Look, someone's on that tree

goodbye LiveJournal

Fri, 29 Apr 2011 10:58:12 GMT

I am sick and tired of you LiveJournal. You want me to pay for subscription in the same time as you are filling my inbox here and in my email with spam. You keep loosing the order of my posts, you keep 'archiving' them making the backup sync impossible for me and you keep sending me stupid update emails about how often you change your header. I hate you. And I am leaving you.

Goodbye!

PS. My original blog with blogger is still active and very well, I am already using it actively and intend to keep doing it while you die in loneliness. It is true, they marked it as NSFW but who cares, people either read it or not.

Storm!

Sun, 10 Apr 2011 15:20:26 GMT

Very nice poem by Tim Minchin. I advise anyone who understands English to hear it. I bet most of you know at least one 'Storm'.

Torchwood is coming back!!!

Tue, 05 Apr 2011 07:17:52 GMT

Oh, and by the way LiveJournal is so spammy these days, it is ridiculous! I am not the gatekeeper of my f**king blog! If I wanned to do spam filtering myself I would have set up my own blogging platform. So screw you livejournal! And screw all Russian spammers! I am getting out of here!

On a clear day you can see all the way to conspiracy

Sun, 20 Mar 2011 19:44:08 GMT

Very nice story this week on Escapepod!

Well narrated this one also!

Кози обувчици

Sat, 19 Mar 2011 22:41:40 GMT

Много яки кози обувчици, малко като на дявол крачетата, но повече като на козичка:

Via: BoingBoing

Disable third party JS form submission

Sun, 13 Mar 2011 14:30:27 GMT

Let's say you have a very nice form on your page and you dislike people who write user script. Scripts that mess up with your form for example.
Typical form submission with user script would be:

document.forms['targetform'].submit();

Very well, lets prevent this! Each form has a submit button, lets add one that has type submit, but in addition has the name 'submit' too (you should know to ignore its value on your server side logic):

<button type='submit' value='whatever' name='submit'>My button</button>

Now we have harder to spot intuitive way to submit the form with javascript, $('myform').submit() will give TypeError as the 'submit' property of the HTMLFormElement is no longer a function, instead it is an HTMLButtonElement.

This little trick of course is easy to catch and overcome, however it is very easy to implement and will stop the less educated scriptwriters from messing up with your manual form submission requirement.

Node js on port 80

Sun, 13 Mar 2011 08:39:29 GMT

Yes, I know, nodejs on port 80 is not a good idea, however if the project completely disregards the proven http servers and completely relies on node for all http traffic we need to make compromises. Or not.

Here is how I run node as main http server:

iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp --dport 80 -j REDIRECT --to-ports 8000

And of course we close all other ports, as usual for web servers facing the world.

Disclaimer: I found this on Internet, the original 'thanks' go to: @rckenned, @jrconlin, and @spullara ... see also http://iptables.rlworkman.net/chunkyhtml for a pretty definitive-looking iptables tutorial from @frozentux

Whales sounds

Sat, 05 Mar 2011 13:24:56 GMT

Вместо да четете Дийпак Чопра и неговите измишльотини за неподвластното на времето тяло, горещо ви препоръчвам да слушате китове ето тук
Особено яко е keening/loaning.
Да предупредя, по-добре пеят от Карл Сегън (той нали се опитваше да ги имитира в един епизод на Космос, не особено успешно според мен).

Deepak Chopra asnwers a question

Sat, 05 Mar 2011 12:57:27 GMT

Може и да не знаете кой е Дийпак Чопра, но е факт, че е продал доста книги, повечето от така наречените 'спиритуални'.

Аз самият за известен период от време бях очарован от този измислен свят на набивалици, чудеса, изцеления, срещи с предишни животи и така нататък. Лесно е да започнеш да си вярваш и да вярваш на тези, които с ткаъв авторитетен тон твърдят измислиците си. Но не това е темата сега, а видеото отдолу. Насладете се:)

Линк към видеото в YouTube

YouTube changes

Thu, 03 Mar 2011 17:10:04 GMT

YouTube has changed the way they provide the video URL, so Free YouTube script is not working any more.

However the change is trivial, here are the updated bits:

-        var fmt_url_map = unescape(document.body.innerHTML.match(/fmt_url_map=([^&]+)/)[1]).split(/,/);
+        var fmt_url_map = document.body.innerHTML.match(/fmt_url_map": "([^"]+)/)[1].split(/,/);
-                    videourl = val[1]
+                    videourl = unescape(val[1]).replace(/\\/g,'');

It is working again. I am so used to watching the videos in separate tab with mplayer, i cannot even recognize the page with embedded video any more.

Note to self

Mon, 21 Feb 2011 21:20:38 GMT

Node is actually perfect for testing JavaScript snippets in console environment when my computer is overloaded with 100 other things and I should not start another browser to just test 5 lines of code.

Javasscript timers and time

Thu, 17 Feb 2011 09:34:20 GMT

Introduction:

Javascript provides means to postpone execution of a function with 'setTimeout' and 'setInterval'. How is this handled exactly and what does it mean for embedded devices/ set top box type of devices using gecko/webkit is used for its interface.

Example:

A basic function of each STB is to display a clock somewhere in the user interface. Bellow is a very simple class that does exactly that.

This is all good and it works, basically updates the inner html of the dom element designated to display the time every 60 seconds (i.e. once a minute and we should probably show only date, hour and minute, no seconds. However what will happen if the system time is changed.

By definition setInterval does the following:

Calls a function repeatedly, with a fixed time delay between each call to that function.

(from MDN)

So regardless of all external factors one would expect that the once the function is called it will be called again in 60 seconds. As the timers in JS are not precise one would actually expect the function to be called in about 60 seconds.

Real world:

The example above works well until someone decides to change the system time. So let's say we start our clock in 15:00. Then we expect the timers to work every ~60 seconds and the displayed time to change. at 15:01 the function will work and so on.

What happens however if someone sets the system time to 14:00 and our application is still running? One would expect the function to work again in 60 seconds, so we expect once the time of 60 seconds elapses the function to work, the time will be taken again and the clock in our user interface will show 14:00. This however is not how it happens.

It seems periodical and delayed functions are bound to an exact time variable rather than period. So when at 15:02 you say 'delay my function with 60 seconds' you are actually saying 'delay my function to 15:03'. And now if we go and change system time to 14:00 the function will be executed again, only in 1 hour and 2 minutes and 60 seconds. What will happen if the time is changed to 16:00? You can guess it okay - it will never be executed.

What should we do with it:

I don't know all the answers, probably one should change how timers in JavaScript are recorded, but for now one should reset all timers once the time on system is changed. So in the above example we need two things - a simple way to reset the timer and a mechanism to notify the execution environment for the time change. The last however cannot be done without external function. One should be able make calls to JS objects from outside and actually call the 'restart' method of the clock.

clock.restart = function( ) { stop(); start(); };

Conclusion:

In dynamic systems where we expect long runtime for our application we cannot rely on periodical execution too much.

Botnets?

Fri, 11 Feb 2011 20:05:03 GMT

Today on New Scientist was an entry about a research from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis computer specialists that states:

The attack requires a large botnet – a network of computers infected with software that allows them to be externally controlled: Schuchard reckons 250,000 such machines would be enough to take down the internet.

Okay, question: what the fuck? So you mean there actually are 250,000 computers being out there and running bots unsuspecting? This seem to me like science fiction. How come those computers are not attended? How come an operating system/software that allows such thing to happen is still used? Talking about Windows? I don't know, but this really really stupid to me!

I run Linux from 1998 on all my machines. Servers, laptops, home computer, home media centre, my parents computers. Never have allowed any access to anyone. I know it is possible for someone to compromise a server or even several servers but 250,000 computers... this is mind lowing for me. And they (windows folks) still talk about security? And ease of use? Do they mean insecurity and ease of misuse? I don't know. I was 'this' close to by myself a windows 7 laptop (to be able to experiment with the hardware acceleration in CSS3 animations and transitions as well as webGL). Well. I would not be doing it. Sorry windows. I will stick with Linux for now, even thou openGL ES support is crappy and works only on Nvidia cards. It is still better than having a zombie machine.

Хомеопатията срещу 1023

Sat, 05 Feb 2011 16:19:42 GMT

На адрес 1023.org.uk можете да научите какво ще се състои този уикенд.

А долу можете да видите Джеймс Ранди, който отправя предизвикателството си отново към хомеопатите:

Връзка към видеото в YouTube
Защо поствам това? Защото, като доста поболедувал човек смятам, че е важно да се пазим активно от измамници, ако ще измамата да е за милиарди, пак си остава измама. Дори когато я рекламират по телевизията постоянно. Дори когато някой ваш познат се кълне, че му е помогнало такъв вид лечение. Това все още си остава измама. Дори когато 'експерти' обясняват по 'научен' канал на кабелната как всъщност работи този вид лечение и какви дълбоки научни тайни се крият в него - пак си е просто схема за измама, почиваща на недоказани теории, на догадки и често на обикновени, макар и добре скроени лъжи!

За това, прочетете и научете повече. Важно е да знаете кога някой се опитва да ви измами. По новините често говорят за измамници, които взимат парите на хората по все нови и нови схеми. Но защо ли не говорят за този вид измама, с която взимат парите на хората от десетилетия.

Може ли кандидат за работа да каже че ИЕ е боклук?

Sat, 29 Jan 2011 22:05:27 GMT

We shouldn't blame browsers while we are professional front-end developers.

Асене: Може би не, но определено не е необходимо и да им се радваме или да спестяваме коментарите от рода на "IE e боклук'. Защото е истина. Особено когато клиента иска свърхмодерното му, 3d SVG CSS3 transition driven приложение да работи и в ИЕ6. Извинете. Цитат и от професионални програмисти (такива, които не пишат на джаваскрипт, а на С и се занимават с енджините за които пишем ние ):

"Говорех за браузъри. Инернет експлорър не е браузър, това е машина за визуализация на статични страници"

Craigery Morgan TV debut

Sat, 29 Jan 2011 19:51:34 GMT

He became a YouTube sensation a few months ago, he is really cute and funny and now he is on TV! The last night episode of "$#!* my dad says" featured him as Abercrombie sales person. He is really nice looking and great facial expression for comedy too. Bellow is a capture:

I wish him good luck with his career.

Как не се прави сайт/услуга през уеб

Sat, 29 Jan 2011 11:15:42 GMT

За пример ще вземем 'най-популярния български сайт за запознанства' - gepime.com

Че е популярен - популярен е. Но не защото е добре направен, а защото е пълен с порнография 'на една ръка разстояние'. Това е друга тема и в случая не е от значение.

Това, което ще коментирам е, защо един сайт изглежда така сякаш е събран 'от вол и кон'.

Забележките:

съобщението, че имаш ново писмо се появява ту отдолу, ту отгоре (тоест или в така наречената лента на състоянието, която като цяло е голяма идиотщина или горе, в иконите, които са доста големи). Понякога се появява и на двете места, понякога никъде не се появява, докато не обновиш страницата. Това, че се появява ту тук ту там, при това ако се появи на двете места не става по едно и също време според мен е голяма тъпотия, ако искаш за едно и също събитие да имаш реакция на две места не ходиш да проверяваш събитието два пъти а връзваш към него множество 'слушатели'. Явно тази концепция още не е стигнала до списващите софтуера на Гепи.
всички снимки са на флаш - по-голяма идиотщина от това не знам. Ако предположим че го правят зарази възможността за анотации - пак е тъпо, защото същата възможност я има от години и само с html/js. Ако искат да предпазват снимките от злоупотреба (което не го вярвам), какво ми пречи да си направя копие на снимките? Уеб видео - да, ясно е че някои браузъри няма да се справят и там е до някъде оправдано, ама снимки?
чести и множество правописни грешки в елементи, които не са генерирани от потребителите а от авторите на сайта
информационни съобщение не се извеждат по един и същи начин: понякога получаваме тъпия надпис, че искат да си платим като диалогов прозорец, но друг път страницата сама се превърта до мястото където е въпросния надпис. А най-мразим когато страницата върши сама неща, които се предполага, че потребителя трябва да може само той да прави. Самата липса на консистенция също ме дразни
на началната страница няма почти нищо, което да можеш да ползваш, ако не си си платил. Едно е да има подкана да си купиш някаква екстра и да ти се зареждат безплатните неща, друго е да влезеш в сайт, който те посреща все едно няма какво да предложи ако не си си цакал. Аз за това и толкова го ползвам, пускам го само за да показвам калпав дизайн с още по-калпаво изпълнение.
не само началната страница, но и все повече и повече места просто изчезват и се заменят с надпис : Само за VIP. Защо не пише 'само за платили си'? Някак си по-реално е. И когато почнеш да орязваш едно по едно нещата, които правят сайта полезен какво точно очакваш да се случи, освен че малкото нормални и разумни хора спират да го ползват....

Аз нямам нищо против payed premium service. Но за разлика от нашенския ултра подход - да спрем всичко (очаквам скоро да не ми даде и да се логна докато не си платя) нормалните сайтове за запознанства предлагат ЕКСТРИ когато плащаш и не спират нормалната функционалност, която преди е била безплатна. Е, това е ако можеш да измислиш какво да предложиш в повече. Ако не можеш (както е с Гепи) явно просто спираш вече безплатното и чакаш да кихат хората....

Cloud 9 beta

Wed, 26 Jan 2011 19:59:53 GMT

It was announced today - cloud9 now accepts user registration, which means one can apply and if approved can start developing applications on their servers.

Unfortunately, as mentioned earlier in this blog, my opinion is that the technology, while somewhat mature and really interesting, is not fast enough to compete with regular editor, like gEdit, which has its quirks also, but at least is not choking my laptops to death when loading several thousand lines of code. Not that I think this kind of code is manageable in one file, but still some libraries come that way and I need to be able to look in the code. If the editor cannot do it, then its no use at all.

What I really want to see added (apart from better performance, which I don't think will happen, maybe one day when I have a gazillion cores laptop and the browser can use them all...):

code completion with suggestions (because I tend to do lot of typos, it is really annoying to go over fixing typos)
bracketing selection (because I often forget about them, not only brackets but all kind of coupled things, it would be nice to be able to make a selection and ten just type the leading coupled sign (like '(' or '"') and the editor fix those for you
automatic indentation - this is not working very well for now, it indents okay most of the time, but does not un-indent correctly. gEdit for that matters does not do it correctly too. Vim does it correctly.
properties and methods listing: I do not know of an editor that can make sense of javascript's objects, but if anyone knows, please, please, please let me know. I want to be able to see all private functions, all public methods, all privileged methods, all public properties and if possible all private properties as per the function definition so the following example would be searchable:

This should give me information that I have Object Generator named object_generator with 1 private variable, 1 private function, 1 privileged method and 1 object property for the returned object. It should also tell me that it has one object instantiated and list the public methods and properties of that object. Well this second part actually requires execution so it would not be easy to be made for an IDE, but I believe the first part is quite doable. However, for know I do not know of an editor/IDE that can do it.

On the other hand we have the fact that one can set breakpoints and change variable values during runtime while executing node programs. This is really handy. But still, the editor need to be faster, really!

I hope they will succeed, it might change lots, for example JavaScript developers might no longer be required to go to the office everyday (dream a little dream of me).

Update pretifier

Sat, 22 Jan 2011 18:30:07 GMT

I have continued to play around with LiveJournal's update page.

I feel I need more space for the entry, so I shrank the metainfo related stuff in expandable (but not expanded by default) div and increased the height of the post entry frame.

The code is available at pastebin.

I have also worked a bit on the editor capabilities, now the image editing with pins on top and shadows is available as button in the toolbar and the code for the other stuff I wrote before is cleaned up.

As with many other things in life, once you get deeper into it, it becomes easy and clear.

So as of now I accept proposals for other functions to be added to the editor.

The script is also available on Usersciprts.org if you want to try it out. I have tested it only in Firefox 3.6. It might or might not work on other user script enabled browsers, depending on their implementation.

And because I love posting pictures of gorgeous guys here is one:

Oh and by the way - he also signs very well.

Update on the Editor script

Mon, 17 Jan 2011 13:21:06 GMT

I have encountered a small issue (GreaseMonkey being 'bad' and wrapping the HTMLElement, thus wrapped elements are never equal, even if they are in the DOM) and I had to use the unwrapped version (wrappedElement.wrappedJSObject).

This makes the script not that ideal, but it still works. The following two paragraphs are for testing of both warning messages and code snippets:

This is a test warning!

var a = 'Hello GreaseMonkey!';
alert(a);

Hopefully it will be useful. There are places for improvements, but I don't have the time to do it right now. The code was re-worked and shortened, also some edge cases were taken care of. It is not tested very well, still, it can be used as entry level script to develop more robust extensions. Once my hosting provider restores my account I will upload the complete userscript and link it here. A screen shot follows demoing the new buttons:

Customize LiveJournal Post composer

Fri, 14 Jan 2011 23:16:13 GMT

I have been developing advanced custom interfaces with JavaScript for some time now and while I still do not think that whole IDEs written in that language are ready for prime time, I do believe we should be able to extend the already present functionality for our fave web sites.

One easy way to do this is using 'user scripts'.

I use some custom classes in my blog in LiveJournal and there is no easy way to add divs with class names in the HTML editor. However it is fairly easy to add more buttons to the toolbar (I honestly do believe the empty space on the second row is left for users like me, who like to add more buttons!!!).

There are however some limitations when working with multiple iframes.

First of all nodes should either be created in the context of the iframe to which they will be added or created in outer context and imported. Other than that there is nothing special.

Sample code follows (assuming it is executed from 'top' context, however the function should actually be created in the context of the draft iframe to attach the event to the load event of the frame we are targeting, so have this in mind if you take the example code and intend to use it for your own custom buttons):

	var button_action = function(){
		var cDocument = document.getElementById('draft___Frame')
			.contentDocument.getElementById('xEditingArea')
			.childNodes[0].contentDocument;
		var cWindow = document.getElementById('draft___Frame')
			.contentDocument.getElementById('xEditingArea')
			.childNodes[0].contentWindow;


		var oSeclection = cWindow.getSelection();

		if (oSeclection.anchorNode !== oSeclection.focusNode ){
			var i, i1, i2, tmp;
			if (oSeclection.anchorNode === cDocument.body )
				i1 = oSeclection.anchorOffset;
			else {
				for (i=0; i< cDocument.body.childNodes.length; i++){
					if (cDocument.body.childNodes[i] ===
						 oSeclection.anchorNode){
						i1 = i;	
						break;	
					}
				}
			}
			if (oSeclection.focusNode === cDocument.body)
				i2 = oSeclection.focusOffset;
			else {
				for (i=0; i< cDocument.body.childNodes.length; i++){
					if (cDocument.body.childNodes[i] === 
						oSeclection.focusNode){
						i2 = i;		
						break;
					}
				}
			}
			if (i1 > i2) {
				i = i1;
				i1 = i2;
				i2 = i;
			}
			var docFragment = cDocument.createElement('div');
			docFragment.setAttribute('class','cod');
			for (i = i1; i <= i2; i++){
				docFragment.appendChild(cDocument.body.childNodes[i]
					.cloneNode(true));
			}
			for (i = i2; i >= i1; i--){
				cDocument.body.removeChild(cDocument.body.childNodes[i]);
			}
			i = cDocument.body.insertBefore(docFragment, cDocument.body
				.childNodes[i1]);
		}
		else {
			var i;
			for (i=0; i< cDocument.body.childNodes.length; i++){
				if (cDocument.body.childNodes[i] === oSeclection.anchorNode){
					break;	
				}
			}
			var docFragment = cDocument.createElement('div');
			docFragment.setAttribute('class','cod');
			docFragment
				.appendChild(cDocument.body.childNodes[i].cloneNode(true));
			cDocument.body.removeChild(cDocument.body.childNodes[i]);
			i = cDocument.body
				.insertBefore(docFragment, cDocument.body.childNodes[i]);
		}
	};

Notice that I do not want to separate textNodes but copy them as they are (because this is my use case). Probably the code can be shortened by applying better logic, however this is a late night quick and dirty approach and it works.

Now just add it to the new buttons you add to the draft frame and voilà!

Harel

Sun, 09 Jan 2011 20:06:40 GMT

I know i am getting boring with all posts about Harel Skaat, but hey, this is my blog, so I will post whatever I want.

First - Words (Milim) in English with Karina Pasian. The performance is stunning!

Video link

End for a final accent - Od yair alay sung live in the studio:

Video link

Cloud 9

Sat, 08 Jan 2011 14:37:13 GMT

I have been looking into using Cloud9 for JavaScript development. The project has just announced new release.

Installation on Linux (Fedora 13) went smooth, first one will need the latest stable Node from NodeJS project. Download and compile as usual, I have installed it with root, however it can be installed as regular user. Once this is installed I used npm (node package manager) and install cloud9. Start i with

cloud9

Unfortunately even the 'world fastest browser' (a.k.a. Chrom) could not keep up with editing. Loading a huge file (let's say mootools.js) is too slow, scrolling in it is too slow, switching between files was way way too slow and what is worse, debug stopped working at some point and I cannot figure out why, so we are back at the console.log() debugging, which is not that great, but at least you can see the log in the same time as you see the code, which is better than constantly switching contexts, however the breakpoint type of debugging is not working. Let's hoe this would be fixed in next release.

Oh, and by the way you can still run your script with

node /path/to/your/script.js

It is kind of cool, I will have to find time to play some more with this.

A few movies.

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 18:27:13 GMT

As many of us know, the holidays can be quite lonely time. If you are also ill it makes the time passes even slower. So sooth my pain and soul I decided to give a few movies a shot. It was about time, since my 300GB hard drive is having only 20 gigs free now, everything else is pending my review.

So here we go. First - Letters to Juliet. A romantic ... something. I don't know, it is very slow paced, very cliche inclined and pretty much we all know what happens at the end. The beautiful scenery simply does not cut it, especially compared to the previous hit of the young lady in the leading role - Mamma mia. And by the way he really good view is coming too late (in the face of Christofer Egan).

Next - David's birthday (original title Il compleanno). Very Italian movie, no doubt. Lands it right in the middle of all other Italian movies about straight guys going south. Nothing interesting really, the only interesting character being the souse killer/brother/uncle. The young Thyago Alves is nice to look at though, however I don't really understand all the Italian/French movie makers - why does the young, hot, awesome good looking guys have to always fornicate with someone twice their age. It looks they do it just so that something dramatic can happen, like being outed or kill someone. I don't get it, why not do it with someone their own age? The scene where Davit is masturbating is really awesome, you can see him sweating in the dim light, its really good. Much better than, say, 'Broke straight boys'.

I would love to add one more, but all of theme would be just waste of your time as it was of mine. Just to protect you from doing the deed:

You again - really really awful, first it was okay, the rage and vindictiveness in the protagonost were awesome and then she went all fluffy and forgiving - BAD movie!
Transilmania - American Pie - again, this time even stupider. I bet they did it just to see if a movie can me made even more stupid.
Unresolved suburbia - total lack of cinematographic skills and actors - just some ugly teens kissing with everything that moves. And that's it.

Enough with the bad for now.

Oh and as a bonus - you should watch the 'Steam room series' in YouTube, its like a promo series for the 'Is it just me' movie, which is really poorly made one, but the series is cool.

My ninja name

Thu, 23 Dec 2010 16:42:43 GMT

My ninja name is: Nokuchikashi!