Sat, 18 Dec 2004
Proprietary or Custom Search Engines -- Don't!
One of the things that irks me about many of the sites I visit is the
steaming pile of shite they call searching. Between the missing entries,
the irrelevant articles and, this is my killer, only actually using one
of the search words provided I cant see why people even bother to put the
entry box on the site when you can get far superior results from
Google.
Now before I get accused of being a hypocrite I'd like to point out that the Unixdaemon.net search box is actually provided by, and uses, Google so the results, while not always bang up-to-date are typically useful and honour the actual search you enter.
If you have your own site PLEASE don't try and write your own search engine from scratch unless you have a fair amount of practical and proven knowledge of how to do it. If the site does have a sucky search engine there are a couple of ways to use Google to your searching advantage, but thats best saved for another post.
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Posted: 2004/12/18 21:33 | /tools/online | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
IE Blog -- Off the Reading List
I've got a page of Internet Explorer Plugins on
Unixdaemon.net, while none of them are complex they do seem to be both
useful and quite popular (over 30,000 downloads in the last five months...
not too bad :)) and so I have a fair amount of interest in IE despite being a very happy FireFox
user.
Now Microsoft have decided to make themselves more open and transparent, and part of this includes something called the IE Blog, a site I subscribed to about a day after it started. In my view IE is an area of MS that I'd expect to have a fair bit of activity, it's used by a high percentage of the 'net, FireFox and Mozilla are beating at its door and, lets be honest, it's an excellent example of how to not do secure coding. From phishing attacks, broken code separation and huge numbers of vulnerable automation interfaces this is hardly a stable, mature and boring project; although that's the impression you get from reading the IE blog.
For a description of what they were willing to talk about have a look at the What we talk about on IEBlog posting (coincidently written by a guy named Dean) and then have a browse through the archives. See if you can find any more than one thing per month that's actually worth reading and not just faff. While most of the MS blogs are excellent and help promote the company this one is a good example of how not to run a corporate blog; it feels too clean, sanitised and well, dead. One less feed for me to read.
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Posted: 2004/12/18 21:23 | /tools/gui | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
Cubicles, Desks and Cabling: Natural Enemies
As a sysadmin a (hopefully) small chunk of my time is taken up laying
cables and physically adding machines to the network (a desktop support
person, my kingdom for a desktop support person!), while this shouldn't be
too hard most modern offices seem purpose built to drive me insane.
Firstly we have the two patch ports and four plugs for six people. This forces you to invest in four / six way extension leads and a switch under each row of desks; as an aside a switch for each person with a laptop or more than one machine is a nice thing to have.
Then we have the cubicles and desks that fit together perfectly. And leave no space to actually run anything useful like telephone, monitor, keyboard or mouse cables. This seems to be a symptom of cheap desks but it's annoying as hell. If the desk doesn't have a whole large enough to slide a plug through (it's always easier to drop a plug down than it is to pull a cable up) then don't buy it. In the long run your staff will thank you.
When it comes to offices Joels Bionic Office is an excellent example, not only for the private offices (please yes!) but for the switches on each desk, the ceiling mounted cable runs (under floor cabling is a whole separate rant...) and the DESK HEIGHT power outlets.
If you come away from this post with one thing please let it be that power and networking should be AT DESK HEIGHT and not tucked away behind the actual furniture, staff and badly cleaned carpet. Please!
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Posted: 2004/12/18 21:06 | /nottech | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
Blunkett Quits Before Being Fired(?)
Today we have some good news, David Blunkett
has quit after his dirty washing was dragged around in public. Normally
I'd keep anything political away from this site but this is noteworthy as
he's the man who's been pushing ID cards.
I'm all for good security, which is one of the reasons I'm against ID cards. They add cost to the system, complexity to the people forced to use them and don't actually provide any benefits. The only people that care about not having the cards at the innocent ones, the "terrorists", muggers and other assorted criminals ain't exactly going to be stopped with this "I was going to commit a burglary... Damn I forgot my ID card again best leave the house alone.". Yeah right.
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Posted: 2004/12/18 20:54 | /nottech | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
Copyright © 2000-2005 Dean Wilson
