February 28, 2003
Mixed Mode - Handling method-differences between paper and web questionnaires (PDF).
In this article, the authors show that in spite of identical design of a web questionnaire and a paper questionnaire (in principle the web questionnaire was printed), test subjects give significantly different answers depending on which version they fill out. Further, they give a few practical pieces of advice to people intending to do mixed mode and/or web surveying.
February 28, 2003
Kiara's taken over Owen's photo gallery. I just wasn't keeping up with the steady stream of incoming photos. I toyed with setting up a photo gallery app that would automatically create the web pages for her, thumbnails and all, but in the end decided that it made more sense for her to just create and edit the pages herself using her photo software and Dreamweaver.
The problem is that the photo software-generated markup sucks. I considered post-processing the HTML, but if I'm going to go to all that trouble I might as well write the photo gallery app. Besides, Kiara's pretty damn smart. On her first day tinkering with Dreamweaver, without any help from me she figured out more than some people I know who have been maintaining web sites for over two years. I came home to find her peering closely at the HTML, trying to determine why something wasn't working right. Last night, after updating the February pictures, she mentioned that she'd figured out how to attach a style sheet.
Ye gods, she's great.
So I don't think it'll take her long to figure out valid XHTML. I suppose that I could even help.
February 27, 2003
The other day I wrote that the MnSCU IT conference had been cancelled. Matt called me on this today, so I should clarify: strictly speaking, it has not yet been cancelled. Everything but, though. It is not yet official, or perhaps even firmly decided yet. From what I can tell, it's 95% certain that the conference will be cancelled, or at the very least postponed.
You might think that it would cancelled for budget reasons. Yes, but only indirectly. A number of Minnesota state agencies have been taken to task recently by the local media for what seems to be outrageous spending practices. Things like conferences and meetings being held at resorts or hotels rather than in State-owned buildings. Even though almost all the expenses at our conference are picked up by vendors, there's concern that even the appearance of overspending would be damaging to MnSCU's public image. We could probably set things up so that the vendors pick up all the expenses, but that probably wouldn't come across in a ten-second spot on TV news.
Oh well. Anyway, for the one or two people who care, now you know what I know.
February 26, 2003
In an apparent effort effort to forestall the rapid adoption of Linux in the enterprise, Sun is making some of its software free to students and faculty. Stuff like Solaris 9, StarOffice, and Sun ONE Studio. The idea, it seems, is to get students familiar with these tools while in school so they'll be enthusiastic about them when they start working.
I wonder how that will turn out. My interest in free and open source software was at first inspired by the price tag. I was a poor student, after all. It was only after I'd become familiar with the tools that I became attracted to the philosophy. I would eventually have become a free-as-in-freedom devotee anyway, but I wonder how much I would have brought that into the workplace had I been steeped in the Microsoft world, or even Sun. Donno.
February 26, 2003
A couple agents from the Secret Service stopped by yesterday, investigating something for which they needed access to our systems. All the while I kept thinking how little I know about what they can and cannot legitimately expect from us. I wasn't directly involved so I don't know what they were asking for or whether they had or even needed a warrant. The USA Patriot Act changed a whole lot, including emergency situations in which a warrant is deemed unnecessary. Librarians might be aware of the changes, but I don't think that techies in the trench are. I hope that management is.
Pity that our IT conference has been cancelled, this would make a good session.
The agents were nice guys, though, clean-cut snappy dressers with a good sense of humor. Not a jack-booted thug in sight. I didn't get a good look, but they were apparently quite handsome: one woman said she was trying to type but the guy standing next to her was so cute that her hands were sweating. Heh.
February 25, 2003
I volunteer as a reading tutor in a local school, where I heard someone today comment about how many kids were home sick. "Must be a virus going around," they said. I was briefly puzzled, thinking they must mean a computer virus and wondering how could that impact children's health.
Sigh.
February 20, 2003
Yes, stopped using subjects in my sentences. How observant of you. Sometimes verbs, too. Easier.
A few years ago I gave up the passive voice for Lent. This seems easy at first but is actually extraordinarily difficult. Which is, of course, the point. Which is even funnier since observing Lent is not part of my tradition.
Avoiding the passive voice was made even harder by the fact that at the time I was taking a French linguistics course in which I studied use of the passive voice. I made an exception for that class. At the same time, I was writing quite a few very diplomatic memos and email at work. It's tricky business to be diplomatic without the passive voice. Just try it sometime.
It turned out to be a very worthwhile exercise in self-discipline. Out of necessity, I became much more conscious of everything I said or wrote.
Then somewhere along the way, all that went to hell. And you're reading the result.
February 20, 2003
Speaking of bad things happening in the Legislature, there's a bill before the House (HF 341) to remove sexual orientation as a protected class in the Minnesota Human Rights Act and elsewhere. That is, GLBT Minnesotans would no longer be protected from discrimination in employment, housing, education, public accommodations, hate crimes, etc.
Being protected from discrimination does not mean that you have special privileges.
This seems to be happening with little debate. If this bill is approved, Minnesota would become the first state to ever extend then rescind protections against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. I remember well when these protections were first enacted. That was a joyful day. Let's not go backwards and screw it up.
Turns out that this bill is being pushed by the Minnesota Family Council — an innocuous-sounding name for a right-wing Christian lobbyist organization. (Whenever anyone claims to uphold "Judeo-Christian principles" they usually mean "conservative Christian values" in the "nuke a godless, communist, gay baby seal for Christ" vein. Why is that?) Aided by misinformation, distortion, and exaggeration.
More information on OutFront Minnesota's web site and the Twin Cities Independent Media Center, which I've just discovered. Do something about this. Please.
February 20, 2003
Module::Build, a pure Perl replacement for ExtUtils::MakeMaker. This will be great. I work with some production boxes that don't have make available, so installing a Perl module is kind of a pain. I also expect to have a much easier time reading a Perl build file than a makefile.
February 20, 2003
Thank you for not raising my taxes!
Let's see… you chose not to raise my taxes by a maximum of $1,000 per year for the next two years and instead your decision will cost us $4,150. Wow I am glad we moved to Minnesota to admire your "common sense approach" to government. Now I remember why I don't vote for republicans.
Right on. I cannot believe that people are really being fooled that not raising state taxes will result in cost savings. Of course the costs are being pushed off to city and counties, so people may well end up spending more in taxes. Not to mention the cuts in human services that will result in higher long-term spending. Hopefully the legislature will pass something a bit more sane than Pawlenty's no-new-taxes approach, but I doubt it.
I confess that I am having a hard time looking at the big picture in budget questions beyond the cuts that might put me out of a job. Normally I'd be outraged about gutting programs that do serious good in people's lives, all in the name of silly, short-sighted campaign promises. Okay fine, I am outraged. But it's taken some time and more energy than I have available to think beyond how this will affect my ability to put food on the table.
That selfishness, of course, is part of the problem. I love Bob Collins's comment about people in the suburb where he lives, who
...often have houses that are too big, which they purchased for the status of it all, they're running a couple of SUVs which costs $80 a throw to fill up and probably are leased or have a pretty large monthly payment. They've got 3-bay garages, better to hold the boat and SkiDoo with and they think the reason they're having a had time making ends meet is their property tax bill.
Damn frelling straight.
February 20, 2003
From the U.S. Department of Homeland Security: Ready.gov. "Don't be afraid, be ready."
February 14, 2003
An editorial in today's Minnesota Daily, "A Test for Norm Coleman":
With Republican Sen. Norm Coleman's election last November, Minnesotans seemed to affirm a belief that he had reformed his chameleon ways. Minnesotans seemed to forgive past flip-flopping transgressions on issues such as privatization, party affiliation, abortion, a motorized Boundary Waters Canoe Area and education reform. During his campaign, Coleman even stood in firm opposition to President George W. Bush's proposal to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. But after refusing to sign a bipartisan letter to oppose ANWR drilling last Tuesday, Coleman's hue seems to have changed — again. We're forced to wonder if the chameleon, now in office, has returned.
Er, yes. Isn't that obvious? Probably not to anyone who lives outside the Metro area and didn't have to live with him as mayor. I don't think people ever really understood his "chameleon ways." Perhaps now they will.
February 14, 2003
Well, one thing's clear: assuming that I still have my job after this upcoming round of budget cuts within Minnesota state government, those same cuts make it pretty damn unlikely that I'll make it to this year's Open Source Convention. Pity. That was one of the most valuable things that I did last year.
Heck, our own IT conference within MnSCU may not happen. I'm supposed to hear today, but that's what I was told a couple weeks ago.
I'm going to start saving to go to OSCON next year on my own dime.
February 14, 2003
I just noticed that you can set the language in Google preferences to, among other things, Elmer Fudd, Bork! Bork! Bork! (that's Swedish Chef for you Muppet-ignorant heathens), and Pig Latin. And Klingon, of course.
Once you've set it to Elmer Fudd, the language preferences include "BLAH (BLAH)" and "Norwegian (Jibber Jabber)." Too bad, that last one, I'd have expected "Nowwegian (Jibbew Jabbew)."
February 14, 2003
WebAIM is doing another online web accessibility training this year. Last year's was good (and free) enough that I bought the training materials on CD-ROM. This year's is not free, but I like some of the things they're doing, namely breaking it out into tracks. And there's a handy education discount. Looks worth it.
In case you haven't tried it, I suggest that you try the updated version of WAVE, an online accessibility tool that is now developed by WebAIM. It's in beta but is still a far sight better than most other tools.
A lot of people like Bobby. I don't. The problems that Bobby can check automatically are almost all things that a good markup validator checks for: missing alt text, DOCTYPE declarations, and so on. Most pages turn up a fair number of user checks that need to be done, which is fine except for two things: messages from Bobby are cryptic and unhelpful, and it's not clear how to evaluate some of what Bobby flags as possible problems (especially to novices). The W3C's markup validator has much more helpful messages, even to those who don't know HTML well.
So how do you do the user checks? That's where WAVE comes in. Plug in a URL, and WAVE returns tha page at that URL marked up with icons that you can use to evaluate the accessibility of that page. For example, rather than simply flagging missing alt text, WAVE goes a step further and displays the alt text so you can determine whether it's actually useful. It identifies structural markup (headers, lists, etc.) to help you evaluate whether the page is marked up properly. WAVE calls your attention to mouse-activated JavaScript events, so you can decide whether they should also be keyboard-triggered.
When evaluating and improving the accessibility of a web page, I do at least these two things:
There's always room for improvement, but I find that's usually enough — or at least is all that automated tools can help with. Other accessibility issues tend to be global in nature, relating to navigation, content, and so on, and require more sophisticated analysis.
February 13, 2003
Tempting though it's been, I have not gone out and bought Apple's Keynote presentation software. It looks slick, easier to use than PowerPoint, and I like how the presentations look. I've held out, though, because
Yesterday Apple released Keynote's XML schema, for those of us who might want to access or create Keynote presentations programatically. This makes Keynote a teensy bit more tempting. The schema is certainly easier to grok than OpenOffice's XML file format, although that's not entirely fair since OpenOffice is a suite of applications while Keynote is a stand-alone app. Too, there may be more to come: Apple mentions a "four-part Technical Note 'Deconstructing a Keynote Document'" that is apparently a work in progress.
So am I planning to buy Keynote? Not unless I start doing enough presentations to merit the price. I don't think a hundred dollars is extravagant, but still more than I should be tossing around right now. I do have to say that I applaud Apple for making this move. They have been doing such a good job of working with open standards, balancing openness with proprietary needs.
Oh yes. If you're using Safari, don't miss the new beta.
February 08, 2003
Interesting: Googlert
Googlert is an experimental free service that keeps you updated on what the web is saying about you or your interests. It does this by performing regular Google searches on your behalf and sending you email alerts of any new results that appear.
My first question was how they get around the restrictions on the Google Web APIs, mainly the limit of 1000 queries per day. Duh: Googlert uses your Google license key for your searches.
February 05, 2003
On the back of a snowplow I saw a sign today: "Stay Back. Stay Alive." I suppose that's better than "Stay Back or Die" which is what I would most likely have written. I don't imagine that would sit well with people.
February 05, 2003
I decided a couple months ago that it was time to renew my acquaintance with either Python or Java, but vacillated between the two for some time. In the end the decision was simple: although Python has some sex appeal, Java makes more sense. It's much more in keeping with the direction that I want to go as a web developer. Whereas there's very little that I want to do with Python that I can't or don't already do with Perl, there are exciting things happening in the Java world that I'd rather not miss, including some of the most appealing Apache projects. I have a strong suspicion that my employer will be doing quite a bit more with Java in the not-too-distant future, which means that I might be, too — assuming I don't get laid off in the upcoming budget cuts, god forbid. And I really did miss working with the language. It's been fun diving back into things.
Then I stumbled into How to Think Like a Computer Scientist: Learning with Python. For a sec I thought this would muddy the waters. But wait! There's a Java version. And of course there's always Bruce Eckel's Thinking in Java.
Thing is, though, the only one of those three that I'm likely to read is the Python one. Go figure. Maybe next year.
February 04, 2003
This evening I took care of the kid while Kiara was in class. Nothing unusual about that, except we stayed in town instead of going home. We ended up at the TeaSource, where he fussed a bit but eventually settled down so we could read a couple of his favorite books. A couple guys at the next table had a copy of a children's book that they've written and illustrated, due to be published in early March. I mention it here so i don't lose this information: If I Had Thumbs Like People Do. ISBN 1-4010-8261-0. Looks like a fun book, keep an eye out.
Update: You can buy the book here.
February 03, 2003
Exciting news: Matt Sergeant has released the code for the AxKit OpenOffice Provider, which makes delivering OpenOffice SXW files to the web a snap.
You may already be familiar with AxKit, an XML application server for Apache written in Perl. The OpenOffice filter transforms OpenOffice files to the output format of your choice...say, XHTML. I've been eyeing it for some time now, but it was a commercial product so not easily available to me. (If we'd decided to use AxKit at work, it may have been an option, but we're still quite a ways away from making that sort of decision.) Since Matt's dissolved the company that sold the OpenOffice filter, he's open sourced the code. I cannot wait to dig into this.
I'm curious, too, how I could incorporate it into something like Callisto CMS, a content management system built using AxKit. I'd also like to know out how easily it could be ported for use in Cocoon. I prefer to work with AxKit but have to be open to other options.
February 01, 2003
The Space Shuttle Columbia appears to have broken up on re-entry. Oh no. And I just now heard that the flag at the Kennedy Space Center has been lowered to half-staff. I guess that's unofficial confirmation. NASA should hold a press conference in half an hour or so.
