Joe's Apt.

25 Random Things About Me (a.k.a. "Oh no, not another one.")

2009-01-29T03:28:47Z

This originally appeared on Facebook, but it occurred to me that this malnourished blog is long overdue for a new entry. Enjoy.

My first acting role was as Jesus in a kindergarten skit about Lazarus. I improvised the majority of my lines, much to the audience’s delight … and the wrath of the nun who directed it.
Around age five, I thought it would be fun to play postal carrier. I took my wheelbarrow to the neighboring apartment complex, then I collected and redistributed some of the mail. (Justice was swift: I was grounded upon returning to my apartment.)
I am a unabashed fan of dark comedy, Terry Moore, Cowboy Bebop, Get Fuzzy, Conceptual Continuity, and free improv jamming.
Sometimes I like dialing older touch-tone phones the hard way - by quickly tapping the hook and emulating rotary dialing. (I first tried this with friends while on-air at WCPR in Hoboken. We ordered a pizza.)
In 1987, while rehearsing the role of Lloyd Dallas (the director) in “Noises Off”, I emulated our actual director’s mannerisms and clothing, down to the flannel plaid shirt and lack of a wristwatch. I have not worn a wristwatch since.
I was the first to correctly identify all 41 guitar riffs quoted within Mike Keneally’s affectionate one minute and twenty-five second Yes tribute, “Faithful Axe” - and I did it within three tries. Mike awarded me a fresh batch of bagels for my efforts. They were delicious.
Thanks to complications following LASIK surgery in my right eye, I helped identify a new contraindication. Thanks to my ever vigilant corneal surgeon, the eye healed. I had PRK in my left eye and ended up 20/15 across the board. (Notice my black-and-white profile headshot where my face is off center and half shadowed. That photo was taken during the recovery.)
Favorite color: orange. Favorite vegetable: carrots. Coincidence?
In college, some friends and I whistled, in harmony, the entire soundtrack to Chess (London Cast). There were witnesses.
My wife Nancy and I barely escaped a lightning strike while cycling in a flash thunderstorm on Grand Bahama Island. (Don’t ask. Let’s just say we were fortunate that a telephone pole transformer was within twenty feet, and leave it at that.)
As a child, I used to re-enact entire Bill Cosby routines at the dinner table during family gatherings.
I enjoy playing songs in mixed and irregular meters. Well, irregular unless you’re from Bulgaria.
Several years ago, I slipped down my carpeted staircase, then saved myself by grabbing the handrail with my left hand. Cost: A messed-up rotator cuff, which goes temporarily and painfully haywire for thirty seconds every two years.
I once arrived for a performance of “A Grand Night for Singing” without my edited percussion score, and we were being videotaped for closed circuit broadcast. Plenty embarrassed, I kept it secret, steeled myself, and managed to improvise the entire show.
I want to write and publish a niche market technical book by 2010, even if it means self-publishing.
In March of 1994, I changed the pronunciation of my last name to match how my late paternal grandfather spoke it: dahn-DRAY-uh. Of course, this caught family and guests off guard at the wedding reception.
I ran into Steve Vai changing his pants backstage at Irving Plaza. Not on purpose.
I was an extra in the film “Street Justice” (1989). If you listen closely during the picketing scene outside the Hoboken PATH entrance, you can hear me shouting “Down with Chandler!” Extras received compensation of $20 each and breakfast at a nearby diner. It was delicious, but not as much as the bagels.
My typing speed has been clocked around 100 wpm. At Bell Labs, I was known to transcribe conference calls in near-real time. (“My dear boy, why don’t you just try STENOGRAPHY?”)
I used to dream in Technicolor, with prints by DeLuxe. Nowadays it’s closer to Fisher-Price PixelVision. This means I have to concentrate extra hard on the nighttime scenes so I don’t miss anything.
Biggest live performance thrill: Drumming for Broadside Electric on the main stage of the Philadelphia Folk Festival - introduced by Gene Shay. (Bonus Trivia: There’s never enough room to fit your drum kit inside a radio station, no matter how little of it you decide to bring. Don’t be discouraged. Just play.)
I strive to categorically avoid split infinitives. (Whoops.)
I proposed to Nancy via an elaborate two-way conversation between myself (sitting next to her) and myself (on television). The carefully timed TV portion was videotaped, edited into three different Hitchcock movie rentals in their original VHS clamshells, and held at the local West Coast Video. Nancy chose “North by Northwest” - thus the twelve minute proposal sequence ended up interrupting Valerian falling off Mount Rushmore. Like him, she never saw it coming.
I exhibit a Socratic communication style, reveling in and valuing details. Heh. Like you needed me to tell you that by now.
I would like to play drums for a Broadway (or off-Broadway (or touring)) production someday. So there.

Ampersands in Query Strings, Begone!

2008-05-06T19:32:06Z

Why hello there! Yes, I was off the blog radar for a little over a year. We'll chat about it sometime. (I've been microblogging on Twitter though. 's fun.)

Speaking of Twitter, John Gruber just pointed out "W3C's long-ignored suggestion to use ';' instead of '&' as [an] argument separator in URLs (because '&' causes so many problems when not escaped)."

It brought back memories of my first year at AT&T Bell Labs in 1995, when I tried to promote usage of semicolons. It never took hold. Third party design agencies pretty much laughed that recommendation right off the stage.

(Y'know ... I think the last time I was laughed at that much was when I gave a fifth grade presentation on the metric system. Grade schoolers can be so very cruel, I know.)

Anyway, John, this one's for you and all those with the audacity to hope for semicolons in their query strings.

# Replace ampersands in QS with semicolons
# Add as first two rules in .htaccess or httpd.conf

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^([^\&]+)\&(.+)$
RewriteRule ^(.+)$ $1?%1;%2 [E=amp:y,N]
RewriteCond %{ENV:amp} y
RewriteRule ^(.+)$ /$1 [R=permanent,NE]

For the uninitiated, here's how it works. First, the RewriteEngine must be On, so that's a given. Then we have two Rewrite Condition/Rule pairs.

The first pair looks for an ampersand in the query string. If found, we rewrite using a semicolon. (%1 and %2 refer back to the query string portions found before/after the ampersand.) We also set a variable "amp" to mark that we've encountered an ampersand, and then we repeat rule processing from the start (N).

For the second pair, what we're aiming for is a single permanent redirect (since we're swapping out one ampersand at a time). That's where the "amp" variable comes in. If it's set, we must have cleared the first Cond/Rule pair, so we now permanently redirect. No encoding (NE), please. That's it!

Consider it a first pass. I realize there are some boundary conditions I'm not taking care of yet, like leading and trailing ampersands in the QS, not to mention catching & amp; outright. (Mmm-hmm, ever try cutting-and-pasting a malformed link?)

Also, yes I know this blog presently uses ampersands ... and what about the server side? Will it treat those semicolons properly? (Can yours truly be redeemed, or has he painted himself into a corner? Stay tuned!)

For now, the above seems to work quite nicely on my Apache 2.x installation. Feedback most welcome. Don't be shy now.

Lest I forget, my sincere thanks to @gruber for singlehandedly waking me up from my over one year-long blogger hibernation. Let's see if I stay awake this time.

Update: I just noticed my last blog post also concerned query strings! Wow, what are the odds?

Query String Removal Helpful?

2007-03-25T11:54:55Z

Those of you in Search Engine Optimization circles have no doubt read the article about a recent Search Engine Watch Case Study ... or perhaps you read the article about the case study ... or the Digg comments about the article about the case study.

The case study, titled "Remapping Dynamic URLs to Static URLs can Increase Traffic", describes what happened when PlumberSurplus.com rewrote all the links on their site, in particular the sitewide removal of the query string (the part after the question mark).

For instance, this Bathroom Faucets link (and others like it):

http://www.plumbersurplus.com/category.aspx?Cat=991

Was rewritten and permanently redirected to:

http://www.plumbersurplus.com/Cat/Bathroom-Faucets/991

What happened next? "Within two months, rankings began to improve, and the number of indexed pages began to increase." Who-hoo!

I'm somewhat hesitant, however, to jump to conclusions about the query string removal (the "remapping of dynamic to static URLs") being the cause celebre here. Consider:

Note that Plumber Surplus did undertake other SEO activities during this timeframe, so it's hard to credit all the search engine ranking and indexing improvements to this change alone.

In fact, one of those changes is staring us right in the face ... and I say it was this other change, not the query string removal, that had the greater effect.

Back to the beginning. PlumberSurplus.com had a lot of links that looked pretty much the same, except for that numeric category ID.

There's just not a whole lot about a lone integer (991 or otherwise) that screams context, Mersenne Primes and other special numbers notwithstanding (but I digress). I suspect a search engine is just as likely to ignore "991" as it is other stopwords like "and" or "the" - it's noise, not signal.

So what does that leave in the case of Plumber Surplus? A bunch of links that look very identical indeed:

http://www.plumbersurplus.com/category.aspx

No wonder they weren't getting much search engine love! Now let's look at that new spelling again:

http://www.plumbersurplus.com/Cat/Bathroom-Faucets/991

The 991 is still there (and is still noise, IMO). What else is helping things along then? Of course, the category name "Bathroom-Faucets" - content is king! Also note the use of hyphens (and not underscores) to separate the words. Another good move.

Here we have just witnessed the effects of a perfectly healthy (and all too often skipped/ignored) SEO activity: Information architecture at the link level. It's also a wonderful use of link rewriting en masse, since they didn't have to change much behind the scenes.

Moreover, they used a 301 (permanent) redirect, plus the original links didn't break along the way. A very wise move. Remember, Cool URIs Don't Change!

Another takeaway: Reworking link IA does not mean you must remove the query string. They're two separate activities even though they may be performed in tandem.

If I had my druthers I'd whittle their link down further and choose between the descriptive term or the ID. That is, keeping with their existing terminology, I could pick "cat/bathroom-faucets" or "cat/991" (since "Bathroom Faucets" and "991" are two ways of referring to the same piece of information). Given the choice, of course I'd pick the former, more descriptive spelling!

So why the redundancy? So why the redundancy? Answer: It's the simplest thing that could possibly work. No doubt it made their link remapping a breeze. They balanced bang for the buck and came out ahead.

In fact, the "Bathroom-Faucets" part doesn't even appear to be used. If I substitute any made-up category name, keeping 991 (and that's key - heh heh):

http://www.plumbersurplus.com/Cat/MadeUpCategory/991

Ultimately, you still get redirected to:

http://www.plumbersurplus.com/Cat/Bathroom-Faucets/991

So who's to say these other spellings wouldn't have worked just as well?

site.com/Cat/Bathroom-Faucets?id=991
site.com/category.aspx?name=Bathroom-Faucets&id=991

(I'm not endorsing these options incidentally, I'm just sayin'.)

For another well-worn POV on link spelling, read Cool URIs Don't Change (search for "What To Leave Out").

In closing, it occurs to me that my own links don't have much in the way of textual description. Instead, they have a sense of chronological order. Does that hurt my rankings? Good question. I suppose I should be hopeful that search engines index patterns like /2007/01/17/15.49.44/ as well.

At the very least it provides more context than, say, 991.

Stephen Colbert Explains AT&T For You

2007-01-17T20:49:44Z

A friend of mine (and fellow AT&T alumnus) summed this video up nicely: “I like that the audience thinks the chart is made-up comedy.”

Spot-on, fellow alum. Nothing could be further from the truth! Remember, Stephen Colbert is all about the truth.

(OK, truthiness.)

Anyway, here ‘tis:

Watch Stephen Colbert explain the whole AT&T thing (Google Video).

Gig Alert: Broadside Electric near Philly

2007-01-05T22:18:18Z

Philadelphia-based progressive folk ensemble Broadside Electric is pleased to announce a concert at 7:30pm on Friday, January 26th, 2007 at MilkBoy Coffee in Ardmore, PA.

(If you’re just tuning in, I’m the drummer and contributing vocalist for Broadside Electric. Now you know!)

Tickets to the all-ages, no BYOB event are available to the public for $8 in advance and $10 at the door. Advance reservations can be made online at Tix.com.

Our CD With Teeth was tracked at MilkBoy Recording (yes, a direct relation) so we’re especially looking forward to performing here. We predict the house sound is going to be EXCELLENT.

Come on over and enjoy the tunes, food/drink and comfy atmosphere with your friends! Let’s pack this place as much as the fire code will allow. We’ll bring the music, plus we’re planning to cover a tune by The Decemberists … with a subtle twist.

The concert runs from 7:30-11:30pm. We hope to see you there!

About Broadside Electric

Broadside Electric has made a 17-year career of specializing in British folk songs, but has acquired a decidedly eclectic streak. Among the gory murder ballads, rousing dance tunes, tales of naval battles, and shipwrecks can be found bits of opera, Klezmer, Alpine music … and now songs about famous physics equations! This latest repertoire addition is courtesy of local songwriter Walter Smith, a professor of Physics at nearby Haverford College.

Broadside Electric is well known for its “Folk Music With Teeth.” The quintet lovingly researches material from a wide range of countries and traditions. Then they “drag it all out back and mercilessly smack it around.” The result is an inspired modern sound with distinctly traditional roots - a sound that “gives members of the usual folk audiences something new to talk about.”

The band features Joe D’Andrea (drums, percussion, vocals), Amy Ksir (accordion, flute, tin whistles, oboe, vocals), Tom Rhoads (vocals, guitars, cittern, dulcimer), Jim Speer (bass, recorders, crumhorn) and Helene Zisook (violins, violas, mandolins, vocals). Their fifth release is entitled “Live: Do Not Immerse” and is available on Clever Sheep Records.

About MilkBoy Coffee

Address/Phone: 2 Lancaster Avenue, Ardmore, PA, +1 (610) 645-5269

“We’ve made it our mission to open early and stay late. Come and lounge in the only coffee bar of its kind anywhere in the world. Wonderful coffee, food and desserts, made by caring hands locally.” (MilkBoy uses only organic, free-range, hormone-free products. Yum!)

Auld Lang Syne in PixelVision

2007-01-02T03:19:38Z

Imagine Marlene Dietrich ringing in the new year in 2007 … on musical saw … with accordion backup. It might go something like this:

Watch Nicki Jaine perform “Auld Lang Syne” (YouTube).

“Film noir” look courtesy of Fisher-Price PixelVision, filmed by Kyle Cassidy. Performed in Philadelphia by Nicki Jaine (vocals, musical saw), with accordion backup by my Three Hour Detour bandmate Ray Ashley.

For Sale: PowerBook G4 17"

2006-12-29T20:25:19Z

Yep - I sure got what I wanted for Christmas … a 17” MacBook Pro with 3GB RAM, a Marware Protection Pack, a MIDI Keyboard and all the fixins. Yummers.

That means my PowerBook needs a good home. With that, I’ve put my 17” PowerBook up for adoption on eBay.

UPDATE 5 January 2007: The first auction did not end up with a winner, though it had a good run of bids! Let’s try it again then. The PowerBook has just been relisted.

~~Happy bidding!~~

UPDATE 16 January 2007 At last the PowerBook has sold - yay!

Gig Alert: A Christmas Carol

2006-11-28T23:52:50Z

And now for something completely different. Or at least something I have been away from for a few years … acting!

I’ll be portraying Jacob Marley and several other characters in a local production of “A Christmas Carol” this December - four performances only! If rehearsals are any indication, this is going to be a mighty fine production. (OK, I’m a little biased.) Seriously, I’m very fortunate and pleased to be working with such a multi-talented cast and staff. Good stuff.

If you’re within driving/train/walking distance ‘round mid-December and can make a date, do check it out - and be sure to seek me out afterward to say hello. I hope to see you there!

Written in 1843, but still relevant today, Charles Dickens’ immortal classic “A Christmas Carol” will grace the DeBaun stage again this December. It is the story of an old, bitter miser - Ebenezer Scrooge - and the chance for his redemption through the visitation of three timely ghosts and a partner from the past who has learned his lesson too late. With holiday visions to spark wonder and memories for all, the Royal Shakespeare Company’s “A Christmas Carol” as adapted by John Mortimer, will be a new addition to your family tradition.

Director: Jen Salez, Assistant Director: Missy Cleary, Music Director: Sue Chandler.

Featuring: Christopher Ayres, Paul Berman, Michael Blake, Daniel Cavagnaro, Nicolette Corrado, Erika Creagh, Joe D’Andrea, Elizabeth Devlin, Lauren Fuchs, Selena Gonzalez, Sara Frances Hogrefe, Peyton Kennedy, Annesa H. Lau, Jim Maloney and Tim Watson.

Performances:

15 December 2006 at 8pm
16 December 2006 at 3pm and 8pm
17 December 2006 at 3pm

Adults: $20, Students and Seniors: $15.00, Children: $10.00. “Dinner & A Show” Packages are also available.

In keeping with the lessons learned by Scrooge in the play, The Center will collect monetary donations from audience members who would like to aid The Hoboken Shelter in supporting their mission to prevent homelessness and to assist homeless men and women as they reintegrate into the community.

Complete information and a PDF of Cast Biographies are available at www.debaun.org.

Verizon Wireless Stops Working For You

2006-11-23T00:05:00Z

In a previous report about my telephony adventures I was still debating what to pick for my wireless carrier. Since I’ve already tried (and left) T-Mobile, Cingular and AT&T Wireless, this time around, I ended up going with Verizon Wireless.

Their Family Plan with shared minutes between multiple phones looked to be a perfect fit. It was within our budget and had just the right features. Nancy transferred her Cingular account over and got a brandy-new freebie LG phone in the bargain. I wasn’t quite able to afford a Crackberry just yet (which my cousin raves about) but I did settle on another wireless icon, a Motorola RAZR v3m (software revision NEWC_01.05.0A).

My favorite application, hands down, is VZ Navigator. It’s easy to use and makes excellent use of screen real estate with the phone opened or closed. Of course, with the $9 US monthly fee, before long, it may be worth getting something from Garmin for the car instead … but I digress.

From time to time I found myself snapping a few pix with the v3m’s built-in camera. Only this morning did I offer myself a free moment to connect the dots … and realize I should be transferring all these photos to my Mac! Good thing the v3m features Bluetooth and Object Exchange (OBEX) support for effortless file transfers.

Correction: Had OBEX support. It turns out with the Sprint-issued v3m (and other carriers) there is no such limitation. Verizon, on the other hand, apparently decided to disable/remove OBEX from their V3 series phones!

All I want to do is use something the v3m natively supports: OBEX over Bluetooth or USB. Preferably Bluetooth. Why make it harder on purpose? (The answer may have to do with Verizon wanting to force use of over-the-air transfers, which of course means an additional fee. Grrrr.)

When I confronted Verizon support with proof of the v3m’s native support of OBEX, regardless of the phone network, the response came well-rehearsed: “File transfer doesn’t work from the computer. You have to transfer files between your computer and Verizon’s network to get them on and off the v3m.”

(Pause. Huh??)

They continued: “Oh … and, uh, also, we had a group tech support meeting about this recently, about file transfers on the v3m phones. It’s a function of our network, and our network doesn’t support file transfers over Bluetooth.”

(‘nuther pause. Whaaaaaaat?!?!)

I protested. Bluetooth should just transfer directly to and from the phone. Verizon’s network should have nothing to do with it! Since when was Bluetooth developed with Verizon’s wireless network in mind? No matter, the rep wasn’t buying it. To him, Bluetooth might as well have been the same word as V-Cast.

After more long-winded banter with Verizon Wireless support and failing to get a hold of their Bluetooth experts-in-residence, I was put on hold a few times with no warning (thus it felt more like a customer conditioning “time out”), then conferenced with Motorola’s “Verizon department” … which, in the US, is 1-800-657-8909.

Motorola’s response was a surprise: You can use OBEX. You just can’t use the Bluetooth profiles on your PC or Mac. The solution? Simple. Just purchase a separate piece of hardware from Motorola: The PC850 Bluetooth USB Adapter!

(Longer pause. Whaaaaaaat?!?!)

According to the Motorola/Verizon rep, this PC850 dongle thingy supports Bluetooth Class 1 Version 1.2 and will automagically permit OBEX (and more) on Verizon v3m phones. The rep went on to say he tried the PC850 on Verizon’s network and was duly impressed. “It’s excellent. It allows a lot of protocols and things you wouldn’t be able to do otherwise. Definitely get it, this will solve your problem.”

All the while the Verizon rep was on the phone listening to this li’l bombshell. As I thanked the Motorola rep and opined that Verizon would find this info useful for other frustrated customers, the rep asked “um, what - what’s that model number again?” and then said he’d take the info back to his tech support team for further review. (So long as they don’t go and issue a v3m update that manages to neuter the PC850’s OBEX support.)

Regardless, if what Motorola claims about the PC850 is true, if their dongle can automagically allow OBEX over Bluetooth without any changes to my v3m, then why pray tell can’t a Mac or PC have its profiles changed and obtain the same exact functionality?

Or are both support reps full of hot air?

3 January 2007: Ken Krista kindly passes along these handy Verizon “Bluetooth Functionality” charts (PDF):

I wonder how much of this is askew from each device’s native, out-of-the-box behavior?

The Equifax Opt-Out Clause

2006-10-09T14:13:27Z

“We understand your desire to know how your information will be used and in our Privacy and Opt-Out Notices we describe how we will collect, use and maintain your information. By clicking below you may exercise your right to instruct us not to provide your non-public personal information to non-affiliated third parties, except as permitted or required by law.”

(Emphasis mine.)

Google Goes To Web Standardsville, Part Two

2006-09-22T14:00:00Z

The Google Search Appliance uses an XML-based stylesheet (an XSLT) to spin search data (XML) into web pages (HTML). This stylesheet has been revised and improved by Google countless times over the years and has its roots, of course, in Google.com.

I love that the GSA uses XSLT, but there’s one major gotcha lurking within: Content and presentation are commingled. For example, if you were to disable all style/CSS on a standard-issue Google search, advanced search, or results page, you’d find it looks mostly the same. That’s because aspects of the design are embedded within the page’s DNA. What you see truly is what you get.

Is that such a bad thing? Well … suppose you’re a Google Enterprise client with a business opportunity, but your search experience must support mobile web browsers, or you must provide a text-only UI. Perhaps you need to change things up for search printouts. Then there’s my personal favorite - you absolutely must apply that yearly corporate site design makeover. Every. Single. Year.

What are your options? You might a) do nothing and lose the opportunity, b) rework the Google XSLT, or c) write an entirely new XSLT. That goes for every Google Enterprise client in a similar quandary.

I’ve known many a company - big and small - to practice this “web redesign means rewrite pages from scratch” ritual on a yearly basis like it’s business as usual, even when using a Content Management System (which can end up managing web pages or fragments instead of actual content). So all that revised content and presentation ends up commingled yet again! It’s a vicious cycle that can waste time and money ad nauseam.

To be fair, Google is not alone when it comes to such mashups. In September 2005, Molly Holzschlag published a “comparative analysis of markup practices at several major search engines.”

… it’s curious to think that many search engines and portals, which tend to be highly trafficked, haven’t been exposed to the benefits of Web standards.

With a standards-based approach, you focus on organization first, putting “everything in its right place.” Markup (HTML) imbues content with meaning, while style (CSS) takes care of all presentation. They’re maintained separately, yet they still work famously together. It takes a lot more effort up front, but it also affords a whole lotta design (and bandwidth) leverage, not just the first time, but every time.

It’s with this in mind that I approached the folks at Google Enterprise and threw down the gauntlet: “Look, we know most search engines aren’t web standards friendly. What if I could help set an example using the Google Search Appliance?”

They took me up on the offer.

My first pass was a mobile-compatible stylesheet - the proverbial one trick pony.

That was just a warm-up. This time around, Google Enterprise customers are about to get some major exposure to web standards.

I’m very pleased to introduce the Google Search Appliance XHTML Stylesheet! <Insert Python-esque fanfare here.>

This XSLT defines a user interface for the Google Search Appliance that conforms to modern web standards including XHTML 1.0 Strict, XHTML Mobile Profile (XHTML-MP) and CSS 2.1. It generates well-formed, valid, semantically sane markup and is accessible in a variety of browsers and presentation modes.

Here’s a sampling of various pages and presentation media:

One XSLT. One collection of XHTML. Any number of presentations.

Here are some notable features and benefits:

12% size reduction from original XSLT
28-68% reduction from original markup (using optional style library)
Generated XHTML is well formed, valid, and separate from presentation
Screen, print, and handheld media support for the most common presentation modes
Pages are readable and accessible even with style disabled
Numeric accesskey navigation of search results (optional)
Screen and handheld presentation consistent with existing Google design
Print style only displays content necessary for printing
Embedded search results style is minimized depending on presentation
Handheld-exclusive mode minimizes markup and style even further (optional)
Linked style library for improved bandwidth usage (optional)

It has also been road-tested and tire-kicked in a bunch of user agents including Camino, Firefox, Internet Explorer, JAWS, Lynx, Netscape, Opera, Opera Mini and Safari.

Now I realize not everyone has a Google Search Appliance at their disposal and can’t try the XSLT in real time, so I’ve included some extra features to help out. (Just like on a DVD - only different!) There are screenshots and example pages galore. To aid further study, the example markup has been pre-processed through HTML Tidy, plus there’s a CSS rosetta stone of sorts, defining each class/id and cross-referencing back to the XSLT.

All of this - topped off with an Apache open source license - means anyone so inclined can help make this revised XSLT and the resultant markup/style even better (hint-hint).

Constructive discussion and feedback are, as always, encouraged. Find a bug or have a wishlist request? Just enter a new issue over at Google Code.

Developing this second add-on has been, to put it mildly, intense - and I mean that in a good way. The number of steps and decision points in systematically taking apart a 3,200-plus line XSLT and putting it back together with bells on, hopefully better (and shorter) than one found it, is dizzying in hindsight. I’d also do it again in a heartbeat.

I expect some of the under-the-hood choices may be met with surprise - the “You did what? Are you nuts?!” variety. Believe me, there is method to the madness in every nook and cranny. If there’s sufficient interest, I would be happy to offer an in-depth look at the transformation from start to finish. (It wouldn’t be the first time.)

There’s plenty of opportunity for improvement when it comes to enterprise web site development, especially in Corporate America (where I hailed from until recently). Call it far fetched but I sincerely hope this can evolve to be a catalyst for change in how business sites are conceived and delivered.

For their generosity, advisement, and support, my thanks to the Google Enterprise team (Matt Glotzbach, Jeff Ragusa, Kristin Shevis, and Kevin Smith), Jesse Gardner, Roger Johansson, Vincent Murphy, The Web Standards Group Discussion List, and anyone who ever wrote a book or article about standards-based web development or accessibility. (You know who you are.)

Read the announcement by Google.
Download the Google Search Appliance XHTML Stylesheet (1.8 MB zip).
Browse all Google Enterprise code contributions.
Learn more about Web Standards.

Update - 26 September 2006: I can appreciate both sides of the ongoing XHTML-vs-HTML debate. (Really.) With that, I’m working toward the XSLT generating your choice of XHTML or HTML instead of just XHTML. Follow the link to monitor progress!

Pip Pyle, Steve Irwin, RIP

2006-09-05T11:53:41Z

Auugh! I just learned about Pip. At least I got to see him perform at NEARfest 2006.

While I’m on a YouTube kick (remember, it’s crack), here’s Pip performing with Hatfield and the North:

Watch Hatfield and the North perform “Halfway Between Heaven and Earth” (YouTube).

As for Steve Irwin, I obviously never saw him perform live but it’s not hard to appreciate what he accomplished either. Here’s Steve having a bit of alligator fun at his zoo in Queensland:

Watch Steve Irwin (YouTube).

Plundering the Vaults

2006-09-04T04:45:00Z

This evening, I was talking on the phone with my good friend Ray Ashley. Ray joined the high speed internet club a few days ago, and he recently discovered a form of crack known as YouTube. I was helping him cope with his newfound dependency.

As I reviewed his freshly-minted home page (which evokes the choicest markup of 1994, I kid you not) Ray asked if I had ever seen Sessions at West 54th.

“Many times. Joe Jackson’s concert was a keeper … and then there was Ben Folds Five. Now THAT was -“

“Hey man, I just finished watching the entire Ben Folds Five set on YouTube!”

<Pause. Blink.>

“It’s on YouTube?! Um, I have that on DVD. I could lend it to you if you want.”

“Actually, I should get it. Did you ever see Tori Amos?”

“I never did see her on Sessions, but there’s that one time I caught her in New York before she hit the big-time.”

“Say - you don’t suppose it’s … ?”

I tried to resist, I did, but remember - YouTube is crack. We said goodbye and I began searching for some Live Tori. In seconds I unearthed a blast from my past.

Watch Tori Amos perform “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (YouTube).

There I am at 3:04, in glasses and a sweater, applauding with what I recall as “delight and enthusiasm.”

It was a rather cold 11 February 1992 as I recall. The glasses were pre-LASIK. The sweater … hmm, I have no excuse for the sweater.

This was videotaped at The Bottom Line (RIP?) in New York City and aired several months later on “ABC In Concert.” Her Y Kant Tori Read past was fleeting (a shout out to Matt Sorum!) and her first TA solo effort “Little Earthquakes” was just beginning to raise eyebrows. That’s when I decided to go check this piano bench-straddling musician out.

Tori opened the concert with a then-new piece: “here. in my head.” … in which I also appear around 2:55 (far right - I know, why ruin the suspense - ooh, ahh).

Watch Tori Amos perform “here. in my head.” (YouTube).

Keep in mind, this was before the “tons of screaming Tori fans” era. It was a listening audience! I remember Ahmet Eretgun (Atlantic Records) was present, as were some of the crew for The Sugarcubes - before Bjork went solo.

Surely the last thing anyone expected was a cover of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” but, once Tori pulled that rabbit out of a hat toward the end, after the initial surprise and applause, you could - to use a tired cliche - hear a pin drop (hence the enthusiastic clapping at the end). Tori also managed to cover “Thank You” by Led Zeppelin but I can’t seem to find it online.

Anyway, if she meant to turn heads, mission accomplished.

While on line I met one Mike Yionoulis. Being fellow musicians we set about talking shop straight away, and before long we traded addresses. He sent me a demo tape, and I was rather intrigued by one song in particular. Alas, I never got around to following up with him, and I wish I had.

Perhaps I still can. Mike - If you (or someone you know) should manage to find this post, I still have that demo tape … and I hope you got “Flights Of Angels” produced, because I couldn’t stop playing “Hecuba Report.” Great stuff!

Of course, it’s 2006 and not 1992. (<tap-tap-tap> Ah-ha! It looks like he did.)

$25 for One Year of BrowserCam

2006-08-11T19:45:00Z

A while back, BrowserCam (which offers cross-browser screen captures and remote access) announced a stupid-huge discount, in conjunction with fundable.org (which provides an escrow service for pooling financial resources).

In a nutshell: For the cost of one day of BrowserCam’s service, you can get access for an entire year. In dollars and cents, $25 gets you what is normally a $500 one-year plan.

Read it again: $25 for a $500 BrowserCam Complete account. No fooling.

First things first. What is BrowserCam Complete? The BC-Complete plan offers unlimited access to their Capture service, unlimited access to 30-minute Remote Access sessions on Windows, Mac and Linux machines, plus unlimited access to their new DeviceCam service (screen captures of PDAs). Check out their feature list for more details.

Next, the more interesting question for those not in the know. What is Fundable? From the FAQ:

Fundable.org lets groups of people pool funds to make purchases or raise money. Similar to online auctions, Fundable’s pages, called “group actions,” are created by people who use this site. Each group action has a description of how much money needs to be collected and what it will do. Once enough pledges (not payments) have been collected, Fundable turns them into real payments and sends the total to the group action’s organizer.

No one takes a risk when making a pledge: if a group action expires before reaching its total in pledges, Fundable deletes all pledges and never charges money. This lets you participate in a group purchase or fundraiser without worrying about what other people will do. No one pays until and unless everyone else makes a pledge.

In the BrowserCam campaign case, the group organizer never gets the money. It goes straight to BrowserCam, the organizer receives the accounts and doles them out to the contributors. (Note that you can change your BrowserCam account name once you receive it, so you’re not stuck with the name you get.)

Is this legit? You bet it is. I know because I’ve already gone through fundable.org and received my very own BrowserCam Complete account. In a word: I love it! (OK, three words.) I use BC just about every day.

Since individuals outside of BC and Fundable need to start these campaigns - and none were available after mine ended - I thought it would be nice to return the favor and help shepherd another group on through. So here goes …

You can take advantage of the exact same offer I got by pledging $25 US (via PayPal or credit card) to my BrowserCam campaign. The catch? There is none, other than this offer ends at 11:59pm ET August 22nd. “So hurry!” Happy pledging.

Google Goes To Web Standardsville, Part One

2006-07-24T16:15:00Z

While at AT&T in 2003, I had the opportunity to help bring the Google Search Appliance to the corporate web. Talk about your breaths of fresh air. This was a marked and welcome contrast to all the former search engines I had helped deploy, care and feed. The GSA is the Honda and MacOS of enterprise search. It not only sells itself, it just works.

Through the years, Google has made numerous improvements, and they’ve never failed to impress. However, there’s one thing I always wished for but never quite got: full-tilt standards compliant, semantically-rich markup.

To be fair, I’m sure their wish list is a mile long! Besides, there’s no shortage of goodies to be found in all of their GSA offerings. It’s not like they’re sitting still, but this standards thing - well, that’s one itch I just had to scratch. Partly to see if I could do it, and partly because I believed it would be useful and worthwhile.

In June, fresh out of T, I appealed directly to the folks at Google Enterprise. Perhaps I could help make this particular wish come true? Pretty please?

Answer: Yes!

Now, I’m pleased to announce the first of two new add-ons for Google Enterprise customers: the Google Search Appliance Mobile Stylesheet. It consists of:

An XHTML Mobile Profile (XHTML-MP) compliant and handheld-friendly user interface (XSLT).
A handheld-friendly OneBox template (XML/XSLT).

The user interface preserves Google Search Appliance features relevant to enterprise search while also honoring many of the paradigms set forth by Google Mobile Search.

“But wait - there’s more!” You also get well-formed, valid, semantically sane markup in less than half the size of the default XSLT (of course - we’re talking mobile here!). The XSLTs have been road-tested on the inimitable Opera Mini browser and the resultant XHTML makes the W3C Validator plenty happy.

Of course, there’s always room for improvement. For instance, not all handheld browsers understand XHTML-MP (WAP 2.0) just yet. Many only work with WML (WAP 1.0), and we had to pick just one for starters - so we went with 2.0. I’m hopeful we can integrate some automagic detection of handheld devices in the future, perhaps using something like WURFL, and generate device-appropriate markup. We also can’t ensure validity of cached content/markup … yet. All in good time.

So - Google Enterprise customers, enjoy! I look forward to hearing feedback, ideas and suggestions. Please note that Google Enterprise is the official steward of this. It’s my open-source contribution to their code base. Still, I’m eager to hear what folks do with it, what snags they hit, and what they’d like to see in the future.

Last but not least, stupendously huge thanks to Jeff, Kevin, Kristin, Matt and everyone else at Google who helped shepherd this along. I had a blast working on it.

Read the announcement by Google.
Download the Google Search Appliance Mobile Stylesheet.
Browse all Google Enterprise code contributions.

(Wait - what’s that? The second add-on? ~~Oh! Yes, of course. That’s on deck and still under wraps. Stay tuned.~~ Update: Read part two.)