Are We There Yet?

Cripes! I'm getting worse! It's now been over a month since my last post! I could go on to tell you that I've made a New Year's resolution to try and spend more time with my online therapist *cough*, I mean the blog, but that would imply that I regularly make New Year's resolutions (which I don't) or that I keep them when I make them (which I also don't).

So, what's my excuse this time? Well, work has been as busy as ever. The main reason for my absence has been the birth of my son, Gavin Thomas. I've been spoiled by my 17-month old daughter in to believing that all kids are happy watching Elmo for an hour while you "decompress". Alas, the only thing that satisifies our son for that long is something I can't give him.

Well, now that I've scared off every geek without a <boy || girl>-friend / significant other with the implications that last statement makes, I think I'll return to the regularly scheduled programming of "Are We There Yet?". Well, hopefully the regularly scheduled programming of August or maybe September...not the white static noise that's existed on the blog since my Death March to a software release began in November.

I just had a revelation that has brightened my day considerably. While writing some code for a Base64 encoder/decoder, I was having a hard time visualizing the shifting of bits required to decode a Base64 string.

<AWTY™ Diversion>In a nutshell, Base64 is a method of encoding data in to ASCII characters for transmission. Base64 is used a lot in email since transmissions via email have to be text. Everything that's Base64 encoded consists of the characters A-Z, a-z, 0-9, +, and /. The equal sign (=) is used for padding. It's called Base64 because there are 64 characters (2^6) used in its makeup (not including the pad character).

As you can tell by the fact that it's 2^6, that means there are only 6 significant bits in each Base64 character. Computers aren't based around data types of 6 bits; they use bytes which are 8 bits. So you have some overlap. When encoding data in to Base64, you end up carrying over extra bits from the source data when creating the next Base64 character. When decoding Base64 text, it takes more than one Base64 character to create a single byte of source data. Although this may sound confusing, it's not too bad since there are only a finite number of carryovers that can be present before the pattern repeats itself. In the realm of coders, there is an obvious need for bit shifts (<< and >>).</Diversion>

While writing my decode function, I was having a hard time keeping track of the leftover bits from each Base64 character in my head. I tried scribbling down notes on my notepad, but that wasn't helping either. It was then that the perfect solution came to me. Eight full fingers - eight bits in a byte. It's pretty easy to visualize the bit shifts while staring at your digits planted on the desk in front of you.

This has led me to only one logical conclusion. God is a coder. I wonder which language He uses?

I should feel honored. I've read all over the place about how "referral spam" is rapidly making its way through the Internet. What's referral spam, you ask? Well, most web servers keep logs by default. One of the more interesting things that web servers log is the referring link that led a visitor to your web site (this is a part of the HTTP protocol - that's how the web server gets the information). Geeks and other sys admins are notoriously interested in this data because being linked to from another web page is supposed to make up for our lack of popularity in high school. Or something.

Anyway, spammers and advertisers never miss an opportunity to sully every crevice of the Internet that they can seep in to and now Web referrals are no different. As I browsed through my web server log not long ago, I came upon this nugget:

2004-01-05 20:08:40 206.129.0.135 - HEAD /index.htm 200 288 HTTP/1.0 StarProse+Referrer+Advertising+System+2004 http://blog.johnkerry.com

Of course, it's trivial to forge the HTTP header information that does this. I could write such a utility in a few hours. A quick search of Google for "StarProse+Referrer+Advertising+System+2004" links this whole phenomenom to a company - StarProse.com. Imagine a script that will crawl through pages it finds on the Web pretending to visit the site using a URL of your choice as the referring link. Ta-da. You've just stamped your URL in to the Web server logs of thousands of servers out there. Better yet, for the thousands of these sites that publish their log statistics on their sites (many of which interpret URLs and change them in to hyperlinks), you've just added a link from their page to yours which does wonders for your Google page rank consequently increasing your position in the search engine.

The funny part is that a stroll through those Google results shows you that two people are doing this the most: porn sites and Democratic Presidential hopefuls from John Kerry and Joe Lieberman to the supposedly Geek Friendly™ Howard Dean. I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions.

GOOD afternoon, Ladies and Gentlemen. This is the captain speaking.

Before we get under way with our regularly scheduled Net surfing, I'd just like to take a moment to point out to all of you one of the more popular "features" of the Internet service we provide to all of you, our paying corporate customers, from the caring folks at SBC Communications. You may have noticed that in the past few hours, your tracert times have shown up with excruciatingly slow response times. In fact, if you're a member of the frequent Internet surfer group, which we have affectionately termed "Net addict", then you've probably noticed that this is a daily routine.

Exhibit A: Tracert from the offending Internet connection to AWTY. Image (43.2KB) uploaded to AWTY server in 15 minutes at an average rate of 48 bytes/sec.

Well, I've been tasked with the enviable position of explaining to all of you, our paying corporate customers, exactly what it is you're experiencing. We here at SBC like to encourage moderation in the use of the Internet as a part of a balanced daily lifestyle. Our "Daily Internet Slowdown" (or DIS for short) is one way we support this policy. While you may think of it as aggravating, annoying, and for you "lawyer types" out there - grounds for a class action lawsuit - we prefer to think of this intentional degradation of service as a public service to our users that encourages you to all step outside for a moment, enjoy the 0 degree weather and get some fresh, frigid air.

Happy surfing!

The preceding was an unpaid public service announcement from AWTY™, a non-profit organization consisting of the poor schmucks that have the pleasure of paying SBC Communications to provide their place of employment with "high-speed" Internet service.

The honors keep flowing in for me. I've just received my first "Comment Spam". Like the referral spam I talked about a week ago, comment spam is also frequented by the porn sites and lovers of the little, blue miracle pill. "Commenting" on my post about Activision caving on their exclusive demo release of Call of Duty from back on August 29, 2003, the spam encouraged me to keep up the great work on the site while adding a link to an impotence site.

Sheesh, guys, I can take a hint...

Little do they know that just a few hours earlier, I upgraded my Movable Type installation to the latest release version of 2.661. This new version is a stepping stone to 3.0 that was released to address (drum roll, please): comment spam! Among the improvements are the ability to close comments on a post (which keeps posted comments displayed while disabling new comments) as well as using redirects for all URLs used when posting comments. The redirects effectively eliminate the Google page rank increase since the link does not go directly to the site, rather it's redirected to the target site by a script from one of my pages.

I was going to check out the MT blacklist plugin hoping that it would keep me from having to change my comment options from open to approve (since I know all 6 of the posters that have made comments up to this point might revolt at such a change in operating procedure). But, I see that apparently the plugin doesn't play nicely with the aforementioned Movable Type upgrade. Guess I'll have to wait for now.

One thing about surfing the Web that bothers every sane individual on the planet is the obnoxious ads that litter the pages of the Web everywhere. Now, I'm not going to rant about advertising in general nor about the proliferation of advertising in our society. Advertising is here and always will be. Like any other industry, it depends on a perceived or real need for its services to survive. The fact that it is so ingrained in our society supports the fact that it will go no where anytime soon. In addition, like any other successful industry, advertisers will always seek new markets, new mediums, and new methods to deliver their spiel to the consumer.

However, the fact that many regard the advertising industry and the billions of dollars it generates and invests every year as a nuisance means that for every new market, every new medium, and every new method they devise to deliver the goods, another enterprising entrepreneur will devise a way to circumvent the advertising. VCRs have commercial skip buttons and you can also rapidly skip commercials using PVR devices like Tivo and ReplayTV. The medium that is still struggling for a way to make ad elimination mainstream is the World Wide Web.

The problem with the WWW is that there are so many ways that ads can be embedded in to the requested content or otherwise forced on visitors that it seems as though there isn't a single solution for them all. And as far as I can tell, there isn't. With television and radio, advertising is a part of the content that is presented in a single threaded way. When the content is pre-recorded, you can skip it. Personally, I change the radio station or turn on a CD when it's commercial time on the radio. With the WWW, the problem is that so much information can be presented in a multi-threaded kind of way. The user dictates the pace at which content is presented, however the organization and presentation of that content is still controlled by someone else. Thus, advertising can take the form of images throughout the page, text and images presented in the middle of the requested content, overlays using Flash and Shockwave (*cough*ESPN.COM*cough*), pop-up or pop-under windows, or even (one of the most obnoxious ones ever devised) using clickthrough pages that randomly appear and force an extra page load and an extra click to get to the content you already thought you requested (IGN is notorious for this).

Of course, all this doesn't mean there aren't multiple, good methods for eliminating the vast majority of ads within the World Wide Web. I've been able to have a very pleasant and virtually ad-free experience for quite some time now by making one significant change to my Web browsing experience - I changed browsers.

<AWTY™ Diversion> - Are you getting the idea yet that these happen frequently and tend to be long? Here we go...Hi, my name's Doug and I'm a recovering Internet Explorer user that's been clean for 3 years (Hi, Doug). The first browser I remember using was Spry Mosaic that my Dad purchased (from an old Egghead store, IIRC). Anyone who's ever looked at the About box in IE knows that it says, "Based on NCSA Mosaic.". Naturally, that was where my web browsing progressed to.

I was first lured to Mozilla by the prospect of multi-tabbed browsing. Being a multi-tasker of the highest order when it comes to computers who was doomed to experience dial-up until about a year ago, I always had 5+ IE windows open. Being that my OS of choice is Windows 2000 and I can't stand XP's window grouping "feature" anyway, I soon got tired of the teeny windows in my taskbar since 75% of them were IE windows. I tried solutions that offered multitabs of IE, but was never satisfied with them. So, I tried out Mozilla after reading about it's 0.7 release on Slashdot.org (this was January 2001).

Well, this post is turning out much longer than intended so I'll pick it up a bit. </Diversion>

Mozilla did everything I wanted it to, but it was a resource hog, quite slow at starting up and switching tabs, and I didn't want to use its HTML composer or mail client (although I switched to the Mozilla Thunderbird mail client several months ago). These things never kept me away from the browser as I was quite happy with it in general. Prevailing web standards over the years has also made browsing a pleasant experience once again. I eventually migrated to the lean, mean, browsing machine brother of Mozilla called Firebird, which is what I use to this day. Through the Mozilla browser architecture in the form of Firebird, I have the ability to:

• Multi-tab browse (native functionality)
• Do quick browser actions without the keyboard using mouse gestures (a favorite of mine)
• Block pop-up windows (intelligently lets you allow certain ones - native functionality)
• Block images from servers (native functionality - handles some ads)
• Hide images where the path contains key terms using AdBlock (blocks majority of ads)
• Stop flash content from running unless I click it (no more Flash ads!)

The last piece of the puzzle for me is Java ads. I cannot stand Java ads. Nothing ticks me off more than having to wait 10 seconds for a page to load because the JVM needs to load on my machine. Satan himself would shoot the designers of Java ads and the webmasters that use them except he doesn't want them living down the street from him either.

One of the most anticipated games of the past few years is about to enter the open beta phase. I am sooooo keyed up for this one. Blizzard announced that beta signups for World of Warcraft will open tomorrow (January 28th) at 8pm CST. The signups will last a week and are NOT first-come, first-served. So everyone who signs up has an "equal" chance at getting in.

There's no word yet on how many testers Blizzard will accept for WoW, but one can safely assume that it should be their largest beta test ever considering that it's their first MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game). As some food for thought, consider that the beta test for Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne exceeded 30,000 people. The last large MMORPG that had an open beta was the disappointing Star Wars Galaxies. Sony/Verant claims that stage 3 of the beta contained more than 50,000 people. There's no word yet either on how the beta will be conducted (e.g. in stages or not). WoW has been in the "Friends & Family" alpha stage for a while now. I haven't seen any numbers on how many people this includes, but reading the variety of hands-on previews that have popped up lately would lead me to believe that it's somewhere in the 200-500 range.

Sadly, I fear that my luck with Blizzard beta tests has already been drained. I was selected for the Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction beta test, much to my surprise when the CD arrived to my apartment one afternoon. In some kind of sick twist of fate, the beta test took place over the final week of a trimester in college, which left me little time to test the game after studying for and completing end of trimester tests and exams. I was able to partake in a little bit of WarCraft III beta testing through a bit of sheer luck as well, although I wasn't selected as a tester for that one.

Throughout the years, I've participated in a huge selection of massive online games. The first for me was Ultima Online. I was 17 at the time and had to give my Mom the money to write a check to cover the cost of printing and shipping of the beta CD. My love affair with beta testing massive online games continued from there. I never partook in the phenomenom that is EverCrack....eerrr, EverQuest, although from what I can tell, I don't know that I would have enjoyed it much. The recent popularity of MMORPG games has given me plenty of games to test ranging from EVE Online and Savage: The Battle for Newerth to The Sims Online and Star Wars Galaxies. EVE Online was the most boring for me, but SWG was by far the most disappointing. None of the games has attracted my interest enough to get a monthly check from me, but I have my own jaded opinions on the economics of MMORPG's that will have to wait for another post.

World of Warcraft is bucking the trend of MMORPG's in many ways and I like that. A lot of previews of the game point out that Blizzard is creating content and purpose for the game and its players rather than just creating a virtual sandbox in which everyone will have to create their own experiences and purpose. I like that. I think MMORPG's could be successful as a virtual sandbox style of play, but not until one is created that gives players enough control and tools in which they can actually the experience they want. The Sims Online came close, but the fact that it's a virtual chatroom hindered its ability to fulfill this objective. SWG is still too restrictive to even come close. Thus, we have Blizzard going in a direction that is all of their own creation.

Can you tell I'm excited? Here's some great WoW information for those thirsting for more:

• World of Warcraft Official Site
• WorldofWar.net Visits Blizzard 2004
• GameSpy's Recent WoW Preview article series

I'm trying to do 2 entries a week on the blog. So far so good. I certainly have the material to post on, but I don't always have the time. Maybe one of these days, I'll be able to post on the same days per week as well. Baby steps.

Today's AWTY™ rant (look! I learned a new HTML tag) is brought to you by Best Buy!

Back in late October, I was suckered in by the McDonald's Monopoly game that offered a guaranteed Best Buy Buck on every order of large or super sized French Fries. I figured that a large French Fry costs about $1.25 and I can always find use of some money or discounts for geeky stuff, so I looked on it as more of an investment than anything else. I've got a history with Best Buy that spans several years in which I've become increasingly disappointed with them and their business practices that started with a brief (3 months) stint of employment with them selling computers and printers back over the holiday season of 1997. But, I could fill an entire blog with rants and raves on Best Buy. Suffice to say that a couple coworkers and I declared the last two weeks of October "French Fry Week" and a daily trek was made to McDonald's to purchase French Fries.

These Best Buy Bucks expired on 12/31/03, so on 12/29/03, I started browsing BestBuy.com for things I could use my $10 on. One co-worker decided he wasn't going to use his coupons before 12/31/03, so I inherited another $7. I settled on purchasing an 8MB memory card for my Xbox from MadCatz. It's officially licensed by Microsoft, includes a protective case, and game saves. At an MSRP of $19.99, I figured I couldn't go wrong paying $3 + tax. I was in need of the memory card anyway since my Xbox has recently been on the fritz again (more on this another time).

Being that it was the holiday season, the item was out of stock and on back order. Shortly after confirming my purchase, BestBuy.com emailed me informing me of the fact and stating that they expected to ship it by 01/07/04 - very reasonable, in my opinion. On 01/07/04, I received another email from BestBuy.com stating that the item was still on back order. Expected ship date? "Within the next 3 weeks" was what the email said.

Now, I'm not an idiot. Best Buy may be out of stock of an item and only the manufacturer can supply them with more, so they aren't at the top of this food chain. However, when Walmart.com, EBGames.com, Outpost / Fry's all have them in stock, then what's the problem? I'll admit that Amazon.com claims they are out of stock as well, but every other place I searched for that carried the MadCatz memory card claimed they were in stock.

I was frustrated, but I didn't have a choice and besides...I was still only paying $4.09 for it. So I waited. And waited. And waited some more until 21 days later, I received a 3rd email from Best Buy. This email informed me that the item I had purchased was still on back order and had not shipped. If it did not ship in 5 days, they were going to cancel my order. To keep this from happening, I needed to call an 800 number.

This pushed me over the edge. I had patiently waited a month for a simple accessory to be shipped to me. When it was all said and done, I had to take action to keep my order alive or it would be automatically cancelled on me. That's not good business practice.

But of course the REAL reason I was mad is this undermined my master plan to get something dirt cheap from Best Buy in the first place through the Monopoly game. A cancelled order meant my coupons were expired and NO GOOD. I called the 800 number to see if an expected ship was known yet. The woman I spoke to was pleasant enough, however her English with a strong Indian accent touched on yet another sore subject for geeks. Unfortunately, she couldn't provide a ship date so I asked about the coupons I used. Of course, they were "unrecoverable". I gave up and told her to just cancel the order.

Their systems were "down". She couldn't cancel the order herself.

I later wrote a lengthy letter to Best Buy and submitted it via their "contact" link on their web site detailing the ordeal I had just been through highlighting how their marketing campaign ultimately failed in generating money from me since they couldn't provide the merchandise I required. I used all my business writing skills to compose a calm, yet stern letter of disappointment that asked for reparations (a $17 off coupon to replace the ones I wasted) and stated the consequences of the business' failure to make the customer happy (I'd use the $25 gift card I received for Christmas [and not a cent more] since that is unreturnable and then go elsewhere to shop). Previous experience with Best Buy customer service told me not to expect a satisfactory resolution to the matter.

You're not going to believe the "personal" response I received a day later:

Thank you for contacting Best Buy about our online store. I'm xXx with Customer Care.

We are sorry that your experience with placing orders was frustrating.

Best Buy strives to make each experience you have with us to be as positive and as fun as possible, and we are disappointed if we don't live up to that expectation. We have forwarded your message to the appropriate personnel for their review.

Have you ever thought of getting a Best Buy Gift Card? It can be the perfect gift for that impossible to shop for person. Available in six denominations, a Gift Card allows its recipient to pick out their perfect present from any Best Buy store. To purchase a Gift Card, either pick one up at your local Best Buy retail store, or get it online at: <incomprehensible URL>

Thank you for sharing your comments with Best Buy. Please do not hesitate to contact us with additional questions or concerns.

Best wishes from Best Buy,

xXx and the Customer Care Team

One of my favorite web sites to check out is the well-known (amongst the initiated) ThinkGeek. My main purpose for going there is to check out the selection of geek approved t-shirts. The t-shirts themselves are relatively straight forward. They're your standard fare cotton t-shirt with a few words or phrases printed on the front and back with the occasional one containing an image or two as well. The thing that sets the ThinkGeek t-shirts apart is what they say.

As a proud owner of the Binary People, Computer Repair, TCP/IP crawler (for my son), and the apparently discontinued "Don't blame me, it's a hardware problem" t-shirts, I'm a very satisfied customer.

The latest introduction in to the ThinkGeek product line had me rolling on the floor with laughter the other day. Just in time for Valetine's Day: HTTPanties.

Geeks are notorious for not taking subtle hints too well or missing what others consider to be meaningful forms of communcation (body language anyone?). Giving us machine readable response codes that are defined in a published, IETF approved standards document is something we can parse and make an intelligent (and predictable) response to. My only question is where the "401 Unauthorized" or request for https:// ones are. Shouldn't we be encouraging secure communications?

Want to let your imagination run a little? Check out the rest of the HTTP response codes.