Information Threshold

HTML5, the input element, the type attribute, and the date state

2012-01-14T14:14:00.000-08:00

For the HTML5 input element, setting the type attribute to the date state forces any selected date to use the YYYY-MM-DD format, as determined by the W3C. It also goes on to say that "The format shown to the user is independent of the format used for form submission. Browsers are encouraged to use user interfaces that present dates and times according to the conventions of the user's preferred locale."

I've only tested this with Opera, which has the date show up in the YYYY-MM-DD format. I think this is disappointing from a usability standpoint. I'm not thrilled about the idea of having to code for different date formats either. I would love to see browser makers focus on implementing all HTML5 form features, particularly since forms are what really drive the Internet to be useful. I would mind somehow seeing the pattern attribute have some standard values for regularly used types of data collected (zip codes, phone numbers, etc.) instead of having to create or find regular expressions and hope that you have covered all valid possibilities.

How to Gamble If You're In a Hurry

2011-12-11T16:29:00.001-08:00

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

How to Gamble If You're In a Hurry is a very mathematically technical look at the theory of statistical gambling. It looks at how to gamble if you must and finding the best strategy if you're in a hurry. It's not an easy read, but could be of interest if you are interested in statistics.

Jabra Journey review

2011-10-02T10:21:00.000-07:00

With a state law not allowing texting or talking on a cell phone without a hands-free device recently going into effect, I've been looking for such a device for my needs. The earpiece never really appealed to me, so I looked into getting a car kit to go with my Droid Charge. I ended up going with the Jabra Journey, which I purchased from Costco.

The Jabra Journey takes about 2 hours to charge. My Bluetooth experience has been limited to printers and seeing others operate earpieces, so I wondered how much difficulty there would be setting this up. As it turned out, it was not difficult at all. Upon turning on the Jabra Journey for the first time, the Jabra Journey voice walks me through getting things setup, which basically consisted of turning on my smartphone, going to the settings, and turning on Bluetooth. In only a few seconds my smartphone was paired with the Jabra Journey. When I've turned on the Jabra Journey, it indicates that it is on then lets me know when it has connected to my smartphone. If I've left my Jabra Journey on, which goes into a standby mode after 10 minutes or so, it is able to sense when I am back in the car and connects with my smartphone. One time when it woke up from standby mode it appeared to not connect to my smartphone. It went into standby mode 10 minutes later, then within a few seconds, woke back up and successfully connected to my smartphone.

The speaker for the Jabra Journey is clear and loud. The Jabra Journey does not have the ability to transmit to an FM frequency like other car kit devices go, but I don't feel too concerned about that. I may miss it if I ever take advantage of the Jabra Journey's ability to stream music from my Droid Charge, as I don't know how it will sound through the Jabra Journey's speaker, but most of the time I am listening to music on the radio or a CD.

The Jabra Journey contains the usual volume buttons and answer/end button. It also has an on/off switch, so there is no need to leave the Jabra Journey in a standby mode. The Jabra Journey is supposed to have up to 20 hours talk and 45 days standby time. The Jabra Journey has no visible indicator of how much battery charge is left, so I wonder if I will get some sort of warning through the status light, which flashes blue when paired with a cell phone and was a steady red while the Jabra Journey was charging (it went out when it was fully charged). The Jabra Journey came with a car charger but also came with an AC adapter, a nice touch that seems to be rare with other car kits. This is especially helpful for me as I am using a Droid Charge car charger and I would rather have the Jabra Journey charge up while I am at home.

The Jabra Journey's voice button is used for activating voice dialing. I never make calls while I am driving, so do not expect to use this. When I receive a call, the Jabra Journey tells me who is calling if they are in my contacts, otherwise it gives the number. It then asks me if I want to answer the call or not and it understood my command just fine.

The Jabra Journey is narrow and does not take up much room on my visor and has stayed on it just fine. I see no indication that it will eventually slip off.

I've been pleased with the Jabra Journey so far and would recommend it if you are looking for a car kit.

I do not heart iHeartRadio

2011-09-15T04:43:00.000-07:00

Clear Channel is recently trying to go big with iHeartRadio as a competitor to Pandora. Sadly, usability issues prevent me from liking iHeartRadio.

iHeartRadio has some interesting ideas going for it - access to radio stations it owns and operates across the country and create your own custom station, based on an artist you give it, then it will customize the station based on how you rate songs, just like Pandora. It claims to have 11 million songs, much more than Pandora.

Sure enough, it has a non-mainstream artist I listen to and their newest albums. Their older albums were absent. Typing in the artist name was a challenge, though. After typing in a few characters, iHeartRadio searches for possible artists you are trying to type in. In doing so, however, the cursor goes back to the beginning. What you type will now be at the front. iHeartRadio needs to do this without changing the cursor focus.

Secondly, to create the custom station, you need to connect it to a Facebook profile and give it access to various things within Facebook. Not something I generally want to do, especially when just trying to test out something. I went along with it though to try it out, knowing I could remove it later.

I had no luck. It connected with Facebook, but I was left at the iHeartRadio site. No music. I tried creating a station again. A window quickly pops up again and closes.

I gave up after this. There shouldn't be this much difficulty to use a website, even just to demo it. Pandora is in no danger from iHeartRadio anytime soon.

PHP And The Aggravation Of Defined Weeks That Don't Follow The ISO-8601 Standard

2011-09-10T08:57:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

A few years ago I wrote some PHP code for entering data based on the results of a week defined by a well known U.S. government agency. Basically, it will detect what the current week number is and default the selected week number to the previous week number.

The annoying thing about this code is that I have to update it every year, because the defined week starts on a Sunday. The date function of PHP, however, follows the ISO-8601 standard, which considers Monday the start of a week. As a result, the defined week number does not match the ISO-8601 week number.

This becomes a real hassle when the calendar defined by the U.S. government agency has 53 weeks, but the ISO-8601 only has 52 weeks. Thankfully, I do not have to deal with it this year.

I suppose one way to deal with this would be to create my own date function that defines Sunday as the start of a week. That would be easy enough if being a programmer (or even a webmaster!) was a majority of my job. As such, trying to write such a thing for one application that only changes once a year will take up too much of my time.

Has anyone else dealt with this issue? Is there code out there somewhere that I could use?

Review of the OtterBox Defender for the Samsung Droid Charge

2011-09-05T13:27:00.000-07:00

With the recent purchase of my first smart phone - the Samsung Droid Charge - I wanted to make sure it was adequately protected. After looking around at the options, I went with the OtterBox Defender.

The OtterBox Defender contains a polycarbonate frame and screen protector, which is then wrapped with a silicone cover. It also contains a belt clip so you can have the phone on your waist instead of in a pocket.

I was concerned about the frame, as it covered portions of the Charge's keys on the front. While I may to position my finger just right and apply enough pressure to have a key press, it's not as bad as I was afraid it would be.

The screen protector is not noticeable at all. Interacting with the phone's screen is like the protector isn't there at all.

The silicone cover covers all buttons, ports, and keys. Space is left for the microphones, speakers, cameras, flash, and light sensor. The tabs covering the USB power/accessory port, earphone port, and HDMI port open, allowing easy access to the ports. On the back, part of the frame that surrounds the camera, flash, and speaker is exposed. This removes any resistance provided by the silicone cover, so the phone can slide around easily - for better or for worse. Plus, as the cover covers the keys, it also covers the light they give off when turned on. This hasn't proven to be a big deal for me, but may for you if you try to fumble around with the keys in low light. The silicone cover gives the phone a nice, solid feel.

I thought that I might want to use the belt clip instead of carrying the phone around in a pocket, but I have decided not to use it. Like the leather belt clip case, it can feel odd having that big of a phone on my belt, plus I already have my FitBit there. Having the phone there as well would cover my pocket and I prefer having stuff on my right side. Additionally, it was too difficult to get the phone in and out of the belt clip case that comes with the OtterBox Defender. I don't want to mess with that when I need to take a call, make a call, or do something on Android.

Another option is to go with the OtterBox Commuter, which does not come with the belt clip, but uses a film for the screen protector instead of the built in protector. Even if I knew ahead of time that I did not want the belt clip, I would still go with the Defender, as I prefer not to use a film for screen protection.

3D hurts your eyes and brain

2011-07-23T08:20:00.000-07:00

I've wondered if my getting a headache after watching a 3D movie such as Avatar was just me or not, and now it turns out that 3D at the theater can cause visual discomfort, fatigue, and headaches. It apparently mainly happens at long distances and not things you are close to, such as monitors and smartphones.

Rebecca MacKinnon: Let's take back the Internet! | Video on TED.com

2011-07-13T18:58:00.000-07:00

Rebecca MacKinnon: Let's take back the Internet! | Video on TED.com

Propane - Sung to the Tune of Cocaine by Eric Clapton

2011-07-09T22:15:00.000-07:00

A product of a very bored mind and recent barbeques (none which involved propane).

If you don't wanna wait you've got to take it out, propane
If you wanna just start, start it right now, propane
It's alright, it's alright, it's alright, propane

If you want to stop, trying to burn charcoal, propane
When you're done and wanna a quick cool down, propane
It's alright, it's alright, it's alright, propane

If you want all your meat to be cooked evenly, propane
Your food won't be black, just face all the facts, propane
It's alright, it's alright, it's alright, propane

It's alright, it's alright, it's alright, propane

Networked Media on the Oppo BDP-93

2011-05-15T09:46:00.000-07:00

I've been playing around with my Oppo BDP-93 to try to get it to stream media on my network. I tried installing the Plex Media Server (Nine), but the Oppo would not see it, due to Plex Nine not supporting UPnP anymore. I then tried XBMC, which the Oppo easily discovered, but it took some work figuring out how to get the media to show up and play. Building the library did not work as nicely as Plex Nine did.

I next tried Plex Eight, as it still had UPnP support. The Oppo could see that, and I could get it to see some of the media files (the nice building of the library only came about in Nine), but the ones it could see would not play - it may have been a codec issue, as I tried different media each time.

I've been pondering different media streaming hardware, such as the Boxee Box and the LG ST600 Smart TV Upgrader, but have been feeling hesitant on those. It turns out that Plex now has a Roku app so network media streaming would be possible there, as well as use the most recent Plex Media Server, so I am pondering that now. In addition, Plex just released their Plex Media Server for Linux. It's still in Beta, but I am glad they are getting there, as I would prefer to have it run on my Linux box as opposed to my Mac (where it now sits).

No more Gentoo for me

2011-05-15T09:31:00.000-07:00

For now, at least. More odd problems than had been usual in the past had popped up - one of the most annoying being a complaint about use flags for ffmpeg (the app and the virtual version), which would complain even when changing it to what it wanted as well as programs not compiling. An effort to fix it ended up breaking the install, so I have moved to Kubuntu. It's working, though it is quirky in places. Problems I have seen include Flash crashing, Firefox being a bit slow at times, as well as the system freezing when maximizing Konsole. It will have to do for now, as I don't have a lot of time to play with different distributions.

AT&T Broadband to Impose Usage Caps

2011-03-15T18:27:00.000-07:00

AT&T will impose a monthly 150 GB usage cap for DSL and a 250 GB cap for Uverse, according to dslreports.com. Overages will be $10 for every 50 GB over the cap. It will start on May 2.

And here I was pondering going with the Uverse service (I stopped DSL service with them years ago). I only hope my current ISP does not follow suit.

The Hacker's Diet

2011-03-06T17:52:00.000-08:00

The Hacker's Diet looks at dieting and weight control from an engineering and management point of view. In a very simplified nutshell (as the actual free document itself is 336 pages), it is about calories in versus calories out. While it goes beyond that, I couldn't explain in a short time here. Exercise is not a part of this diet, though it addresses it and encourages it.

It treats all calories equally, though I feel the differences between calories from fat differs from the calories from carbohydrates differs from the calories from protein. It also tends to underestimate the calorie burn from exercise, though it is dependent on your weight.

The part I like best about this is the looking at changes in weight on a graph along with the "line smoothing" graph. Weight can go up and down depending on how much water is in your body. This can be maddening when you are dieting, feeling that you should have made positive progress. The line smoothing shows the weight changes as a trend, so even if your weight goes up from the previous day, the trend can still show weight going down, which can help people psychologically.

Also included on the Hacker's Diet site are Excel spreadsheets where you can track your weight and see the trend graph as well. A version that works with OpenOffice.org (and I imagine LibreOffice, though I have not tried it yet, can be found at http://jon.thysell.us/software/hackersdiet/.

I've been using the spreadsheet for probably a bit over a half year and seriously been dieting for almost a year. I've already lost 40 pounds from a combination of using Fitbit to track how much walking I get done, determining how many calories I need to eat for weight loss with the Freedieting calorie calculator, and tracking my weight in the Hacker's Diet spreadsheet.

DNS Benchmark

2010-11-10T21:57:00.000-08:00

Steve Gibson has come out with DNS Benchmark, a freeware application that tests your DNS server's speed and reliability, among other things, and compares them to 50 other DNS servers (though more are possible). It's written in assembly and thus has a small file size of 163.4 KB (for version 1.2.3925) and runs in Windows, but also runs in Wine on Linux and Macintosh. It takes a while to run and it is suggested that no other Internet activity occurs while it is running.

My ISP ended up being the fastest and not having any negatives for it, which is definitely nice to know.

AT&T Internet Service, Their Router, And Security

2010-11-10T20:17:00.000-08:00

I helped someone out with setting up their modem/wireless router for AT&T after their old one got fried. The new one was by 2Wire. I was extremely disappointed to find that the wireless router uses WEP by default. In addition, AT&T does not make it obvious on changing this, nor do they make it obvious on how to connect to the router to change settings.

It was easy enough for me to find the IP address for the router, simply by looking at the status of the network connection in Windows and looking at the IP address for the gateway. Thankfully it was easy enough to get into and work with and see that they offer WPA2. Still, AT&T should force this to be the default, not WEP.

Ironically, someone from AT&T came by my house this evening to try to get me to buy into their U-verse product. As I got home later than expected and it was too cold outside for me to want have a long conversation with them, I held back from asking about compatibility with Linux, what wireless encryption their router uses by default, and going into how dangerous their DSL router default settings are. Aside from those arguments, I don't watch much television, and when I do, it usually ends up being British. There's also not enough of a speed and price difference for me to leave the local ISP I get my service from (which they never heard of, despite being the largest local ISP in the area). And switching ISPs feels like too much of a pain - like moving.

The Death of a Video Card

2010-11-04T20:57:00.000-07:00

It all started out on Halloween, of all days. My dual monitor setup would quickly blink on and off, eventually getting graphical glitches all over the screen, particularly when I was moving my mouse cursor around, opening programs, and moving windows. The system was becoming unusable quickly - but was it a hardware problem or a software problem?

I tried loading a Kubuntu live CD. I would get the blinking, but not the glitches. I tried upgrading the Nvidia drivers and XOrg. There was no difference, so that left it to the video card (an EVGA GeForce 8500 GT) or potentially the motherboard.

I purchased a new video card, but was hoping to find another one to test and verify if it was the video card before opening the package in case I needed to return it. Thankfully, a friend had one, but I could not get it to work. My monitors would detect a signal, but would not show anything.

At that point, a closer look at the EVGA video card brought attention to one of the capacitors, which had bulged and burst, pictured in this post. I plugged in the video card I purchased, and things were running again.

The EVGA video card ran my system for about 3.5 years. It's the first time I've had a video card fail on me.

Photographing That Federal Building Is Now Okay

2010-10-19T20:21:00.000-07:00

A settlement that ended a lawsuit filed by Antonio Musumeci against the Department of Homeland Security makes it okay to take photos of Federal buildings. The Federal Protective Service now construed a Federal regulation not to prohibit individuals from photographing (including motion photography) the exterior of federal courthouses from publicly accessible spaces.

Not Getting Enough Sleep May Sabotage Weight Loss Efforts

2010-10-17T08:17:00.000-07:00

ABC News posted the article Losing Sleep Over Not Losing Weight? That Could Be the Problem that reports about research done by the University of Chicago and the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that not getting enough sleep can make it harder to lose weight.

I don't really dispute the idea that not getting enough sleep can make it harder to lose weight. Not getting enough sleep can affect us mentally and we can see some of the physical effects - basically still feeling tired, difficulty keeping your eyes open, etc.

My biggest issue here comes from their method where they "...assigned 10 overweight or obese participants to two groups – one that got 5.5 hours of sleep and another that got 8.5 hours of sleep over two periods, each lasting 14 days." Only 10 people? Really? That doesn't seem like enough people to me to come to any kind of strong conclusion. There could be various states of health differing between each person, plus I imagine they did not select people from a wide selection of ethnic groups of both genders. Other health studies have shown particular ethnic groups (sometimes of a particular gender) have more or less risks/benefits. It's always possible that a lack of sleep could show a greater effect in weight loss in a particular group.

Bedbug Registry

2010-09-27T21:23:00.000-07:00

Want to find out if a hotel you are thinking of staying in has been infested by bedbugs? You can now find out via user-submitted reports on The Bed Bug Registry.

Fitbit Review

2010-09-06T15:21:00.000-07:00

I've used regular pedometers in the past and once I heard about the Fitbit, probably a year before it was released, I was extremely interested in getting one.

The Fitbit uses a technology similar to what you find in a Nintendo Wii to track how many steps you take. Once you are in range of the charging station, which also doubles as a receiver for grabbing the number of steps you've taken from the Fitbit as well as information on how much battery charge is left. The data is then uploaded to Fitbit's own site, where it keeps track of your steps and determines the number of calories you've burned. Additionally, the Fitbit site can be used to also track your calorie intake and has a database of a number of foods. For what it doesn't have, you can enter manually and have it available for you to use in the future. If it is something you eat pretty often, you can mark it as a favorite and have it available on a side menu instead of having to search for it each time. You can also enter activities such as running and bicycling or select an activity from their database. The site also indicates how much power is left in your Fitbit and can be used to track your weight, mood, and various other indicators that may or may not be important to you. The Fitbit site can be used for free without the purchase of a Fitbit and there is also a premium version of the site where you can track more data, but I do not use it.

The Fitbit can also be used to track your sleep. Included is a cloth wrist wrap with velcro that contains a sleeve for the Fitbit. When put into sleep mode, the Fitbit then tracks how restful your sleep is. I used this functionality only once. I don't care for having something on my wrist while I am trying to sleep and the Fitbit eventually fell out of the sleeve. I usually have a good, deep sleep so this information is not important to me.

I found the Fitbit accurate, reporting the same amount of steps that I normally got with a regular pedometer. I don't wear it when riding a stationary bike, lifting weights, or working out with a kettlebell (which, sadly, is not in Fitbit's activity database) and instead keep track of how long I did the activity, and in the case of the stationary bike, what distance I went. The holster you can place the Fitbit in and attach to a belt (or some other kind of clothing) works well, though can be annoying when it rubs against skin.

Be wary of using the Fitbit site to monitor how much battery charge is left in the Fitbit. It records full for a bit after fully charging the Fitbit, but then tends to stay at a status of high, even when it may not reflect reality. I had one morning where the Fitbit site indicated a high battery charge status, but the Fitbit ended running out of power 5 hours later. The Fitbit runs for about 5 days on a full charge, so I would expect a status of medium about 2.5 days later and a status of low when there is about 1 day left. As a further example, the Fitbit site recorded a high battery charge status, but when I plugged the Fitbit into the charging station, the Fitbit indicator (which can also show steps when you push the Fitbit's button) showed 1 bar of battery power left. I'll end up putting a calendar reminder every 5 days to charge the Fitbit.

Overall, I am pleased with the Fitbit and look forward to using it as a weapon in the battle against the bulge.

Thoughts on the 2010 MacBook Pro

2010-08-22T18:20:00.000-07:00

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

I purchased the 2010 MacBook Pro a month ago (with the i7 CPU) and have been pretty satisfied with it so far. It's definitely a world of difference from the old Powerbook G4 that I upgraded from.

I was never fully comfortable with the Powerbook's 1 button mouse pad, but I am less comfortable with the MacBook Pro's buttonless mouse pad. When trying to use it for the first time in an Apple store, I was trying to do two quick taps as a click. It wasn't until much later that I realized that the whole mouse pad acts as a button that you can press down on. It's no big deal for me, as I plug in a regular 2-button mouse so I don't have to deal with it.

The DVD drive moved from the front to the right side of the laptop and all connections moved to the left side of the laptop. While this is fine (it is much better than a laptop I have that has all USB ports on the front right side, making things a bit uncomfortable for using a corded USB mouse), it gets very crowded, as I am using each connection.

Instead of a button to release and lift up the screen, the MacBook Pro has a groove for you to reach under and lift up the monitor. While it is workable, it isn't always easy to get open and I recommend having one hand hold down part of the laptop while the other one tries to lift the monitor up.

The MacBook Pro loads quickly, which is a relief from the long boot up times I was seeing on the Powerbook. It's also much more enjoyable to work with my Canon 7D photos in Photoshop - it painfully slow on the Powerbook.

I have not played with the MacBook Pro while it is not plugged in to see how the battery time is, but look forward to seeing if it lasts as long as advertised.

Is Your Router at Risk?

2010-07-17T09:47:00.000-07:00

Apparently there will be a session at the Black Hat Conference this month entitled "How to Hack Millions of Routers". Forbes lists the routers that have been tested and goes into a little bit more detail about the hack. Notebooks.com talks about this story and offers tips for securing your router, but it should be noted that these are generic security measures and will not necessarily protect you from the hack.

Firefox 3.6.4 and Gmail issue

2010-07-07T06:49:00.000-07:00

I've been having problems in Firefox 3.6.4 (I may have had them with 3.6.2, but that version went away quickly) reading mail in Gmail. Mail will be loading, but will never finish loading, so I can't read the mail at all. Chromium has no issue with loading and reading the mail. Things work fine in Gmail when I disable javascript, and as the chat section appears to not be loading, I am wondering if this is an issue with the crash protection that Firefox added.

Free jQuery Book

2010-06-28T20:44:00.000-07:00

jQuery Fundamentals by Rebecca Murphey is available on-line for free.

Apple Preview, Scanned Documents, and Links

2010-05-19T19:01:00.000-07:00

I read today of someone reporting problems of Mac users not being able to see colored text or an underline for links, but are able to click on them. It looks like this is a problem with Apple's Preview, as things look fine in Adobe Acrobat. I haven't seen anything suggesting a problem or a fix. This appears to only happen with a scanned document that then has links added to it later. Using a scanned document has the added difficulty of the words being an image as opposed to actual text, so the PDF file will be of no use to the blind.