作譜

Yearly Archives: 2006

The case of the missing cache

Technophilia

There’s a strange thing happening with Google and my computer — the Cached and Similar pages links that accompany every search result is missing when I perform searches at home. But when I’m in the office, Google returns results with those links in tact.

I tried just a whole slew of different search terms to find whether someone else has run across this same problem. I finally used "google cache similar pages missing result" and came across this this thread on an Apple discussion board.

I haven’t tried deleting my cookies yet, but I will when I get home.

[UPDATE 4/20/06] Yes, as a matter of fact, you do have to delete your cookies to get the cached and similar links back. So that begs the question — where the hell was this cookie set in the first place?

Adding channel info to Magpie aggregation

Technophilia Professional

This mirror of an article describes how to aggregate and collate RSS and Atom feeds with MagpieRSS. It’s really effective, but in following the steps exactly laid out, you lose channel information. When you want to distinguish between different feeds, you may want to include the basics, such as title (the name of the site) and link (the base url of the site.)

So I devised a bit of a hack to append that information to the items array.

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はい!

Teh Gay

I was writing about post-break-up Supercar projects when I saw an interesting headline on Bounce.com. It read:

LGBTな雑誌、yes2号

Translated:

LGBT magazine, yes, vol. 2

In other words, the second issue of a new lesbian/gay/bi/transgendered magazine, yes, is now out. In this issue? An interview with Heath Ledger about Brokeback Mountain.

Hell, I didn’t even know there was a vol. 1. Japan isn’t that much better than the US when it comes to tolerance, but if the launch of a gay lifestyle magazine by a major retailer in Japan is any indication, the pink yen is about as attractive as the pink dollar in the US and the pink pound in the UK.

I think the thing that will ultimately tip the scales in favor of gay rights is business interest — the buying power of a gay urbanite will prove too lucrative to heed the threats of religious boycotts.

To put in less flattering and more demonizing terms, the clean-cut faggot is a far more attractive customer than the screech-happy white trash.

Help the help

Technophilia

I don’t know how this happened.

One day, my help files refused to launch. Anytime I clicked on a CHM, nothing happened. I don’t know at what point it stopped working, and I don’t know what I installed to make it stop working.

Thing is, the components to launch a CHM file are part and parcel of the Windows operating system — there isn’t really an easy way to reinstall that particular portion of the OS without reinstalling the entire OS.

And my Googlefu was failing me — I don’t remember the search term I used to find a forum post that actually had a workable suggestion.

Continue reading »

Amadeus who?

Capital of Texas

2006 may mark Mozart’s 250th birthday, but it also marks the 100th birthday of Dmitri Shostakovich. A number of arts organization in Austin have banded together to commemorate the latter with Shostakovich 100.

Throughout 2006, chamber ensembles, soloists and the orchestra will schedule Shostakovich works into their programs. Tonight (Jan. 21), Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg joins the Austin Symphony Orchestra for a performance of the composer’s Scherzo No. 1, his first opus.

Austin Chronicle and the Statesman have both written about Shostakovich 100.

Let me just say, though, the Chronicle does a better job than the Shostakovich 100 web site in listing events. The calendar interface on the Shostakovich 100 site forces you to click on every single date to see each event, and you can’t see a complete list of events on one page. It’s time-consuming and unintuitive, two things it shouldn’t be for the most important aspect of the site itself.

No one has scheduled a performance of Shostakovich’s Quartet for Strings No. 8, or its string orchestra version, Chamber Symphony, Opus 110a. That’s my favorite Shostakovich piece (predictably). I’d be there in a heart beat if someone did.

But there’s enough Shostakovich happening around town this year that I may actually take in a concert or two.