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Archive for September, 2009

Posted on September 27, 2009 - by J Lane

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-09-27

Crap, I think that a machine rebuild is imminent. Keyboard just stopped working again requiring reboot. #
Wonder if you could prompt IE users to install Chrome Frame plugin on load — similar to how Flash prompts you to install/update? #
Love this: http://bit.ly/axf6F #
Just had my first case of "looks fine in Safari, Opera, Chrome AND IE"… but not Firefox #
Huh, floating div 1 left and div 2 right had div 1 floating right… removing the float on div 2 fixed the problem in all browsers. #
Just in case anyone missed the non-announcement, Skype for iPhone is now available in Canada #
Realized I've been neglecting dgi.com. Need to write some posts. Got 2 ideas in line. #

Posted on September 20, 2009 - by J Lane

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-09-20

Why do all Windows apps try to put a shortcut on the desktop? It's so freaking annoying. #
Prepping for a 10.6 server install on the Mini later. But first, a little kayaking is in order. #
Just helped out at a car crash on the island. Everyone should be okay, but the one guy was in sorta rough shape. Wear your seat belts folks! #
Why did the kids wake up at 7 all weekend, and then come Monday, I had to wake Rei at 8? #
If you're going to label something a "Quick Search", you should probably make sure that it's fast. #
That was a new one. My keyboard just stopped working (laptop and bluetooth). Had to reboot. #
Wow, order placed with @overheardatmoo on Sept 2 just shipped today. Can I go back to ordering from the UK for faster service? #
Pictures of celebrities before they were stars.Mustclick if only for the Lil Jon and Ryan Seacrest photos: http://idek.net/I_y (via @mike9r) #
Is there a difference between #Facebook saying they're cashflow-positive and making a profit? Or just a different way of saying the same? #
Or does "cashflow-positive" just mean they're receiving revenue? All this terminology is so confusing. #
Alarm clocks for iPhone are all missing something important. While I'm sleeping, I can't have my Mail notification waking me up. Mute pls. #
Having one of those "OMG I'm so lucky to live here" moments http://twitpic.com/hy2bm #
"Imbecilic": How Not to Fire Someone, according to the FP: http://is.gd/3m4vJ (via @bcbusiness) #
Kanye-rolled? http://bit.ly/vaS6V (via @chrismessina) #
http://bit.ly/omN8y
I can spot at least 6 problems with the study described in this article. I'm going to try to get the actual paper. #
This article reads like a press release: http://bit.ly/UsD4G Try dropping the marketing double-speak and put some real information in. #
…so clearly what we have to do is give you tons of money to continue your research in this area, right UBC? <gag> #
<minor relief> The actual paper is pretty good, just the Vancouver Sun article was extremely poorly written. #
Pretty cool enhancement to Basecamp. http://skitch.com/t/sty #
That's it, my million dollar idea is the —- filter for social media (hockey is my blank). If somebody could come up with that… #
Shoot, I used the words "social" and "media" together in that last tweet. Queue auto-follows from "social media experts" in 3…2…1… #
Just a reminder ye scurvy sea dogs. Tomorrow be talk like a piiiirate day. Arrr! #
Apparently my kids have lost the ability to entertain themselves for any stretch of time. #
Is it really necessary to include an ® with a logo? #

Posted on September 13, 2009 - by J Lane

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-09-13

How in the heck did I survive without using the split view in Coda previously? Way faster development #
Huh, apparently I went to high school/played rugby with Ryan Jenkins – the guy who killed his wife in Cali and killed himself in Canada #
Condo Boards will have to consider increasing maintenance fees in ON/BC to have #HST in reserve fund&to pay for services (via @CyndeeLaw) #
I've said it before, and I'm going to say it again. Wow, that really sucked. #
Sorry, can somebody explain to me why *anyone* actually bought the "I Am T-Pain" app off of the app store? #clearlyimoldandoutoftouch #
Huh? I thought the BC Gov't announced that they weren't making cuts to Education? http://bit.ly/7EpKa #bcbudgetwasapackoflies #
#ishouldprobablygivethelonghashtagsarestnowitsjustnotfunny #
iTunes 9 looks great. Home sharing is a fix for a huge frustration. #
Does anyone else have problems with the #basecamp digest e-mails? I get them at random times (supposed to be daily @ 9am) and not at all #
#HST is a regressive tax [it] imposes a disproportionate burden (relative to resources) on those with lower ability-to-pay (via @CyndeeLaw) #
What? The BC Government has money to *lend* to school boards? #BCLiberals you aren't a bank. http://bit.ly/3qS5Ie #
Almost done the app front-end redesign for #mailmanagr. #
Pretty sure my little one is the embodiment of Max from Where the Wild Things are #
Genius mixes are pretty good. Nice flow. #
I'm dying to deploy this app update to #mailmanagr but I'm going to be unavailable this afternoon to respond to any problems. So I wait. #
4000+ messages processed by Mailmanagr so far today. 13.5 hours, that's almost 5 messages a minute. Not bad. #
My kids are playing drinking games with a friend (using water!) #
My @overheardatmoo order has been printing for 3 days now. Guess they're having somebody write out each business card by hand… #
Why in the heck did Apple change the "Zoom" button behaviour in iTunes 9? Now I have to do some weird combo to get the mini player window? #
I love the tone of messages from Moo.com. "I'm just a little piece of software, please don't reply to me…" #
Admitting defeat with Snow Leopard Server on Parallels. Just hangs for me. #

Posted on September 6, 2009 - by J Lane

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-09-06

Including "your product is no use if…" in an e-mail message isn't a great way to start a conversation. #
Correcting crimes against markup #
SlideShowPro falls back to just displaying static images if Flash isn't available… veeerryy niiiice! #
Am I just a complete retard about what clear: does in CSS, or does it only work 50% of the time? #
Burnt out on coding. Need to switch gears for a bit. Maybe some writing. #
When job ads are looking for a "Rock Star," do they mean the narcissism, the substance abuse, or the chronic absences? (via @tonychester) #
15 Unconventional Uses of WordPress in Action http://bit.ly/77StU (via @sonnyjitsu) (via @bravenewcode) #
OMG. Snow Leopard has learned Canadian spelling. It marks "color" as wrong, "colour" as right. #
#lazyweb Anyone know of any really good Realtor/agency web sites? (besides your own @TimAyres #
<insert comment about gmail trouble being the end of the world>. Harharhar. #
So at best the Finance Minister is incompetent, at worst he's a liar. Or is it the other way around? #
Man, I get the strangest calls here. If that was a prank, well done. If not, you should probably seek psychiatric help. #
Adrian Chamberlain: What are we paying taxes for? http://tr.im/xXzD (via @timescolonist). Very well said! #
these photos are pretty rad => http://ow.ly/nNwA HT @lynnmcarter (via @duanestorey) #
I'm so incredibly pissed off right now, I probably couldn't even put it into words if I tried. #
Watching the governor of California save/oxygenate Mars #
Boy I'm glad I spent the time to get automatic updating working properly on my WordPress installs. #
Damn. I'm craving the Wor Won Ton soup from the Tsawaassen ferry terminal. #

Posted on September 5, 2009 - by J Lane

Is the PST legal (and can there legally be an HST in BC)?

I’m not a lawyer, but I can read. Please don’t take this post as formal legal advice or something that is set in stone. Think of it more as “I’m thinking out loud, and I’d like to hear your thoughts”.

A friend of mine recently shared a link with me on Facebook about whether federal income tax is legal in Canada. It’s an interesting read, but I think that the argument is wrong. If you go back to the Canadian Constitution, the sections that this person references say entirely different things from what the author alleges. For example, section 91 which talks about the Powers of Parliament states:

…it is hereby declared that (notwithstanding anything in this Act) the exclusive Legislative Authority of the Parliament of Canada extends to all Matters coming within the Classes of Subjects next hereinafter enumerated; that is to say,

…

2. The Regulation of Trade and Commerce.

3. The raising of Money by any Mode or System of Taxation.

…

And section 92 which discusses the Powers of Provincial Legislatures says:

In each Province the Legislature may exclusively make Laws in relation to Matters coming within the Classes of Subjects next hereinafter enumerated; that is to say,

…

2. Direct Taxation within the Province in order to the raising of a Revenue for Provincial Purposes.

…

Based off of the generality of point 3 in section 91 and the specificity of point 2 in section 92, I’d wager that it is indeed constitutional for the Government of Canada to collect income tax. But that took me to the next step in my thinking — based on the Canadian Constitution, provinces are only allowed to collect direct taxes. Additionally, because the regulation of trade and commerce fall under the federal government’s jurisdiction, shouldn’t any type of sales tax or value added tax only be payable to the Canadian Government?

Another point made in the original article, that I’ve actually been able to verify as true, is that the Supreme Court (case ref [1951] S.C.R. 31, [1950], 4 D.L.R. 369) has ruled that the various levels of government are limited in their ability to transfer their various powers between them. So it’s not okay for the federal government to just give permission to the provinces to start printing their own currency (as an example). I’d think that it also wouldn’t be okay for one level of government to assign their tax collection to another level of government, as is proposed by the HST.

I’d love to get some actual legal opinions on this.

Posted on September 4, 2009 - by J Lane

ColdFusion 8 on Snow Leopard

Seems like every time Apple does an update, ColdFusion breaks. Usually it’s some problem with Java, this time it looks like Apple running 64 bit Apache under Snow Leopard. That’s not new though, Leopard also ran 64 bit Apache that cause a few pains on install (you’d think the 64 bit ColdFusion installer would do the trick, but sadly it fails early in the install).

The trick that worked for me:

Uninstall/re-install 32 bit ColdFusion (it’s probably not necessary, but I wanted to make sure that nothing else got messed up during the Leopard -> Snow Leopard upgrade).
I installed as standalone, multi-server should be fine too.
I didn’t configure the Apache connector during the install, I just told Coldfusion to use the built-in server.
After the install finished, and I verified Coldfusion was working, I popped open a terminal and went to: cd /Applications/ColdFusion8/bin/connectors/
(Again in Terminal): sudo nano apache_connector.sh (you’ll have to enter your password)
Change the line that starts with -dir to /etc/apache2, the line that starts with -bin to /usr/sbin/httpd and the line that starts with -script to /usr/sbin/apachectl
Press “Control-O” (that’s oh) and “Control-X” to save the file and exit the editor.
Type: sudo ./apache_connector.sh
It’ll report that everything went smoothly. If you try to access http://localhost/, you’ll notice that Apache isn’t running though. Grab the recompiled connector from Scott Pinkston’s article on ColdFusion 8 with Apache on Leopard (thanks Scott!)
It’ll download and unzip. In your terminal window, type cd /Applications/ColdFusion8/runtime/lib/wsconfig/1
Type sudo cp (and the drag the .so file from your Downloads folder onto your terminal window) and type ./
For good measure, type sudo apachectl graceful.

Yup, a 12 step program to get ColdFusion running on Snow Leopard. Maybe someday Adobe will just be able to make an installer that works properly.

Update: As was noted in one of the comments, images aren’t showing up properly in the CF Admin. For me, the problem seemed to be that Apache didn’t think my web root for http://localhost/ was actually /Library/WebServer/Documents/, but that’s unlikely to be the case for you. To “clean up” the install I did a couple of additional things (listed here separately so as not to ruin my great “12 step” joke above – har dee har har).

In the Terminal, type sudo pico /etc/apache2/httpd.conf and look for the like that reads:

DirectoryIndex index.html

Change it to read:

DirectoryIndex index.html index.cfm
Also in Terminal, type “sudo chown -R _www:_www /Applications/ColdFusion8/wwwroot/CFIDE/”. That will set the ownership of the CFIDE directory to _www, which is the user Apache runs under. That should fix any permissions problems you’re having (if not, drop a comment!).
Give Apache a “sudo apachectl graceful” once this so that Apache picks up the config change from step 1.