Email Availabilty on Blogs
Scoble has yet again kicked up a bit hornet’s nest with his assertion that bloggers should include their email address. I, for one, agree with him. However, he then goes further and states that the best method to do this is to include the address in a post so that it can be indexed by search engines. On this point, I don’t agree.
While making it easy for people to contact you through your blog should be a top priority, (hell, that’s why you started a blog, right?) simply giving up your email address to spam bots to harvest is extremely foolish. Most people don’t have Microsoft’s IT team busily filtering out spam for us.
So what’s the answer? Well, it’s not perfect, but javascript email obsfucation is a good solution. There are a ton of different solutions out there, but Tim Williams has a very easy to use form on his site that will allow you to choose what the link text will say, what the email address should be, and presto - it produces javascript you can copy and paste into your blog template.
Tags: email, email on blogs, email obsfucation
History of Vancouver
Following a link my dad sent along, I just spent about an hour wandering through some fascinating pages of stories relating to the history of Vancouver. The mystery of the 9 o’clock gun, the story of the collapse of the Second Narrows Bridge, Canada’s first gas station, even a story about the land that Rudyard Kipling owned on the same street my mom grew up on. Seriously fun stuff, if you’re from around here. Hit up the archives if you’re interested.
Tags: Vancouver, History of Vancouver
A Stress Erasing Device?
Wired’s GadgetLab reviews the Helicor StressEraser, which purports to be a device that can help you reduce your stress level. Even if this is complete B.S., I want one! Apparently it monitors your pulse and breathing rate, then helps to coach you to the ideal rate of breathing to bring your heart rate down. The device gets a high rating (GadgetLab saves their 9 and 10 out of 10 ratings for truly special devices), but the $399 USD price tag is just a tad prohibitive. Oh well!
Tags: reduce stress, stress, gadget
Three Podcasts Every Geek Should Know About
I’ve listened to more than my share of different podcasts. While I have about 20 different subscriptions in the podcast section of my iTunes, there are three I want to focus on today. The “geek” podcasts:
1. TWIT - This Week In Tech
TWIT is the brainchild of Leo Laporte, previously of Tech TV fame. Leo brings together a group of respected tech people to discuss the top stories in the world of technology. John C. Dvorak is a regular on the show, and is surprisingly compelling as an audio host. The show skews somewhat Mac-centric, but not so much as to devalue it for PC enthusiasts.
2. Diggnation
Digg founder Kevin Rose teams up with fellow video game geek and aspiring actor Alex Albrecht to bring their take on the week’s top stories that were submitted to Digg. The show is frequently more entertaining than I think even they expect it to be. They start each show discussing what brand of beer they are drinking, and frequently get each other laughing so much that they can’t speak. And when they’re laughing, almost every time so am I. Given that the subject matter of the show tends to be geek-oriented stories, this is a perfect fit. The camaraderie between the two hosts reminds me of ridiculous late-night conversations with friends that turned into uncontrollable laughing fits.
3. Inside the Net
Amber MacAurthur, with assistance from Leo Laporte interview the movers and shakers in today’s Web 2.0 movement. In-depth interviews and commentary, with ample time for the guests to say their piece. Inside the Net is part of Leo’s fledgling podcast group, and as such can be found on the TWIT site.
Tags: podcasts, tech podcasts
Unresponsive Script Error in Firefox Using Gmail
Gmail has been driving me crazy ever since upgrading to Firefox 1.5, particularly when trying to send a relatively large attachment. One of Gmail’s best features is the ability to send attachments that are up to 10 MB in size, but uploading a file of that size simply takes some time.
Apparently in Firefox 1.5, the time that a script can run for before it is considered to be unresponsive is automatically set to 5 (seconds, it appears). To fix the problem, type about:config into your address bar in Firefox, then in the filter field type “dom.max_script_run_time” (without the quotes). Then double-click on the record that comes up, and set it to something more rational, like 60.
Hat tip to Itchyhands for the solution.
Tags: Gmail, Firefox, unresponsive script
