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JavaScript's same origin policy security model means that a script can't (directly... there are sneaky ways aroun dit) request data from another site. It's quite strict. foo.site.com is different to site.com.
One thing I'd always assumed, but now I see how it wasn't a sensible assumption, was that the piece of code calling the data had to be served by the same domain name it was going to be calling. I've just done a little test of this, and discovered that's not true.
So if you're dead keen to see it, have a look at this test which loads the script from stout.rumble.net and actually loads Prototype from somewhere completely different. It has no trouble pulling data from www.rumble.net, but won't let me drag data from stout.rumble.net.
03 Oct 2008 16:59 [category: /geek] #
I've been playing around with Google Chrome this morning on my work (Windows) machine. This is Google's browser software, and I have to say I'm impressed. I had expected something a fair bit less polished, but instead we've got a near-usable browser already! Something that still hasn't happened with Apple's Safari on Windows. What's more, this will (soon) be available on all platforms.
The new browser is fast, stable, slick and smooth. The chrome-less interface is very impressive, and makes perfect sense when you consider the browser the centre of your computer interface, as Google intends. Memory use is very modest, with each tab separated out into its own process. In total it's using 175 megs of memory, versus 152 megs for Firefox for similar activity. Importantly though, it doesn't seem to bloat out with repeated use.
JavaScript works fine with Google applications, less well with some other sites. It's certainly zippy though! Gmail and Google Analytics zoom along nicely.
Developer tools look interesting so far, with a DOM inspector hidden under the confusingly-named JavaScript console -- there's a console there, but a whole lot more too! It would be hard to have FireBug-level functionality in this first release, but there's a good chunk of it there. I've got some work to do making sure everything works in this new browser, so the development tools (or lack thereof) will either make life easier or (as with IE) very hard.
The only thing I can see preventing me from making this my main browser is the lack of an ad blocker, but I'm sure one will be along shortly. Once it's available for Linux, with an ad blocker, I suspect I'll be making the switch.
03 Sep 2008 11:22 [category: /geek] #
My mate Don sent a letter to the King Pig and the Special Minister for World (Catholic) Youth Day in NSW in regards to his freedom to annoy Catholics.
Dear Minister
It was my intention to be involved in a peaceful demonstration over the Pope's supposed World Youth Day on July I am concerned by reports in the media, primarily the Sydney Morning Herald, that I will be breaking the law and risk jail or a fine.
Could you please clarify that I will not be breaking the law if I:
- assemble at Taylor Square, Darlinghurst at 12pm 19 July with other like minded citizens.
- wear a T-shift of the English folk/rock band Chumbawumba. The T-shirt is plain black and says in grey writing "Chumbawumba" on the back "Atheist" on the front.
- I will be carrying a cardboard placard A2 size. One side will say "Miranda Devine Sux" and the other side will say "World Peas" with a picture of some small green vegetables.
- Offer condoms to passed by, in a respectful, polite and peaceful manner.
- Possibly sing or chant harmless songs - such as one of my old rugby favourites "Has anybody seen JC" lyrics at http://www.guysrugby.com/songs.asp
Thank you kindly
Don McCallum
Stanmore
03 Jul 2008 10:10 [category: /politix] #
Wow, I can't believe there's still web agencies who do everything in Flash. This technique is so effective, the above is what Google can see of their site. That's right, the title.
Supposedly Adobe is working with the search engines to index the internals of Flash crap. I can see this ending in tears. They're either going to expose internals that were never intended to be visible (like the kind of people who do Flash know anything about security) or the designer will have to explicitely list keywords, which will end up being as useful as meta keywords.
03 Jul 2008 09:59 [category: /geek] #
I haven't seen online ads since about 1995, when HotWired first pioneered annoying, animated banners that detracted from the content. Initially I was using hacks like hosts files and the like, then I started using Craig's Squid-based blocker until these days I use a combination of Adblock Plus, Filterset.G and some Greasemonkey scripts to block some of the more annoying inline ads. Any time an ad gets around these filters, I quickly squish it because I've got used to viewing content without distracting, annoying crap flashing near what I'm trying to read.
Now I'm on the other side of the fence, and we're advertising through some of these ad networks and I've had to test view some of it. First of all, I'm staggered at how intrusive they've become. On some sites like NineMSN, they overlay animations over the actual content! Unbelievable and I'm amazed anyone uses sites that do that kind of thing. Mainstream sites still even use pop-ups and pop-under crap?!?!? I can't believe audiences don't go out of their way to work out how to block all this.
It's quite remarkable how useless the ads are in delivering a valuable audience. I guess it's not particularly surprising. If you're reading about the cyclone relief effort in Burma, you're hardly going to click on an advert for, say, a car. It's a drive-by impression, with similar brand-building impact to a billboard or a display ad in a newspaper.
What's more, the publishers don't help themselves by even further devaluing their impressions. Fairfax sites reload every five minutes, so if someone walks away from their computer, it happily counts impressions with nobody home to see it. That makes me very suspicious of their impression counts. I can't believe the publishers could be so stupid. Google changed the nature of this business by delivering benefits for everyone: advertisers and advertisees, which is why they're make kongbucks. Seems the dead tree purveyors, and those apeing them, haven't worked that out.
So apart from a very cheap (and it would want to be, given the publishers' efforts to devalue the product) brand building exercise, I don't really see the point of display advertising on content sites. It's generally not that relevant, not particularly targetted, and doesn't deliver.
Search engine marketing, however, is gold. I don't filter out ads next to Google searches because they're often actually what I want! If you type in "Marrickville plumber", the ads actually show better results for local plumbers than the search engine results. Everyone wins! If someone clicks on your ad, they're actually very likely to be wanting what you're selling. But it seems the publishers don't understand that to be successful, they need to find a way to make their advertisers successful.
Finally, we're seeing some rather nasty behaviour. The ad network we're using is reporting about 30% more clickthroughs (as recorded by the publishers) than we're seeing actually arrive at the landing page. They claim this is a fairly normal rate. What's going on here? Click fraud?
03 Jun 2008 11:56 [category: /geek] #
Back in 1998 the NSW government announced with great fanfare a rather modest plan for transport improvement in NSW. Nearly ten years on, there's little to show for it except the road projects, which predictably have resulted in more cars, more congestion, more pollution.
If you search on the state government sites, you'd be hard pressed to find many mentions of this plan, beyond the odd mention in parliamentary hansard and the occasional forgotten page. It's almost like they don't want their current promises to be measured by their past (in)actions.
On this note, I've been dredging up artifacts of Action for Transport 2010 for archive purposes. The National Library of Australia's Pandora archiving project has helped here a lot, but I can't rely on a government agency to ensure the past isn't censored.
So, in the interests of ensuring these remnants of the Prolefeed don't end up down the Memory Hole, I bring you Action for Transport 2010: archive.
What brought this up is that Lee Rhiannon has been asking questions in parliament only to see the transport minister dodge them by talking about his arse, rather than the usual out of it.
03 Apr 2008 14:15 [category: /politix] #
We've had a very busy weekend getting all the bits we need for our bathroom renovation. The whole bathroom is getting gutted today, so we had to get a bath, toilet, vanity, cupboard and all the bits. We got the tiles the previous weekend. Lots of driving around, but we found everything we needed at pretty reasonable prices, I thought. The built-in cupboards we had installed last weekend also mean we don't need our freestanding storage stuff any more.
This means there'll be a bunch of stuff going onto freecycle. So if you're after a bath, toilet base, chest of drawers or bedside table with drawers, let me know and I won't put it on freecycle.
03 Mar 2008 10:31 [category: /diy] #
This is one of those things that's obvious once you know it, but solves a real problem beforehand. You're using firefox with autocomplete switched on. You make a mistake filling out a form once, and find that forever onwards the mistake exists in your autocomplete list. Let's say it's a phone number, and you mistyped it. You could very easily select the wrong autocomplete entry.
Now this is cool. Select the autocomplete entry with the up/down arrows on your keyboard. Press the "Delete" key. The erroneous autocomplete entry is gone forever.
So simple, but so handy. Not something you would necessarily find without being prompted. My thanks to the tester with the mostest, Brad, for showing me that one.
