This morning has been interesting. I couldn’t sleep thanks to a failed wisdom tooth extraction (honestly, probably the most painful thing that’s ever happened to me) so at 5am I went to finish setting up my file server (well, I stared blankly holding my jaw until 5:30am when the painkillers kicked in).

My file server is a fairly simple setup – samba and ssh (for sshfs too) on a headless Ubuntu 9.10 box connected to a Virgin Media “Superhub”, with the intention of it supplying media to me and my family.

I reconfigured samba for the external drive I’d plugged in and added to the fstab and went to connect to it from my PC: “No route to host”. What? How can that be? I’m ssh’d into it! I spent about an hour double checking all the configuration on both PCs. I even ran an upgrade (which I hate doing, because no matter what I tell synaptic, it still likes to overwrite my custom compiled ffmpeg/x264 – I guess next time I’ll uninstall ffmpeg and not use checkinstall, but just make install).

After confirming everything was configured properly on both PCs, I checked the “Superhub” for firewalls or other “weird stuff”. As anyone with a “Superhub” will know, sometimes you just have to restart it and pray. Even restarting the damn thing is a problem: I restarted the “Superhub” and as usual, it insisted on giving the fileserver a new random IP.

Or so it claimed.

The “Superhub” control panel tells me it’s put the file server on 192.168.0.4, but I can’t even ping this IP… Turns out it’s still responding on the old 192.168.0.10 address. After months of dealing with this piece of junk, I’m not even surprised.

I spent a while confirming all the connections back and forth were working correctly, did a hard reset of the “Superhub” but still no joy.

By this time I was losing my temper.

So, how did I fix the “Superhub”? How did I bend it to my will and get my shares working? I unplugged everything from the “Superhub”, and used an ancient £5 generic unbranded router I found in a dusty corner of Maplins.

Yeah, that’s right Virgin Media. Your “Superhub” is WORSE than a cheap old unbranded white box.

I’m a big Linux user. I have Ubuntu on my PC, my wife’s PC, my kids PC and the fileserver. I also run CentOS on my two servers, and use CentOS, Ubuntu and RedHat in the office. RedHat was someone else’s choice and CentOS was somewhat forced on me by cPanel. Why did I choose Ubuntu? It’s simple really. Years ago when I started moving away from Windows, I didn’t know a significant amount about Linux, and Ubuntu held my hand just enough for me to get by.

Over time, my questions on ubuntuforums.com have become less and less stupid. Nowadays I’m a pretty proficient Linux user and find some of the “help” Ubuntu gives is actually a hindrance.

This week has been a fairly big week for Ubuntu users worldwide, as 11.04 “Natty Narwhal” was released. Those patient enough to download the new packages at a snails pace were “rewarded” with Unity and the plethora of new features and programs.

Last night I gave in and hit the Upgrade button. After a few hours I gave up and left it downloading the new packages overnight. I awoke and was greeted by the usual “Do you want to replace your php.ini?” (that’s a HELL NO from anyone who develops PHP professionally). More hours passed but eventually everything had gone smoothly and I got to restart into the wonder that is Unity.

Unity is a wonder. I wonder why Canonical think it’s ready for prime-time desktop distribution. Lets look at a few points here to prove I’m not just being bitter, old and grumpy:

• Scrollbars: I’m sure some people like the new magic disappearing scrollbars. How quaint that they’re outside the main window and only appear when you mouse-over the right part of the window. I hear Unity is touch-screen friendly. I’d love to hear how these scrollbars work on a touch device, because it baffles me. Regardless of your or my personal opinion of the scrollbars-of-wonder, it’s so inconsistent as to be a nuisance. The first key to ergonomic interface design is consistency, and this has been a down-fall of Linux from the early days of X.org. If you’re not going to find a way to implement the scrollbars in all cases, just don’t do it.
• Application Menus:I was given a Macbook last year, and one of my pet hates is the menu bar. To see this replicated to Unity upsets me a great deal. I could handle it on a laptop screen where you typically run applications full-screen, but take that concept to a 24″ widescreen with perhaps a dozen programs (none of which are maximised), you’re left with confusion and RSI. What’s next guys? Copying the Microsoft ribbon?
• Customisations:I love Gnome. You can do a lot with it, move it about, add icons wherever you like etc, etc. Unity basically lets you move the application bar around but otherwise just sit and look at it. I want to turn off the “Mac Menu Bar”. I want my places and system menu back. I want my Komodo IDE and Chrome icons top-left. I want to change the way applications are displayed in the “Start” menu. Unless I can customise this the way I want, it’s a definite no-go.

Other than Unity gripes, we have:

Ubuntu One: This was disabled prior to my upgrade. I had a folder in it that was only about 200mb at the start, but is now around 20gb and 100,000 files. After my upgrade and restart, Ubuntu One decided to start itself and start syncing the lot. I tried to cancel it with no success, so eventually hit “disconnect” and uninstalled it from the Software Center. About 10 hours later, my PC is running very badly… Ubuntu One was sat quietly in the background using 3gb of RAM. Amused, I was not. Thanks for that Canonical.

Window issues: I have a much smaller monitor sat to the side of my main monitor. I regularly drag windows between them and this worked very well yesterday. Today it’s become a nightmare. Every third attempt, something screws up (wrong size or wrong monitor are it’s current favourites).

I’m sure new users will love it, and I’m considering it for my children and grandfather – people who don’t demand a lot from their interface and have a very simplistic setup: 1 monitor and 1 application at a time. I’m sure it’s great on a 17″ monitor or a tablet. For everyone else, I strongly suspect you’ll be switching back to Gnome– Sorry, Ubuntu Classic.

I have to say: Every day I’m closer to switching to Debian.

I was discussing how quickly Google can pick up some new sites with someone earlier, and I recall it seeing these new blog posts very quickly. This is a test blog post to check. I’ll post the time taken as a comment.

Googlewhack: jeyahnam

There’s been a lot of news today about an “SQL Injection Attack” that’s affected over half a million websites.

Oh no!

First of all, despite comments to the contrary, I’m going to sit here and say: It’s XSS not SQL. The only evidence I’ve seen so far to contradict me is “it was stored in the database”. Well, XSS attacks commonly are. Here’s the difference:

XSS: Uses Javascript either in the site’s page name or a comment/feedback section of a website. The results can either be visible immediately or after the data is re-presented on a page. Badly written sites that allow HTML in comment forms are particularly susceptible to this. This also affected Twitter some months ago.

SQL: Uses SQL in a comment/feedback section of a website. The results are usually visible later when the data is re-presented on a page. Any badly written website is susceptible to this. You’ll notice this a lot if you have an apostrophe in your name and have trouble entering it on a website.

Let me put this simply.

IT IS CALLED SANITISATION.

Sanitisation. Read up about it.

Seriously, how can a collection of developers responsible for over half a million websites be so stupid as to allow this?

So there we have it. I called potentially thousands of programmers stupid. Would any of you like to defend your position, and explain why a tiny bit of sanitisation was so hard for you?

Dumbasses.

I remember when I was in college. We were all using Netscape Navigator. It was around the time Microsoft realised “Whoops, we screwed up, the internet is a big deal after all” and turned around their huge behemoth to focus on Internet Explorer 3/4. There was a great divide in the friendships then: Some loved IE4, some loved Netscape 4. Simon, I’m looking at you…

These were the days when you expected to hack your sites and put separate font tags in every table cell.

The internet has matured. Netscape Navigator died and resurrected as Firefox. Opera eventually realised they can’t charge 1% of the population for a browser and remain relevant, so went free (and ironically still only serve about 1%…).

Eventually the internet matured to such a degree that HTML5 was started, with the excitement and promise of non-Flash video, vector graphics, better input types. Javascript became more than “Oh look, another Javascript error”. The world rejoiced and embraced the new technologies.

Unless the user was running Internet Explorer.

Microsoft themselves have admitted that IE6 has become a big embarressment, a thorn in the side that everyone wants rid of. Frankly, they should have included IE7, and to a lesser degree IE8 in that too. Finally though, Microsoft have released their first ever competent and capable browser! Lets not give too much credit here though, they’ve only done it because they were losing market share rapidly.

Regardless of reasons or history, we’ve just entered an era of co-operability and compliance. Now, more than ever is the time to upgrade.

If you’re using Windows, regardless of which browser you currently use (hopefully Firefox, Chrome or Opera), upgrade your Internet Explorer to v9. If you’re using Windows in your office, push, demand and scream at your IT department until they upgrade.

http://www.beautyoftheweb.com/

Look, I don’t hate Apple. They did base Mac OS X on Unix, and include a ton of open source applications (Apache, PHP etc) without giving adequate credit to the organisations behind them. No, really; At least it’s Unix based so I can use my Macbook to rsync to/from my main PC without hassle.

What? There’s a GUI to Mac OS X? Oh, you mean the thing they used from x.org without due credit?

So anyway, Mac Linux OS X is an upcoming success in it’s own way, that’s great.

Oh yes, I was making a point. Sorry, I was distracted by most of the positives of Mac OS X already existing in Linux. You know, Linux, where they took a large amount of their applications without due credit. Anyway…

So I read today that they’ve denied a Sony iPhone app because it collects money on it’s own, and bypasses the Apple app-store (News just in: Apple patenting generic name!). In my view, Apple’s control of their app store is bordering on totalitarian and fascistic.

I’m tired and it’s past my bed time, so I’ll summarise: Even Microsoft didn’t stoop to some of the levels Apple is going to at the moment, and Microsoft have done some disgusting anti-competitive things in their time.

I’ll tell you this: If I ever win the lottery, I’m donating to make Ubuntu more user friendly.

So, I hear Larry Page has taken over management of Google from Eric Schmidt. I can only assume Sergey Brin can see what I see.

In my view, Google is an idealistic company. Page and Brin can see what’s good for humanity, in a vaguely socialist way, and want to push ahead with it. Schmidt has no doubt been the quiet voice in their ear saying “This isn’t a good idea…”.

You only need to look at PR disasters such as Street View and their privacy issues to see, a little more careful consideration isn’t a bad thing where Google is concerned. Let’s get something straight here for you readers thinking “Hey, they stole my Wi-Fi info”: If your network wasn’t encrypted, Google reading your data is the least of your problems.

I have a bad feeling this change in management will cause Google to make more badly informed decisions, and upset the general public even more. I’ve said before I’m a big fan of theirs, and believe in their “Don’t be Evil” policy, but this isn’t a case of “trust is earnt”. A company with the size and power of Google will be perceived to have done evil regardless of their intentions.

I can only pray Mr Page will put much more thought into his new product launches than the company as a whole has done until now. Without such consideration, they’ll end up in the newspapers every other day with some new sensational issue.

I wish you luck Mr Page, but I don’t have confidence.

This post relates to the article found at the BBC website, and doubtlessly thousands of other places.

I openly admit, I fall into the Pro-Google group. I believe Brin & Page do ultimately have our best interests at heart, if they are a little naive sometimes. I use Google for search, I use iGoogle for my homepage and I own a Google Android phone. I use Google for adverts (you know, that thing on the bottom right none of you ever click on). I also appreciate their motto “Don’t be Evil” cannot be an absolute.

The anti-trust investigation focuses on Google’s search results, and alleges that the results are manipulated in Google’s favour. I personally think this is unlikely, as it goes against the core principles of Google and their founders. As a point of interest, I searched Google for the term “search engine”. Here’s the results in order:

1. Dogpile Web Search
2. Wikipedia entry on Search Engines
3. Microsoft Bing Search Engine
4. Altavista UK Search Engine
5. Altavista International Search Engine
6. Google
7. Ask Search Engine
8. Yahoo Search Engine

If anything, these results are biased against Google: They have by far the dominant position in worldwide usage, so should be higher up that list?

I’m going to watch this case with interest, but I strongly suspect the companies complaining will end up looking like sore losers.

The Nerd Generation days: Back in 1999 I needed some software to rename thousands of files, and after spending hours scouring the internet for something suitable, I gave up. I already had 7 years experience in Turbo Pascal and Delphi by this time, so I decided to write my own. A fortnight later, I was done. I found the program so useful, I decided to upload it to a few websites and forgot about it for a year. Next time I checked, it had been included in a French free newspaper and had dozens of great reviews, references all over the internet. The software had a few bugs and a lot I wanted to improve upon, but the web was fast becoming the way to go. I abandoned the project, the domain it was hosted on (nerdgeneration.com) and moved on.

Fast forward 11 years: Links and references to the software are still spread around the internet. The domain has been taken and abused by some cyber-squatters.

Partly due to the overhaul of Lamped, and somewhat due to the level of existing links and references to the software, I’ve decided to re-host it.

Please bear in mind, this software is 11 years old. It’s completely unsupported. It may or may not work in Vista or 7; or XP as part of a Windows Domain. In short: This blog entry mainly exists to help old users find it again.

Download it here: http://marcgray.co.uk/files/therenameprogram104.exe

I’ll be monitoring the downloads. If there’s still interest after all this time, I may rewrite it from scratch. Comments to this blog will help me decide.

Every couple of months, I have a look at StatCounter’s Global Stats page, it’s probably one of the most balanced internet usage statistics services in the world, as their counter widgets are installed on a wide variety of websites. Most statistics services are based on access to specific servers, like the W3C’s one. I have a great deal of respect for the W3C, but I don’t believe statistics based on users visiting a technical web developer site is balanced.

As a web developer, browser and operating system usage trends are of great importance to me, though often depressing. I feel I need to know what browsers are most relevant for me to test sites against (if only more people did this, the internet would be a better place…). This philosophy has brought up a few questions about geography and intended demographics.

If the site is of a technical nature, should I instead focus on statistics from the W3C site? Should this blog be better optimised for those the W3C suggests? If so, perhaps I should consider Linux fonts and some more obscure browsers.

Does a shopping site primarily designed for European delivery really care what browsers the Asian market are using? In Europe, Internet Explorer 6 had 3.32% of the usage share in September 2010, but in Asia it has 16.26%!

The best solution, of course, is to optimise every site for every browser, but there comes a point where hours (or even days) of extra work would be done for a browser no one will ever use. Time is money, and money comes from the clients. I feel it’s my responsibility to advise clients as best I can to save them money. I guess it comes down to percentages. Do I or my clients care about a browser with 5% usage share? How about 3%? 2%? Where is the line drawn?

The situation is even more complex when you consider your clients needs in more detail. I’ve recently completed a website for a client who owns an iPad and an iPhone – these devices occupy a marginal share of browser use, but in this case special care was needed to ensure the site worked flawlessly on both. On a similar note, though most people begrudge fixing websites for Internet Explorer 6 or 7, if the client is a business that still has either of these browsers installed on their workstations, the fixes and optimisations suddenly become a lot more important.

A lot of my musings on this matter are courtesy of Internet Explorer. I desperately want to drop IE6 from my testing cycle, but I can’t. I kept telling myself “if it’s under 5% share, who cares?”, but such a cavalier attitude doesn’t make clients happy.

I think it boils down to: Write it for Firefox, fix it for Internet Explorer 8, test it in Chrome, Safari and Opera… Then apply whatever fixes are necessary for Internet Explorer 6 and 7 in a separate stylesheet. Lately this approach has been working well – sites work in everything, but don’t have (as a previous client once put it) “Razzle Dazzle” for the lower share browsers.