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Cat Food

The following is an unordered list of things Loosey the Cat has attempted to eat, or has eaten, or has at least chewed on a bit, in the last two years:
Loosey and chewed up sponge

  • Macaroni & cheese
  • Pancakes (blueberry and non-blueberry)
  • Cupcakes (just nibbled the tops)
  • Tinkerbell’s vomit (Tinkerbell is the other cat)
  • Popcorn
  • Turkey
  • Iam’s cat food
  • Kitchen sponge (may have smelled like chicken)
  • Donuts

Don’t get me wrong, I have not offered all of these things to Loosey, she often decides what to eat, and when to eat it without consulting with me. As for the “Tinkerbell’s vomit” item, for all I know Tinkerbell vomits on a daily basis but I never know it. Kudos to Loosey for cleaning it up so I don’t have to. (That does not lower the “gross” factor though.) She has only chewed up two kitchen sponges, and that happened in the same week, I’ll call it a phase. As for the donuts, she managed to remove one from a plastic bakery bag on Saturday night, but she was caught in the act Sunday night trying to compromise the security device protecting the donuts. The donuts were properly secured after that, and she was punished appropriately.

(Hey, it just ain’t the web without posts about cats…)

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Proxy and Cache This!

Microsoft has something called an ISA Server

What does ISA stand for? I’m pretty sure it’s Incredibly Shitty Appliance.

I know they think it’s something else:

ISA Server is the advanced stateful packet and application-layer inspection firewall, virtual private network (VPN), and Web cache solution that enables enterprise customers to easily maximize existing information technology (IT) investments by improving network security and performance.

But I’m pretty sure it’s an Incredibly Shitty Appliance. I assume by “improving performance” they mean “breaking the web” or something similar. You know you’re in trouble when even the IT guys think it is the suxors…

(Squid Web Proxy Cache anyone?)

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Yahoo! Maps (Again!)

Hooray! From Simon, the newest Yahoo! at Yahoo! comes news of the new Yahoo! Maps APIs. There’s Flash and Ajax and Geocoding… Time to play…

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Will Microsoft ever get the web?

Consider this a continuation of Will Microsoft ever play nice with the web?

Dear Microsoft, it’s 2005. Heck, it’s almost 2006, and you are still launching web sites (see Windows Live) that do not work in other web browsers.

How can the people who develop these things justify this? These are not good web citizens… But wait! Look, see, they are thinking of you!

Firefox Users
Firefox support is coming soon. Please be patient :-)

Oooh, that smiley is a nice touch. A warm and fuzzy, truly caring Microsoft.

I assume what they mean to say is “Windows users who happen to use Firefox, Please be patient”… But wait, there’s more!

What is Windows Live?
Your online world gets better when everything works simply and effortlessly together. That’s the basic idea behind Windows Live. So the things you care about – your friends, the latest information, your e-mails, powerful search, your PC files, everything – comes together in one place. This is a brand new Internet experience designed to put you in control. And this is just the beginning – you’ll see many more new services in the coming months.

Again, I assume that unless you and your friends all use Windows, you are not included. Safari, Opera? Mac OS X? Linux? Chances are you aren’t invited to the party…

As usual, file this under Humor.

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Polling Doesn’t Have to be Painful

Automatically unsubscribing from feeds? Blasphemy! Right?

Kellan and Phil both mention it feeling not quite right, or just plain wrong, and I agree that it could be misused, so I thought I’d revisit some of the features I’ve added into my current aggregator of choice Feed on Feeds. (Aggregator developers, feel free to use any of these ideas in your products, if the clients improve, we all win, right?)

Ratings: Each feed gets a rating from 0 to 5 *’s. This allows me to easily hit my aggregator and just view the important feeds. If I have more time to spare, I can view the lesser rated feeds. I’ve found this to be pretty valuable in managing my attention. I also set any new subscription to 5 *’s to start with, so it’s immediately in my face, and I can drop it down to a lower level if needed.

Polling Frequency: The other big feature I added was individual polling frequencies, so I can set how often a feed is polled. I’ve really only got a handful that are set to 60 minutes (1 hour is probably the minimum for hitting other people’s feeds.) This allows me to up the frequency for feeds I might be in control of, that exist on my server, from my applications. In this case, I’d hate to be limited by the 1 hour most clients use. More important than that is the higher setting. I’ve got a ton of feeds that get checked every 6 to 12 hours, every day, every week, etc. I do this either because I know the sites do not update that often, or they are not important enough for me to worry about on an hourly basis. This mean less requests from my aggregator, and less hits to the servers that host the feeds.

Anyway, I applaud aggregator developers willing to introduce new features. We can push beyond just being a river (or puddle) of news in so many ways…