August 2007

Exchange rate

August 27, 2007

We're nearing setting out on a trip through the Pacific Northwest. There was a time when popping into Canada meant significant savings because the US Dollar was much stronger than the Canadian Dollar. Those days are well behind us.

AT&T Wireless vs Sprint coverage

August 22, 2007

As if any further proof was needed that cell phone preferences have a lot to do with where you live and what the network coverage is MacSlash has this comment:

I sure hope this update somehow results in better reception. I've dropped more calls since June 29th than I did in my 12 years with with SprintPCS. --MacSlash

Our experience has been just the opposite. In a typical day I'd drop a dozen cell phone calls - and that was when I didn't use it much. With the switch to AT&T I haven't dropped a dozen calls since June 29. All of this reminds me I need to go see if I accidently left the Sprint phone on a call while roaming.... oops.

The Westlaw tax

August 21, 2007

One of the benefits of working at a law school is getting access to WestLaw and Lexis databases. These Goliaths of the database world aim to own and index everything legal. They do this in a number of ways but one in particular has always galled me. Through various models they support publishing reporters and other forums for publishing decisions in state and federal cases. In turn they get to keep the information behind firewalls that keep non-paying customers out and make many important legal documents unavailable to lay persons and those with a casual interest in studying the law who are not members of the esteemed profession.

Nevada for example publishes advance decisions on it's website but only for 90-days and they are not documents of record. The site notes "this information is prepared as an informational service only and should not be relied upon as an official record of action. For official records, please refer to the printed version of the appropriate official publication which may be obtained from the Clerk of the Supreme Court of Nevada." Amazingly the site doesn't even link to the page for ordering Nevada Reports which is the official record cryptically mentioned on the advance decisions page.

Summer of code and other Drupal greatness

August 21, 2007

Google's Summer of Code 2007 came to an end earlier today. The Drupal project is left with some great new innovations. And on top of interesting things like the DAST project for automating deployment and staging there is a new Autopilot module that looks promising. (Haven't tested it yet but will soon!) Many great new things to test and of course sites to build. It is also worth noting that everyone interested in Drupal should stop over and take the survey to help give some feedback about where Drupal should go in version 7 and beyond. Which reminds me it's time to get cracking on testing with Drupal 6. New file management here I come!

Of Google and Microsoft

August 18, 2007

I just finished The Google Story and it is great. The look into the way a company can run is invigorating and the focus on the Google Economy is also interesting. Following that read which ends with a look at how Microsoft is responding to the Google threat it is ironic to go back and read the Microsoft attack on Google from a few months ago. The difference in the companies becomes clear in the contrast of Google's attempt to democratize information and Microsoft's attempts to keep it contained. Or it could be more a ploy to help keep attention focused away from a failed operating system release.

Where the Drupal spam module doesn't work

August 14, 2007

Last week I wrote about Drupal spam options. In that piece I commented that I hadn't used the Akismet service. Sometime after that post I was reminded of a site where I have a great many problems with spam. Wanting to run a forum it is constantly overrun with spam. For some reason the Spam module in contrib doesn't seem to consistently delete or unpublish nodes that are spam. On this site there isn't a problem because it handles comments well (though Sunday a few comments did get through). Back to the other site where I installed Akismet over the weekend and low and behold the spam problem instantly dried up. It is clear from this little experiment that both are valuable tools in the anti-spam arsenal and have a place being used together. Thanks for everyone's comments!

User profiles as nodes or not in Drupal

August 9, 2007

As I go through the lullabot podcasts one of them hit on a challenge I'm working on. I have a series of related sites and the need to have complex user profiles and different user profiles for different roles. There are several ways to do this with modules that make user profiles into full blown nodes. Then a little CCK/Views magic and life is very good. The problem is that then user profiles are nodes.

Getting iPhone web galleries without iLife '08

August 8, 2007

This is untested but just might work. Once you have the web gallery button on your iPhone you need a gallery setup on .Mac. For those of us in the middle of projects and unable to upgrade what if you visit your local Apple Store and put your .Mac ID on a machine just long enough to create the web gallery. Presumably one need not go back in through iPhoto regularly. There is the risk that upon upgrading to iLife '08 it won't work with the 'foreign' gallery but might be worth playing with.

Best ways to handle spam in Drupal?

August 7, 2007

Recently my iPod and now my iPhone has been filling with the excellent Lullabot Podcast. The podcast covers everything Drupal and I've been working back through some of the previous episodes. Episode 40 covers the top 40 Drupal projects. The list is great. I've used many of the modules and I'm now experimenting with many others.

The question I came across has to do with spam handling. I'm using the Spam module and pretty happy with it. Every once in a while something slips through and very rarely there has been the odd false positive but it has worked well overall. The podcast recommends the Akismet module. Does it work better? What sorts of experiences have people had who have tried both?

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