Hacking for Christ

Radiotherapy Week 6

This is me this morning, before I went for the first of my last five treatments.

If you look carefully on the front, you can see an inward jag of about 3mm in the vertical red line down the middle of my neck. That's actually representative of the actual shape of the aperture; they put in an extra slice of lead shielding there to try and reduce the dose my windpipe gets. As you can also see, it's not square at the bottom left (as you look at it) corner; again, they put in shielding there to try and avoid irradiating the top of my lung too much.

The lighting's not brilliant, but you can just about see that the treatment area comes up on my jawline. Again, perhaps because of the shield, the edge of that area along my jaw is redder than the part immediately inside it.

More of the hair seems to have fallen out adjacent to the treatment site, leaving a white border - I'm not sure why that is. Maybe it's getting a partial dose due to beam diffraction - enough to kill the hair over time, but not enough to turn the skin red.

The general condition of my skin has started to go downhill; the nurses tell me to expect it to break down and crack this week, behind the ear or in the crease in my neck, or both. The effects continue for a few weeks after the treatment itself ends (this coming Friday) so I'll keep posting pictures to document that.

I'm still not suffering from any tiredness or nausea, praise God, and the sore throat hasn't returned.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. -- Romans 8:28

Radiotherapy Week 5

I apologise that this is late; I took the photos on time (almost) but I am using my housemate's camera, he was away, and I couldn't find the correct USB cable. (Whose bright idea was it to have so many standards for "mini USB"?)

This set was taken after my first treatment of the week; so you can see a bigger difference than you might expect between these photos and week 3. Almost all the hair in the treatment area has fallen out; what's left is short and has been turned blonde by the process. The back of my ears are starting to go very red; it's places like that, where the skin folds, where cracking happens first.

The uneven coverage you can see on the front might be partly due to the plastic mask; the skin tends to get redder in places where the mask has not been cut away. I'm not sure.

Light Of Other Days

Reading science fiction is one of those things I've always thought I'd enjoy, but have never really had time for or got into. However, as a result of a tip-off at EuroFoo, I did come across Light Of Other Days, an excellent short story by Bob Shaw. Well worth a read, if you have ten minutes.

Does anyone know of other good sci-fi shorts available on-line?

Firefox 2 Released

Phew :-)

Congratulations to everyone involved, particularly the long-suffering build team.

GNOME bigger than Mozilla

Perhaps due to their system of filing a new bug report for every crash detected by Bug Buddy, bugzilla.gnome.org recently took the "largest Bugzilla instance" crown from bugzilla.mozilla.org. Current score is 364499 to 357698. Congratulations to the GNOME project ;-)

Firefox 2, IE 7 and L10N

Microsoft have just posted the details of which languages IE 7 will be available in. It's interesting to compare this with the list of locales currently available for the latest Firefox 2 beta, which hopefully is a good proxy for what we will have in the final release.

We both seem to agree on what the core locales are - with the exception of Hebrew, which I'm sure is brewing, we can match them on all of their "Fully Localised Languages". Funny, though - if you are on XP SP2, you are fine, but if you are on any of the other current Microsoft OSes, such as Windows Server 2003 or a 64-bit version, you may well be out of luck. IE 7 on those platforms is only available for a small subset of the "fully localised" set. And, of course, it's not available for earlier versions of Windows at all such as Windows 98 and Win2K. Firefox language packs, on the other hand, work everywhere Firefox does.

And we do have a wider coverage of full language packs. There are 13 languages we provide full packs for that they don't - with three (Mongolian, Byelorussian and Frisian) which they have no provision for at all. As far as IE is concerned, the Frisians have been frisian out.

Next, they have this thing called the "MUI version" - with MUI standing for Multi-language User Interface. This has a load of languages in one big bundle, and you can switch between them at will. Great for internet cafés, but if you speak Slovenian, which is only available in this form, then you have to download 32 other languages in order to get yours. I hope they don't have slovenly internet connections in Slovenia. There are also several other languages which are only available in full form as part of this download (e.g. Thai and Slovak).

Our coverage of the extra languages available in the MUI pack is spotty - we have Slovak and Bulgarian fully localised and shipped, but don't even have an Estonian team. Then again, there are only 1.3 million people in Estonia, whereas there are 18 million Malay speakers and they only get a LIP (see below). I wonder if the choice of languages here is partly dictated by the official languages of the EU? Microsoft's relationship with the EU could probably use some improving, so perhaps this is one small contribution. If so, they've missed Maltese (and, from January 1st, Irish). I envisage a last-minute panic at Microsoft HQ; after all, you don't want to make the Maltese cross...

Lastly, they have what they call LIP (Language Interface Pack) versions. As far as I can tell, this is where you get the interface translated, but not the Help or anything like that. Definitely second-class status. On the other hand, with the addition of these packs, they do have a wider coverage than we can manage. If Hindi or Farsi (Persian) speakers, for example, want a web browser in that language, then a LIP version of IE 7 is the best they'll get. Except that they won't get it until after January 2007, because Microsoft don't do simultaneous releases like we do. Hopefully those language speakers can see that far.

We have localisation teams for far more languages than we ship, but there are many volunteers where we don't seem to have yet managed to translate willingness into finished, checked in and shipped translations. Perhaps that should be a focus post-2.0?

Still, I think we're in a good location with localisation. Well done to everyone who is part of a l10n team, and to Axel for coordinating it all. :-)

A Question Of Attitude

[The following column was turned down by The Times Online because they suggested I had a conflict of interest. Of course that's their prerogative, but given that my employment is posted at the bottom of every article I write for them, it's not as if people don't know where I'm coming from...]

In the next week or two, both Microsoft and Mozilla will be releasing major updates to their browsers – Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 2. Tech journalists the world over are surely at this very moment dusting off their tired "browser war" headlines from the late 1990s, and conducting detailed comparative reviews which they will all release at the same time as the software, having cheated by basing their work on the beta versions.

"Tabs? Check. Phishing protection? Check. Feed reader? Check. Spell checking in form fields? Ooh, advantage Firefox. 'Protected mode'? And it's back to neck-and-neck..."

But I suggest there is another way to compare the two contenders aside from a feature-by-feature tick-list. It's in the attitude the two organisations have shown to the users of their products.

Way back when in the late 90s (are you sitting comfortably?), Netscape and Microsoft were fighting over the growing browser market. These were the days when Java was the next big thing, <blink> was cool, and the HTML for the websites of major companies was still coded by hand.

Both browser makers burned the midnight oil to cram in more features. But, just as haste in placing the bottom bricks comes back to haunt you when you try and make your tower reach the ceiling, software has a limited ability to absorb quick-and-dirty changes and hacked-in enhancements before it becomes an unmaintainable mess. And Netscape's tower topped out first.

Netscape 4 was inferior to IE 4, let alone IE 5 or 6, and the creaking codebase couldn't be extended any further without disproportionate effort. So through a combination of monopolistic behaviour by Microsoft and suspect business decisions by Netscape, a victor emerged. As the nascent Mozilla project set off on a four-year odyssey rewriting the browser from the ground up, they ceded the field to Microsoft.

But how did Microsoft respond to this victory? Basically, they did nothing. Their market share was somewhere north of 90% and growing. This was job done as far as they were concerned. Through the wilderness years of the early part of the decade, as popups, spyware and viruses made the lives of web users a misery, Microsoft produced the bare minimum of security patches but nothing more. Why should they? Almost everyone used their product regardless. They had no interest in evolving the browser to meet the changing needs of the web's growing population.

Then back came the Mozilla project with Firefox, a browser for the web as it is today. This coincided with the rise of rich web applications, which threatened to make the operating system irrelevant and turn the browser into the platform. After all, if your mail is from Yahoo and your word processor is from Google and you manage your photos with Flickr, does it really matter if you are doing it on Windows or Linux? (Ironically, the core technology which made this possible, the 'XMLHTTPRequest' object which lets web developers easily update pages without a reload, was invented by Microsoft for IE 6 [Correction: IE 5].)

Only at this point, when Microsoft felt threatened, did Bill rebuild the browser team to make IE 7. He needed to arrest the market share decline, and find a way to make the web experience best with proprietary Windows-only technology. So the creation of this new version is not motivated by his desire to provide a better surfing experience for their users, but his desire to keep control of the web and make sure it doesn't threaten Microsoft's platform hegemony.

Firefox, on the other hand, has been user-centered from the beginning. The original developers' misery at having to produce Netscape 6 drove them to produce software they thought everyone else would want to use. The extension mechanism provides a safety valve through which the geekiest features can be pushed out and only installed by those who need them, allowing a relentless focus on usability and simplicity. Firefox is a browser made for you.

Yes, Microsoft have got off their backside and improved their product, and that can only be good for web users and developers. Yes, competition is good. But before you consider IE 7, ask yourself this - if Microsoft dumped you before, why won't they do it again?

Identity Theft With Google Code Search

Several blogs have pointed out that Google Code Search can be used to discover vulnerabilities in the indexed code. One can find SQL injection possibilities, potential buffer overflows and backdoor passwords. But it's not just security holes in software that you can find.

One particular search I did revealed a file containing a particular person's entire collection of usernames and passwords. It included several banking account numbers and passwords, SSNs for him and his wife, keys for popular software and mortgage payment details. Assuming the passwords hadn't changed since, I had more than I needed to steal all his money and his identity.

Irony of ironies, the file was included, as plain text, in the source code package for a "secure password storage" product this person had written and posted to the web!

I sent him an email a couple of weeks ago, and he replied saying that some of the data was out of date, and he would change the rest. But it's not easy to change bank account numbers and SSNs.

The RISKs: testing security software with confidential data; when working on software, not keeping the development version and the version you use separated.

Firefox Reload Behaviour

On some pages with forms, when you press Reload in Firefox, the page reloads but Firefox keeps the original contents of any elements (although it does update or reset other form elements, including hidden ones). This can leave forms in an inconsistent state. Anyone know why it does this, and whether it's possible to set caching-related or other HTTP headers to stop it? Shift-Reload seems to sort out the problem, but people won't necessarily know or remember they need to press that.

I can't find anything by searching - all I find when searching for "Firefox clear textbox" is people asking thinly-disguised "how do I conceal my pr0n-surfing habit from my girlfriend?" questions...

Radiotherapy Week 4

Two images today, for your viewing pleasure - as you can see, the rather precise nature of the beam has resulted in the hair on the back of my neck falling out in a very defined pattern. It's also easier to see the skin redness on that photo, particularly on the lower half of my ear and the lower part of the back. (For some reason, more of my neck is red that I would expect.) I expect to lose the rest of the hair in that region (and on my chin on that side) in fairly short order; the question now is: do I shave the other side to match? :-)

I had a minor sore throat this week, which started on Monday but has, rather surprisingly, got a bit better as the week goes on. It's rather odd having the sore throat feeling on the side rather than at the back! In theory, my windpipe is just outside the beam; perhaps I was lying wrong for a couple of days and the edge of it caught a dose. Still, something else to be thankful for.

I've realised that taking photos at the beginning of the week doesn't give a particularly good understanding of what's happening, because that's the moment when the side effects are least, because things get better over the weekend. I should really be taking them on Friday afternoon. Oh, well. I've started this way so I'll finish.

Cheeky...

It seems that www.ie7.com is a Firefox page, and 'whois' is being very coy about who is responsible...

Working like Qlockwork

Anne, who used to manage me at Data Connection, left earlier this year to set up her own company, Working Program. I'm pleased to be able to say that they've just launched their first product, Qlockwork - a personal time tracking application. It watches what you do and what applications you use and puts the results into a new Outlook calendar, so you can correctly allocate your time between various projects or clients.

I personally found working with and on Outlook plugins to be a miserable experience, so I congratulate her on her fortitude and persistence.

Sadly (but fairly obviously), it's only available for Windows. Does anyone know of anything like this in the free software world? I'm not interested in things where you have to fill in all the data manually.

TV Inefficiency

Has anyone else noticed the inefficiency of some currently-popular styles of documentary as a knowledge transfer mechanism? The programmes I am talking about are those which assume that anyone watching may well have joined half way through and, furthermore, has the attention span of a goldfish. Therefore, they recap the entire program so far at the start of each segment - and, if the program was originally segmented for American TV with its greater advertising density, can mean even more often for us Brits.

This continuous repetition and recap, as well as being entirely tedious for those of us capable of storing information for longer than it takes to go to the toilet, means that each segment has minimal new content. I've seen documentaries an hour long that I could have cut down to ten minutes without losing anything substantial. Am I alone in feeling this?

Radiotherapy Week 3

Two weeks gone, and the redness is beginning to be noticeable. I can now see the outline of the treatment area on my chest. This is most obvious on the part out of shot, but you can vaguely see the line coming over my shoulder and down past my adam's apple.

Oh, and I've had a haircut :-)

YouTube - Run Screaming

YouTube has all the marks of a bandwidth-guzzling addiction in the making. I haven't used it much before but I went to watch one video and ended up after half an hour's continuous video-surfing here. Funny... but I need to stop. Now. Or I'll look up one day and find that, while I can recite the lyrics of any Weird Al song you care to name, it's 2012 already.

3 Dumb Things About America

I love being in America, and have met loads of really nice Americans. However, there are three particular things about the country which, every time I come across them, I think "Doh! How on earth do such nice people put up with something so broken?" And as I feel like a quick rant, here they are:

1) Stop signs. Why do Americans put up with being made to come to a complete stop at a junction even if there's no other car within 100 yards? Surely this must be some enormous oil and car company conspiracy to waste petrol. In the U.K., we use two great things - "Give Way" signs (known as "Yield" signs in the U.S.) and roundabouts. Judicious use of the two means that you only have to stop at a junction if - gasp! - there's another car coming! What an innovation!

2) Unrelated riders on political bills. Who invented a system where any member of the legislature can attach an extra clause about something entirely irrelevant to a bill, and make the legislative body pass or fail the entire thing, rider and all? "Yes, senator, if you want to improve the state of the healthcare system, you also have to agree to fund a baby mincing machine." How silly is that? In the UK, politicians can propose amendments to government legislation, but they are voted on individually. (Warning: my understanding of the U.S. system comes from The West Wing, so I may have missed something here.)

3) Advertising for prescription medicines - surely by far the biggest contributor to the pharmaceutical culture. These slickly-produced TV ads basically say "Hey, your doctor may think he knows what's best for you, but he's wrong. We do. Get all hypochondriacal, get in there, and demand this pill! It'll make your life better!" In the U.K., advertising these products to the public is banned, on the controversial grounds that perhaps six years of medical training and decades of experience make someone better qualified to judge the appropriate medicine for a complaint than watching a 30-second ad and reading Wikipedia.

Am I right, or what? :-)

Shortcuts To Success

My latest Times Online article, "Shortcuts to success", is a short ode to the wonderfulness of the keyboard. I also plug Nostalgy, an excellent Thunderbird extension for filing mail quickly.

Radiotherapy Week 2

Here's what I look like after one week. There's not too much difference from last week. It's not sore yet, although I am now "aware" of my neck during the day, if you see what I mean.

I've been given various bits of advice about taking care of my skin. One of them was "use an electric razor; don't wet shave". (Presumably that's before the hair stops growing!) So I bought a battery-powered electric shaver. Where have these things been all my life? They are so convenient. I can stop paying the Gillette Tax every few months. :-)

Remember, folks, if you go into a business giving away the razors and selling the blades, watch out for the person who invents the bladeless razor...

DNS Structure

Almost since the beginning of the Mozilla project, there have been various bugs open on the browser about cookies, domain names and privacy, caused by the differing models of delegation in use around the world. Essentially, Firefox does not know that you should be allowed to set a cookie for "amazon.com", but not for "co.uk" at the same level of the DNS. This allows unscrupulous advertisers to track people across multiple otherwise-independent sites.

In one sense, this is by design. The DNS system is not supposed to impose any rules about how subdomains can be delegated. However, this flexibility clearly causes a problem in this case. The original cookie spec rather glossed over the problem, by suggesting a "one dot rule" - don't allow the cookie if the domain attribute has no dots. This is fine for .com, but doesn't help for .co.uk. The second attempt had another go at defining a rule which worked in practice, but there were still loopholes.

Various solutions have been proposed for this problem - from making the information available as a web service, to doing DNS lookups to see if the name resolves, to writing a new cookie spec, to making an enormous list encoding the delegation structure of every one of the 200+ TLDs on the planet.

This last has always seemed like a Sisyphean task. One person worked out what the rules were for Japan; they seemed so complicated that no-one wanted to take on the job of doing the same thing 199 more times. However, spurred by the need for Places to also know this information in order to present your history and bookmarks to you in a sensible fashion, the indefatigable Jo Hermans took up the challenge. Attached to bug 342314, you can see the first version of a document which attempts to record all of this information.

Although in the past, Japan was used to justify the "this is too complex; it'll never work" argument, it turns out that the Norwegians take the prize for the most complicated delegation system. Encoding it correctly requires 760 rules. TLDs like .net, on the other hand, have just one - or none, if you rely on the fact that single-part domain names are implied members of the list.

So, thanks to Jo's hard work, Firefox 3 will have a more secure cookie implementation. We will be sharing this information with Opera, and any other browser maker who may find it useful. It's important to note that this information changes over time; applications should only ship this file if they have some way to update it.