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Photo Gallery #2

A while ago I wrote about my old Image gallery, and gave a link to the gallery since I didn’t create the navigation tabs yet. The gallery was created using a script called ‘Image Arcadia’ which is not supported on a public site anymore. Although it worked alright, it still needed a lot of customization to fit into the rest of the site.

Recently I run across PhotoBlog from Quixotic Pixels. This is a set of Movable Type templates, allowing me to manage my images the same way I manage my texts, without having to install extra scripts.

I uploaded some photo’s from my old Photo Gallery and used the default blue style, and it looks alright. The next time I will add all other photo’s and I will adjust the look of the pages little by little untill it fits with the rest of the site. There is still a lot to be done…

HTTP Error 410: Gone

It has been a while since I changed the backend of my site fron NewsPro to Movable Type. A side effect of this change was that all pages changed URL, which I considered a minor problem since most people enter the site through the home page (which did not change). Normally I try to keep URL’s the same, but the old system used horrible filenames like 1025286960,58049,.html and stored all files in a single directory.

Like I said, most visitors enter the site through the fronpage, but there are some people looking for specific information with search engines. Until today these visitors were presented a ‘404 Page not found’ error page of my provider directly followed by the homepage of my provider. In other words, these visitors end up at a completely useless page, and won’t ever visit my site anymore!!!!

Something had to change. First, I wanted to change the error message from 404 (Not Found) to 410 (Gone), since the latter message is more precise. All visitors looking for never-existing files will still get the old 404 message. I read about this code a while ago on dive into mark, and I kept it in mind for using it on m own site.

Secondly, I want to show them another page, which at least links to my site. For the moment I chose to present them the search page, so at least they can search my site for the information they are looking for. I am planning to create a separate error page explaing what has happened in more detail, but until now I will just show the search page.

So how did I set this all up?
The Apache server has the ability to specify configuration options in a file called .htaccess. The settings in this file are valid for the current and all underlying directories, and thus can be overruled by another file. I created this file in the root directory of my site and added the following information:

ErrorDocument 410 /cgi-bin/mt/mt-search.cgi
RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/cgi-bin/newspro
RewriteRule cgi-bin/newspro/(.*) - [G,L]

In ‘normal’ language, these lines say the following:
The first line says that the page at /cgi-bin/mt/mt-search.cgi (which is my search page) has to be shown in case a request has status 410: Gone.
The second and third lines activate and configure a module for the Apache webserver calles mod_rewrite, which allows me to process the next two lines.
The fourth line defines the condition to me used for the rewrite. It says: if the requested URL starts with ‘/cgi-bin/newspro’.
The last line specifies what has to happen if the condition above is met: rewrite ‘cgi-bin/newspro/.’ with nothing (-). Besides the rewrite (which does nothing) two options have been specified: G and L. The first changes the status to Gone (410), and the L tells that this is the last rule to process.

In short: if the URL contains /cgi-bin/newspro, the status will be changed to Gone, and when error 410 (Gone) occurs, the search page will be shown.

Internet Explorer

Lately a lot of talk has been going on around Microsoft’s web browser Internet Explorer (IE). This is my contribution.

First I want to go back in history. The first graphical browser NCSA Mosaic 1.0 was available in 1993 (I was one of its happy users). After a little bit of hesistation Microsoft jumped on the internet train with their Internet Explorer. Between that moment and the year 2000 Microsoft came with 6 versions of their IE browser. At that moment they had a huge monopoly in the browsermarket because of their monopoly in the OS market, and they sat back and relaxed. Now three years later (30% of the time since the creation of the World Wide Web!!!), we are still stuck with the same version, and it looks like we will have to deal with it for two more years, since Microsoft announced that they will only deliver their browsers together with Windows, and the next version of Windows (Longhorn) is scheduled for 2005.

I think thay are making a mistake. It is true that they have the monopoly, but more and more people are switching to other browsers. Furthermore, technology is advancing. More and more sites appear that make use of features that IE doesn’t support, giving users a less than perfect browsing experience. At this moment the majority of the sites still uses code specially tweaked for IE, but little by little site designers start using standards complient code. And everybody knows that conforming to standards is not Microsofts strongest point. Their philosophy is ‘what the monopolist uses is the standard’. That is why IE6 does not fully support CSS2, a standard created two(!) years before they created IE6.

But this is not why they are loosing users. After all, users don’t care about these things, the web designers have to make sure their pages are coded well. But IE6 is also behind on the user interface side. Mozilla has nice features as a pop-up killer, an image manager to block unwanted images and a site navigation toolbar which lets me navigate through this site using the arrow keys on my browser.

Everybody is free to choose their browser, but I prefer a more modern browser than IE, which misses one third of the development of the Internet. At home I have installed Mozilla Firebird which has an install file of only 6 MB. Although is is still beta software, it runs perfectly on my old computer and gives me a lot more browsing pleasure than the browser installed by default.

Fancy e-mail

With fancy e-mail I mean HTML mail. Most mail applications are able to send (and receive) messages in two formats: text only or HTML, and most applications use HTML by default, which is a BAD THING. People like to use HTML e-mail, because it looks nicer with all those colors, fonts, pictures,… and therefore most software companies like it. But for writing a simple ‘Hello, how is life in Lleida?’ message you don’t need bold words nor blue titles. Plain text is probably better readable than that piece of art some people create.

There are of course always cases in which HTML mail is better, but usually that has to do with Viagra marketing, and those messages are deleted immediately. You might think that even if you don’t use fancy effects, HTML mail could not harm anybody, could it? Wrong! There are a number of reasons why I (and many other people) consider HTML mail harmful:

• HTML mail wastes bandwith
  HTML code adds usually 200% to the size of the message. I know, for your short message this is only a very little bit, but if I have been away for the weekend and find tens of HTML messages I urgently want to read, I get nervous when I am waiting 5 minutes (yes, I am using a slow modem) while it could have been finished within 2 minutes!
• HTML mail is more vulnarable for viruses This is a really important one. By using HTML mail, one of the main security principles are broken: seperate code from content. HTML mail (content) can contain scripts (code) that viruswriters exploit. Many of the famous Trojan Worms would never have been spread around if people would have used plain text messages by default.
• HTML mail can connect to the internet This is something used a lot in spam. They include an image which is stored on their server and insert it into the message with some kind of parameter. The moment you read the message, the image is fetched from their server, passing the parameter to the sender of the message. The result is that your e-mail address will be listed as ‘verified’ and therefore will receive more spam.
• HTML incompatibilities Most people who create websites know how difficult it is to create a page that looks alright on all mayor browsers. Guess what? E-mail clients have the same problems! The message that looks perfect in your Outlook Express can look completely different on the computer of your sister, who uses Eudora to read her mail. And there are still people around with mail applications that don’t support HTML at all!
• HTML mail is slow Plain text messages only have to be shown on screen, but ‘rich’ messages need preprocessing. Especially on old computers the difference is very clear. Wait, hasn’t your neighbour still got that oldtimer Pentium II? Better send him plain text next time, I am sure he will appreciate it! This does not only go for old computers, but more and more people start reading their mail using PDA’s or cellphones.

In short: unless you have very good reasond to use HTML mail, I would ask you to send plain text messages. If the appearance of the message is so important, your probably better of by sending it as a PDF attachment or publishing it on a web page; those media are suited better for this task.

Go ahead, configure your mail client to send plain ASCII text.

Geek without toys

I love technology. I just love it. And I love computers, cellphones, PDA’s, digital camera’s and other geek toys. The only thing is… I don’t have them!!! I used to have some fine toys, but they have been stolen some months ago.

My biggest proud and usefull gadget was my Palm III PDA, shown above. It contained my agenda, addresses of friends, family and clients, books to read at lost moments, games and passwords (encrypted of course!). Without realising it, I used my Palm daily, and was very happy with it. But… no Palm at the moment!

The other gadget I owned was a Samsung SGH-N400 cellphone. I specially liked the design of this phone (by Pininfarina). But is was easy to use and had all the functions I need (vibration, WAP, small size, …). But… no cellphone at the moment!

I do have some computers, three in total. It is not the quality of them but the amount that make them geek toys. My desktop computer is the most advanced of the three, with a Cyrix P-133+ processor and 48Mb of memory. Yes, I know it is not that impressive. But after I reinstalled everything lately it runs faster that the mega computer I use at work. I did keep some room on the harddisk to install Linux to have even more pleasure. But… no Linux at the moment!

You might think that I must be a sad geek without any toys, but that is certainly not the case. I don’t have any toys, because I am looking around to decide what toys I am going to buy. Alright, I could go into a shop and buy the latest and the greates phone, PDA and computer, but that is gonna cost me an awful lot of money. First of all I decided that I don’t need a fancy cellphone. If I have time I will buy a prepaid number this weekend, and I will probably start using a second hand phone. For the moment that will be enough, since I don’t phone a lot and neither plan to use any other functions. I will also keep on using my old computer. It is fast enough, and with a little bit of extra memory, a wireless connection to the ADSL router and Linux installed I sure will have lots of pleasure of it.

That leaves me without PDA. Palm recently released a new model, the Zire 71, which kicks ass! It has a built-in camera, so it gives me two toys for the price of one. The only problem is the price, which is around €300. I will have to think it over a few more times, but I am afraid that I am going to buy it…

Berry & Manon

The reason we went to Harmelen last weekend was of course the wedding of Berry and Manon. Besides that, we took the opportunity to rest a little bit after the last busy weeks. As a result, we have spent most of our time (except for Friday) on the terras in the garden of the house of my parents.

But Friday was different, since that was the big day; the day we came for. After getting up late, taking a north european breakfast, and waking up under the shower we realised that most of the morning already has passed, so we started to run to get ready in time. Thursday we had a lot of time to wrap our presents in paper and prepare our contribution to the book with personal notes from the guests, but as usual I waited with these things untill the very last moment. With a little bit of running we arrived exactly on time at the house of Manon’s parents. Together with the family of Berry and Manon and some of their best friends we drunk a cup of coffee with some cake. We talked a little bit with Ton and Mirjam, who had brought their two children, of which I haven’t seen the youngest (Daphne) yet. As you can imagine there were lots of things to talk about. After a while Berry and Manon arrived from their photo tour, and they looked gorgeous! Of course they were really happy to see us, and we had a small opportunity to talk a little bit.

Because the weather was great, we were able to walk to the centre of Harmelen, were the old ‘monestry farm’ (now a restaurant) povided a beautiful ambiance for the official ceremony. There were barely enough chairs to fit all the people present, and the ceremony was not too oficial with regular jokes about Berry’s talent for playing darts, friends through thick and thin, and of course the hassle with the ‘stoofje’ under Manon’s feet. Since we were in such a romantic place, Berry and Manon had chosen to use some time for some pictures together with the family, witnesses and friends in different combinations.

After sending Loek to the supermarket to get us some water, we walked to the church. The mass was also really nice, although a little bit long. I participated as a witness, but was surprised to see that my role was only that: witness the rituals. I did not have to sign any document! Maybe if I would have been on the oposite site, I could have had an additional function by trying to catch Berry when he accidentally almost fell from the altar.

Anyway, after hearing them say ‘yes’ and seeing them exchange rings for the second time, we were absolutely sure that they were married, so it was time to party. Besides that we were very thirsty, and as a result we arrived first in ‘De Putcop’, where the reception would take place. Since it was already late, we quickly sung the welcome song prepared by the family, cut the pie, congratulated the couple and sat down to (finally) have a drink. While we were relaxing and talking at our table, more and more people entered. Both Berry and Manon are very active Harmelen, Berry in Jong Nederland, SCH, the Pirates, de Kwakbollen, and Manon in EHBO.

After filling our stomachs we were ready again for the final party, with even more people than appeared on the reception. I tried to speak at least some minutes with all my old friends, but one evening is by far too short for this. At least I (and Maria José as well) had a lot of fun.

Sunday before leaving home again we visited Berry and Manon at home. We watched (parts of) the video made and talked a lot about the day… Wednesday they will leave to Florida, where they will visit Disneyworld (they are huge fans of Disney) and have a cruise through the Carribean. I wish them a good time, and hope to see them soon again.

[Update 2004.01.21]: Changed link to JNH

Only a few days to go...

Two more days working and we will go for a short trip to Holland!!! The reason is of course the wedding of Berry and Manon on Friday. We will leave Thursday early in the morning, giving us one day to travel, shop, talk with my parents and of course to prepare us (physically and mentally) for the big day.

Berry and Manon will get married ‘for the law’ in Restaurant de Kloosterhoeve, which I consider a good choice, since it has a lot more atmosphere than the townhall in Woerden and is situated in the centre of Harmelen. The religious part of the day will take place in the St. Bavo church, and the party will be in Restaurant De Putkop. I am really looking forward to this day, firstly because it is an important day for some of my best friends and secondly because I will meet a lot of people to whom I haven’t spoken for some time. And finally, I always like to go back to Harmelen.

Bloggers in Lleida

Yesterday a new webblog was born in Lleida. That is something quite special, since until now I haven’t found many people writing about Lleida. So I decided to make a short overview:

Albert Alcaine i Peralta
After some persistant clicking you will find an outdated but beautifully designed blog

Braintags
I guess I don’t have to explain anything about my site.

Connexions Internes
Xavier is another Linux user, who started his own web log recently.

Ecografia
The milk bottles blog of Sinfry (in Spanish).

El Manicomi
About overclocking, watercooling, networks, internet and Lleida

Aleix Portell Llobetó
Unfortunately he hasn’t updated his site since February.

Postals des del frenopatic
The new weblog created yesterday. Spookie writes in Catalan about her life in Lleida.

Quien Pone La Polla
Fellow geeks!

stee
Stee is surely the most active blogger in Lleida. Although she is Catalan, she writes in Spanish to reach more people. I found her site after she wrote about The Cramps.

Underlog
GeoURL tels me that the owner of this blog lives 3 miles west of me.

Do you know any other bloggers is Lleida? Just let me know, and I will add you to my list.

[Update 2003.07.22]: Added Albert Alcaine i Peralta
[Update 2003.08.13]: Added Connexions Internes
[Update 2003.09.05]: Added Underlog

Almost ready for Holidays

The car has been thoroughly checked, my colleague has been informed of ongoing issues at my job,… I guess I am almost ready for holidays. There are only three things left to arrange before I will dissapear for two weeks.

First at home. Tomorrow I will clean our house and do some shoppings (we only have yoghurt and beer in the fridge!). I also have to ask our neighbours to take care about our plants; they are very thirsty with this weather.

Then I have Fimcap. I need to finish the on-line edition of the Link magazine June edition. Besides that I need to activate a page I already created on which you can read live news from the World Camp, a Fimcap activity for youth animators in the Philipines. During the world camp, participants will write their stories on this page. Photos will be added later by the webmasters (of which I am one), since editing pictures, uploading them and creating the right HTML code is too difficult. I could have used some advanced blogging tool, but decided that for the moment NewsPro will do the job.

And finally I have to prepare the trip. We decided to go by car to Croatia, with a stop in Milano to visit Roberto. And that is about all we decided and have prepared so far. We don’t know which road to take, what we can visit and where to stay in Croatia. I hope that MJ was able to buy a copy of the Lonely Planet guide, because than I will have good faith in our trip.

Anyway, I am almost ready. The next two weeks it will be very quiet on this web site!

Holiday plans

The temperature is around 35°C for over a week now, during the day you hear a lot of complains about the heat, in the evening people live on the cool streets. Everybody runs to the beach in the weekend, Lleida is getting empty. And not only here, Russell Beattie made the same observations in his entry Small Spanish Towns.

The holiday season is approaching, so we are thinking about what to do. We have two short periods to get away: the first two weeks of July and the first two weeks of September. We were planning to visit the Netherlands in July together with my in-laws (they never went abroad), but we are not sure if they recovered enough from their car accident. If not, we will try to go in September. The other short holiday we plan to take our car and drive to Croatia, with a short stop in Milano to visit our friends Roberto and Francesca. Maybe we will also stop in Venetia. Besides travelling we also want to have some days to stay at home and relax, since lately we hardly have time to be at home.

Then there are also some people visiting us. The most important ones are my parents, who will be here on August 12—19. My mother has not seen our finished house yet; the last time she was here was in July 2002, when we just started the reconstruction of our house. My father has visted us two times more, mainly to work in our house. The truth is that we haven’t made a lot of progress since he last visited us. Therefore we plan to finish some more small things, so my father doesn’t get the impression that we don’t do anything (keeping up appearances)…

Yesterday Roberto phoned us from Italy to tell that he and Francesca are going to spend some time in the begining of August in Catalonia, and surely will visit us. Yes, we are definitely looking forward to the summer!

Geek test

28.00789% - Total Geek

WAP configuration

The good thing of buying a cellphone pack is that everything comes pre-configured. I have chosen the Movistar Activa pack with a Sony Ericsson T200 phone. One small box containing the phone, a power adaptor, a manual for the phone, the Movistar Activa SIM card and the accompanying manual. In the shop they placed the SIM card in the phone, activated it and selected the right rate. I could use it immediately, everything was configured. Everything? Well, no. I couldn’t use WAP. Not that I really need WAP, but I prefer that everything works when I buy something. I intent to use WAP for only two tasks: check my bank balance if I want to purchase something expensive and to do some emergency browsing in case www.fimcap.org is having problems.

Both manuals I received are user-level manuals (how do I send a SMS message) and hardly contain any technical details. So I changed the language from Spanish to English (somehow technical terms are easier to understand in English) and started browsing through the settings. After trying out some options I found it: the phone was configured to use WAP over GPRS, while the prepaid Movistar Activa I use does not support GPRS by default. This is really stupid, they deliver a phone and a SIM card bundled with WAP settings that don’t function in this configuration!!!! It would be more logical to configure the phone by default to use WAP over GSM, and let the few people who do contract for GPRS configure their phones later!!!

Learning Spanish on Internet

I always thought that the Internet would not be suited to learn a language, because it is better to learn from a real teacher who can explain things to you.

Once again Mark Pilgrim is two steps aheadt of everybody. First, he started a spanish site, to practice his Spanish a little bit (I know, I should also write in Spanish on this site), and I suspect also to have a good excuse to design a new site.

After anouncing this new site, a second message for the Spanish speaking readers appeared, asking for Spanish curse words, dirty words and insults. I guess he just wants to built a filter for the comments on his new site.

Anyway, the amount of reactions and the contents of these reactions is impressive! I learned some wonderfull new expressions (the best/worst untill now: “Estás tan buena que te comería la regla a cucharadas”_), and surely will keep on watching the new comments on this post!!!