BLADAM - March 2004

DISCLAIMER: This is my personal blog. The blatherings here aren't (necessarily) the views of the current company I work for, companies I've previously blessed with my presence, my loving parents, the Illuminati, or anyone other than me, me, me!

Faster page loading with gzip compression

Ack, I just realized that, in moving my files to a new server, I messed up one of my files, and my sites were no longer being sent 'compressed.' (For you geeks out there, I no longer had gzip compression enabled)

What this means is that... now my pages should load two to four times faster for most folks, especially dialup users!

Just thought I'd share

P.S. -- Oh, and for Webmasters: you can add this to your htaccess file:

php_flag zlib.output_compression On

- Blathered by Adam on Thursday, March 25, 2004 at 19:06 Permalink
- Filed under Geekery
- Commented on by no one yet. Bummer. Check out the full entry page to leave a comment or trackback!

Online social networks—encouraging sharing in the face of greed

[Below is a note I posted on orkut in response to a fellow who noted that he was erasing his entire friends list, which he viewed as a commodity not appropriate to share with others freely.]

One thing we might agree on as a concern is the issue of freeloading.

Basically, what to do against those who scrape data, use and/or abuse data in the aggregate or individually on orkut, or -- less sinisterly -- simply take much more than they give (e.g., someone who lists only 1 friend, but networks with or even asks something of countless others in a social network).

It's a social networking tragedy of the commons... a few voracious grazers who don't "replant" ruin the network for everyone else.

Then again, isn't this simply like real life?

Read the full entry...

- Blathered by Adam on Thursday, March 25, 2004 at 17:19 Permalink
- Filed under Geekery • Society • People and relationships
- Commented on by no one yet. Bummer. Check out the full entry page to leave a comment or trackback!

Would you like that rare or medium-well?

I had the pleasure of attending a special barbeque edition of our local community's "Lindy in the Park" event, where everyone was invited to bring something for the grill or something to drink.

Of course, there was the usual stuff... hot dogs, veggie burgers, bottles of Coke, and so on.

And then there was something a little different: A box of cake mix. Yes, the sort where you have to add egg and oil and so on. Cake mix. For a BBQ party. I'm trying to fathom the thought processes that took place with the person who brought that particular item. "Damn, no hamburger meat in the fridge... nothing in the freezer... too lazy to make a quick stop at the store... ah ha... here's some 2-year-old lemon cake mix in the cupboard. That'll be perfect!"

Strange. Really strange. Or perhaps just some goofiness from someone with a rather wacky sense of humor :D

- Blathered by Adam on Sunday, March 21, 2004 at 16:37 Permalink
- Filed under Grab bag • Wackiness • Happy body • Food and nutrition
- Commented on by 3 folks so far. Visit the full entry page and join in!

Customer disservice

I've been seeing more and more companies bragging about their refund policy: "No Questions Asked."

Well, how dumb is that! Personally, I'd like to think that when I decide to cancel a service or return a product, the company actually gives a damn about what I think and is intent upon either addressing my concern personally and/or fixing their product.

How about "No Hassle Cancellations" or "No Hassle Returns"? Now that's a promise I'd appreciate!

- Blathered by Adam on Saturday, March 20, 2004 at 23:01 Permalink
- Filed under Marketing and advertising
- Commented on by 2 folks so far. Visit the full entry page and join in!

Sensible advice about eating and being healthy

I've been a member of the 24 Hour Fitness gym chain for about 4 years now, and while I have mixed feelings about both the company and its offerings, I must say that I've been generally quite impressed with the company's informative Web site and e-mail newsletters. With the exception of some occasional over-shilling of supplements (IMHO), the articles featured are typically informative, interesting, and sometimes even inspiring.

One of the articles I was alerted to is entitled There's No Such Thing as Cheating. It makes the following respectable and responsible points:

Read the full entry...

- Blathered by Adam on Friday, March 5, 2004 at 16:14 Permalink
- Filed under Happy body • Food and nutrition
- Commented on by one person so far. Visit the full entry page and join in!

Flickr—Yet another (but a cool!) social networking service

I've had the pleasure of playing with a relatively new online networking service called Flickr, and -- especially after reading Melanie's thoughtful review -- I thought I ought to chime in with a few thoughts of my own.

Read the full entry...

- Blathered by Adam on Monday, March 1, 2004 at 22:05 Permalink
- Filed under Geekery • Photography • Society • People and relationships
- Commented on by 2 folks so far. Visit the full entry page and join in!

Social Networking Services—Excellent recommendations

Christopher Allen gets it right. Rather than simply noting what orkut and other social networking services are doing wrong (which has been hammered by so many others), Christopher details what social networking services should do to succeed.

And rather than blather on about how much I agree with his points, I think I'll just invite you to read his entry yourself

- Blathered by Adam on Monday, March 1, 2004 at 21:08 Permalink
- Filed under Geekery • Society • People and relationships
- Commented on by 2 folks so far. Visit the full entry page and join in!

You're reading page 1 of 1.

The magic number for the moment is 24. Neato.

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