or even drop. Certain careful physical orientations seemed to help.

So I went on their web site, used their online support system, and got in touch with a helpful technician. He immediately shipped me out a new Mac adapter tip and cable. Problem solved. This is an example of how tech support should work. -m

I originally wrote this in the comments, but it’s worth a full entry.

If phone companies thought they could get away with it, you’d have this: “I’m sorry, all circuits to Domino’s Pizza are currently busy. Would you like to be connected to our preferred pizza provider instead?” -m

To me, the true power of the web is in mediating conversations between parties that have never met.

I consider it a success when a new name posts a comment–and comments have been picking up here. -m

Lots and lots of blog traffic on Google Spreadsheet, but I haven’t seen anyone make a key point:

The underlying message is: full-blown applications in the browser are now real.

Many smaller players have been doing things like this for years, just as many smaller player were using Ajax before it had a catchy name. But as soon as it had a name and a big player (again, Google) behind it, it left the launch pad in spectacular fashion.

The era of Web Applications has begun. Don’t think that Microsoft Office should be afraid–it’s even bigger. -m

Nokia has announced a port of Apache to Symbian, allowing a full web server to run on a phone, with the quote “there really is no reason anymore why webservers could not reside on mobile phones”. Well, there’s battery life…

Anyway, would you want to run a server on your phone? What would you use it for? Peer-to-peering ringtones? A true “local” area network? Let me know what you think about this prospect. Would you run a web server from your phone? -m

Limited and insecure network connections have kept me from writing more, but man are there a lot of iPods in Scotland. They’re everywhere. Finding a power adapter for a PowerBook, on the other hand, is nearly impossible. -m

Update: See the comments here to view (or add) your travel tips.