QuickProSE

For lack of a PR person, I'm stuck with the job. 'Web 2.0 And Cloud Computing Must Die' is now available in it's remixed form here.

There's some other interesting stuff over there. Go poke around. :-)

One of the things that I took away from the Caribbean Internet Forum blogging experience was that Drupal is admirably suited for the task but I did not use it this time, instead relying on internal pingbacks.

What I should have done - and what Drupal users should do - when live blogging an event is to use Drupal's book module functionality so that the entire set of blog entries are linked through Drupal. And since the Book Module remains a part of Drupal Core, it stands to reason that this is also the most robust method for sites that will eventually be upgraded: 3rd party modules, in my experience, are almost never updated as quickly as new versions of Drupal are released.

Between meetings, I ended up passing Gulf City in La Romain, Trinidad this morning - at 10:24 a.m. I decided to pull in for a late breakfast and early lunch.

I ordered 2 bacon and egg sandwiches on white - and when it came time to dressing them, I was given the options of things to put on them. I asked for lettuce, tomato, onion and green pepper.

'No green pepper'.
'What do you mean no green pepper? I'll pay extra to get them if I have to.'
'We can't put green peppers on this sandwich. It's the rules.'
'Well, that's a silly rule.'

At this point, an elderly gentleman on my right decided to instruct me in the rules and regulations of Subway, but I had no time for him and indicated as much to him with my hand (no, nothing rude) and continued the conversation a bit, noting that the gentleman ahead as well as the lady ahead of him were paying attention and showing some consensus on the Green Pepper Dilemma.

'You know, it really is a silly rule. I'll fill out one of those comment cards about the Green Pepper thing. As simple as it is, I just really want green peppers this morning and I find it depressing that I can't have them...'

And the lady behind the counter, having more customer service ability than the rules she is forced to work by, put a few slices of green pepper on my sandwiches. 'I wouldn't want you depressed this morning'. Bless her heart for being smarter than the rules.

That, you see, is customer service. And in the comment card, I put a 6 for customer service (on a scale of 1-5) and wrote that not allowing green peppers on breakfast sandwiches is downright silly.

Silly rule. Great customer service. Maybe some of that customer service will leak over to the rules at Subway. At least in South Trinidad, I can get real pork products - unlike Chaguanas areas, where pork is forbidden.

One thing that has bothered me for years in Trinidad and Tobago is the inability of people to remove their own garbage from the tables at fast food outlets. It simply amazes me on one hand, as the garbage cans [rubbish bins] are located strategically in most places where, on the way out, you can simply toss the garbage into a hungry receptacle.

Is it really that hard?

The message it sends is kind of interesting. Let's say you walk into a fast food outlet, get your food and wish to sit down. At the busiest times, this means that the tables in Trinidad and Tobago are either occupied or are full of someone else's rubbish. No one likes to sit at a dirty table, even the people who leave their garbage behind, but there it is. Where this attitude comes from, the root, is not clear. But walk into any fast food restaurant in Trinidad and Tobago, and there it is.

In reading the tables of rubbish, here's what I came up with: Trinbagonians simply don't care about how they leave something behind. They don't feel any responsibility for what they leave behind, they do not feel accountable for their actions and will happily leave it for someone else to deal with. Yet, when abroad, they do not maintain this culture. Odd.

The state of the country seems to bear me out.

I use the Seamonkey integrated web browser - I've done so for years - but as I plunge more and more into using Google Earth, I've been noticing something that would annoy the heck out of anyone running Google Earth and Seamonkey at the same time:

As soon as you try to access something on the web through Google Earth, it tries to uninstall Seamonkey. This would be filed under 'making me unhappy'. Thus, I searched around and came up with this page in the Google Earth forums that, in turn, got me to the real Seamonkey/Google Earth answer:

I have the same issue. After some investigation, I found this is becuase GE (or possibly MSHTML.DLL ?) attempts to run SEAMON~1.EXE, with no path, so goes looking for it in C:\WINDOWS, and finds SeamonkeyUninstall.exe, which in 8.3 name format is of course SEAMON~1.EXE, so it runs it.

Why it is doing this, when previous versions did not, is not yet clear, but at least this is something to go on.

Workaround to prevent seamonkey being closed every time you click on a link is to rename seamonkey to something that does not match SEAMON~1.EXE, eg put a "1" in front of it or something - "1 seamonkeyuninstall.exe" works nicely.

This does not make links works, but at least it stops all your seamonkey windows being closed.

Props to smeenz for helping me sort that bug out. { Read more }

Everyone in Trinidad and Tobago knows that food prices are on the rise - but there seems to be something escaping the media when it comes to food prices. This would be that the lands of Caroni- the agricultural lands - are something that the Government of Trinidad and Tobago decided to build houses on. Granted, houses are a problem - but when you rob Peter to pay for Paul, Paul pays for all. And the agricultural lands of the lands were robbed to pay for housing - so guess what? Paul, housing, residents - Paul must pay for all.

While the Prime Minister tells his political supporters that all will be well, one has to wonder what sort of mindset permitted the use of agricultural lands for residences. Does that seem like something which demonstrates foresight? Of course not. And because of that, agricultural crops are also being grown where heavier fertilizers are required due to poor soil. And that, in turn, skews development.

Meanwhile, the Trinidad Guardian reports that the Caribbean governments are seeking public and private partnerships for agricultural projects they say could boost food production and drive down prices, but manages to somehow leave out the details that would permit people interested in participating to actually participate. There is even mention of Guyana, originally planned to be the food basket of the Caribbean, becoming what it was planned to be. At least they're consistent in talking. { Read more }

When I read the headline, Researchers increase probability of U.S. major hurricane landfall, I really have to wonder what magic researchers are working to increase the probability of U.S. major hurricane landfall. It sounds like something Homeland Security should look into; if researchers can increase probability like that then maybe they should turn their superhuman powers elsewhere.

Like decreasing the probability of poorly written headlines.

Of course they didn't increase the probability. They simply noticed an increased probability.

A short post, but something I just had to point to: Geeks take to the street against Microsoft standard:

IT types and ordinary PC users alike are voicing their protest against Norway's vote to adopt the OOXML format as the international open standard for documents.

The rare event took place close to where international IT powers were gathered for the free-program conference "Go Open" in downtown Oslo on Wednesday. Many of the conference participants showed their support by holding banners along with the protesters in the cold and rainy weather.

OOXML, the source code associated with Microsoft’s "Office" package, has been approved by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) to be the international storage format, firing up both IT people and everyday computer users in Norway...

In one way, this could be seen as funny. But in another way, it could be said that at least in one country - a country where, as I recall, Linus Torvalds started writing Linux from - people care enough about their choices to criticize and call for what they want.

That the government isn't listening... well, is that a surprise, really? Microsoft grew into existence because of governments. And even despite them.

If people really want to enforce their choice, its quite simple: vote with your feet.