SE51 > /dev/null > 2008 > April

If you impersonate Christopher Walken to often and in a group, he might show up himself. And then, take one of your cookies.

If you are reading this post in Internet Explorer, then the third word in the title is probably appearing as *****. Am I right? You wanna know what it says? Open the blog page of this article in Firefox, and you can read it in its entirety. What I’m about to tell you is seriously scary, but absolutely genuine.

So I was reading this submission on Digg which links to an article on CNN about what Clinton has publicly said a short while ago. The Digg user who submitted this wanted to point out the irony, and put two more words in front of the original news headline. Usually I read through the comments, and a smart user pointed out that apparently the first word in the Digg submission is not rendered and replaced by asterisks, when using Internet Explorer.

Stunned by this observation, I tried this out myself. And behold, it’s TRUE!!

Click on the images to enlarge.

Submission as it appears on Digg, with current Firefox 2.0.0.12, including View Source.

Submission as it appears on Internet Explorer 7, including View Source (Notepad++ is my source editor on my work machine here).

Now I am not aware of any user accessible word filtering options. Which means that this is deeply rooted into the code of Internet Explorer. So what else are you tracking, huh?!

Use Firefox kids, I mean it.

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UPDATE:

For some strange reason IE does not do this with my blog. O_O

Are you guys over at Redmond FILTERING CONTENT ON CERTAIN PAGES?!?!!11?

So for the first time, I gonna give a hint of what I plan to bundle with the operating system once it enters a user testing and production stage.

Voyager
The file browser of the system, allowing for opening and looking at files, move them, copy them, delete them, everything that has to do with files. Also burning to disc can be done directly within the file browser, as well as retrieving information about the files themselves. Voyager presents one of the core applications and technologies, and cannot be removed from the system - it is exempt from manipulation by the user in terms of deinstallation. The file browser employs controls that have been written by me entirely, and the controls in turn use Moonlight, the file indexing and monitoring service for the system. This is what makes the file management fast and easy.

Moonlight
As just mentioned, Moonlight is the file indexing and monitoring framework, allowing for quick retrieval of information about files. It represents the search mechanism for data on your computer, within the files you have access to.

COSCode
It is both - the API for application development, and the end user application allowing for rapid creation of new applications and tools in the COSMOS environment. The IDE also comes with a second tool, named COSDesigner, which allows you to create and design windows, and then connect them to your code. The moment you save your changes, your program will be able to run. COSCode is an attempt to provide a better mechanism for coding than what is currently available in Squeak.

Cosmic Waves
The entertainment center of COSMOS. It represents the doorway to entertainment such as music and movies, and can be played directly from in there. Playlists are supported as well as finding music, playlists can also contain videos. Everything you would expect from a good multimedia tool.

COSPhoto
The photo management suite of COSMOS. Modern interface, utilizing many controls from the COSCode API. A hub and gateway for photo storage and manipulation.

Hubble View
Built in to Voyager, but can also be used as a stand alone application, which allows for a quick look at many sorts of file formats without opening the corresponding application beforehand.

COSTerminal
A standard Unix terminal emulator built on the user interface controls in COSMOS.

I had my eye on EVE Online for quite a while now, always fighting with myself whether I should try it out or not. For those who don’t know what it is: EVE Online represents the largest gaming universe on the planet, and is a MMORPG. Much like World Of Warcraft - except that this is set in space. So something more for my taste. Don’t get me wrong, WoW is pretty cool and neat and all - but I’m just not the fantasy guy you see.

EVE takes place in a time after mankind left Earth, and was able to traverse the vastness of the universe with Stargates first. Later, a wormhole was discovered, which could take us into even greater distances, we had so much more to explore. However the wormhole collapsed, and man was eventually split into four races. Each of them now has their own characteristics, weaknesses, strengths… you name it. The EVE universe is the universe in which the four races stayed after the collapse of the wormhole.

I have had a go for only two days, and all I can tell you is that it is incredibly vast, you can become who ever you want to be. There are entire corporations run by players, organizations, and military arms.

My tiny ship on its way to another Stargate, employing the Warp Drive

I wasn’t sure if my iMac (which is the new one, 20 inch) would be able to withstand the demand of the game in terms of graphical juice. Well so far it looks pretty damn awesome, and it runs in full native resolution with a great amount of detail. I’m sure when I upgrade to a paid account I will have more settings available.

All in all, give it a go. You can fly free for two weeks and honestly, you won’t be disappointed.

It is with my greatest pleasure to announce that I have finished a preliminary version of the real time search technology for the COSMOS project, named Moonlight.

What is it?

Moonlight is the framework and underlying foundation for two things: keeping track of changes with and all your files and documents, and be up to date with the index of files that you have access to. The technology allows for blazingly fast retrieval of all kinds of information about a folder and file - Moonlight is both: a file indexing service and a search engine to find your files quickly. In other words, it is a database which keeps information about the digital life of the user. Although such technologies are available in other systems, I do not believe this to be available in Squeak and Smalltalk, inside which I program COSMOS in. Therefore, Moonlight is also Object-Oriented.

How does it work?

Every time the user begins the session, the index is updated and then stored in the RAM of the computer. This allows for super-fast access times. I do understand that the downside of this approach is that more RAM is used than it should be. So far I have run tests with several hundred files, and have not seen any significant drop in RAM availability or speed. But since this is preliminary, it will probably change at a later stage.

At boot time, a table is created, which consists of nine columns, each column with specific information about a file or a folder. The number of rows is as many files in your home folder. The table looks like this:

Based on this table it is possible to retrieve pretty much any information about any file or folder at any time with any object and therefore application and/or control.

So far I have not integrated a search to make us of this, but this is up next.

Who comes to read my blog from time to time has, or so I hope, come to understand that I prefer Apple software to Microsoft’s, and prefer Macs to PCs. It is my choice, a choice that I have made for me and my life. Many people out there don’t like the Mac and Apple’s things, and prefer Windows and PCs. That’s perfectly fine, because it is a choice you made for you, like I did for me. I can only express my personal opinion.

You know Steve Jobs is the man at the wheel at Apple, he does all the cool Keynote addresses over in the Moscone West where many of Apple’s things have been shown for the first time to the world. I like him, because to me it appears as if he kind of represents the young computer generation (although he is now almost 50), you know, black sleeve, blue jeans, and white trainers, and that’s all he wears when addressing the Moscone West which is filled with nearly 5,000 people, many of them in high ranking positions, or high representatives from well known publications and newspapers. Not everyone has the guts to do that.

But take all those things away. Take away Apple, iPod, iPhone, Mac, OS X, Reality Distortion Field, and what do you get? A Steve Jobs that has three touching stories to tell, and he told them back in 2005 at Stanford as the University began its year.

“Three stories, no big deal” is what he says. Trust me when I say that this is one of the most inspiring speeches I have ever heard, and no matter if you dislike the Mac and prefer Windows - put aside your dislike for the Mac and listen what this man has to say about life and what happened to him, and how it can help you in your life. Believe me when I say, it will inspire you.

Steve Jobs’ Stanford 2005 commencement speech

Don’t believe me? I know. Well… this is a current image of the V838 Monocerotis star in the Unicorn Constellation, a variable star, approx. 20,000 light years from our location.

When compared the the Firefox logo, there are striking similarities. If the stars say so, then it’s clear we all should use Firefox from now on.

V838 Monocerotis

We didn’t hear much from the Collective’s attempt to take over Yahoo. A while ago they simply rotated shield frequencies and said ‘No!’ to Microsoft, and that was the last word. Shields were holding.

But not for long my friends. The Borg have presented Yahoo with an ultimatum, stating that they’ve got three weeks time, or assimilation will begin, resistance is futile. They have expressed to Yahoo’s leadership board that their previous bid of 44.6 billion dollar was more than fair, Yahoo didn’t think so. They’d rather like to go with Google, so they said. But that doesn’t stop the Collective from fulfilling the plan, the Borg are moving forward. If Yahoo doesn’t comply in three weeks, they take their case to the shareholders.

This is the end my only friend, it’s been nice knowing you Yahoo. You’ll be remembered as one of the first search engines, you are a great part of Internet history.

My project to create a free and open source operating system with the name COSMOS, is going to be built on a Linux core. I have tried Nexenta on which I wanted to base this on originally, but hardware support was very limited, although its features were pretty amazing.

I am going to use TA-Linux on this one. It is a widely unfamiliar distribution, and is pretty much only the naked core of a Linux distribution. Pretty much like the sceleton for your own customization, and then remaster it. I have been using this distro earlier on and have found it to be pretty modular, pretty customizable.

Trust me when I say that I have tried both, FreeBSD 7 and OpenSolaris - they work great and they sure are superb operating systems in any aspect. But not intended to run on desktop computers. Linux however, seems to be better in that respect. So Linux it is.

And for the post yesterday, I hope you gathered that I was messing around. You should have noticed when I Rick-Rolled you…

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UPDATE:

I have been trying TA-Linux on my box just now, the one on which I want to do all further development - but I cannot install the system. The DVD drive is not detected as such, therefore no installation possible.

Looks like Gentoo is gonna be the candidate now.

Let’s face it. Vista is better. Has all the cool gadgets, the Sidebar (screw you Dashboard! Ha!), the super cool, Aero interface (beat that, Aqua), and overall, well, it’s Vista. And I got the Ultimate Edition, of course. I think the 629 Euro I just spent today were the best money I ever spent in my life, I mean, come on. But not only that, I now avail of DX10 and can play CrySis in all it’s glory. No longer the Boot Camp woes, I can now run Vista in all it’s shine without having to see the gray screen and always choose the Windows drive.

Windows Vista Aero

iPhone, iPod touch… I now just say: Zune. Get a Zune, buy a Zune, and better do it now. Revolutionary devices ain’t need no damn multi-touch screen! There you have it! You know, can you get a song from another iPod and then listen to it up to 3 times or so before it just deletes? No! Zune can!

I even run Internet Explorer 8 Beta now, I mean honestly, it kicks ass. Firefox… Safari… puff. IE is the way to go. Hell, I would even get a Surface computer with Vista on. And for the driver thing? Not to worry! If you do it like me, and invest into an Vista Ready machine, it all works out of the box! After all, Mr. Lodgman was right in all the I’m-A-Mac-And-I’m-A-PC ads.

And to truly show my dedication to Microsoft and Vista, here’s a video in which I express my undying gratitude for Vista.

SE51 Vista dedication video