EleventyTen

Draw some stuff and click ‘done’. Very cool!

http://www.flash-gear.com/stereo/

Holy cow Batman! It’s true!

http://www.apple.com/safari/download/

That was not fun. I just wasted a whole day or so trying to remove some evil spyware called “Vundo”. In short, it’s a nasty little piece of crap that pops up advertisements whenever it feels like it. It’s almost impossible to remove in Windows too, because it’s actually smart enough to resist almost every possible method of removal. Don’t take that as a complement, I’m just amazed that some moron somewhere has so little of a life that they have the time and energy to waste on something as pointless as this. In fact, it amazes me in general that morons who write spyware and virii don’t turn their skills to something productive, instead of joining the ranks of the scum and vermin of the internet.

So what did I do to remove it? After trying every single tool I could get my hands on to fix it, including (but not limited to) “VundoFix”, “Vundoh”, “Spyware Blaster”, “Spybot - Search and Destroy”, “Process Explorer”, “Advanced Process Manager”, “KillBox”, “ComboFix”, “Dellater”, “l2mfix”, “SmitFraudFix”, “Avenger”, “Brute Force Uninstaller”, and “HiJackThis” - none of which could actually remove the offending worthless piece of crap - I downloaded the Knoppix 5.1 Live CD, mounted my NTFS partition as read/write, deleted the offending DLL’s myself, then used HiJackThis to remove the offending registry entries.

What a pointless waste of time, and a tribute to Linux. Saved me again.

That’s all I have to say. There should be a law against it. Assholes.

Edit: I should have done something about this sooner, but I received an email a little while ago from a nice lady who pointed out that Cyber Sitters is a child minding agency in Australia and that my comments were coming up in web searches! Let me point out that while my original statement stands in the context of people who buy up ‘interesting’ internet domain names with the sole purpose of selling them on at extortionate prices, it does not apply to said agency. So to anyone who finds this post in error, my apologies ;-)

Edit: I should also point out that while I said ‘Cybersitters’, what I actually meant was ‘Cybersquatters’. Slipious tonguious. Oops.

A question regarding the embedding of SWF content came up on the Ruby on Rails mailing list. In this instance, the problem was related to the tags used to embed a SWF in Internet Explorer and Mozilla browsers. Internet Explorer requires an <object> tag, while Mozilla (and most other) browsers require an <embed> tag.

Further to that, the ridiculous EOLAS patent requires changes in the way that objects are embedded in web browsers. One of the effects of this is that Internet Explorer users must now click a plugin in order to activate it (which is a problem for SWF files, especially if they are used in navigation, since two clicks are required to navigate).

There is a workaround, however, in the form of the extremely lightweight SWFObject javascript library. It is very easy to use, and actually I prefer this method of embedding SWF files since:

• There is no need to deal with <embed> or <object> tags at all. It’s all handled for you behind the scenes.
• Cross browser embedding is implied; the exact same code embeds a SWF in any browser automagically.
• Passing parameters to a SWF is trivial.
• Supplying alternative content for browsers without the Flash Player is trivial.
• Embedding with SWFObject bypasses issues caused by the ridiculous EOLAS patent.

Because of these issues, SWFObject has quickly become the de-facto standard for embedding SWF files.

I was in the process of replying to the mailing list, but I figured it would be more useful to write up a blog post for everyone. So here is a short tutorial on embedding SWF content in Ruby on Rails using the SWFObject library.

• Download the zip file from the SWFObject homepage ( direct link here)
• Extract the contents of the zip file anywhere on your machine, and copy swfobject.js to #{RAILS_ROOT}/public/javascripts
• Include swfobject.js in the head of your layout file using:

<%= javascript_include_tag 'swfobject' %>

• Copy your SWF file(s) to #{RAILS_ROOT}/public/swf
• Include the following code in the body of the template file in which you wish to embed the SWF content:

  You need to upgrade your Flash Player
  This is replaced by the Flash content.
  Place your alternate content here and users without the Flash
  plugin or with Javascript turned off will see this.
  Content here allows you to leave out noscript
  tags.

And that’s all there is to it. More information is available on the SWFObject homepage :-)

UPDATE: Meekish kindly posted a comment pointing out a plugin for Ruby on Rails that provides a flashobject_tag to use directly in your views. More info here. Thanks Meekish!

For a moment there I thought we’d hit a quite period in the contract world, having received nothing from the Freelancers Network website. All is well however, as today I received nothing short of a slew of interesting projects. Wish me luck!

Well Tela finally got back to me, so the stress levels are back to a low hum. I still can’t fully relax as Al and Nat are still looking for work so it’s still down to me to pay the rent back in London, and despite protests I still intend to settle Athena’s medical bills so she can get help without worrying. She’ll still worry of course, but anything I can do to help I will. I tend not to talk publicly about this side of my life, for a few reasons. Mostly because it’s nobody’s business but ours, but every now and then I feel the need to think out loud, and my blog is usually my soap box, and right now I have a few things on my mind.

I understand this may be a misinterpretation on my part - exchange rate falls heavily on one side here, and when converting from dollars to sterling things seem really cheap over here. But while browsing through freelance websites I can’t help but notice that these projects are really badly paid. For example, a $250 budget for a complete member system user levels and document sharing really doesn’t seem a whole lot. There’s a few days work there and spread out over say 3 days (including testing and enhancement requests) it works out at just over $10 an hour. WIthout seeming ungrateful, this is actually less than I’d get working in McDonald’s back home.

So what gives? Are freelancers just really badly paid over here, or are companies just trying to take advantage of desperate contractors? Back home I make an average of $50-60 an hour. Something ‘aint right.

Ok so I actually landed a few days ago, but we’ve only just had our internet connection installed and I’m now in the process of catching up with postponed tasks and re-greasing the work wheels. I’m not able to work here legally, and I’m not willing to push my luck too much - I value my entry into the USA too much - so with any luck I’ll be able to find a contract back in London and do the work while I’m here.

It’s unfortunate that my latest client, Tela LTD aren’t particularly efficient, or I might be in a better position. It’s been over two weeks now since we were supposed to resume development after testing, and I’ve heard very little (and nothing since I arrived in Kansas). In their defence, they are good payers - but to their demise their communication leaves a lot to be desired.

Ho hum, plenty more fish in the sea as they say.

Update: Tela did eventually get back to me, but as of 15 June I’m still waiting for the work to start..