Porkrind Dot Org Missives

What I need is a plug-in that monitors all the javascript and plugins that are running and keeps track of how long each runs. Then I want a unix top-like view of all the pages open and how many resources each is consuming (how much memory, how much cpu time their javascript is taking, etc). Continue reading →

Getting Time Machine to work with my Linux server was annoyingly hard–the default Debian server doesn’t support Leopard out of the box and Time Machine itself doesn’t support non-apple file shares. Continue reading →

So a couple days ago I noticed I had no permission to access one of my directories… Continue reading →

I write computer programs for a living though quite often I end up writing code for myself at home… When I quit my job and started consulting I lost the security that comes from a steady paycheck… So when I needed to write a piece of software to scratch my own itch I started thinking about selling it instead of releasing it as free software. Continue reading →

I read this article on reddit and while I thought the author was correct that RSS is really a bad design, I think he missed the real underlying reason why. That reason is that polling is always wrong. Always. Really!
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Every review I read about the iPhone whines that the price is high. So let’s see how high it really is. Continue reading →

I tried out TiVo Desktop on my Mac and it was kind of cool… I found some articles and discovered the TiVo Desktop is just a http daemon plus some mdns stuff. Sounds easy enough! Continue reading →

I caught “this article”:http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/48/ on “Reddit”:http://reddit.com this weekend and had definite mixed feelings about it. Many of their suggestions were obviously good ideas. But some of what was masquerading as optimization “advice” seemed more like work-arounds for a substandard javascript implementation. Continue reading →

I needed to call some Applescript from perl and was quite proud of my end result.
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In the end, I like that it fits on one line and that it lets the Applescript sit in the program in its native form. Continue reading →

I deleted all the Tcl-ish things in /usr/local/bin (and didn’t find anything anywhere else, oddly enough), reinstalled Darwin Ports, and it worked! Yay. Continue reading →

If I’m working on a bug or a new feature I end up making other random enhancements or fixes that aren’t at all related. With commit-patch, I now can precisely specify the patch I want to commit and leave the rest behind as uncommitted changes in my working directory. Continue reading →

Turns out, I’ve been using the concept of closures forever. I would say almost since I first learned C on my Macintosh back in high school. Continue reading →

I really love javascript, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have its faults. I can make a number of little nitpicks but I want to focus on three major deficiencies of the language. Continue reading →

What I really want is a language that has really good structures. That is, they can represent hardware/fixed layouts effectively. Continue reading →

I finally got some sleep. But we got up at around 6:30, breaking my personal commitment to never wake up before 7. We went to the speedway and… I don’t even remember. Dead battery. Rechard went and bought a new … Continue reading →