Typepad Major Outage this Weekend

This weekend, I went to read one of my favorite blogs, and I got a 404 not found error.  Since this blog is slightly political, and somewhat critical of the government in a banana republic, I was concerned because the owner is also a friend of mine.  This is the government that arrested a prosecuted an activist who posted the picture of a person who died while suffering injuries in police custody.  Yes, the Bahamas is that country, and corruption and political interference in basic freedoms (speech, sexual orientation, equality of women) is a fact of life there.

As it turns out, Typepad was down with a major outage for the weekend.  They did have Twitter reports as to their status.  I feel better about my software bugs when major sites screw up.

I had to laugh at Typepad though.  They had this disclaimer:

This page (http://www.typepad.com/) is currently offline. However, because the site uses CloudFlare's Always Online™ technology you can continue to surf a snapshot of the site. We will keep checking in the background and, as soon as the site comes back, you will automatically be served the live version. Always Online™ is powered by CloudFlare | Hide this Alert

The CloudFlare thing didn't work. So much for CloudFlare. Here is a worse one for you though.  Since I was worried about my friend who is the author of the blog, I went to a website to check if TypePad was up or down.  The website is www.downrightnow.com.  I queried it about TypePad.  They said that TypePad was up -- possibly because the server was able to deliver a 404 HTTP error.  That was useless.

Joomla Review

I am a regular visitor to a site built with Joomla.  As the site grows, it is one of the most frustrating sites to visit.  The content consists of photos and entries, and it is s.........l.............o..........w, sssssssssslllllllllllloooooooooowww, how slow can you go to load.

Not only that, but every once in awhile you get a very long wait, and then a message saying that it cannot connect to the database.  If you wait awhile, reload and then wait some more, it eventually works.

I was consulting about 5 years ago when Joomla first broke out, and one of my colleagues was singing its praises to its simplicity for creating content management.  I wasn't about to put something brand new into an enterprise system and I am glad that I didn't.  It may be good for amateur and small jobs, but Joomla gets two thumbs down from me when it comes to doing heavy lifting -- or even moderate lifting.

The Problem With Python ~ Perils of Python

Python freaks adhere to their favorite programming language like zombies to a cult. This is going to tick off some Python freaks.

You need some third party apps to make a standalone app out of Python. Plus it has many many add-ins built with C, C++ and whatever your programming weapon of choice. It can be a mashup of binary vomitus that can have some serious consequences. I saw one today.

This particular Python app was built by some troglodyte who's previous arena of expertise was DBase and FoxPro and thought that relational databases were a passing fad. So this app that he built fed itself data using .dbf files. Let me tell you, finding a .dbf file converter for free is like trying to find someone with a full set of teeth in a small southern town. Excel stopped outputting .dbf with 2007. Why would you need a dbf converter when you could use something more in the 19th century like a csv file? (Twentieth century is xml and 21rst century is JSON).

Well, it all has to do with the Perils of Python. The importer in this case was written in Python, and theoretically, it could import both csv and dbf files. CSV files always failed. But they didn't fail consistently. Sometimes the python input parser would correctly import a CSV and then on another like file, it would create extra fields, columns or whatever dinosaurs called table columns. It was a huge WTF? moment.

Then it came to me in a flash while I was emptying my colon. It was the colon in the date field. In some random cases, it correctly surmised that it was just another character in the field, and when another file was read in, it immediately said "AHA! Reserved character separator!. So why the inconsistent behavior? Da Python!

The input parser would make a decision on which import method to pass the input to. Depending on file size, it went to a method that was a layer of abstraction over the Python engine, or virtual machine, or Model T or whatever they call Python binaries. This would cause a choke. With just a few changes in the file characteristics, it would get imported natively and happily work. Unfortunately, you couldn't predict when and where it would work.

SO .... people beware of hiring the guy next door who will do the job for cheap ... these guys who still program with tools from the middle ages are doing you more harm than good. And your program is only good when it is operating on their development machine. Put it out in the real world and it fails quicker than the zipper coming down on Pee Wee Herman's and Fred Willard's pants in a darkened theater. Caveat emptor. The price you pay for using Python is huge if you want real inter-connectivity.

Sony eReader Product Review

This isn't about software -- well in a sense it is. It is a product review about the Sony eReader. We are taking a long plane ride and my better half's birthday is on the day that we are taking the trip. She is an avid reader, and I decided to get her an eReader.

According to the online reviews, Kindle is the best, but I am an open source type of guy, and I wanted not to be tied to Amazon. The Kobo eReader has reliability issues according to online reviews, and the Sony one seemed to be the ticket.

I first evaluated the eReader tablet by Sony, where one could check email, and it was slower than molasses in January. I needed WiFi and the Sony eReader with WiFi, Handwriting recognition, a web browser and such seemed to be the ticket.

It is performing as expected however it ain't no Apple when it comes to design. My particular pet peeve is the stylus. My better half loves using the stylus (doesn't get the screen all fingerprinty), however there is a huge design flaw. There is no damn place to store the stylus. The thingie on it that is like the clip of a pen, is too wide to make it stick to the accessory cover that I bought for it. There is no where to clip it to the body of the reader. To me it is sloppy design. The innards work fine.

This makes me appreciate all the more, the beauty in the design of Apple products. They would never let sloppy design like this go by.

Update: I wish that I had bought a Kindle.

Desperate Microsoft -- Internet Explorer 8

How pathetic. I just signed out of Hotmail, and instead of a re-direct to MSN.com, instead I get a re-direct to a page called beautyOfTheWeb. The above is a screenshot. You will notice that the request parameters for the URL in the navigation bar say XP and Google Chrome browser, what I use on my laptop.

Then Microsoft has the temerity to tell me that my browser scores a 2.5 out of 4, and that I should download Internet Explorer 8 along with the Bing search tool and MSN.

I got off Internet Explorer because it is a piece of crap software that is virus prone, and using it, I got a virus that destroyed my desktop computer. Since using Firefox and Chrome, along with Avira, I haven't had a virus ever again.

And they want me to trust them? Ha!! I read that finally the IE browser by Microsoft is no longer dominant in the marketplace, and I say "It's about time". Now they have to resort to scare tactics which are patently untrue, and they have to hijack me when I sign out of Hotmail.

Truly, Microsoft is on the way of the dodo bird.