Sat, 15 Jul 2006
HTML Tidy, FireFox Envy and the Command Line
Tidy is a great little HTML lint
tool, that goes a lot further than the W3C Validator, but it requires
you to remember to run it. The FireFox HTML Validator
extension uses tidy and the FireFox status bar at the bottom of the
screen to show you tidy output from the current page.
This extension removes the need to run tidy by hand, you get it for free on every page you visit, but it does mean you need to visit any pages you want to run tidy against once you get spoiled by its output. And you will! The biggest annoyance with the tidy command line tool the requirement that pages must be on disk, not on a live website, which isn't what I wanted. The tidy_page.sh command line script is my little wrapper that could; it wraps tidy and wgets the pages for you. It then displays the results and removes the temp file so no traces remain on disk.
With the addition of a little wrapping script around this and I've now got a daily lint check on my main webpages. And you can have one too.
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Posted: 2006/07/15 15:00 | /tools/commandline | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
Superman Returns - Good but no Spiderman
I'm not a huge fan of the Man of Steel, I find his comics boring, the
Christopher Reeve films were watchable but nothing that stands out from my
childhood and Smallville is mostly dull. I'd heard the hype about Superman Returns and
considering how well the second X-Men film went I thought I'd give it
ago. On opening day. Because it's a comic book based film dammit. And
Spiderman 3 is taking TOO LONG. HEAR ME RAIMI?!
I wasn't really grabbed by the film as a whole. While Brandon Routh does a decent enough Superman with enough of a boy scout look to be passable, Kate Bosworth was a very weak Lois Lane compared to all the other incarnations I've seen and I just don't see the appeal of James Marsden. As either Richard White or Cyclops (in the X-Men, the first two of which were also directed by Bryan Singer) he's bought nothing to the screen. He's not a good actor, he's not extreme eye candy and he always looks too much like an everyman. And we've got Clark Kent for that in this film. The special effects were decent if not ground breaking and Kevin Spacey seemed to be the only person enjoying himself. He's not my favourite Lex but he did a decent job.
5/10 - Watchable but don't rush.
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Posted: 2006/07/15 14:08 | /movies | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
Don't do This With 'find' - part 1
Hell is other peoples code. -- Not quite Sartre.
I don't mind using other peoples code. I'll even submit patches if I
find a problem, but discovering the same mistakes in almost half-a-dozen
projects is enough to drive me insane. Here are three common red flags
involving the find command and how to get around them:
If you want to be portable, don't use GNU/Linuxisms.
Compare these two commands -
find -name "*.log" # not portable
find . -name "*.log" # works everywhere
The first one works with GNU find so it's fine for (almost) all Linux distributions. It doesn't work on older Solaris, HPUX or AIX machines and saves one dot. Lesson: specify your paths.
Know what happens when you match nothing.
The first example (shown below) works fine as long as it matches. If
the find doesn't return anything you get a syntax error.
find . -name "*.tmp" | xargs rm # pray for a .tmp file
find . -name "*.tmp" | xargs -r rm
The second example exits silently if there is nothing for it to do. As
noted by Dave
Cantrell, the -r option is a GNUism so be careful where you
use it. You can also get around this by using find options -exec foo
instead of xargs. But that comes with its own baggage. Lesson: Plan for
errors.
If you're using GNU/Linuxisms then use them properly.
The GNU utilities add a number of powerful and convenient options. If you've decided that your script only cares about Linux use them and save a lot of hassle.
find . -ls | awk '{ printf("%s %s %d\n", $NF, $5, $7) }' # horrible
find . -printf "%p %u %s\n" # better
The first example is (possibly) more portable but it's horrible. And not
something you want to see in an init script. The second one is tied to
newer versions of find but is much clearer to read, once you've looked up
the escapes using man find. Lesson: Know your options.
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Posted: 2006/07/15 13:36 | /codinghorrors | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
Is the DragonLance Movie Happening? We Have a YES!
I played a lot of ADnD at school, and while I only took part in a couple
of short DragonLance campaigns, I'm a Forgotten Realms man, the books
written by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman really grabbed me. Over the
years, where ever ADnD fans gathered in sleepy, huddled masses, the topic of
a DragonLance movie would occasionally crop up and we'd all say how great
it'd be but that it's never happen; looks like we were wrong...
It seems that a DragonLance Movie based on the Dragons of Autumn Twilight is undergoing production. It's going to be animated rather than live action (even though The Lord of the Rings big screen adaption showed what can be done in this genre) and I have to say the news fills me with both excitement and dread.
The idea of seeing those characters bought to life is exciting, I want to know how other people perceive Tanis and Raistlin, but I can remember the Dungeons and Dragons film (which was bad, very bad) and the script is being worked on by George Strayton, 'whose credits include "Cleopatra 2525", "Xena: Warrior Princess" and "Hercules: The Legendary Journeys".', three shows that I've seen and have never inspired me to think the world epic. Well, not in a good way.
These books are some of my favourites, let's hope he's very careful with them.
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Posted: 2006/07/15 09:30 | /movies | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
Webcomics and Deadtrees
Another day, another Amazon package... This time it had both the laugh out
loud funny Penny Arcade - attack
of the Bacon Robots and the ever impressive Megatokyo: Volume
4.
In addition to the comics the Penny Arcade book has a short paragraph of commentary for each cartoon and, fortunately, they're as funny as the cartoons themselves. While Volume 4 of Megatokyo isn't as amusing as the first couple of volumes, and no where near as funny as PA, it's evolving in to a great story full of impressive art. The highlight for me (I've already read all the comics online) is the expanded Circuity, which is a much easier and enjoyable read than the original online version.
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Posted: 2006/07/15 09:14 | /geekstuff | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
Copyright © 2000-2005 Dean Wilson
