http://shlomif.livejournal.com/ Looking for a Good Personal Blog Engine http://use.perl.org/~Shlomi+Fish/journal/36354?from=rss Dear Lazyweb, I'm looking for a recommendation for a good personal blog engine that I'd install on my site. It should be Free Software (preferably GPL-compatible); it should be Perl, Python or PHP (Perl is preferable), possibly also Ruby; it should be able to use PostgreSQL as a backend; and it should be <a href="http://www.shlomifish.org/philosophy/computers/high-quality-software/">good</a>: easy to install, mostly works out of the box, easy to extend, with an active developer community, readable (not necessarily too modular) code, good security practices, etc. Here's what I tried so far: <ol> <li> MovableType - has a weirdo HTML caching system, and ended up putting a lot of world-writable files on my hard disk. Also doesn't work out of the box with recent PostgreSQL's (which is easy to fix). </li> <li> WordPress - from using it elsewhere I had at least three occassions where it ate my comments and refused to allow me to repost them. Also, it has many bad defaults like non-threaded comments, A single "Submit" button with no preview, no pure-HTML input, and these weird ?id=$INDEX URLs which I hate. All of them can be fixed using Plugins, but it's still an extra hassle. It also had a very poor security record, and <a href="http://www.catonmat.net/">pkrumins</a> said he isn't content with it for his blog, and working on something from scratch. </li> </ol> There are many other <a href="http://www.weblogmatrix.org/">blog engines out there</a>, but I'm looking for a personal recommendation from experience. Comment below or <a href="http://www.shlomifish.org/me/contact-me/">drop me a line</a>. I'll probably blog here about what my final verdict is. רשומה לכבוד יום העצמאות: מספיק עם ההתעסקות בבטחון! http://shlomif.livejournal.com/53230.html <div align="right" dir="rtl"> יום עצמאות שמח לכולם! החלטתי לכתוב רשומה זאת לכבוד יום העצמאות, אבל קרוב לודאי שחלקכם לא תהיו מרוצים ממנה. הרשומה כתובה בעברית, מתוך רגשות פטריוטיות, אבל קרוב לודאי שאתרגם אותה אחר-כך לאנגלית ואדביק אותה כרשומה נפרדת. מעשה שהיה כך היה: דיברתי עם <a href="http://www.catonmat.net/">פטריס קרומינס</a> בפרינוד, והוא סיפר לי שהוא עתיד בקרוב לסיים את התואר הראשון שלו בפיזיקה. (בהצלחה ומזל טוב!) בכל מקרה, דיברנו על טקסי סיום בישראל ובלטביה (שהיא ארץ מושבו של פטריס) והוא הראה לי <a href="http://foto.lu.lv/arhiivs/2007/f_jun/04/index.html">מספר תמונות של טקס סיום מלטביה</a>. התמונה הראשונה שלכדה את עיניי הייתה <a href="http://foto.lu.lv/arhiivs/2007/f_jun/04/slides/IMG_4806.html">תמונה זאת של מספר בנות שככל הנראה עמדו לקבל את התעודה</a>. כפי שניתן לראות הן חמודות לאללה, אבל אני מצאתי את התלבושות שלהן מצחיקות למדי ביחס למה שאני מכיר. פטריס סיפר לי שאלה תלבושות פורמליות רגילות של בחורות שם, והוא שאל אותי אם אוכל למצוא לו תמונות של בחורות ישראליות בתלבושות פורמליות. טוב, ניגשתי לפליקר <a href="http://flickr.com/search/?q=israeli%20girls&w=all">וחיפשתי "israeli girls"</a> ומה אני רואה? מדים על גבי מדים. מרוב חאקי נהיה לי שחור בעיניים. תמונות באיכות טובה של חיילות נאות, אבל זהו - אך ורק חיילות. פטריס סיפר לי שאותן תמונות היו פופולריות ב-digg, ב-reddit ובכל שאר אתרי הקישורים החברתיים, ואולי זאת הסיבה מדוע פליקר מייחס להן חשיבות רבה כל כך. טוב, חיילת במדים (או חייל זכר במדים) אינו מראה כל-כך נדיר בארץ בהתחשב בעובדה שמרבית הבנות משרתות בצבא שנתיים החל מגיל 18, וכן חלקן בוחרות לעשות גם קצונה או שירות קבע. אבל מרבית הנשים שרואים בארץ אינן לבושות במדים. כך שהחיפוש הזה בפליקר נותן רושם מטעה ופוליטי. <a href="http://flickr.com/search/?w=all&q=israeli+woman&m=text">החיפוש "israeli woman"</a> אינו מציג רק חיילות אבל הדף הראשון גם הוא פוליטי משהו. עכשיו מגיע תוכן ההתלוננות שלי: לדעתי ישראל נתפסת כמדינה היפר-פוליטית והיפר-בטחונית הן בעיני תושבי העולם והן בעיני אזרחיה עצמה. אני אתן מספר דוגמאות: <ol> <li> כאשר למדתי אזרחות בכיתה י‎"א המורה לאזרחות (שאני זוכר די לטובה) שאלה את הכיתה לאיזו ועדה של הכנסת, ראש הממשלה מחויב להתייצב, והתלמידים ענו "ועדת החוץ והבטחון". אולם, הועדה הנכונה הייתה "הועדה לביקורת המדינה" והמורה העירה שזאת הייתה אינדיקציה שאנו תופסים את הבטחון כחשוב יתר על המידה (והיא העירה על כך גם לפני כן.) </li> <li> <a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/america.html">במאמר הזה</a> פול גרהם הוכיח "מדעית", שזאת תהיה משימה חסרת-טעם להקים "עמק סיליקון" בישראל - כלומר מרכז של סטארט-אפים. הוא כנראה לא שמע על חברות כמו <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirabilis_(company)">מירביליס</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Check_Point">צ'ק פוינט</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zend_Technologies">זנד</a> ועוד סטארט-אפים ישראליים רבים וטובים לשעבר. מרבית החברות שעבדתי בהן בתור מתכנת היו סטארט-אפים, ולא חסרות כאלן, וגם היו רבות כאלו גם בזמן המיתון. </li> <li> כאשר כתבתי את הרשומה <a href="http://www.hackers.org.il/mediawiki/index.php/A_Brief_History_of_Linux_in_Israel">הסטוריה מקוצרת של לינוקס בישראל</a> בויקי של Hackers-IL, <a href="http://www.hackers.org.il/mediawiki/index.php?title=A_Brief_History_of_Linux_in_Israel&oldid=1528">כתבתי במקור שלישראל היו בעיות רבות</a> וביניהן "מיסוי מרובה, רגולציה מרובה ולא רציונלית, כמות רבה של פעילות טרוריסטית וכו". מישהו (שאני חושב שהיה ישראלי) מחק את מה שכתבתי והשאיר רק את "הכמות הרבה של פעילות טרוריסטית". עם כל הכבוד, הפעילות הטרוריסטית הרבה היא לא הבעייה החמורה ביותר שפוגעת בישראל. ישראלים רבים יותר מתו מתאונות דרכים ומעישון מאשר מפעילות טרור. וכאמור, לדעתי, כמות המיסוי האדירה פוגעת בישראל באופן ניכר הרבה מפעילות הטרור, וישראל לא תפסיד דבר (ואף תרוויח) ככל שהיא תצמצם אותה. כך שהעריכה הייתה מטעה. </li> <li> מספר רב מדי של אנשים זרים שדיברתי איתם מחו"ל בצ'אטים באינטרנט שאלו אותי אם ישראל בטוחה מספיק. ככל הנראה הרושם שלהם הוא שיש ירי ברחובות, וטילים בכל מקום, וישראל איננה בטוחה. אולם המציאות היא שמרבית תושבי ישראל מרגישים בטוחים מאוד. </li> </ol> כמובן, גם אני אינני טלית שכולה תכלת בנושא הזה. <a href="http://www.shlomifish.org/humour/TheEnemy/">הסיפור הרציני הראשון שכתבתי</a> היה מבוסס על המצב הפוליטי בגבול בין ישראל ולבנון, אם כי יאמר להגנתי שיש לו מסר הרבה יותר אוניברסלי. כמו-כן כתבתי <a href="http://www.shlomifish.org/philosophy/politics/">מאמרים על פוליטיקה</a> וכן רשומות פוליטיות רבות בבלוג שלי, אם כי לא כולן על המצב הפוליטי-בטחוני בישראל. אבל אני חושב שיש לנו כעם אובססיה רבה מדי עם הצבא, והבטחון של ישראל. אם אתם שואלים לדעתי, הגורם העיקרי שמצבנו הבטחוני מעורער כל-כך היא <a href="http://www.shlomifish.org/philosophy/politics/define-zionism/">העובדה שקיימת בישראל אפליה חוקתית</a>. עד שלא נמגר אותה לחלוטין, היא תביא לאפליה ולגזענות רגילה, וכן ליחסים לא אוהדים גם בקרב הערבים ושאר תושבי-העולם הכי ליברליים. ואני אומר זאת כישראלי יהודי. אם לעוות את מה <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoda">שיודה</a> אמר: "עשה או אל תעשה. אבל אל תעשה ליהודי ולא תעשה לגוי, או להפך." בכל מקרה, בתור ישראלים ביום העצמאות, אנחנו צריכים לזכור שהצבא והבטחון הם כלי ולא מטרה. המטרה היא שאזרחיה יוכלו לחיות חיים בשלום, שלוה, אושר ושגשוג. יום עצמאות שמח לכל תושבי ישראל! </div> http://shlomif.livejournal.com/53230.html http://shlomif.livejournal.com/53230.html Wed, 07 May 2008 19:36:35 GMT Perl Must Decentralize, Diversify and Colonize http://community.livejournal.com/shlomif_tech/10582.html Andy Lester has written <a href="http://perlbuzz.com/2008/05/perl-decentralize-diversify-colonize.html">a great article about some of the social and philosophical problems with the Perl world</a>. He says that while Perl 5 is a great technology, has a very <a href="http://search.cpan.org/">comprensive collection of reusable, open-source code called "CPAN"</a>, and has a lot to show for, it has suffered from concentration of effort and other such problems. This, in turn, contributed to the fact that many programmers concluded it was "dead", "dying", "not good enough", or other such negative hype and negative myths. While Lester's article suffers from some problems, it still makes a good read even if you're not an avid Perler. andy lesterconcentration of effortperllinkrecommendationdecentralisationarticleessaypetdancephilosophy http://community.livejournal.com/shlomif_tech/10582.html http://community.livejournal.com/shlomif_tech/10582.html Wed, 07 May 2008 05:50:46 GMT New Essay: "What Makes Software High-Quality" http://use.perl.org/~Shlomi+Fish/journal/36336?from=rss I wrote <a href="http://www.shlomifish.org/philosophy/computers/high-quality-software/">a new Essay about what makes software applications high-quality</a>, as well as which parameters and methods, while desirable and quality-enhancing, are not exactly quality. It was inspired by a post on a public mailing list I set up, and Perl and perl 5 are mentioned there a few times, as are many other open-source projects. It is available in several formats: HTML to read online (on Page), DocBook/XML source (which can in turn render other formats), PDF (please don't print it even though you are legally allowed to). The licence is CC-by-2.5. Comments are welcome. Today is my Birthday http://shlomif.livejournal.com/52788.html I was born on 5 May, 1977, so today is my 31st Birthday. <a href="http://peachuk.livejournal.com/8840.html">peachuk has already congratulated me on her blog</a> (with a nice cartoon), and other people have already congratulated me on IRC and IM. Someone I know also wrote me something on Facebook, which I tend to dislike. Next time, an Email or an IM will do, but thanks. I felt a bit depressed towards my birthday, but today I'm feeling great. Today was productive for me as I worked on an XML grammar for <a href="http://www.shlomifish.org/humour/fortunes/">Unix-like fortune cookies</a>. I learned <a href="http://relaxng.org/">RELAX NG</a> in the process (and can recommend it) and made some progress, but it's still not ready for prime time. I also chatted on the IRC a lot, and spent a lot of time explaining the essence of Perl 5's references to someone who only knew Unix Shell and very minimal Python. I remember I had problems with C pointers back after I learnt BASIC, which didn't really have them, and still remember that I only truly understood references in Perl after learning some Java (and possibly also after reading <a href="http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/">SICP</a>). So I geeked out today. :-) For other events that had occured today see <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_5">the Wikipedia</a>. Cheers! -- the 31-years old, Shlomi. http://shlomif.livejournal.com/52788.html http://shlomif.livejournal.com/52788.html Mon, 05 May 2008 15:23:41 GMT What Motivates People and How? http://shlomif.livejournal.com/52579.html I feel obliged to write a special entry for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yom_HaShoah">the Israeli Holocaust Remembrance Day</a> which is today, so hopefully this will serve as such. However, it's probably not going to be what you expect. My first question is the one in the title: what motivates people? Why do people do what they do? One of the most common myths about it is what I call "pseudo-Darwinism" - the belief that people ultimately do everything to have sex, or even to procreate. This was started by Sigmund Freud, and also popularised by the book <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene">The Selfish Gene</a> (which I haven't read but seems very interesting). However, this makes many explanations for human behaviour very contrived ("You chat on instant messaging because you hope that one of the people in the conversation will give you a lead for a date with an attractive woman/man...") which don't make much sense. It also fails to explain why many people and even many mammals who were castarated or otherwise incapable of bringing offspring do not commit suicide and otherwise seem to lead a happier life. It also doesn't explain why many people marry and lead happy lives, but don't want to have children. (And sometimes also have abortions.) Or why some people become monks or nuns, or other clergymen who are forbidden from having sex. Plus, many people who have been virgins for a long time, or alternatively have wonderful significant-others (and sex partners) whom they'll never wish to hurt, are still chatting on the IRC (Internet Relay Chat) and other IM services. So it's not a very satisfying answer. But there's a more sensical explanation, and it actually heavily predates Darwin. In the first book of <a href="http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.html">Nicomachean Ethics</a>, Aristotle claims that we perform certain actions for certain ends, and that these ends are also sometimes means to an end. But there must be an ultimate end, because otherwise everything will be meaningless. He then claims that "happiness" is the ultimate end for most humans. Happiness can also be interpreted, or subtituted for "self-esteem", "pleasure", "joy", etc. depending on how you see it. So what does it mean? We do what makes us feel good about ourselves. However, different people, and people at different times, have different actions that they deem as making them happier. This is often perfectly natural. I can sit at the computer most of the time, while just writing, chatting, or writing software. Other people don't seem to like it enough to do it all the time. Often, what makes us happy or our tastes is not a moral decision but an ammoral one (i.e: something that's neither moral nor immoral.). As software developers, our job is to make sure people encounter as few frustrations as they can with our software. This means that the software will have good usability, that it will "just work", that it won't have bugs, and that if such problems are encountered they can easily be reported and dealt with. If a software works according to our expectations, and does what we want - we'll feel happy. If it is too difficult to operate, lacks necessary features, has obscure and unhelpful documentation, or doesn't behave acccording to our expectations - we'll feel unhappy and helpless. As an example, I was searching <a href="http://www.cpan.org/">CPAN</a> for an IMAP module so I can get a list of all the <tt>From:</tt> addresses in my work's inbox. The first hits seemed overly complicated and required too much research. Then I found <a href="http://search.cpan.org/dist/Email-Folder-IMAP/">Email-Folder-IMAP</a> whose synopsis had done something very similar to what I wanted. After pasting the code, changing it a bit and running it, I had got a list of all the from addresses. That has made me happy, and I was determined to use Email-Folder-IMAP from then on. Back to the main subject - the main problem in the world is that some people derive pleasure from causing damage. For example, Genghis Khan has killed millions of people in his irrational and pointless conquests, just so he can feel good about himself. Adolf Hitler was similar too. The reason he decided to set the blame on the Jews and to kill over 20 million people in World-War-II was so he can feel good about himself. Also notice how he constantly shifted the blame to his and his people's problems from himself to members of other people, especially the Jews. Constantly blaming others or the world at large for one's own problems is a vestige of what <a href="http://www.shlomifish.org/philosophy/philosophy/guide-to-neo-tech/">Neo-Tech</a> calls "The Criminal Mind". Of course, even the Nazis were angels in comparison to 20th-century Communistic regimes who had been responsible for <a href="http://vip.latnet.lv/LPRA/100MilVictims.htm">killing 100 million of the citizens of their own countries</a>. Why? Because the leaders felt that they were conspiring against them, and that these victims prevent "future growth", but in fact because they felt pleasure of doing this. No reason for any human-induced mass-destruction have ever existed except for the fact that the Charismatic leader was a destructive and evil person (a "mystic" in Neo-Tech terminology) who wanted to feel good about himself. But naturally saying "Would you kill a million people so I can feel good" would not motivate anybody, they needed a "higher cause": "God", "the Aryan Race", "the nation", "justice" (not real Justice - more like an a collectivist revenge), "the Proletariat", etc. (And more recently "the Environment", "our security", "fighting the drug abusers" and other causes like that). But these causes are unnatural because there is no good reason to follow them. Ayn Rand has identified that any aim to an unnatural altruistic cause, instead of the real cause which is the well-being, freedom and prosperity of the conscious individual, is in fact a recipe for disaster. By altruism she didn't mean willingly and rationally contributing to the well-being of another individual (or group of individuals) you care about, but rather claiming that one's life is worthless without contributing or even sacrificing to an external cause, be it "The poor", "the weak", "the nation", "the faith" or whatever. As we remember the victims of the Nazis we should realise two things: <ol> <li> If the Germans would have cared about their own well-being, been logical and considered Hitler a stupid and irrational pip-squeak and nothing more, then World-War-II would not have happpened. </li> <li> If the Jews (and other Nazi-opposers) realised they were in danger, and would have marched into Germany and kill everyone that looked like a Nazi, aiming to eventually kill Hitler himself, the War would have turned out much differently. While I am a peaceful man, I am not a pacifist. I believe that when someone is in danger, they are allowed to exercise force against their oppressors. And sometimes it is necesary. </li> </ol> The issue is not the "strong-vs-the-weak" - it is the "noble-vs-the-evil", and ironically some of the causes that seem the most noble to us are in fact very harmful. Now it is your mission to try to apply what I said here. Act for your own well-being and happiness. Oppose those people who tell you you should dedicate your life to them. Ridicule them. Insult them. Fight them. Laugh them out of existence. Don't blame other people or the world at large for your own problems. Challenge every assumption. Make sure you have no prejudice or dogma. Understand that some people know more than you in some respects, and that even the most wise men can (and often do) learn from fools. Be fanatical for proper use of logic, which is the only valid tool that we have for judging what's correct and right and what's wrong and bad. Don't be a slave to your emotions and feelings. A person who's behaving rationally will be happier in the long run than a person who's behaving irrationally, and will experience more feelings of joy, happiness and love. Your feelings <a href="http://www.shlomifish.org/philosophy/books-recommends/#feeling_good">are not facts</a> and only reflect our thoughts, and general condition. While we want to be happy, we shouldn't make pleasure our master, but rather our servant in the ends for a better life. Regards -- Shlomi Fish, <a href="http://www.shlomifish.org/philosophy/the-eternal-jew/">The Eternal Jew</a>. http://shlomif.livejournal.com/52579.html http://shlomif.livejournal.com/52579.html Thu, 01 May 2008 15:44:31 GMT Unattainable Goals that are Still Worth Pursuing http://shlomif.livejournal.com/52439.html One thought that occurred to me lately was the fact that there are some goals in life that can never be fully attained, but are nevertheless worth pursuing and getting nearer and nearer to them. Like an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asymptotically">asymptotic function</a> in mathematics if you may. One example that I thought for it is the case of objectivity. Human beings are subjective by nature and so can never be completely objective. However, it doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to be as objective as possible, or completely give up on being objective. (And by being objective I don't mean having <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view">a neutral Point-of-View</a>). Other people can disagree with me that objectivity is a virtue but it's besides the point. Now a co-worker of mine is a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasidic_Judaism">Hasidic Jew</a>, and when I told him that I'm an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivism_(Ayn_Rand)">Objectivist</a>, he said that one cannot be completely Objective. He then gave the fact that the Bible says that God brought the great drought because <a href="http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0108.htm">"Yetzer Lev ha'adam Ra' Mine'urav"</a> (= the desire of the Human's heart is bad from his youth.), and later on decided not to do it again for a similar reason. He brought that as an indication that the Bible indicated that a man is not Objective by nature. I thought about it for a moment and understood that the same can be said about honesty (or "righteousness" in a more religious language). We can never be completely honest and never lie or do the right thing everytime. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't constantly try to be as honest as possible, or worse succumb to complete dishonesty. (I was told Immanuel Kant said something along the lines that if one wished, for example, to be sincere, he must not lie even if threatened by death. However, this is silly, because ethical and moral ideals are supposed to help you lead a happier life (as identified by Aristotle in the first book of <a href="http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.html">"Nicomachean Ethics"</a>), not to terminate them prematurely under someone who employs force or threat of force against you, when you otherwise did not do anything wrong.) After I told it to my co-worker in an MSN Messenger conversation he agreed with me that I was right on both the honesty aspect and, in accordance with the principle, also the Objectivity one. This concept can be applied to many other values or capabilities we desire. For example, one can always improve as a programmer, which is evident by the fact that most good programmers who take a look at their old code are unhappy with it. But it doesn't mean we shouldn't try to always improve as programmers. Likewise, if a particular computing technology is large (e.g: Perl, Java, PHP, .NET) and also has possibly spanned a large number of halo technologies (e.g: <a href="http://search.cpan.org/">CPAN</a>, <a href="http://jakarta.apache.org/">Apache Jakarta</a>, etc.), then mastering the core language would be hard, and time consuming. In the Perl world we constantly say that "no one knows all of Perl, not even Larry Wall". But it doesn't mean you shouldn't do your best to master as much as you can out of it, or need to. One example that I'm especially sensitive about is politics in a software project (possibly an open-source one ). Obviously, there can never be zero politics, but the project leaders and members should always try to reduce its amount, because not keeping it at bay is a recipe for disaster. I constantly hear about important features that are not implemented or even bugs that are left unfixed in open-source projects due to political reasons. I can give <a href="http://subversion.tigris.org/">Subversion</a> and to a lesser extent the perl5-core development tools as good examples of projects with very little politics and a value-maximising attitude. One can think of many other examples. My point is that while it is true that we are humans and can never be perfect, we should always aim for perfection in some aspects. And given enough willingness and by learning from our mistakes, we can remain close to perfection in those respects all the time. http://shlomif.livejournal.com/52439.html http://shlomif.livejournal.com/52439.html Mon, 28 Apr 2008 07:46:54 GMT Park, Hebrew drugs-related essay, and more http://community.livejournal.com/shlomif_hsite/7289.html <a href="http://www.shlomifish.org/open-source/projects/Park-Lisp/">The documentation for the Park Lisp</a> dialect has been added into the open-source section: <blockquote> Why am I doing it? For several reasons: <ol> <li> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0066620724/103-5528911-1875020">Because it's fun</a>. This is by itself a good reason. </li> <li> Because I found that designing your own language is one of the best ways to learn more about the original languages it is based on. When I designed <a href="http://www.shlomifish.org/rindolf/">the Perl dialect "Rindolf"</a>, I learned that some features I suggested for it were already doable in Perl 5. </li> </ol> </blockquote> Added the <a href="http://www.shlomifish.org/philosophy/politics/drug-legalisation/hebrew.html">Hebrew translation of the "Case for Drug Legalisation"</a> essay: <blockquote> מכיוון שהסמים אינם חוקיים, הם מופצים על-ידי עוברי-חוק, שדורשים מחיר מופקע תמורתם. מחיר מופקע בהרבה מזה שדרוש לגדל, לזקק ולהפיץ אותם. כתוצאה מכך, יש שוק שחור גדול להפצה של סמים והמשתמשים בסמים נאלצים לבסוף לבצע פשעים כמו גניבה או שוד כדי לממן את הרגלי הסמים שלהם. אחוז הפשיעה בארצות-הברית גדל פי שניים בשל האיסור על האלכוהול ("חוק היובש"). כאשר האיסור הוסר, הוא קטן חזרה למצבו המקורי. צפוי שפשעים הנובעים מסמים גורמים לריבוי דומה, בשל האופי הדומה של האיסור </blockquote> The second revision of <a href="http://www.shlomifish.org/philosophy/computers/education/introductory-language/">"Thoughts about the Best Introductory Language"</a> is now available with many corrections and clarifications. <a href="http://www.shlomifish.org/open-source/projects/linux-kernel/xconfig-search/">A Linux Kernel Patch to enhance the search dialog of the GUI configuration applet</a> is now available there, as it has not been integrated into the mainline yet. New <a href="http://www.shlomifish.org/humour/fortunes/">fortune cookies</a> have been added. Added a note to <a href="http://www.shlomifish.org/meta/linking-policy/">the linking policy</a> about requesting to remove mis-appropriate links. <a href="http://kflickr.sourceforge.net/">KFlickr</a> and the Firefox <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/869">Uppity extension</a> were added to the <a href="http://www.shlomifish.org/open-source/favourite/">favourite open software page</a>. A "Bookmark me" button was added to the bottom of the main text of all the pages to facilitate bookmarking using online bookmarking and news services. Below it there are now some more text ads, which shouldn't be too intrusive. Finally, a <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/shlomif_tech/10327.html">JavaScript script</a> that adds self-referential links to headings with anchors was added, which makes use of the <a href="http://jquery.com/">jQuery library</a>. shlomif@iglu.org.il lispkernelhumourbookmark mesearchparkuppityunixlegalisationanchorskflickrhebrewarccookiestext adsfortunelinking policylinuxdrugspatch http://community.livejournal.com/shlomif_hsite/7289.html http://community.livejournal.com/shlomif_hsite/7289.html Fri, 25 Apr 2008 04:37:10 GMT jQuery Tip: Adding Self-Links to Headings http://community.livejournal.com/shlomif_tech/10327.html On <a href="http://www.shlomifish.org/">my homepage</a>, I have many <h2>, <h3>, etc. tags with <tt>id</tt> attributes in them so one can link directly to the middle of the page. I have written a Website Meta Language API that allows one to generate a table of contents for the page based on them. However, recently I also looked for a way to have a link to their anchors somewhere close to them. I eventually decided to try doing it using JavaScript and <a href="http://jquery.com/">jQuery</a>. It took me a bit of documentation lookup, trial and error and consulting people on IRC, but I ended up with: <pre> <script type="text/javascript">  </script> </pre> Now for some explanations: <ol> <li> The <tt>$("h1[id]...")</tt> construct selects all the headings with id's. There may be a shorter way to do it (comments are welcome). </li> <li> The each method iterates over all of them and calls the closure inside. The closure sets the "<tt>this</tt>" variable to the current element, and accepts its index there (the "i" variable). In our case, we're not making use of the index. </li> <li> $(this) constructs a jQuery object from "this". </li> <li> .append() appends an expression to the inner HTML of the element. I add a little HTML there. <tt>this.id</tt> may result in an XSS attack if you have a really funky (and probably invalid) ID, but since I have control over my ID's it's OK. </li> </ol> You can see the result, in the headings of <a href="http://www.shlomifish.org/lecture/">the presentations' page</a> (for example), as long as you don't have JavaScript turned off. jQuery seems very nice, and I'm looking forward to making even more use of it where appropriate. tipidhomesitelinksjqueryheadingsanchorshtmljavascripthomepageattribute http://community.livejournal.com/shlomif_tech/10327.html http://community.livejournal.com/shlomif_tech/10327.html Thu, 24 Apr 2008 16:36:14 GMT "Free" and "Freedom" in Hebrew (and English) http://shlomif.livejournal.com/52098.html By inspiration from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passover">Passover</a>, which celebrates the end of the Egyptian Jewish slavery, and by some inspiration from <a href="http://www.dwheeler.com/essays/fisl2005.html">what David A. Wheeler wrote about the meanings of free in English</a>, I present to you some non-professional philological study of the meanings of "Free" and "Freedom" in Hebrew and English. First of all, there are two ways to say "freedom" in Hebrew: "Hhofesh" (חופש) and "Hherouth" (חרות). The double-h is my way of indicating a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heth">"Hheth"</a>, which is similar to the "kh" in "Khan" or the Spanish "j", but even more throaty when pronounced correctly. Now, "Hhofesh" means Freedom, while "Hherouth" is even stronger, and means something closer to "liberty" in English, but probably not exactly the same. A free person (or a thing) is "Hhofshi" (in Singular Masculine form, other forms differ slightly), while I didn't hear the word "Herouthi" used often. Instead one can say that someone is a "Ben-Horin" (i.e: "son [or belongs to a people of] of free people."), which is probably the etymology for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben-Hur">"Ben-Hur"</a>. While "Herouth" is mostly limited to the liberty of a people or inidividuals, and is considered high language, "Hhofshi" is more disputed. It can naturally mean "libre" or free-from-oppression. But "Hhofesh" or "Hhufshah" also means vacation in Hebrew (like "Hahhofesh hagadol" (the big "Hhofseh") - which is the Hebrew name for the Summer vacation.) And so Hhofshi is sometimes applied to a person who is relieved of work, education or other responsibilities (such as that of a spouse), even though it is understood that it is not an exact meaning. More recently, "Hhofshi" also started to be applied to "gratis", "costless" or "on-the-house" commodities similar to the "free-as-in-free-beer" distinction. For example, in Falafel stands, one often hears that the extras are "Hhufshi" meaning one can take as much as they want to put in his Pitah-bread. This may have been an influence from English, but as I noted, "Hhofesh" in Hebrew has not been restricted to mean freedom from oppression ("free-as-in-free-speech") either. One doesn't often hear people using "Hhofshi" for "lacking" as in "Caffeine-free", although that may also have become a bit more common lately. "Caffeine-free" is "Netol-caffeine" ("נטול-קפאין") in Hebrew, and one can also say "lelo kaffeine" ("ללא קפאין" without Caffeine) or "She'eyn bo kaffeine" ("שאין בו קפאין" "which doesn't have Caffeine" more or else) in certain contexts. And I'd also like to stress the fact that "free" in English even in its more "libre" meaning, can be used either for freedom-from-oppression or freedom-from-responsibilities. If you value liberalism, you should try to use it only in the freedom-from-oppression sense. Happy Passover (a.k.a the Festival of Liberty in Hebrew) everyone! http://shlomif.livejournal.com/52098.html http://shlomif.livejournal.com/52098.html Mon, 21 Apr 2008 19:36:15 GMT Test-Run Tests Breakage on BSD Systems http://use.perl.org/~Shlomi+Fish/journal/36196?from=rss OK, as I expected <a href="http://use.perl.org/~Shlomi+Fish/journal/36050">my previous entry</a> sparked an active discussion - nothing like a good licences war to liven things up. But it was more civil than I expected. Here's a much more technical entry. As I discovered, <a href="http://cpantesters.perl.org/show/Test-Run.html#Test-Run-0.0115">Test-Run-0.0115 consistently failed to pass "./Build test" on all BSD systems</a>, while doing mostly fine on Linux. Inspecting the logs of the failure yielded a "File name too long" error. What happened was that I created a filename that was artificially very long (<tt>../t/../t/../t/</tt>), but still well within the limits of my Linux system's 4096 bytes limit for file paths. However, as I discovered the POSIX standard defined a minimum of 256 bytes for maximal paths which is what BSD is supporting. The reason I had this long path in the first place was to make sure long paths are handled properly by the harness output after some customisations. This in turn was inspired by a problem I found when using Test-Run at my workplace for some internal test suite, which inspired me to write the <a href="http://search.cpan.org/dist/Test-Run-Plugin-TrimDisplayedFilenames/">Trim-displayed-Filenames plugin</a>. So after I received all these failure reports, I added some logic to <tt>t/output.t</tt> that makes use of POSIX::PATH_MAX() to keep the path at bay. A bit convulted, but it now <a href="http://cpantesters.perl.org/show/Test-Run.html#Test-Run-0.0116">passes on BSD systems (as well as Linux and Solaris)</a>, with a two isolated failures on Linux, which I have not looked into yet. I'd like to thank apeiron from Freenode for testing the pre-release in Mac OS X and verifying it works there. In any case, I'm a bit tired of doing unknowledgable UNIX programming, and therefore would like to read <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Environment-Addison-Wesley-Professional-Computing/dp/0201433079">the 2nd edition of Stevens' book</a> (which is considered the Bible of UNIX programming). The book is kinda costy, and big (960 pages), so I think I'll renew my <a href="http://safari.oreilly.com/">Safari subscription</a> and see if I can read it there effectively. If I can't I'll just use it for something else, and order a paper-copy of the book. And finally, I wonder how a 256-octets path limit can ever be enough. In this day and age of long filenames and UTF-8 ones (which require several bytes), one can expect that a path with a few especially long components will quickly overflow such a short limit. Can any BSD users comment? Boring Personal Update http://shlomif.livejournal.com/51902.html First of all happy <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passover">Passover</a> everyone! This year I'm getting this Sunday off, but not the rest of week (though some of my co-workers have taken a leave of absence). I've been a bit stressed lately, probably due to work issue, but I think I'm happier and more focused now, and feel better. I went to bike today and took my usual To-Park-Hayarkon-and-Back route. It was not too hot and not too cold, and I enjoyed my ride, although felt I kinda drifted away in my thoughts, and didn't pay a lot of attention to my surroundings. For a tech update: I've continuted to work on my homesite, on <a href="http://perl-begin.org/">Perl Begin</a> and on other projects, such as <a href="http://perlbuzz.com/2008/04/rethinking-the-interface-to-cpan.html">the Rethinking-CPAN effort</a>. I was also able to overcome some GNU Autohell problems in Website Meta Language, in order to get some pending patches applied there. This is a temporary solution until I finish working on the more robust <a href="http://www.cmake.org/">CMake</a>-based configuration system, which would take a lot of time. I wasn't able to upload the archive yet, due to connectivity problems and some Berlios.de bugs, but I hope to resolve them soon enough. I have several ideas for essays or mini-essays I'd like to work on - mostly technical. And I accumulated a backlog of 415 (now 387) entries on my web feed aggregator. In any case, I hope you all are doing well. I have a few blog entries in the queue, and if all goes well, I'll post them soon. Bye! http://shlomif.livejournal.com/51902.html http://shlomif.livejournal.com/51902.html Fri, 18 Apr 2008 19:21:30 GMT Handling Repetitive Questions Once and for All http://community.livejournal.com/shlomif_tech/10032.html Back when I worked on <a href="http://fc-solve.berlios.de/">Freecell Solver</a> , I used to prepare binary distributions of the command line solver. Now it acted as a filter, and when invoked without arguments it just waited for standard input. As a result, when the Windows users double-clicked the fc-solve.exe executable, it just popped an empty console, which they couldn't understand what to do. And a lot of them sent me a "How do I use this" program email with the exact description. Since I became annoyed of it, I decided to output the following to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_streams#Standard_error_.28stderr.29">standard error</a> by default: <pre> Reading the board from the standard input. Type "fc-solve --help" for more usage information. To cancel this message set the FREECELL_SOLVER_QUIET environment variable. </pre> After the poor Winnies read it, it probably made them decide the program was not for them and to look for an alternative, but at least most of the emails I received about it stopped. A year ago, Joel on Software published an article about having <a href="http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/customerservice.html">remarkable customer services</a>, in which he said that one needs to fix everything two ways: first by helping the user, and then by making sure other users don't encounter and complain about the problem again by tweaking the behaviour. As one can see, what I did for Freecell Solver was essentially what Joel advised to do. (Albeit much later than I incorporated the fix.). More recently, I started the <a href="http://better-scm.berlios.de/">Better SCM site</a>, which compares and advocates several version control systems. However, git has been absent due to the fact a suitable maintainer did not come forward. And as a result, I received many emails asking "Where's git?". A few days ago I decided to add <a href="http://better-scm.berlios.de/faq/">a Frequently Asked Questions (F.A.Q.) to the site</a> where I answered this and other questions. However, today I received another email with "Git?" in the subject about that. Another thing Joel had said is that <a href="http://www.joelonsoftware.com/uibook/chapters/fog0000000062.html">"People Don't Read"</a> or at least read very selectively. So I added a <a href="http://better-scm.berlios.de/alternatives/git/">placeholder page about git</a> with explanation why it is absent and a call for help, and added it to <a href="http://better-scm.berlios.de/comparison/">the comparison</a> with the text "Unknown. Due to a lack of a maintainer for this system." with a link to the F.A.Q.. This should be enough to get rid of that particularly repetitive stream of emails, and hopefully will also yield me a contributor to add a better solution. Often designing web-sites and doing "customer service" (or feedback) requires designing the site properly based on the feedback one gets. I didn't particularly think of what Joel said when I decided to do what I did with the F.A.Q. and the placeholders, but now that I think of it, I guess he was right. versiongittipjoelsoftwarecustomerfeedbackrevisionsupportscmbettercontrolspolskyquestions http://community.livejournal.com/shlomif_tech/10032.html http://community.livejournal.com/shlomif_tech/10032.html Tue, 08 Apr 2008 18:43:49 GMT Eclipse Tip: Debugging Using a Remote GDB Session (gdbserver) http://community.livejournal.com/shlomif_tech/9932.html In this tip, I'll explain how to debug C/C++ programs in Eclipse using <a href="http://sourceware.org/gdb/current/onlinedocs/gdb_18.html">a remote GDB session (gdbserver)</a>. To do this: <ol> <li> Install <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/cdt/">CDT - The Eclipse C/C++ Development Tooling</a>. </li> <li> Set up a C/C++ project so it will build and compile. </li> <li> Install gdb and gdbserver. The latter does not seem to be available in any Mandriva package and had to be compiled from the gdb source, where it is built by default. </li> <li> Run gdbserver on the generated executable using a command like <tt>gdbserver localhost:10900 ./my-exe</tt> </li> <li> In Eclipse go to Run → "Open Run Dialog...", and go to the upper debugger tab and select gdbserver Debugger in the Debugger drop-down. Afterwards, go to the "Connection" tab under Debugger Options and configure your connection. For my demonstration I've chosen "Type: TCP" "Host: localhost" and "Port number: 10900". </li> <li> Select the Run → Debug in Eclipse option and start debugging the application. </li> </ol> The reason I needed it was that I wanted to use "remote" debugging so I can debug a C++ program that must be ran as root, and would rather not run Eclipse itself as root. I'm still not sure it can serve as a good debugger front-end, but I became very annoyed with <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/ddd/">ddd</a> and plain gdb start to seem to be inadequate on visualising the rest of the source code. So I looked for an alternative and thought Eclipse might be OK. tipidedebuggerservergdbserverremotec/c++tcplinuxclienteclipsegdbdebugging http://community.livejournal.com/shlomif_tech/9932.html http://community.livejournal.com/shlomif_tech/9932.html Fri, 04 Apr 2008 08:19:23 GMT The Problem with the "Same Terms as Perl" Licensing http://use.perl.org/~Shlomi+Fish/journal/36050?from=rss This entry was adapted from <a href="http://use.perl.org/~Aristotle/journal/36022">some comments I wrote</a> for a different, mostly orthogonal, journal post. I hope it's not too flamebait. If you have something to say, please try to be civil and good-natured. Here goes nothing: Most modules on CPAN carry a licensing blurb saying something like <a href="http://search.cpan.org/search?query=%22same%20terms%20as%20perl%22&mode=all">"you can distribute this software under the same terms as Perl itself"</a>. This obviously begs the question what does it mean. Here is what it means for different Perl versions: <ul> <li> Early versions of perl, before it adopted the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License">GPL</a> were under a very restrictive loosely-defined licence. </li> <li> After a while perl adopted the GPL exclusively. </li> <li> Eventually, seeing that some people and companies had problems with the GPL, Larry Wall phrased the so-called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artistic_License">"Artistic License"</a>, which was supposed to be more permissive than the GPL, but purposely phrased vaguley, and as such was found to be <a href="http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/index_html#ArtisticLicense">non-free</a> and ergo GPL-incompatible. In any case, the perl implementation was dual-licensed under the "Artistic License" (version unspecified) and the GPL version 2 or any later version. perl5 is still licensed under these terms. </li> <li> For Parrot and for future work on Perl 6, the Artistic License 2.0 was created based on the original Artistic License. This license has been approved as a free software licence by the Free Software Foundation and found to be compatible with the GPL version 2 or Later. Parrot now carries this licence. There's also the Clarified Artistic License which is an earlier effort to correct the original Artistic License and is the minimal set of changes to make it FSF-free and GPL-compatible. I suppose that now the Artistic License 2.0 would be preferable. </li> </ul> The problem is that perl up to and including perl-5.10.0 and bleadperl (which were licensed under the GPL version 2 or above but only the "Artistic License" not the "Artistic License version 1.0 or above". I've already noted that the Artistic License is problematic, but the GPL has <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License#Criticism">its own share of potential problems</a> (see also <a href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html">its FAQ</a>), and is otherwise widely mis-understood, over-hyped (both positively and negatively) and disputed. For example, unlike the Artistic License, it does not allow (at least by linking or normal function calls) non-GPL-compatible code, including all non-open-source code, to make use of it. Now, since both the "GPL version 2 or above" and the original "Artistic License" are problematic, and the term "under the same terms as Perl" may probably mean just that if it's a perl5 module (although who knows what it would means if someone would ever write a compatible Perl 5 implementation under a different software licence), then licensing a module as such is probably no longer such a good idea. There are several alternatives: <ol> <li> Explicitly allow the Artistic License 2.0 (or possibly above) in the licensing. </li> <li> License as Artistic 2.0 or above exclusively. Without the GPL as it is generally no longer needed. </li> <li> Use a more permissive, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyleft">non-copyleft</a> licence, that allows re-licensing into different licences. The MIT X11 licence explicitly allows "sub-licensing" by third-parties and as such is a good choice. By doing that you are making the licence more permissive than the GPL or the Artistic licences, so you have been warned. </li> </ol> So my suggestion is that you use one of these licensing phrasings for your future work, and to re-license your old CPAN or Perl work (copyright ownership permitting) under such phrasings. It remains to be seen what will happen with perl5 itself which has <a href="http://search.cpan.org/src/RGARCIA/perl-5.10.0/AUTHORS">905 authors as of perl-5.10.0</a> many bringing in their own ownerships of the code. The Linux kernel now faces a similar problem if it would wish to adopt a different licence than the GPL version 2 (and no later version). I suppose you can still make most use of perl5-like licensed code, in your own open-source, proprietary or in-house code, without getting sued, so I wouldn't worry too much. But it would still be a good idea to convert newer code (and code that can be easily converted) to licensing terms that are less ambigious, more usable, and that would play better with future versions of Perl. For the record, most of my Perl and non-Perl open-source code is either Public Domain or MIT X11-licensed (which are both extremely permissive and allow sub-licensing), or if it is derived from a different code, then under the same licensing terms, but while disclaiming my explicit or implicit ownership (to allow the originator to relicense future versions of the code). The latter policy applies to my (relatively limited) contributions to perl5 where I am listed in the AUTHORS file. How to Best Process the Directory Components of a Path http://use.perl.org/~Shlomi+Fish/journal/36049?from=rss This is cross-posted here from <a href="http://perl.org.il/pipermail/perl/2008-April/009505.html">Israel.pm</a> where I have yet to receive an answer. I'm trying to process the directory components of a path (as an array) so that: <ol> <li> It will be portable. (Work on Unix, Windows, VMS, etc.) </li> <li> It will keep the rest of the path components (if any) identical. </li> <li> It will work on both relative and absolute paths. </li> </ol> If the processing is to keep only the directories after "long-dir" then: <blockquote> <div><tt>UNIX : /hello/there/long-dir/another/myfile.txt ==> another/myfile.txt DOS : C:\Hello\There\Long-Dir\Another\myfile.txt ==> another\myfile.txt UNIX: ./hi/long-dir/another/myfile.txt ==> another/myfile.txt DOS: .\hi\long-dir\another\myfile.txt ==> another\myfile.txt</tt></div> </blockquote> To do this I turned to File::Spec and File::Basename and wrote the following code which seems insanely complicated. I marked the place where I do the actual processing using a callback: <blockquote> <div><tt>use File::Spec; use File::Basename; sub _process_filename_dirs {     my ($self, $fn, $callback) = @_;     my $basename = basename($fn);     my $dirpath  = dirname($fn);     my ($volume, $directories, $filename) = File::Spec->splitpath($dirpath, 1);     # The actual manipulation.     my $dirs = $callback->([File::Spec->splitdir($directories)]);     my $final_dir =         File::Spec->catpath(             $volume, File::Spec->catdir(@$dirs), $filename         );     if ($final_dir eq "")     {         return $basename;     }     else     {         return File::Spec->catfile(             $final_dir, $basename         );     } }</tt></div> </blockquote> And so far I checked it works only on UNIXes (Linux in my case) and on relative paths. So my questions are: <ol> <li> Is there a simpler way to do it? </li> <li> Do <a href="http://search.cpan.org/dist/Path-Class/">Path-Class</a> or <a href="http://search.cpan.org/dist/File-Fu/">File-Fu</a> or a different abstraction provide an easier way to do it? </li> <li> Is it still buggy? </li> </ol> I should note that this hairiness is not limited to Perl. Common Lisp has a built-in portable path-manipulation abstraction that's also relatively complicated. See <a href="http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/files-and-file-io.html">the "File and File I/O Chapter"</a> and the <a href="http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/practical-a-portable-pathname-library.html">a Portable Pathname library chapter</a> Vim Tip: Windows Management Commands http://community.livejournal.com/shlomif_tech/9648.html <a href="http://vimdoc.sourceforge.net/htmldoc/windows.html#window">Windows</a> are one of Vim's most convenient features, and learning some commands could prove to be useful. Some of the commands are available from the "Window" menu in gvim, or using the mouse, but using them from the keyboard is often more convenient. To split a viewport in two, use <tt>Ctrl+W,S</tt> for a horizontal split or <tt>Ctrl+W,V</tt> for a vertical split. To move between windows use <tt>Ctrl+W</tt> followed by the arrow keys or <tt>h,j,k,l</tt> (but see <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/shlomif_tech/8278.html">this previous tip</a>). To close a viewport use <tt>Ctrl+W,C</tt>. <tt>Ctrl+W,r</tt> rotates the windows, and <tt>Ctrl+W, shift+R</tt> rotates them in the opposite direction. Finally, <tt>Ctrl+W,+</tt> and <tt>Ctrl+W,-</tt> increase and decrease the height of the viewport by one line (in case you are mouse-deprived). If that's too little you can do something like <tt>10,Ctrl+W,+</tt> to increase the height by 10 lines. windowtipmanagementwindowssplitssplitviewportsvimtips http://community.livejournal.com/shlomif_tech/9648.html http://community.livejournal.com/shlomif_tech/9648.html Mon, 31 Mar 2008 19:21:07 GMT A Guide to Israeli FOSS Resources and Other Improvements http://community.livejournal.com/shlomif_hsite/7025.html <a href="http://www.shlomifish.org/open-source/resources/israel/guide-to-israeli-foss-resources/">A guide to Israeli Free and Open Source Software Resources on the Internet</a> was added to the site. Please let me know if you have any additions to it. New <a href="http://www.shlomifish.org/humour/fortunes/">fortune cookies</a> have been added to the "shlomif", "shlomif-fav" and "joel-on-software" collections: <blockquote> I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my telephone. My wish has come true - I no longer know how to use my telephone. Bjarne Stroustrup quoted in <a href="http://dangillmor.typepad.com/dan_gillmor_on_grassroots/2005/04/my_other_new_co.html">http://xrl.us/bgzi4</a> </blockquote> New affiliations have been added <a href="http://www.shlomifish.org/me/contact-me/">to my contact page</a>. The HTML markup of some of the pages was cleaned up, and several bandwidth optimisations were made, so it should load a little faster. New links were added to many pages. The breadcrumbs trails in several pages were fixed. shlomif@iglu.org.il open sourceisraelcookiesshlomifree softwarefishfortunefosslinkshomepage http://community.livejournal.com/shlomif_hsite/7025.html http://community.livejournal.com/shlomif_hsite/7025.html Sat, 29 Mar 2008 10:23:36 GMT Firefox Compatibility Rave: Pandas.co.il http://community.livejournal.com/shlomif_tech/9300.html Recently, I wanted to buy a USB Disk-on-a-key to replace my old 32 MB one. I went to <a href="http://www.zap.co.il/">Zap</a> and compared the prices. The cheapest offer was from <a href="https://www.pandas.co.il/">the Pandas.co.il shop</a>, so I went to buy it there. The site appears to be written in PHP and I was able to fully operate it using the KDE Konqueror browser, and to complete the buying. I assume the Firefox browser will also work nicely there. The 8 GB disk-on-a-key arrived a few days ago, and it works great. So I'd like to thank Pandas.co.il for making their site compatible with non-MSIE browsers, and I'll consider them for my future computer parts orders. pendriveisraelpandas.co.ilpandasmozillacompatibility32mbdisk-on-a-keybrowsersmsiefirefox rave8gbfirefoxalternativekonqueror http://community.livejournal.com/shlomif_tech/9300.html http://community.livejournal.com/shlomif_tech/9300.html Fri, 28 Mar 2008 15:23:10 GMT Daily Ride from Tel Aviv to the Ra'anana Industrial Zone http://shlomif.livejournal.com/51466.html Hi all. Is anyone who is reading this can give me a ride from Northern Tel Aviv (the junction of Qeren Qayemeth Bvd. and Ayalon or Haifa Road would be fine), to the Ra'anana Industrial Zone on weekdays? Any pointers would be appreciated. Please contact me on <a href="mailto:shlomif@iglu.org.il">my email</a> or my cell (054-6232377) if you can help. Thanks in advance - Shlomi Fish. ridesrideworkhomeraananatel aviv http://shlomif.livejournal.com/51466.html http://shlomif.livejournal.com/51466.html Tue, 25 Mar 2008 21:54:30 GMT