Since Google didn’t bring up any leads, and the Reddit Enhancement Suite didn’t help, I created my own! Though when people find this they’ll probably tell me all about the much better solutions people have already made.

The code was inspired by, but not based on, the (Super Reddit Alt-Text Display)[http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/109869] userscript.

Go from this

to this!

So here is the aptly named titletext.safariextz

First thing I noticed was lighting adequate for software work is useless for tiny hardware work, so I set about building a custom lamp for it.

So, I started with a cheap clip-on desk lamp, and with some components from eBay and a LED pattern laser cut by Ponoko I set to work (pics in full post)

I also added dimming, as I’d found a neat 555-based clockless PWM circuit. This didn’t really work out though, as the dimming wasn’t great due to how that circuit works and probably my component selection.

So we started with this, a simple lamp with two holes drilled in with my cheap fake dremel:

Then there was a wait while I got the LED mounting laser cut, and then a test fit with some LEDs tacked in to it:

Most of the rest is gluing the LEDs in place using my trusty hot glue gun, and soldering the LED chains together, here’s a shot of the back in progress:

Heatshrink applied to all the wires to prevent shorts, as when all the chains are in place there’ll be a few overlaps. Once all that was done it was time to put it all in place! There were a few false starts, and one casualty:

This little board did a pretty decent job of PWM, but it wasn’t very linear. It fell rapidly from full to half, then stayed on half for a while then fall to nothing quickly. I may add a dimmer in the future, but for now it doesn’t seem so useful anyway.

So, how does it work when on? These shots were taken under normal room lighting, but the camera metered that out completely. I could HDR it, but the camera needs charging ;)

The light is shining on a white notebook (go Webstock!] and a stick of hot melt glue, for the last photo.

You can’t really see the UV glow in that last shot, but the paper and the glue stick are glowing, but the plastic on the left is just reflecting the purple of the LEDs. LEDs aren’t a great UV source, but it should be enough.

And finally, a shot of the PSU, which is totally overkill for something drawing ~500mA. Yes, that’s a 29A PSU.

Future plans? None for the lamp. Maybe adding a diffuser to it, tracing paper should work perfectly.

Firstly, VP8 is probably patented (though it may not be), the algorithms are very similar to the h.264 algorithms, so the MPEG LA may have a claim. Also Google haven’t offered any form of indemnification or analysis to show the patents aren’t infringed. In many cases we’ve seen companies wait for popularity then sue those who can’t defend, one reason GNU doesn’t use GIF.

Secondly, VP8 may be the future, but h.264 is here now. While looking to the future is all well and good, it shouldn’t be at the expense of current usability unless the two are mutually exclusive. The ‘for the future’ argument also falls down with quality comparisons, VP8 and h.264 are of comparable quality, with VP8 falling short at the moment, though that may pick up with more development. VP8 is not a next generation codec, it’s current generation. Arguably VP8 has better peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR), but PSNR doesn’t reflect visual quality.

I believe that Google can push WebM in more effective ways. They are working on VP8 hardware acceleration for mobile devices and presumably re-encoding a lot of YouTube content to VP8. I assume they’re also working on WebM support in Flash Player, as once that’s complete non-WebM browsers will have a fallback. All that’s happened in the short term is Chrome users will see h.264 content in Flash Player, rather than in native video, which gives awful playback on Linux. Given Firefox’s performance it seems I’ll be stuck with proprietary browsers if I want performant video playback. Thanks Google.

If you have Comic Sans Be Gone installed the check your extensions updates, else grab it

I was recently making a quick and dirty tool in F# that needed some basic user settings, so I went with the ApplicationSettings infrastructure in .NET, as it’s the easiest way to implement this. In C# this is easy, the GUI designer writes the code for you. In F# you have to do it yourself. Microsoft’s documentation is in C#, so there’s some adaptation to do.

You’ll need a type that inherits ApplicationSettingsBase class from System.Configuration, and then add some property members with the attribute UserScopedSettingAttribute(). You can also use ApplicationScopedSettingAttribute() for application-level settings, but these require editing the XML in your App.Config, something that I’m not that familiar with yet.

There’s a little boilerplate for each setting, but other than that it’s a breeze.

Here’s a sample settings class:

open System.Configuration
type MySettings() = 
  inherit ApplicationSettingsBase()
  [<UserScopedSettingAttribute()>]
  member this.UserSetting
    with get() = this.Item("UserSetting") :?> string
    and set(value : string) = this.Item("UserSetting") <- value

  [<ApplicationScopedSettingAttribute()>]
  member this.AppSetting
    with get() = this.Item("AppSetting") :?> string

It’s finally released! I present EMPing.

No, it’s not free. Servers aren’t free either and I have to run one to do notifications.

If only I had a million-dollar game idea.

For Chrome users goblindegook’s Allvetica replaces Arial and optionally Comic Sans with Helvetica.

I was concerned that changing the font would mess up designs, but then I remembered that they were using comic sans, so it wasn’t a real concern.

However, it will slow down all web pages, as it iterates all stylesheet rules. If you notice your browser going slow this is probably why. Caveat Emptor.

So with that, I present Comic Sans Be Gone.

The latest information will be on the product page, and I’ve made an update manifest for it.

Even the blog acknowleges that there are problems, noting that it doesn’t integrate with the system keychain, but that these are “minor issues”.

I disagree.

Since Firefox doesn’t use the keychain passwords in Firefox are not subject to my keychain policy. I don’t know if the passwords are secure when I lock my machine, I can’t delete them using the administration tools, and they can’t be shared with other apps if I allow. This is a major issue, especially on a mobile device.

The important thing is the user would never notice that.

Firefox also doesn’t obey the system proxy settings. Granted, that’s useful for me, but imagine a corporate situation where there’s a company proxy. Start Firefox and it’ll ignore all system settings.

Then there’s the preferences dialog, which just throws the entire HIG out of the window.

While all this may be acceptable to many user, especially “power users”, this is not the experience Apple wants for the devices.

Games, of course, are a special case where the UI is almost entirely custom, but if developers get too “creative” it’s detrimental for all.

Windows 7, while in my opinion more refined than Windows XP, still feels like Windows. The development tools have more features than Xcode, but fewer than Eclipse, and the profiling tools just aren’t Shark.

However, I think it’s a good move. The people have been great so far, and I now believe I can do something that will actually affect people’s lives.