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dt7

62 karma · joined July 26, 2011

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dt7··on Don't Plug Your Phone into a Charger You Don't Own
Not exactly what you want, and limited to UK use, but I carry one of these around with me most of the time: https://www.themu.co.uk/

It's even smaller than I thought it would be, and so much more portable than a normal UK plug.

dt7··on Lockdown
If Google want us to move from Reader to Google+, why are they not pushing it as a replacement? Do they think RSS users are a lost cause?
dt7··on Google Reader alternatives
I haven't tried many of the services on this list, but I would recommend Feedly. It can be a bit slow, and the fact that it requires a browser extension is a bit off-putting, but those things are being improved I believe.

They seem to be willing to listen to their users (in particular all of the ex-Google Reader users) and are improving the service very quickly, trying to cater for everyone's seemingly different needs.

The Android app is great as well, and is a much more visual reading experience than Google Reader was (but it doesn't have to be- it seems to be very highly configurable).

The fact that it's free is a bit worrying, but in a survey they sent out last month they asked if user's would be willing to pay a small fee for it- so this might be where it heads in the future (I'd hope so, anyway).

dt7··on “Warning” signs at historical sites tell visitors to relax and enjoy themselves
I think the layout has to look natural, because that one didn't work for me.
dt7··on CSS Tube Map
I suppose the main thing you'd need is a data source mapping the stations and lines, then build it in whatever technology from that. The information page doesn't mention where the data came from, so I imagine it was manually created. I don't think TfL would be too willing to provide that data either, judging by the comments regarding licensing etc. in this thread.
dt7··on CSS Tube Map
This could actually have a very helpful application- generating maps with customised colour schemes. Anyone with a form of colour blindness will know that some of the lines on the standard map are basically indistinguishable from each-other, and while TfL does provide a black-and-white map, it's designed for ALL forms of colour blindness, so they've had to come up with a load of different patterns, making it a bit messy (http://www.tfl.gov.uk/gettingaround/14091.aspx).

With this CSS map a user could customise the colour/pattern of just a couple of problem lines (I could already in Firebug, but it would be great if there was a control panel to fiddle these things and then provide print/save links). Just an idea!

dt7··on Facebook May Soon Be Tracking You At All Times
You can however disable pre-installed apps on newer Android (4+?) phones.
dt7··on Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and others launch webplatform.org
So if Mozilla is involved, how does MDN factor into this? Are both expected to co-exist?

Edit: addressed here https://hacks.mozilla.org/2012/10/welcoming-the-new-kid-web-...

dt7··on Every Lost episode visualized and recreated
This is pretty fun to play around with, if a bit difficult to navigate- I kept flying all over the place when trying to look at a particular episode in the initial view. Amazing work anyway, and as a (heavy) Lostpedia contributor (around the season 3 days) it's nice to see the data being used in interesting ways.
dt7··on Adobe's Source Code Pro Font
In fact, I'm pretty sure if you put an invalid font name in you get a default proportional font.
dt7··on Tough Title City - A video game in your browser's title bar
Doesn't work for me either in Aurora (Firefox 16) or Chrome 21 beta (on Windows 7).
dt7··on Normalize.css v1.0.0
No- in fact I'm sure the readme used to say "don't use this as a black box", instead use it as a starting point.
dt7··on Git-annex assistant: Like DropBox, but with your own cloud
This seems quite similar to SparkleShare: http://sparkleshare.org/

Edit: Oops, SparkleShare is mentioned on the page. Looks like this will work better with larger files. He does mention that SparkleShare is a GUI and not 'just a folder', although in my experience it is 'just a folder', like Dropbox.

dt7··on Wikipedia Redefined
Interesting proposals, but like Andy Rutledge's NYT re-design (http://andyrutledge.com/news-redux.php) limited by the practicalities of implementing them. I don't think the Wikimedia foundation has the resources to do any kind of major re-design, at least not quickly.
dt7··on Thanks to Quora, now you can’t read anonymously
I got the impression that by doing "it" he meant searching Google for it, not actually doing it. I think most people realise that Google works by tracking what you search for, so it makes sense that if you want something to remain unknown, you shouldn't search Google for it.
dt7··on The new Digg
A <noscript> tag would suffice.
dt7··on Google changes Android content policy; intrusive ads now banned
I don't think so, it says your "Ads" cannot interfere, not your "Apps".
dt7··on Ask PG: What caused the downtime?
I found it horribly slow from about 18 hours ago (3pm GMT) onwards. I think the last time I tried it was about 9pm GMT, and it was slow them. It took about 30-60 seconds to load a page, maybe more.

Edit: this was using https, I didn't try http.

dt7··on Lessons in website security anti-patterns by Tesco
I think the point is that it exposes information about the server, like the headers he mentions.
dt7··on Please Don’t Watch NBC Tonight. Or Any Night
Possibly more effective to boycott the sponsors?
dt7··on I'm an American and I want to watch the Olympics. What do I do?
It is different in that if they ever do a bad job, they get a lot more pressure put on them (occasionally from the government - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-18512995). They are also monitored to make sure they at least try to have no overly political/commercial bias.
dt7··on JSTerm, Firefox JavaScript terminal
Does anyone know what's new in Firefox 16 (that's currently the nightly releases) that makes it a requirement for this?
dt7··on Microsoft comes under fire for five-figure Xbox 360 “patch fee”
Did they have a deadline to release though? Release then patch seems to be the way to do things now- the last (big) game I remember noticing being delayed was Halo 2. It seems that since then the priority has been on shipping, then patching (which creates a whole lot of problems for the future, when MS shut down the XBL servers and we can't get patches for our older games any more).
dt7··on Microsoft comes under fire for five-figure Xbox 360 “patch fee”
As a guess, I'd say it varies depending on a few factors such as the scale of the game, the changes introduced, etc.
dt7··on GIT is the new FTP
The book on the Git website (Pro Git) is an easy read (at least to begin with): http://www.git-scm.com/documentation
dt7··on A SVBTLE Collection
In Google Reader, you can click the arrow on a folder and select "Create Bundle" to create a "Bundle", which is just a link other Reader users can use to add the feeds to their subscriptions. It also creates an OPML file though, which can be imported into most RSS readers.
dt7··on Some things beginners might not know about Sublime Text
You can also use your middle mouse button to make block selections, or doing things like making a long vertical line of multiple cursors (handy if you have an HTML list of varying line lengths, you can draw a long vertical line of multiple cursors, then use the left and right arrow keys and home and end keys to make changes to all of the lines quickly).
dt7··on Some things beginners might not know about Sublime Text
Now that I think about it, it's such a common feature everywhere except text editing (I'm mainly thinking of selecting/highlighting things like icons and menu items) it's interesting that it has taken so long to be an editor's big selling point.
dt7··on Now we’re not even allowed to link to the Olympics website?
Are terms of use legally binding? Do the Twitter guidelines (don't rotate the bird etc.) count as terms of use?

What is the worst that could happen here? The organisation behind the Olympics sending a letter to a site owner requesting they remove the link? And what would happen if they refused?

dt7··on What PHP 5.5 might look like
There's also Slim: http://www.slimframework.com/ ...which you could equate to something like Python's Flask (I think... I only have limited experience with Flask).
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