Brain on Fire Tim McCormack, distilled.

WordPress recently released 2.3.3 as an urgent security fix for 2.3.2. Rather than wiping all non-configured files from my development site, extracting the replacement files from the tarball, and re-uploading said files by FTP, I used the fast and precise approach: Only upload changed files.

If you feel like being a little bit silly today, you might check out some code I wrote to generate BMP images right in the browser, using javascript. For maximum compatibility, I'm using the v3 header and uncompressed 24-bit color.

All mine does so far is generate a quasi-random bitmap. The same technique could be used to generate very small rounded-corner images and other progressive enhancements. Perhaps some other file formats might be interesting to play with as well. Excel spreadsheets, perhaps? I don't have much interest in continuing work on javascript-based file production, but I'd love to see other people take this idea for a spin.

The existing comment-tracking systems that I know of just aren't enough. CoComment is buggy and fails to properly parse out comments for a number of blogs, and is missing a number of important features. (Float unread to top of list, for example, or track a URL without visiting it.) Co.mments.com has a much nicer interface and tracks better, but lacks a Firefox extension and some of the advanced features of CoComment.

Rather than simply whining about the lack of excellent trackers, I want to help the existing ones improve. Here I present most of algorithm to parse out comments from an unfamiliar blog template.

When I switched to Linux a couple of years ago, I was able to find excellent replacements for most of the software I used on Windows. In a couple cases I had to use Wine to run my favorite Windows-only programs until I was more comfortable with the replacements, but there was one that I never gave up: Textpad.

I just completed the easiest operating system upgrade I've ever experienced: Ubuntu Edgy Eft to Feisty Fawn. I directed the entire process over VNC, and did not have to leave the GUI at any time. Only a single restart was required, I did not have to edit any config files, and there does not seem to be anything left to clean up.