Drewski   Coming soon in three dimensions

Daring Fireball Linked List: Google’s Open Source Patches to Wine

This idea deserves a full essay, but for now, consider: In the same way that Apple took Mac OS X and Cocoa and shrunk them to serve as a handheld device OS, I think Google could take Android and grow it to serve as a PC OS. Wine would be to Android what Classic was to Mac OS X.

The big win is saying “screw you” to KDE and Gnome and all those crap Linux interfaces and APIs. Start over with something new, cohesive, better, and, most of all, which is not, conceptually, a watered down clone of Windows.

I’m really not sure where Gruber is going with this. Google seems to like Wine for various reasons (mainly Picasa), but I don’t really understand how it could vault Android into desktop fame. It seems Wine is a “watered down clone” of Windows (its internals, anyway) and I don’t really see much future in it.

Obviously Gruber and I disagree on the various successes of the “open-source desktop” mission, but I don’t think Wine is the way to success.

John, I await your full essay; perhaps I misunderstand?

Palin hits Obama for ‘terrorist’ connection - CNN.com

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin on Saturday slammed Sen. Barack Obama’s political relationship with a former anti-war radical, accusing him of associating “with terrorists who targeted their own country.”

Palin’s attack delivered on the McCain campaign’s announcement that it would step up attacks on the Democratic presidential candidate with just a month left before the November general election.

“We see America as the greatest force for good in this world,” Palin said at a fund-raising event in Colorado, adding, “Our opponent though, is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.”

Is this really happening now? Wasn’t this more or less settled as “not a terribly big deal” a while ago?

As Tim said, “What do you do when you can’t win on your own merits? Answer (apparently): Slander your opponent.”

Participating on a blog is infinitely more worthwhile if you’re able to find out about new comments to any interesting posts.

To that end, here is my favorite tip for keeping up on comments: Co.mments.com, a great site to subscribe to comments on any blog. You simply track a page and it will update you via email or RSS (your choice). It works on a majority of sites/blogs/forums, and there’s a handy bookmarklet you can use in your browser that works on any page. Check it out and see what you think.

I prefer using this to other methods because it doesn’t require anything on the part of the blog author (and many don’t opt in to this kind of functionality). Also, I prefer seeing comments in RSS to email, and co.mments gives me one RSS feed, so I don’t have to keep subscribing to a new feed for every post—I simply track new conversations and the feed is updated automatically.

Also, putting my proverbial money where my proverbial mouth is, here are a few things I’ve done on my blog to offer you some choices:

• You’ll see the ability to subscribe to comments via RSS below. (OK, I didn’t actually do this; it’s a WordPress feature.)
• Since I like co.mments.com so much, I’ve also added the ability to track a post’s comments via co.mments.com. (See underneath the comment form.) The link is kludgy, but using Javascript in WordPress is an obstacle I haven’t tackled (yet).
• Lastly, you can also track comments via email, as per the Subscribe to Comments plugin. (Also underneath the comment form.)
• If you’re someone who wants all comments on all posts, you can subscribe to my blog’s comments feed. WordPress doesn’t offer that to the browser as an available feed, and I’m disinclined to add it given the other choices above. (However, if you want this, make the case; I’ll be pretty easily convinced.)

Sorry I hadn’t done these sooner. “Comment management” is definitely a feature I have wanted to offer on my blog, I just hadn’t put in the time yet to implement them. (Thanks for the kick in the pants, Steve!)

NPR: Palin, Biden As Visual Poets

The audio of the debate isn’t music. But, here is a bit of visual poetry based on the candidates’ utterances during the debate via Wordle.

Well, NPR beat me to the idea, but I’m glad someone did it.

For the record, here are McCain’s and Obama’s from last week’s debate.

I was very pleased to find out today that the WordPress OpenID plugin was updated. Among some general fixes, the newest version supports acting as an OpenID provider. In other words, I can use my “andrewski.net” domain to sign in to any OpenID-enabled websites, of which there are plenty. I can then manage my authentications within my WordPress settings. All very good stuff.

(One heads-up: the OpenID plugin encourages you to install the XRDS-Simple plugin. The description is there, but I missed it.)

My general goal is to make my domain as useful as possible, and this is definitely a big step.

Well Steve, you were right. And I think I’ll join you—at least in jumping Wachovia’s sinking ship.

I’ve been disappointed with them for a while. Their fees are incredibly steep: $2 to use a non-Wachovia ATM, $32 if I overdraw my account (which hasn’t happened for quite a while, thankyouverymuch), $10 to transfer money between accounts in any kind of automated way, and delays and failures with their Bill Pay service (like coming-out-of-the-wrong-account failures).

They do have very good customer service though—most of the time.

(Seriously though, I wonder where all the money goes. With the high fees and the terribly low salary there—I made $17,000/year as a teller there in 2005—what are they doing with my money?)

And now they’re being bought by Citigroup. Whom I hate with an incredible passion. (I have a small student loan with them.) They have a terrible website, terrible customer service, are terribly slow about sending mail, simply don’t reply to email, don’t send me statements anymore (even though I’ve called them to correct that), and are just plain terrible.

I’m interested in the idea of a credit union, since it does things differently, but Wachovia has one thing going for them: they’re the biggest bank in Philadelphia and they’re probably more ubiquitous still in Atlanta (where I’m probably moving next year). Is the convenience worth it? I’m dubious.

So, other banks: Bank of America is certainly a choice, but that feels like exchanging apples for apples. ING seems like a solid bank, but I don’t know how their checking accounts or fees are. My ideal case, off the top of my head: a credit union with low fees that makes up for the fact that it doesn’t have branches everywhere by letting me use ATMs for free and offering a robust website for my daily needs.

I’m going to do some research in the next few weeks, but in the meantime, what bank would you recommend?

They say hindsight is 20/20, and often it’s vindicating.

I haven’t looked back since I switched from Tumblr to WordPress. Hosting my own blog is much more satisfying and I have much more control and flexibility over my content and its appearance. It’s reassuring to see that others have found the same.

So I realized last week that Tumblr doesn’t honor pingbacks/trackbacks; two friends linked to my blog and I got nothing. WordPress does them automatically, and I’d think Tumblr should (to fit the no-nonsense blogging platform that it is.) I guess it fits the somewhat solipsistic nature of Tumblogs, but it certainly doesn’t help build an online reputation.

One wonders whether the Democrats, and Senator Obama, ever had any intention of delivering this bailout, or whether they always thought there was more to gain, politically, from letting the package die on the House floor.

JohnMcCain.com - Where Was the Leadership?

What bothers me about this article is that it doesn’t paint a complete picture.

According to the New York Times, the final vote was 205-228. For Democrats, that was 140-95, or 60% for. For Republicans, that was 65-133, or 33% for. How is this possibly Obama’s fault?

At the end of the day, I don’t think this is really a matter of blaming either McCain or Obama (I don’t even think you could blame Pelosi or her speech), but this kind of politicizing for the sake of your campaign, John, is simply ludicrous.

Comcast Help & Support - Frequently Asked Questions about Excessive Use

Comcast has established a 250GB monthly data usage threshold for all residential Comcast High-Speed Internet accounts. This threshold will be in place to provide a clear definition of excessive use of the service.

The new monthly data usage threshold will go into effect starting October 1, 2008.

Starting tomorrow, Comcast will be enforcing a 250GB/month bandwidth cap on their residential internet customers.

There has been some clamor in the past about Comcast throttling their customers’ speeds, but of course there’s no mention here of that. Last I heard, they were going to continue that course of action as long as possible.

I do think 250GB/month seems pretty reasonable, and while I may suggest that those who oppose it on principle shop around for other internet providers, I don’t think I care that much at the end of the day.

The only thing that does concern me is how they plan on enforcing those that reach the limit:

[The excessive customer] may receive a call from Comcast’s Customer Security Assurance (”CSA”) group to notify them of excessive use.

If a customer who has been contacted by Comcast’s CSA team is contacted again for excessive use within six months of the first contact that customer’s service will be subject to termination for one year. [...] If a customer’s account is terminated, after the one year period expires the customer may resume service by subscribing to a service plan appropriate to his or her needs.

Two strikes, you’re out? I can’t see myself even getting into this situation in the first place, but I can imagine scenarios in which this could happen inadvertantly. I don’t know, I guess I see nothing with a three-strike policy; allowing one more chance seems natural to me.

Android Makes its Debut in T-Mobile G1

The device won’t have an impressive design and it won’t be as easy to use as an iPhone, but it will certainly be able to run a lot of interesting applications.

Android’s first iteration, released last week, is certainly less of a watershed than Apple’s iPhone debut, but then again Google has been very open about their project. While Apple has built a reputation on carefully constructed excitement about the unveiling of their new projects, Google was very upfront about Android and the Open Handset Alliance—to the point of attracting doubts of the project’s fruition.

You can read the reviews of T-Mobile’s/HTC’s G1 elsewhere; after a week there are plenty of good ones (and I haven’t held one myself). But here are a few of my initial impressions of Google’s Android project itself.

I saw the Android coming five years ago... and approved.

I mentioned that Android’s default synchronization with Google applications is pretty slick, and definitely a way to get out of the gate quickly. However, I’m not sure if that’s only for the G1 or if Android will include that in every iteration. (I only really wonder because it’s not available in the emulator yet.)

It will be interesting to see how the Applications fare; Apple has proved that there is a business here, and they have a jump start on their App Store. While Apple has attracted a lot of developers, they have their own problems keeping their trust at the moment, and certainly for myself I’m more motivated to write for a multi-process, open-source operating system where my application will definitely be available for users. I’m encouraged that there have already been some interesting applications rolling out.

Speaking of development, it is very promising to see that the Android team has released an emulator for all major operating systems. Apple’s developer program seems robust, but I don’t plan on switching to OS X anytime soon. (Then again, I’d rather avoid Java, but that’s not a dealbreaker for me.)

The Android is certainly the biggest competitor to the iPhone thus far, but it’s certainly not just trying to imitate the superficial qualities (like, say, the LG Dare); it seems to have slightly different motivations that have shaped the project thus far. Either way, competition is a good thing.

It seems likely that AT&T will be producing Android phones but even if so, the question is when. I’m imminently looking for a new phone, so the sooner the better; I have no plans to switch to T-Mobile and I would really appreciate the ability to give each one of these platforms an even chance.