After almost a year of peace and quiet, Quantcast tracking code has returned to this blog. As reported by Brian Yang, the stupid hack that stopped the code from being included doesn’t work any more. Automattic recently switched to the new Quantcast-code, which instead of using the old-fashioned document.write now gets inserted asynchronously by a DOM-method (insertBefore). I’m looking at ways to stop this from happening or at least limit it one way or the other, but for the time being there’s no fix. Bear with me and do speak up (in the comments below of via the contact form) if you think you can help!
Year: 2011
As found on the web (November 2nd)
  | frank liked "The Chap – I Saw Them".   |
  | frank posted Apple patents touchscreen unlock. |
| | frank posted De obsessie met twitter. |
| | frank posted The Future of the Web Needs to Include the Past. |
| | frank shared CSS 3D transformations in Firefox Nightly. |
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  | frank published 12 stielen en 1 geluk: werkloosheid. |
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| | frank posted Dries Buytaert: Sitecore FUD. |
| | frank shared Electric Guest: Troubleman. |
| | frank liked Electric Guest – Trouble Man – HD Original.   |
12 stielen en 1 geluk: werkloosheid
7 op 10 onder U vindt dat, indien ik werkloos zou zijn, ik gelijk welke job zou moeten aanvaarden. Dat blijkt toch uit een enquête van een interim-kantoor waarover ik vorige week las. Pas op, ik neem U uw hardvochtigheid niet kwalijk, ge denkt ook maar aan de precaire toestand van onze economie en aan uw belastinggeld dat naar al die luiaards gaat. Maar mag ik U vragen om voor mij toch een kleine uitzondering te maken?
Ge moet weten, ik ben “Gegradueerde in de Toegepaste Communicatie”. Dat zegt U niet veel? Wel, mij ook niet! Ik heb met dat diploma 3 maanden interim bij een Brussels PR-bureau gewerkt. Tijdens de sjieke opening van hotel Le Méridien in Brussel besefte ik dat ik, ondanks dat propere colbert-vestje, niet thuishoorde in de PR. Blijkbaar moest ik de publieke relaties met de etende en drinkende journalisten verzorgen, terwijl ik eigenlijk gewoon stilletjes aan tafel zat en een hapje mee at. Ik heb Toegepaste Communicatie-gewijs ook nog een jaartje als freelance journalist voor “Het Vrije Waasland” gewerkt, maar dat verdiende amper genoeg om tijdens het weekend de dorst te lessen.
Buiten de “professionele communicatie”-sector heb ik evenmin potten gebroken; ik was een paar weken administratief bediende op de commerciële binnendienst van Recticel, een jaartje stafmedewerker bij de MJA en -daar komt de bekentenis- nog tijdens m’n studies ben ik met de zichtbaar succesvolle overbuur bij vrienden en familie gaan leuren met verzekeringen. Van deur tot deur lucht verkopen, ik voelde me precies terug Getuige van Jehovah.
Om maar te zeggen: ik heb in de eerste helft van de jaren ’90 best één en ander geprobeerd op de arbeidsmarkt. Maar m’n werkloosheid in 1994-95, dat was de job die echt het verschil heeft gemaakt. Want tijdens die 15 heerlijke maanden vol verveling en nietsdoenderij heb ik het internet leren kennen, via een gratis inbel-account van de RUG. Zonder die werkloosheid geen fascinatie voor dat vreemde WWW, geen IBO-tewerkstelling bij die PC winkel die ISP wilde zijn en dus geen kleine carrière als webmens.
Nee, als ik ooit terug werkloos zou zijn, laat me dan alsjeblieft rustig van uw belastingen profiteren. Ge kent me, ik zal uw geld wijselijk investeren in kennis-vergaring. Wie weet welke nieuwe microbe ik dan te pakken krijg? Onze economie (en dus uw portemonnee) kan er alleen maar wel bij varen!
As found on the web (October 26th)
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| | frank liked [720p] Radiohead – Glastonbury 2011 [Full Concert].   |
| | frank posted Ice Cream Sandwich Should Work on Gingerbread Handsets. |
| | frank posted Android 4.0 added. |
| | frank published Who’s re-baking my cookies?. |
| | frank posted Enhancing Web Apps with AmplifyJS. |
| | frank shared foert…. |
  | frank posted Answer by futtta for Writing a web app using Dropbox API. |
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Who’s re-baking my cookies?
While tinkering with JavaScript at work for a performance-optimization, we encountered an annoying cookie-related problem. We wanted to check if a certain name/value was present in the cookie and not do “complicated and unneeded backend stuff” if it was not. But that didn’t always work, because in some browsers the cookie had the secure flag set and the JS-check was done while in HTTP.
It took some time, digging and soul-searching, but it turned out to work fine for all but me. The reason: NoScript! My favorite Firefox Addon has, so I learned, “Automatic Secure Cookie Management” as a countermeasure against HTTPS cookie hijacking (by setting cookies “secure” if they’re set in HTTPS and if they contain something resembling a session-id?). And that feature indeed can break stuff.
So if you’re using NoScript and you’re running into weird cookie-related problems: try with “Automatic Secure Cookie Management” turned off, or add the site you’re on as an exception and you might be good to go.
As found on the web (October 19th)
| | frank liked 2 videos.     |
| | frank posted Answer by futtta for HTML5 Updating Offline cache. |
| | frank posted Answer by futtta for Script Chrome to fetch data. |
| | frank posted Comment by futtta on Script Chrome to fetch data. |
| | frank posted Comment by futtta on HTML5 Updating Offline cache. |
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| | frank shared Kranten bereiken meer mensen dan internet. |
| | frank posted Be a Part of Mashable’s iPhone 4S Coverage. |
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| | frank posted Gate One Puts a Terminal Emulator in Your Web Browser. |
| | frank published Feeling the Ubuntu-upgrade pain. |
| | frank posted Serving at the Pleasure of the King. |
| | frank posted Comment by futtta on Crowdsourced Translation. |
| | frank posted NoScript for Mobile is complete!. |
| | frank liked S. Carey – "In The Dirt" (Official Video).   |
| | frank posted Firefox for Android Plans to Go Native. |
| | frank posted Koop ‘n stukje journalist. |
| | frank published WP YouTube Lyte 0.8.0 released. |
| | frank shared 2011-10-18 20:54:50. |
| | frank posted Google Unwraps Ice Cream Sandwich. |
WP YouTube Lyte 0.8.0 released
Just a quick note confirming the release of WP YouTube Lyte 0.8.0. As previously described, the main new feature is support for embedding YouTube playlists in a high-performance and accessible kind of way that is typical of this plugin.
While testing the new feature on different platforms I noticed the playlist-player only comes in Flash, so it does not work on iPads or iPhones. Or “does not work on them yet”, as YouTube’s Jeff Posnick confirmed that support for HTML5 video in the embedded playlist player is on their todo-list.
The plugin is multi-lingual, with the following languages supported:
- English
- Dutch
- German
- Slovenian
- French (only the strings visible for visitors, not those in wp-admin)
- Spanish (only those strings visible for visitors for now)
Corrections, extra translations, bug reports and feature requests are all welcome feedback, either in the comments here or via the contact page.
I hope you enjoy the new version!
Feeling the Ubuntu-upgrade pain
I upgraded my Samsung n135 netbook to Ubuntu 11.10 today and encountered some … issues:
- The upgrade process didn’t disable the powersave schedule, which suspended my computer and the ongoing upgrade
- After the upgrade (which took hours to complete), the screen flicker problem I already knew proved to have become worse, to the extend it rendered my system unusable. A blunt “rmmod samsung_laptop” stopped the flicker (actually powersaving trying to change the screen brightness).
- While trying to install the “Linux On My Samsung” deb’s from the ppa:voria/ppa repository (which amongst ohter things contains the samsung_backlight kernel module that solves the flickering) I encountered serious networking issues which eventually proved not to be caused by the upgrade, but by dns-problems at my ISP. After changing my network config to use Google’s public DNS instead, I was able to install “Linux on My Samsung”-debs.
So here we are, working on what seems to be a stable, usable “Oneiric Ocelot”, having learned some new stuff and having a couple of new gray hairs to prove it. And now: sleep!
As found on the web (October 12th)
| | frank published Remove Facebook like buttons with NoScript. |
| | frank liked Rough Fields – Manila.   |
| | frank published Geef ons Volkswapens?. |
| | frank published WP YouTube Lyte; support for playlists (almost) included. |
| | frank posted WordPress 3.3 Adds HTML5 Media Uploader. |
WP YouTube Lyte; support for playlists (almost) included
Work on the next version of WP YouTube Lyte is almost finished. The main new features you can expect in version 0.8.0 are:
- support for playlists
- support for HD video (if size of the embedded player is big enough)
- updated UI elements & player sizes to match new, dark YouTube player style
- removed support for legacy YouTube embed code
Embedding a playlist will be as simple as adding
httpv://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=<playlist_id>.
The result will look like this documentary about Arcade Fire (4 video’s in one playlist):
Now off to testing this blogpost with an embedded playlist in all browsers I can get my hands on. Your feedback (off course) is always welcome as well! If all goes as planned I’ll push 0.8.0 to the wordpress svn later this week.