I’m still looking for a nice AJAX screen-shot for my presentation at J-FALL next Wednesday. I do have some candidates, but none are that impressive yet. AJAX is one of those technologies that you really have to see in action to appreciate. Anyway, if you know or have an impressive AJAX example and can provide me with a nice screen-shot, drop me a comment. I’ll be sure to insert proper credit.

My webhosting provider has had a critical failure in their mail service. They assured me that no message will be lost. Somewhere about 30 hours ago the ReiserFS file system of the mail server went corrupt. They have repaired the file system, and are in the process of working through the backlogged e-mail. In total they have to munch on 260 gigabytes(!!) of data. Wow…

The have speeded up the delivery of a new mail cluster system. It should provide a more robust system. While the current system was rock solid already, it has the vulnerability of being a single system (with proper disk clustering).

So if you mailed me about something, hang on I will reply when needed.

My last blog post has been 7 days ago already. Now that’s not good. I have read a book that states a good blogger should post often.

Fortunatly I have an excuse. Since I was a little kid I always have had these terrible headaches every now and then. My physician diagnosed me with a form of migraine or tension headache. Basicly it involves sound and light sensitivity with a one sided pain in my head. Most of the times it’s the left side, but it can be my right side too.

Anyway, it was super fun again last week. Of all 7 days I had headaches on 5 days. With two of them inhibiting my ability to work. As you can guess I have been resting a lot last week.

My trigger apears to be stress. And this can come from the strangest sources. Usually it’s actually not directly work related. Like this week. There’s a heat wave going on here and the heat is preventing me from getting a good nights sleep. Shortage in sleep causes stress. I am talking about no more then 6 hours of sleep every night for a few days. I get really tired, and when I actually get some rest, 2 days later it’s bingo.

Anyway, I have tried these things sofar:

• Jacobson’s Progressive Muscle Relaxation
• Imigran nasal spray
• Glasses
• Stay active. Usually I sport 2 to 3 times a week at a local gym. In my experience it helps me to sport and stay fit. Plus it helps prevent RSI complaints too. The other kind of muscle tension really can be a relief sometimes.

Most those have been met with partial succeses. Sometimes it works, but I can’t predict if and when. All I know is that the nasal spray made me get a bit loopy at times. That was really weird stuff so I decided to not use that stuff anymore. The glasses, sport and relaxation excersizes have improved my life a lot already when it comes to headaches. But there is still a lot of room for improvement.

My plan when headache strikes:

1. Get something to eat before I start to feel sick. It helps me get over the headache when I actually eat something and get to keep it in.
2. Take a really hot shower. And by hot I mean hot on the edge of painfull.
3. Lie flat on my belly with the painfull side into the mattress without a pillow.

So, you see, I have an excuse for not posting last week. Also, suggestions are always very welcome…

Peter’s blog pointed me to a entry by Seth Godin about how marketing and programmers usually bite eachother and why it is important to guard against certain default behaviours.

To support the point made by Peter I’d like to suggest a book I’ve read: Don’t make me think. This book is a good illustration on how proper design helps to commit marketing, users, management and your own team. Ok, it is focussed on web design, but isn’t design one of the most important factors when it comes to gaining commitment? When it looks pretty people automatically think it’s good.

Today, something strange happened.

Yesterday an anonymous person has entered a comment on my blog stating that Wiebe was actively commiting plagiarism, on his own, now offline blog.

This situation made me having to make a very difficult discision. I believe in the power of changing and influencing your own world by acting. On the other hand, selling someone out is just plain lame. The option I chose was by seeking advice from the community. I posted the evidence submitted on my blog and asked what to do. In hindsight probably a rather shortsighted action on my part. I should have given Wiebe a chance to correct his ways.

Anyway, things seemed to get a life on its own. And before I knew it there was a lot of harsh criticism. But most of it was actually correct and justified. Wiebe now has taken offline his blog and it seems he posted this as an apology:

Dear visitors,

I was surprised to see all your reactions on the stories I had posted on my blog. And yes it is correct that I posted some articles I copied from others sites. The reason is not to rip and take the credit for the stories, but to share the expertise. So I sincerely apologize to the autors of the articles, it won’t happen again. The articles are deleted from the blog.

It might not have been the best choice, but it was made with only the best intentions. The thing that dissappoints me about you so called collegues is the remarks about me as a professional. Everyone makes mistakes, but to make this about my qualities is a sad thing to do. I’ve been wrong and I didn’t have the right to use the articles this way. Just as well as you don’t have the right to attack my qualities, or me as a person

So again I would like to say sorry.

To the critics I would like to say:

think twice about the way you open your mouth, there are real people behind the screen!

Personally I think Wiebe should have thought about the people behind the screens before commiting the plagiarism. Also I think that the community effect should suffice and everybody should get off of Wiebe’s back. And death threats are never correct.

To me this whole issue is now resolved. I can imagine that when I ever meet Wiebe in real life again he will not be all warm en friendly to me. But, considering the situation, I only did what I thought was best. And I hope that more people act upon plagiarism in a way like I did. But maybe give the person commiting the plagiarism a chance before inadvertently rowling up a lynch mob.

Ever had the situation where you are unable to resolve a standoff. I certainly did.

Usually a little game of rock, paper scissors should resolve such issues.

Recently in the US a legal precedence has been set.

Rock, paper, scissors is now a tool seen suitable for standoff resolution by the US’s legal system.

I’ll be sure to remember that when I’m in one of those situations again. Please take a look overhere for a rundown of the international rules of proper rock, paper, scissors conduct.

Here’s a copy of what seems like the official court order.

One more thing, credit to Eric Sink’s Weblog.

Peter mentioned an interesting link on his blog.

It’s about logging eye tracking on webpages. There’s a movie you can click to. And first of all, it drives me crazy to see that blue ball trashing around on the screen.

But it is interesting to see what a user actually looks at on a webpage/application/product/commercial/whatever.

Take a look at this blog by Greg Edwards for something called heatmaps. It kind of looks like a weather report, basicly you want the important stuff to show up red hot.