afongen

Following up on yesterday’s announcement of the OWASP Top Ten, David Sklar (one of the authors of the PHP Cookbook) has posted an article about how to avoid those security vulnerabilities if you use PHP.

Sorry for the buzzword title there, but this is amazingly cool: The Detroit Project:

The idea for this project came to me while watching — for the umpteenth time — one of those outrageous drug war ads the Bush administration has flooded the airwaves with. You know, the ones that try and link using drugs to financing terrorism. . . . Why not turn the tables and adopt the same tactics the administration was using in the drug war to point out the much more credible link between driving SUVs and our national security? Thus began our campaign to create a series of TV ads designed to win the hearts and minds — and change the driving habits — of American consumers by asking them to connect the dots and think about the effect energy wastefulness is having not just on the environment, but on our foreign policy.

The Open Web Application Security Project, to which I wish I had more time to devote, have released their list of top ten web application security vulnerabilities (PDF).

I was finally able to see The Two Towers over the weekend. Past attempts have been foiled by Kiara’s wanting to watch Fellowship again first, then by Owen’s cold. Bringing a sick baby to a three-hour movie didn’t seem like such a hot idea. Ironically, we ended up leaving him with his grandma when we went to the movie.

I liked it. It’s great. Not gonna say more.

Okay, here’s a confession: I haven’t read all the books. I haven’t even made it through The Fellowship of the Ring. I just don’t much care for Tolkien’s prose. It’s a fine world he created, I just have little patience for reading his books.

The next day, we went to the Vikings exhibit at the Science Museum of Minnesota. I had very much been looking forward to it, and I must say that on the whole it was enjoyable. What ends up happening whenever I go to a museum is I start out all excited, then before long the crowds and the exhibit begin to feel tedious and oppressive, I lose all energy, start to feel sick, and hurry through the rest of the exhibit so I can sit down and catch a breather. That’s exactly what happened on Sunday.

Too, I think there’s a good reason that there are pre-learning activities before kids go on field trips. I don’t feel that I walked out of the exhibit knowing a whole lot more about the Vikings than I did when I went in. I’m sure I would have got a lot more out of it had I prepared by studying a little first. As it is, about a third of the way through, I’d seen more than my fill of evidence for Vikings being fishermen, farmers, etc., so wasn’t terribly much in the mood for what would normally have held my interest: Viking legends/sagas and history of their exploration and travel.

Still glad I went.

iTrip: an FM transmitter for the iPod. Together with a PowerPod Auto, that’d be one cool road trip.

Now I’m one step closer to buying an iPod…

Sure, I turn my back for a few hours and actually do some work, and what do I get for it? I’m behind the times. Cool stuff announced at Macworld. Things that I care about:

• Apple’s Safari browser is nice, if a bit rough around the edges (it is beta, hey). I love the toolbar button for submitting bugs. Too, it seems to correctly implement Digest Authentication, unlike certain other browsers. As you’d expect, Mark Pilgrim has some good notes and a page for Safari information for web designers.
• Apple’s X11 distribution. And they actually wrote, “This one goes to 11.” Tee hee. (huh?) I wonder what this will mean for OpenOffice/NeoOffice. I’m figuring either not much, since we already have decent rootless X11, or a whole heckuva lot. There are already some comments up on the Fink site.
• Final Cut Express. I was just talking with Jim yesterday about his desire for better video editing than iMovie offers (especially handling audio tracks) but being unwilling to shell out $1000. Maybe this will fit the bill.
• Keynote looks great, especially as I seem to be doing more and more presenting, but if I can get a functional OpenOffice then I’ll be fine.

Checky is a Mozilla plugin for checking a page with a variety of validators and services. You can check using just one service, or configure the agent to use several at once. Validate your XHTML, CSS, and RSS, and check accessibility through one convenient interface. I love this thing.

These are the browser-based web development tools I now use on a daily basis:

• Checky.
• CSS, HTML, and DOM sidebar tabs.
• DOM inspector (see grayrest’s tutorial).
• JavaScript debugger (see the Venkman tutorial).
• liorean’s ViewStyles.

All but ViewStyles are Mozilla-based. If you’re a web developer and are not using Mozilla, you’re missing out.

Of course, I’d also like to know what I’m missing. Dangit, I really need to set up comments.

I broke a bunch of stuff on this site a couple days ago and am slowly getting around to fixing it. Today it’s the RSS feed. How’s that for a lunchtime project.

After vacillating between the different RSS versions, I finally settled on RSS 2.0. While Mark Pilgrim’s arguments for 2.0 in “In praise of evolvable formats” are compelling, in the end it pretty much came down to a gut feeling: I like what’s been done in RSS 2.0. RSS 1.0 introduced greater complexity than I think is necessary for what I want to do.

Now I just can’t wait to see what happens in NetNewsWire. I’m curious whether it will display the <description> or <content:encoded>, or whether I can set that in the preferences. Dang, I wish I had my iBook with me.

While I was at it, I also upgraded to the latest Movable Type. About damn time.

Next up…spiffing up the blogroll.

I’ve got some changes in the works, but the most immediate and probably most important is that I’ve finally got off my duff and added permalinks.

I am an introvert.

This should come as no surprise to those who know me. It doesn’t necessarily mean that I am shy, although I am a bit. Shyness and introversion are quite different things. Those familiar with the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator will recall that introverts are characterized by drawing energy from within, easily overstimulated by the external world. Too much stimulation and we need to spend some down time, recharging. Extroverts, by contrast, are energized by the outside world: people, places, things, activities. I’m getting tired just thinking about it.

I’ve known for a long time that I am an introvert. I cannot handle crowds or too much activity, which is why I eschew going places like the State Fair, the Mall of America, and parties. Sometimes even getting together with a close friend is too much to handle. Kiara’s the same way, although less noticeably: she’s not only more extroverted than I, she’s more right-brained, so is a less typical-seeming introvert. On a lark, I picked up a book for her this Christmas: The Introvert Advantage, How to Thrive in an Extrovert World. I expected that it would be fun to read through, pick up some tips for dealing with ardent extroverts like her father. Turns out that it’s packed with all sorts of great information.

What first grabbed my attention is the discovery that introversion is physiological (as opposed to shyness, which is behavioral). Extroverts and introverts actually use different neurotransmitters and different neural pathways to the brain. Introverts’ dominant neurotransmitter, acetylcholine, is associated with the energy-conserving parasympathetic nervous systems and with moving memories into long-term storage. Because introverts operate heavily in long-term memory, when speaking we tend to pause or speak more slowly than most extroverts are comfortable with. I can certainly relate to this, as I’m sure anyone who’s spoken with me much would agree.

Too, the book lists personality traits and habits that I had not associated with introversion, but that I clearly exhibit:

• Reduce eye contact when speaking to focus on collecting words.
• Start talking in the middle of a thought.
• Have a good memory but take a long time to retrieve memories.
• Can forget things they know well — might stumble around when explaining their job or temporarily forget a word they want to use.
• May think they told you something when they just have thought it.
• Rehearse things before speaking (even for casual conversation).
• May not be aware of their thoughts unless they write or talk about them.
• Clearer about ideas, thoughts, and feelings after sleeping on them.
• Immerse themselves thoroughly in a very few subjects.

These are all traits that have their root in physiology. Amazing.

The author is a psychotherapist, and about two-thirds of the book is devoted to suggestions for navigating life as an introvert in an extroverted world, as well as advice to extroverts for dealing with introverts. There are chapters on relationships, work life, parenting, socializing. Frankly, it smacks a bit too much of the self-help genre that I typically avoid, and with this prejudice in mind I doubt that I’ll take much of the author’s advice. Still, it has helped me remember how important it is to take time throughout the day to slow down and recharge.

Fascinating read.