Category: software

IE7 Beta Due This Summer

Ashley Bischoff1 Comment

In an apparent policy reversal, Microsoft has said that it will release a beta of IE 7 this summer (Microsoft previously said that IE updates would only be available with Windows upgrades). Details seem to be scarce at the moment, but a Q&A with Mike Nash, their Corporate VP of Security, revealed this much:

“We’re very excited to announce at the RSA Conference today that this summer we’ll release a beta of Internet Explorer 7.0 for Windows XP with Service Pack 2, which will have even more enhancements to security and privacy protections. These enhancements align very closely with the three core tenets of Microsoft’s security approach that I mentioned earlier. Internet Explorer 7.0 will be the most secure browser we’ve ever released, building on and surpassing the success of the SP2-enhanced Internet Explorer 6.0. We don�t plan to ship it until it meets our quality bar, which we�ve set pretty high. […]”

So, while it looks like they’re primarily focusing on securing their browser (which isn't a bad thing), I’m hoping that they’ll improve IE’s standards compliance as well — oh, what I wouldn’t give to be able to use adjacent sibling or attribute selectors.

WordPress 1.5 Coming on Tuesday?

Ashley Bischoff2 Comments

Matthew Mullenweg, one of the lead WordPress developers, announced a WordPress 1.5 upgrade party in San Francisco on Tuesday (with the note that he “had originally planned for it to be Monday”).

Tuesday, Feburary 15th, from 6-11PM, I will be hosting an upgrade party for people interesting in moving their blogs to 1.5. There will be food, drink, and wi-fi, so bring a laptop or your account details and get your blog on the most advanced blogging software in the world. You can upgrade from any previous version of WordPress or any other platform we have an import script for. […]

Of course, this prompted many to ask in the comments whether that meant WordPress 1.5 was being released on Tuesday (or Monday). And Matt just played it coy, saying that “1.5 will be released when it’s ready, no sooner and no later. :)” Well, it’s commonly known that WordPress 1.5 is just about done, so maybe it’s coming out after all.

And I, for one, welcome our new open source blogging software overlords.

Removing IM Ads with AIM Ad Hack

Ashley Bischoff4 Comments

I may be revealing my un-l33tness here, but I still stick with the stock AIM client. I have nothing against Trillian and the like but I’ve heard some anecdotes in the past about incompatibility with chat sessions and file transfers. (And, if all those issues are resolved the current version then, by all means, please let me know.)

But, to make things easier as/while I stick with AIM, I’ve found AIM Ad Hack which cleanly kills off all the ad windows in AIM. And unlike an amateur hack-and-slash job, this utility kills off the spyware / questionable software included with AIM and can also remove many of the extraneous interface buttons from the interface.

AIM Ad Hack has just hit v4.0 which would normally be quite a milestone for software (being a point-oh and all). And, I still recommend the download for anyone using the stock AIM client, but I’m not sure what major features warranted a “4.0” version :-/.

Update 2005-01-07: AIM Ad Hack has now been updated to v4.02.

Fixing That “Could not open lock file” Gallery Error

Ashley Bischoff4 Comments

(Preface: Gallery is an open source tool for hosting photos on your website.)

So, suppose you upgrade your copy of Gallery to the latest version (1.4.4-pl4 as of this writing), you follow the upgrade instructions, re-run the configuration wizard and then you get a goofy error such as this:

Warning: fopen(/home/abischof/httpdocs/albums/2003/photos.dat.lock): failed to open stream: Permission denied in /home/abischof/httpdocs/gallery/platform/fs_unix.php on line 55

Error: Could not open lock file (/home/abischof/httpdocs/albums/2003/photos.dat.lock)!

Yeah, that happened to me. Fortunately, there’s a known workaround. As it turns out, it’s not Gallery’s fault if this occurs — it generally only happens if your web host mucks up your permissions while upgrading your PHP setup. The solution? Just set the permissions on every file in your “albums” directory to 777.

As noted in the workaround, this is fairly straightforward if you have shell access to your web host (just run “chmod -R 777 albums” from the parent directory). But, if you only have ftp access, then you’ll need to set each set “albums” to 777 manually; and, if your ftp client can’t recurse through directories, then you’ll need to manually hop through each directory within “albums” and manually set every file to 777. That should do it :).

Macromedia Fireworks for Digital Photography?

Ashley Bischoff4 Comments

Leia recently pointed out a deal at the Macromedia store — until November 15th, they’re offering Fireworks MX 2004 for $199 (whereas it’d normally be $299). This seemed like a good deal and it was rather tempting.

I currently use Jasc’s Paint Shop Pro for my digital photography editing. And, it’s basically fine — I can do color correction, contract correction and the usual adjustments. However, it doesn’t have as much documentation and books as its competitors. And, that's one reason why I’m considering investing in another app such as Photoshop or Fireworks.

I’ve previously talked with several of the other members of the Dallas Camera Club and Photoshop generally seems to be their editor of choice. And, with that kind of endorsement, Photoshop might otherwise be a shoo-in; unfortunately, it also costs at least twice as much as any of its competitors (Fireworks and Paint Shop Pro).

Given that a lack of specialized books is one of my primary reasons for considering a switch from Paint Shop Pro, I decided to check on how many books on digital photography were available for Fireworks. I loaded Best Web Buys — an online price comparison site with an excellent section on book prices — and I searched for the keywords “Fireworks digital” and “Photoshop digital”. The results: 50 books for the former and 2 books for the latter (one of which was only a curriculum guide).

Leia has told me about how much she enjoys using Fireworks for general image slicing and optimization; and, she assures me that it can be used for photo correction as well. But, with this November 15th deadline looming, I’m still unsure about going ahead with the purchase. I'm open to any photography nuts’ opinions on this, either way.