Updated 03-Aug-2025 I've spent time recently in Google Adwords and things are as or more complex than ever. I'd say more. Here are a few issues that confront the Adwords User: - Ad display - Ad extensions - Keyword match types - Ad group to keywords to ads configuration - Dynamic ads - Tracking templates ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 It cost me 3,300 THB for a new battery array for my 5 year old MacBook Air (2011). Bought new, the system is not often used on battery, but almost daily as my primary computer. > Why replace a battery in a five year old computer? Just buy new. Sure, it only has ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 WordPress is rolling out a Native Font Stack which is meant to stop loading of external fonts (namely from Google). A very worthy endeavor. I've got this stack now running on jeffmcneill.com toward the same end. I'm fine with the typography, and basically it has simply been a drop-in replacement for the previous ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 > 05-Nov-2016 - Note: I've reached the conclusion that I will entertain no more underpowered devices as they are ultimately so limited their return on investment vastly underperforms overpowered devices. This means Intel Compute Sticks are no longer acceptabe acceptable. The Intel NUC is now what I consider to be the future of ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Mary Meeker - Internet Trends - 2016 Takeaways - Macro and Micro It was great to get some macroeconomic trends in this year's report, so we can see not only inside the industry but externally. And folks, it does not look good for many. - 3bn global internet users, growth flat at 9%, ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 > This is a set of notes and remarks rather than anything comprehensive or systematic. The main point is learning from the fact that there is a development lifecycle in terms of consuming software products, and make better adoption decisions through a set of heuristics. By development, we need of course to expand ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 I've moved my workflow, task, and idea lists to Trello. This is a good tool and I see others use it effectively for project and task management. Also, it is a fast web app and they have mobile apps, all free. Project and Idea Management with Trello Use of Trello is meant to ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Wow, what a strange week. People normally don't or don't have to change their email clients and calendar apps very often, but of course we can blame this one (at least part of it) on Microsoft. With the retirement of the greatest Calendar app ever (for mobile and desktop), Sunrise is... well... heading ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 With apologies to Friedrich Nietzsche.1 The title of one of Nietsche's early essays is On the use and abuse of history for life As an occasional developer, generally just scripting, hacks, and sysadmin stuff, and of course troubleshooting WordPress js/css/php, Node has entered my daily life in the form of the Atom editor, ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Release Cycles and Lifecycles of software (and hardware) are interesting. How these releases are structured, who does them, and the planning and development process is fascinating from a rollout-of-features perspective. Development release cycles can also be applied to services. Operating System Release Cycles Of course we know how Microsoft is getting into trouble ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 This page is for ongoing issues and awesomeness that is ImageMagick As of early May 2016, there is a big exploit out there called ImageTragick, but a recent patched version should help. The main fix is to edit the /etc/ImageMagick/policy.xml to include: ## Installing ImageMagick on CentOS sudo yum install -y gcc php-devel ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Movement from a democracy to an autocracy seeks legitimacy in legal and democratic terms. Because the transition is from democracy, there is either implicit or explicit democratic action that is taken to limit or essentially destroy democratic power. This is seen throughout history. Why an autocracy needs such legitimation is mostly an issue ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Looking at recent data, what I see is the death of Firefox and Internet Explorer. Too bad for the former (you had your chance), and expected for the latter (and no, Edge isn't showing any real adoption rate). One surprise is how Safari is showing uptake on the Mac platform. I find this ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 My air conditioner died a few days ago and while it is a bit uncomfortable (I’m in Thailand and it is the hot season, so it gets up to around 34c in the office), it is insufferable to work when a 90 thread kernel process has 90% of the processor. It is really ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 For when your wifi breaks down and all you have is an ethernet port on your DSL, and a Mac Mini. Not so bad, but it does keep the fan running and eat up the processor. Good for short term (ship out the broken wifi router, get replacement). Limitations of Internet Sharing on ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 See also discussion of WebP Note I no longer use OSX but instead Debian 9 Linux, and therefore have switched to the Trimage image compressor GUI which works well much of the time. When it doesn't I resort to ImageMagick. A recent post from one of my favorite blogs, the Tips-and-Tricks-HQ people spurred ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 A smart home has a certain promise to it, that is, an intellect, a brain. But before we apply that metaphor we need to understand the basic elements of a home (and only after that, what would make it smart). But even the idea of a home is already too constraining and not ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Email signatures are those bits of text below the closing of a message and the name of the sender. They can be pretty crazy, or non-existent (which is worse). I've seen misspellings and other indicators of ineptitude. One of the worst types of infractions is when lawyers are involved, and legal disclaimers are ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 I read a provocative article on Micro Course Content which was linked from an article on the (potential) rise of mobile learning. Note the word potential as we only really see smartphone adoption rate information, not actually micro course content adoption or success rates. > Side note: unclear why a learning company couldn't ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Water, not so good Turns out that water is not good for very young babies. The main problem seems to be that urination also removes not only water but sodium and other essential minerals from the body, and the baby may not be getting these replenished at the same speed (since the their ... Read more