Those days are over now, of course. The muse is gone, and no longer are you able to even get your ranting up to a discernible hrumph or gafaw. Your time of 1,700-words posts on the do’s and don’ts of just about anything are over.

All that is left is you and your blank Add New Post screen.

Yeah, that’d me me. I’ve lost my muse, and have nothing left to say. So I’ve decided to quit blogging — forever.

Or until I think of something else to write. Which will be, like, next week or something. So yeah, I am giving up my blogging career, forever, or next week. One of those two.

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So I’m going to remind people what day today is. The 13th of August, of the year 2010. Or was, I guess, depending on you time-zone.

That’s really all I wanted to do. Continue living your lives for the rest of the 48 or so Fridays on average a year that are not the 13th.

As a side note, this movie was just about terrible.

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Whilst going through the normal maintenance of a the greatest kitsch video-posting site on the interwebs, you’ll need to update plugins, delete spam, and keep the thing running smoothly. As you gain in size (and archives), you’ll start to see more and more bad behavior. That is why there are WordPress plugins dedicated to elimination of nefarious deeds. The blog software even ships with Akismet standard.

As far as legitimate comments go, I’ve found I am running a good 77 to 1 ratio of bot to human. Makes me feel good that somebody is putting that much effort into making something that will never see the light of day. That somebody out there is keeping it real. That they are doing their part to make sure that the Akismet people have jobs. And, presumably, the people who they pay $2 US dollars a day to post thousands of spam comments.

There’s a missed opportunity for a slogan for the second Bush administration. “Russian blog-comment spammers: doing the work that Americans just won’t do. Because they’re too busy playing Farmville. And trying to figure out what to do with Twitter. And watching Jersey Shore.”

Yeah, that would’ve been a pretty long slogan. And not all Americans are watching Jersey Shore. Just the ones that need to be sent to Russia. With the Russian blog-comment spammers.

Did I mention that Akismet keeps spam from appearing on Cluebus!? Because it does. It stops spam from showing up. Just thought I’d let that piece of information get out there in case somebody of the blog-comment spam community read this blog (that has no comments).

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Here it is, as it would be presented on either a web application, or just the standard paper kind (you boring, 20th century person):

Do you have common sense?

That would be it. The best part of this question is that it immediately lets you know which applications to toss in the dustbin. To explain:

1. If they don’t check the box, are they saying they don’t have common sense?
2. If they don’t check the box, are they just completely lazy, thus not a person you want to work with?
3. If the do check the box, at least they have sense enough to check the blocks.

That’s why it is such a good idea. Expect to see this on job applications from Best Buy to Wall Street (at least, until somebody sues somebody for some type of discrimination).

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After trying to figure out what to do with that URL, for over a year, I finally purchased the URL. It is a fine, fine internet domain. It is a top-level domain name, meaning that it ends in something like .com or .net. But this one does not end in .com, or .net, or even .org.

It ends in something that you can only get in the US of A. A domain name that you can only get if you live in, or the site is mostly about, things in the United States of America. Fortunately enough, I fit some or all of that criteria, and now I can both register, and own the domain.

The most difficult part after getting the domain was making the stuff I wanted to work on the domain work. I did that by outright copying and embellishing what smart people who do this sort of thing for a living do. I took there good stuff, added other good stuff, put in some special sauce, and then seasoned to taste.

But mostly there was the stealing.

Stealing-well, taking the stuff people say you can have for free and use it without paying, which I guess isn’t technically stealing-is the point of the thing I made. Copying, maybe. Copying things. And showing them off to other people. All pretty much legal, as far as I can tell.

I made something. Here it is.

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What is my typical response to the question of, “What have you been up to?” It is this: “Devisin’.” As in, my personal colloquialism smashing the original intent of ‘devising.’

That’s really as complicated as the conversation gets. This is also as in depth as the conversation gets. To illustrate, here is how things go most generally.

Typically, someone asks me, “What have you been up to?”

“Devisin’,” I reply.

They laugh, and continue on their way. It’s easy, then, to continue to plot world domination, laundry, or how they get those funny words on those pictures of cats. I mean, “Caturday"?” Whomever thought of that should get the Nobel Peace Prize or something. Genius.

In conclusion, to answer what I’ve been doing through the month of June is this: working on something. Something I’ll show off pretty soon.

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I should also add that as I was taking the laptop out of the box, I didn’t take the first picture. Thus, I have no pictures to post. Even if, for some bizarre reason, I took some pictures while removing it from the shipping packaging, I do not see how that would interest anyone other than myself.

While I got that computer (and the thrill of a new tool), people still care too much about the opening and viewing of the innards of the packaging of technology. I say, for me and my house, we will not care that much about every new thing that shows up from the FedEx man. To be so obsessed with new things that you need to feed the desires just to know what’s in the box bugs me, really.

Also note, I bought a PC. Or, pc, I guess. That stands for “personal computer.” It is not a Mac (nor a Macintosh, nor anything OS X-y). I changed allegiances, and I’ll deal with that more in the future.

For now, I just want to revel in the knowledge that somebody out there is going into fits because I moved from a Mac to Windows.

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The need for answers came from answering the same question repeatedly: d3ft? Is that, like, a word? Or Something? Seriously, how did that happen?

Therefore, the FAQ. No better way to answer questions, than to provide answers, I say. The events that led me to write it came from two main misconceptions: (1) I grow tired of having to explain the domain name; and (2) I hope to someday educate all peoples on how you refer to a name by the object, not the identifier (e.g. refer to d3ft punk as punk, rather than d3ft).

A recent web comic brought to light something I’m not sure anyone really knows. For whatever reason, I adopted the nom de plume of “d3ft punk” shortly after registering this domain. It was a combination of the four–letter .com top–level domain, and a reference to a relevant, pop–culture phenomena, the techno band, Daft Punk.

Click the image to see it full–sized.

Sadly, only after reading the first panel three times was I sure I was safe. I just had to be sure, you know, because of the spelling. As an aside, it’s comics like this that prove this is inaccurate.

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Since I decided that I wanted to start reviewing things, I figured, like all good users of WordPress, I would add a plugin or two that would help me express my opinions (in 3200 database calls or less). Perusing the options for ratings plugins, I wondered to myself, “Why don’t I just use some Unicode stars?” And so I did just that.

While trying to over–think this, I just decided that I would just put in the star ratings. On a scale of 1 to 5, how good or bad is this thing? Since this isn’t YouTube, there isn’t going to be the inevitable 2.5 rating that almost every video on the site gets after the wisdom of crowds takes hold.

Then, I use an obscure HTML tag that I can only guess I’m not supposed to anymore. The <big> tag takes something that looks like this:

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

And makes it look like this:

★ ★ ★ ★

The fun thing is, since this isn’t driven by some sort of CSS hack, and by an honest–to–goodness tag, it’ll show up in your RSS reader of choice. And it better show up larger, because I don’t really want to add a whole lot to each review. Gotta fill up some space, you know. Nothing worse than having your point made, and then not padding it to make it seem like you have more to say, when you really should just stop. People don’t like brevity, anymore. Give ’em a few 19–sentence paragraphs, that’ll show ’em.

And that is exactly why I don’t add anything else.¹ If I post a terrible review, you’ll probably want to know why it was so bad. You’ll probably use some sort of internet search engine to find other reviews of the same thing. You’ll then see that others thought the item was either as good or bad as I said it was, or much better or worse.

Since you have your own opinion of things, you’ll probably take my review and let it shape your opinion. It could be that you can let my words (really just Unicode stars) embolden your own decision. It could also be that I set your soul ablaze with a seething rage. Anywise, I hope that my terse, prosaic entries help others who want to know about things.

1. Okay, so I add some snide remarks in the excerpt. That’s just because Google gets upset when you don’t have enough content in a post. Go figure. ↩

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This is an advertisement run in an iPhone app, that could only run on an iPhone, that could only use one cellular data network.¹ AT&T was the only company that could buy space on this network (ads for iPhone apps). How in the world did this even happen?

Let us hope when Apple is doing its “tasteful” iAds they don’t have trainwrecks of logic like this.

1. This was before the iPad was available for purchase, so it had to be on an iPhone. ↩

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While trying to create a title for a blog post about some random, anecdotal thing that happened to me this evening, I was going to use a fairly long post title that I figured would amuse…well…me. But the length caused the title to break into several lines. For whatever personal reason, I do not like post titles that take up more than one line.

The irony, of course, that I put together a design with humungous post titles. Therefore, I need a way to break up those long titles. There are at least three ways I know of to achieve this:

1. Truncate your post title, then add it to the post
2. Add break tags (<br />) to the title
3. Go with a shorter title, add the rest to the post

To truncate your post title, you would need to then add additional tags inside your post to differentiate it from the normal text. Not only will this make your post look goofy, it could confuse people. I constantly remind myself that the majority of traffic for this site is from the US, and this is the country that has yet to outlaw soap operas for gross stupidity and contributing to the sloth of the citizenry. That means, stupid people live here, don’t confuse them.

You could add break tags to the post title, but that would cause all kinds of behind–the–scenes problems. Mainly, search engines (read: Google) will index your context with strange HTML entities. Unless you like the way that WordPress will mangle your post title with extra characters, it is best not to give WordPress the chance to mess something up.

What I do (and what I suggest you should do, as well), is just to add that incredible wit and wisdom to your post. That will require another title, but your anecdote probably wasn’t as interesting as you thought it was. Another major benefit of this is it will probably be the best way to make you better as a writer, other than just writing.

The shorter title does not, however, always bode well for search engine optimization (SEO). Sorry. I’m not saying that anyone will read your original, un–formulaic–ly titled post, it’s just that it will look better. The web will look better. I will be able to sleep at night.

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Please tell me you’ve clicked that link. Have you? In the off–chance that you haven’t clicked that link, do it now. I’ll be patiently waiting here, a mere step away in your browser’s history.

Just going to check my Twitter, while I’m waiting.

Be back any time now.

Hmm, Zoroastrianism. I wonder if that was the symbolization that Jacob was working on in that tapestry he was sewing right before Ben shived him? That would explain the duality of Smokey and Jacob, but could you logically go from there to Tawaret?

[THREE HOURS OF FASCINATED CLICKING]

Err…that wasn’t supposed to happen. Sorry about that. Um, in conclusion, uh, I don’t think XKCD sucks.

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This raises questions, like, is this the next big thing? Or is it just a gimmick to waste bloggers’ time? Are they going to make it easier for bloggers (and other, more reputable outlets, like, uh, news sites and such) to take an individual tweet and post it? And is there some enterprising person out there crafting a WordPress plugin (as we speak) to take advantage of this to add every one of their boring–life–having tweets to their personal–ramblings blog (such as this one?)^1,2,3 And the biggest question, is it that much better than the old style screenshot version?

1. HINT HINT.
2. Not that I’m going to beg, or anything.
3. But, yeah, please? ↩

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Havok was the rather haphazardly chosen name of the theme I was working on when I was trying to make another, incredibly minimalist theme. I was going for nothing but words. I ended up with that, plus a couple of images. From the start it was never intended to evolve. Yet, evolve it did.

From The Internets

I’ve uploaded a few pictures onto my Picasa account to show off just how much it changed. The fact that I’ve already changed the footer—twice—before I could write this post should tell you that this is more of a constant work in progress than an endpoint.¹ You should be happy about that–some sites never change.

So come by, kick the tires, click some links. Tell me if I’ve completely messed everything up. There are a lot of CSS3 elements in here that you really need to check out. If you are just reading this in a feed reader or aggregator, you are totally missing out on the fun.

1. By the time this was published, the theme was up to version 2.1. ↩

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After several attempts, I can’t come up with any adequate rebuttal of his argument. Everything written about proprietary standards and closed systems was dead on. I don’t want to support a company that produces proprietary products that it has the sole ability to control. It’s not how the web was intended. So I’m moving to Ubuntu.

Yeah, I know Steve was talking about just the internet, but why stop there? Instead of a web experience that’s fully open, how about an operating system that’s open? Know what else is great about an open operating system? I can use it on tons of different hardware configurations, not just the stuff from the Apple Store.

The least expensive way to own a computer is to get rid of as much as you don’t need. Proprietary operating systems, for one, make computers more expensive (or less, in Microsoft’s case). And seeing as how Apple products tend to survive long past their usefulness, it doesn’t make sense to me to buy something that will last much longer than a microwave.

After my new computer arrives from the internet computer fairy, I’m switching to Ubuntu Linux. It’s a win/win (for me, anyways). Cheap hardware, free OS, and the knowledge that Steve Jobs is in my corner.

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For instance, the old–style single–button Apple Pro Mouse. It is stylish, but the lack of buttons makes me want to kill. That was the most two minutes of my entire day, something I don’t want to recall, ever again.

My experience with the simplistic mouse reminded me that there is a time to remove features, and there is a time to add them. Since opening this site for blogging wares (among other things), the goal was not to overwhelm with flair, but only what it necessary. This limited some of the aesthetic decisions, but the most important part is, and has always been, the written words.

To that effect, on this site there are no comments, no links to various social networks, and no massive advertising campaigns. It isn’t because I’m against that sort of thing, it’s because I just haven’t added them—yet. I do not think I will ever add blogging pieces of flair, in any regard. While I’m sure there are thousands of users who have used them successfully, I find even the idea trending to the gauche.

Besides my mousing incident, I was reminded how minimalist design seems to be growing in popularity on sites like Tumblr or FFFFOUND! While I understand the milieux (people focused on nothing but the quality of the content), there’s something to be said about the frame. I think this means that my taste in the matter is changing.

There was a time when I was trying to make this site as artifact–free as possible. Just as there are times to add and times to subtract, this could be the time for additions. Nothing drastic, of course. As I remarked after adding the d3ft links to the site, this is just another part of the natural evolution of the site.

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Years ago, as I was helping a fellow of mine get over his painful divorce, I suggested we use this newfound search engine, ”The Google”, to search for something of an urban legend. To get over his previous nuptial failure, we would find him a Russian mail–order bride. Needless to say, after looking through the first 20 sites that offered women, we decided that even the idea was too creepy for our limited experience.

It turns out that mail–order brides are less smarmy than I remembered (from the cheesy, 90s sites), and far more plenteous than I knew (if Wikipedia is to be believed). Remembering the faces of those women, the circumstances that led them to offer themselves, and just how one–sided the whole thing was upset me back then. However, it helps me understand the relationship people need to have with the hardware they are spending money on, and how the whole thing is getting ridiculous.

In 1996, I got my first Macintosh. Since then, I’ve only bought computers from Apple. My latest electronic device was an iPhone. I have made that company a bit of money. Not a lot, but every bit helps, right?

As I started working with other people, looking at their needs, I kept coming back to something that bothered me; Apple makes their electronics and their computers too well. While typing this on a now–completely–by–their–standards obsolete computer (Power Mac G5), I couldn’t rationally suggest to anyone that they buy something that will be completely obsolete in five years, yet completely functional. My computer works just fine, it’s just that Apple doesn’t support it anymore.¹

That was a strange feeling, that day. The day I realized that there was no way I would ever wear a new computer out again. By the time it becomes obsolete, it still does everything I could hope to do with it. Yet, with the constant advance of technology, to run any of the ‘latest and greatest,’ I need some new processor, or some animal–themed operating system.²

This trope—the Russian mail–order bride—is how I now explain to people how they should treat that wonder, awesome, incredible new gadget they hold in their hands. It is something that will be forgotten in two years, something that will be sold or trashed long before its usefulness is at end. While you may think you will love it forever, it is best to understand that you will pay money to have somebody get rid of it in a few years’ time.

If you think I’m being harsh, why would companies advertise that they will recycle your old hardware—for free? Because you are willing to pay somebody else to get rid of your trash, that’s why. That is the harsh, speedy advance of technology. Keep up, or be drowned.

We should realize that whatever you hold in your hands is going to be worthless in 24 months, so be careful. There will be a separation, and it will cost you money. The good time you’re paying for today will seem like a complete waste of money when you can see what you can get, now.

But now is when you care. You have to have the delicious arm candy that only a smartphone provides. You have to be able to show off countless frames per second. You have to win at processor speed.

So don’t get caught up on sentimentality. Don’t burn the sails. Plan now how to get rid of the eventual junk heap you now call your precious. If you don’t, you’ll be the one paying.³

A note on reality

That people should treat their hardware with a bit of harshness, of course, is my technological allusion. The urban legend says that either they are cunning women, only wanting some rich man to wed for citizenship, money, divorce, and settlement (in that order), or underage girls sold into a world of slavery and murder. I would never suggest the way we treat humans be the way we treat machines.

The sad realities of how one becomes a slave, however you want to sugar–coat the title, is heart–breaking. The level of destitution in some people’s lives amazes me. Yet, I sit in utter amazement as people fawn over some new gadget, while people on the other side of the planet—or even the other side of the tracks—starve.

It was the realization—that people are worth more than machines—that led me to this way of thinking. It also led me to put my money towards things that really matter for other people. That is now what I encourage other people to do, as well.

1. Officially, anyways. Or cheaply. ↩
2. Or Linux. But that’s a completely different argument. ↩
3. Of course I realize you’ll be paying either ways. Stop being so literal. ↩

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What I decided to do was to spend more time linking to items where people are already looking; in Google Reader. The combination of sharing links with other people, and the ability to repurpose those links elsewhere reminds me of what was (and is) possible with del.icio.us (oops, I meant, Delicious). That lead me to put together a page that uses my links, but isn’t the goal page.

The d3ft links uses the shared items part of Google Reader, put on my site through a WordPress plugin. Yay for site integration (and all those swell page–views), but that isn’t the point. RSS is the goal, and those RSS subscriptions are very important to me. To be clear, I am not begging for subscriptions—they are simply another indicator of success.

If there is anything I love more than linking to things, it is statistics. Google Reader gives me that. It also allows me to share the stuff I share more easily. Then, after all that, I get the fun and excitement of charts and other analytical datum. That is why I moved there, to do this.

This is a screen capture from earlier today. Reader gives me that lovely meta knowledge of what I am doing. And with Helvetireader, I don’t drown in the interface, and it looks so good that I stopped using Fever for most things. I still use it as a meme–tracker, but not as the place for my main consumption of RSS.

I have the feeling that image will appear dated after a while. Not that the volume of reading will go up (it most certainly will), but that the number of subscriptions is so low. In the past, I maintained over 300 subscriptions with NetNewsWire. That level of information overload is just unnecessary with all the trend–trackers and all the other people tracking the trend–trackers. The time to become a leader in linking was 2003—there are enough linkers out there now.

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Nowhere in my contract does it say that I have to write anything. Weeks or months or years can pass between words. That’s just how I am. That’s just what I do.

I’m currently looking at just how much time I need—or want—to spend on this computer, creating my internet wuffies. This is something I’ve looked at time and time again, in some varying degree, every six months since I started posting thing on the Internet in 1995. Each time in the past 15 or so years, I’ve come back with some varying degree of need for continuing an online existence.

This month was my lowest posting output since 2003, when I was deployed. It wasn’t that I stopped writing, you just couldn’t see it. I have a daily journal filled with so much wit and marvel that your human brains just couldn’t take it all in. It stays there, in my MacJournal file, waiting for somebody to read off my cold, dead hard drive. Oddly enough, even though I was writing back then, in a war zone, I wasn’t writing here.

That’s okay. I don’t have to.

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One of those places on the web I no longer frequent is sites of web developers. Another such place is application developers. It seems my desire to learn about the creation of content about content creation has come to an end. No real reason for this, just an observation of how I spend my time.

This could be because the creation of applications and web sites are now so commonplace, and the tools so simple to use, that there just isn’t the greatness associated with “getting a website!” It doesn’t take a genius to code up an iPhone app, or to make yet–another text–based to–do application. It just takes time and the ability to market well.

One of the recent trends in marketing was blogs. Sadly, it appears that real–time web is going to make even blogs seem slow. Google will get you to the data (and the answers) as fast as it used to take think up the question. This makes it seem like even blogs are becoming inessential. Especially blogs about coding for blogs that market to people who want to know how to code for blogs.

I’m not sure it’s the lack of time that keeps me away, now. With constant iPhone-y internet, I’m a couple of clicks from anything. It isn’t the lack of enthusiasm and topics from the writers, either. I think it’s because I just don’t need them anymore. Content about the construction of tools to create content has become inessential.

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It comes down to this: Apple can do whatever they want to with their store. It’s their store. Nobody can tell them what to do with their store. Other than just not purchasing Apple products, consumers have no say in what Apple does with their services.

So, there.

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It had to be said.

I care nothing for implications for Apple in the laptop–replacement milieu, nor their impending fight with Amazon’s Kindle. Nor, do I care anything about Apple’s continued use of touch technologies.

If one were to ask me if Apple is creating another G4 Cube, I would have to ponder how little I care about the situation, in total. This is a product that does not concern me. The state of the company does not rest with either my love for or hatred of this new piece of hardware.

It is made by Apple, big deal. They also make mini DVI to VGA adaptors, should I pontificate on that? No. No, I should not, because I care nothing about the laptop–to–display adapter segment of Apple. Nor, do I care about the iPad sector of Apple.

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Keep producing great content or stop putting up ads.

I was going to link to many, many examples of this, but I figure it wouldn’t be acted upon. Seriously, if I am out–blogging you, then you need to stop with the ads.

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If you’re looking at this on a Windows–based system, it may be hard to see. That’s because Mac OS X displays tend to have a much brighter gamma than Windows. If you can’t see it, then, blame Windows.

Pim from the Time Capsule Memorial Register kindly pointed out that, as of Mac OS X 10.6, this is no longer the case. Now Apple shoots for the minimum and makes your screen darker than necessary. Just brilliant (pun intended).

I also went ahead and removed some WebKit–specific hacks to make the letters on the screen theoretically more legible. The hacks were reportedly not successful. A few color changes, and the site should read more effectively, regardless of the operating system or monitor you are using.

Plus, I’m stuck on white backgrounds.

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Looking at the list of the top 100 free apps, you’ll find free versions of apps. Nice idea, but most of them are free versions of apps that you wouldn’t pay for. Others are limited versions of apps that you wish you didn’t have to scroll past. How’s about we introduce something else they have in Facebook?

Block App

Tired of seeing that stupid Sex Quiz thing again? Just click the ‘Block App’ button. One quick confirmation message later, and never see it again (unless, of course, you want to go into the preferences and unblock it).

I’m not sure if this has been proposed before, but it seems rather obvious to me.

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I’m trying to be succinct. It bugs me when software developers don’t pay attention to detail. It goes beyond irritation and into mild rage when I see something like that used in marketing materials and blog flair.

For review: 10.6 only runs on Intel processors. If your app requires 10.6, do not use the ‘Universal’ badge.

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In September, I decided to put together a minimalist website that had the primary function of sifting through the ever–growing number of interesting things on the internet. A rather fortuitous domain name search and registration later, I created this site. The original intention was to put it here then leave it be, but that changed.

That concept, of creating something and never evolving it, was something I looked forward to. It was a challenge for me to keep something in its originally–concieved state, then grow the site through external and internal ideas, rather than functions. The idea is akin to what Twitter has done — build on their core functionality without diverging from the original intention.

Most of the innovations Twitter the company has made in the past couple of years are from ways to work around limitations on the system from Twitter users. Search, lists, hashtags, and ‘re–tweeting’ are all ideas from the users that the company has wisely added to its core functionality. That way — organically — is the way I think you grow a product most successfully.

Its that way that I chose to grow this site. Organically. Built on a WordPress core, I’ve added a few touches here and there, but there’s nothing here that anybody can’t do. Just some plugins, a minimalist template, and my own ramblings, written in micro– to short–outbursts of sagacity.

A couple of months have shown me that writing alone doesn’t work any more. The internet is full of terrible writers, linkers, lurkers, and trolls. Nobody gets enough traffic that deserve it, and nobody that gets traffic deserves it. This is less of a personal quibble and more of an acknowledgment that people tend to be attracted to the grotesque rather than the tranquil.

There are no drastic changes planned for the future of this site. Just a few additions, here and there. Just a continuation of growing this thing — whatever a d3ft.com is. As I get more settled writing this thing — gain my sea legs, if you will — then I’ll keep on trying to make this the best d3ft.com it can be.

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A few months ago, I had a real scare with my hard drive. One of the bullet point selling points of Mac OS X 10.5 is Time Machine, the automatic backup software. As I thought about Time Capsule, my hard drive, and backups, I came to an awesome, terrible realization: all hard drives fail.

Looking over the specs, I can’t really find any way to replace the hard drive in this thing. This is critical, because it’s your last line of defense. If this thing goes down, you’re sunk.

Pondering the possibility of losing years of data on my disk, I realized how Apple could be setting itself up for failure. No, not because the device won’t sell — it will. And not because it isn’t marketed as another boutique product. It’s because the very device they’re selling can easily go against the convention they’re trying to enforce.

Years ago, Apple introduced this application called ‘Backup.’ It was part of the .Mac service, and it let you back things up in a simple, convenient way. That was the intention, anyways, as I’m not sure anybody really knows how to get the thing to work. And I’m pretty sure nobody’s dumb enough to trust it to back up anything more important than their Safari bookmarks.

That’s the problem with the backup solutions that are supposed to be what you would expect from Apple; not as feature–rich as you would hope, but comprehensive and very easy to use. They succeeded this time with Time Machine. And somehow, Backup yet lives — there must be a reason.

Getting to the reason for the continued existence of Backup led me to think about the rationale to make Time Capsule, the wire–less, hard–drive–based backup device. As Backup is to .Mac, Time Capsule is to local storage. They both follow the same mantra, but with vastly differing success.

Backup was always hampered by its connection to .Mac. There just wasn’t enough room to backup the files on your computer. You could, at most, back up a subset of the types of files like Word documents or all the files in your Documents folder. It surely wasn’t what you’d need for the ‘prosumer’ experience, and definitely wasn’t a professional–level solution.

Mac OS X 10.5 brought Time Machine, and the promise of backing up your entire file system, down to the minutia of your fonts and preference files. Sure, you needed a pretty big hard drive, but that sort of space is cheap right now, still more so that online. With a daily backup of everything — that comprehensive approach — you could get back what was lost, and that’s what we all want.

Selling hardware to meet that demand was the next logical step. Apple did this moving from iTunes to the iPod, and they’re doing the same thing from Time Machine to Time Capsule. The wireless capability is just a bullet point — what they’re really doing is selling convenience.

With that convenience, Apple is getting you to do something you should be doing: backing your data up. It makes everybody feel good, you see. Promote that healthy behavior. But it would make sense to use a piece of hardware you can fix, right?

As far as I can tell (since I haven’t been able to get my grimy paws on one, yet), there’s no way to change the hard drive in the Time Capsule. There’s a lot of precedent for this, from the iPod to the new MacBook Air. But that’s a bad idea when you’re using this as your solitary backup.

It’s the same problem you’d have if your primary disk went bad. One well–timed lightning bolt and every source of hope you’ve got is turned into stylish, over–priced paperweights. The message I’m trying to convey is this: instead of having one last chance (your hard drive) you’ve now got two (with Time Capsule). And until somebody does something about it, that’s all you’ve got.

I love fear–mongering. Even more so when it’s right in line with the idea Apple’s trying to get across to consumers. With Time Machine, they’re trying to say that cheap storage — online or local — is within the reach of pretty much everybody. If you can afford a computer with Leopard, you can afford to get a Time Capsule for your house.

Honestly, I agree. The thing that I’m wary of is that you’re purchasing a silver bullet — and that will lead people to the inevitable complacency. That lax attitude will lead to reliance on this system, and someday we’ll be watching videos about “Time Capsule’s Dirty Secret.” Nobody wants that to happen. Nobody.

So, solutions? I’m not sure. I’d really hate to think that this piece of hardware is going the same route as the iPods and Mac minis and Apple TVs and MacBook Airs before it. I’d hope that there was some way to replace the disk, or at least to get it recovered quickly. I would hate to think that people are trading a bag of magic beans for two bags of magic beans.

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Before we get started, some things to remember. Like last time, if you have no idea what I’m talking about, let the person who you bug about all things electronic do it for you. Also, this tutorial needs a modern Apache webserver. Most importantly, if you expect legitimate readers from the Asia Pacific region of the world, you could block your readers. Remember these things.

Copy and paste this into your .htaccess file:

#Amsterdam
deny from 62.
deny from 80.
deny from 81.
deny from 82.
deny from 83.
deny from 84.
deny from 85.
deny from 86.
deny from 87.
deny from 88.
deny from 89.
deny from 90.
deny from 91.
deny from 139.10.
deny from 139.12.
deny from 139.16.
deny from 139.18.
deny from 139.24.
deny from 139.28.
deny from 139.30.
deny from 147.83.
deny from 147.84.
deny from 147.91.
deny from 193.
deny from 194.
deny from 195.
deny from 212.
deny from 213.
deny from 217.
#Australia
deny from 58.
deny from 59.
deny from 60.
deny from 61.
deny from 165.228.
deny from 165.229.
deny from 168.140.
deny from 202.
deny from 203.
deny from 210.
deny from 211.
deny from 218.
deny from 219.
deny from 220.
deny from 221.
deny from 222.

That would be it.

The Amsterdam and Australia mean really nothing. They are just there to keep things organized. Doing a whois on the IP ranges shows to which branch of RIPE they belong. You can shuffle them all together into one neat list, if you like.

Like I wrote before, this is a throw-the-baby-out-with-the-bath-water approach to banning. The way I have it set up, you block everything in the IP range rather mercilessly. The only reasonable purpose for doing this would be if you are losing a lot of bandwidth to non–human traffic.

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Note: this will stop access to your site, not keep a site from finding your IP.

First, get a website. Got that? Good.

Now, make sure you have some sort of Apache server. If you’re not sure you have one, the rest of this won’t make much sense. If that’s the case, just go back and let your kid read the rest of this.

For those of you still with me, you’ll need to upload a file to your server called an .htacccess file. It’s simply an extension that tells the server what to do with all your files (Here’s some info from Apache). This is where the magic happens.

Inside that .htaccess file, you set up some variables to create certain events. If you use WordPress like I do, there is one uploaded when you install it. It’s in the top-level directory, just sitting there. Other content management systems use an .htaccess file as well, like Textpattern, Expression Engine, and Dupral.

If you open the file, you’ll see there’s some WordPress (or them other things’) specific code. Don’t fiddle with that. Just leave it be, because the part that the blogging software uses doesn’t really have much effect on what you are going to do.

I found this at JavaScript Kit, and it’s a wonderful way to keep the spammers, scammers, and scrapers off your site. Inside your .htaccess file, put this:

order allow,deny
deny from 123.45.6.7
deny from 012.34.5.
allow from all

This is how you deny by IP address. Find the offending IP address you want to stop, put it there, and that singular address will never be able to get to your site.

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One (sometimes one of the extremely few) of the benefits of the annoyingly rabid Mac community is that we do talk to each other a lot, and we do absolutely have equivalents of pro wrestling’s faces and heels. Right now, Adobe is not regarded as a hero. No. Right now you’re the heavy guy from some country we don’t like who’s always with the folding chairs.

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Running WordPress, I’m able to add tags to posts without working at it through a function of Simple Tags. It uses comment phrases to try and add tags based on simple keywords. If I use the word ‘WordPress’, for example, it will add a WordPress tag, even if I forgot to explicitly add it.

Also, the All in One SEO Pack adds post tags to the page META tags. While this isn’t apparent to the user just looking on the page, it helps search engines to figure out what the page is about. Additionally, like I wrote before, it also helps the built–in WordPress search appliance.

One application of all the tagging (besides search) is the use of the Similar Posts plugin on the reference links page. Their function is sort of, “I’m done with this page, now what do I do?” The use of tags helps figure out what will be relevant. Granted, this is done with a combination of human tagging, computer guessing, and dumb luck, but it seems to work fairly well so far.

But the big reason I am doing all this tagging isn’t just to tag everything. It really isn’t important that I’m tagging all this stuff, but why I’m tagging all this stuff. I tag all this stuff because, at some point, somebody will try and build upon an idea I write. Or will be looking for something completely different. Or looking for just this thing.

The main reason I tag everything is because I have no idea what anyone wants to know. Think of these tags as writer’s notes when translating languages. It’s a way to translate from my mind to the reader.

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