The Empty

When using javascript in your website, many recommend "compressing" the javascript - that is, get all the extraneous whitespace out of it. the idea is that there is less for the browser to download before actually executing the script. I see lots of stats of different javascript shrinkers of how much they shrink the filesize, but how much does that actually help in user experience? I suppose it really depends on the size of your js files and how speedy the user's link is.

If you know me, you know that I run Linux. If you don't know me: Hi, I run Linux.

There was a great WSJ article published this week that tals about how the US cell phone market is controlled by the carriers - Verizon, Tmobile, AT&T, etc.  For those that do not know, for phones that are released in the US, the carriers have the final say on design and software.  In fact, each carrier gets its own custom software build for a phone.  In other words, features are designed for the carrier, not the end customer.  This is back-asswards, hinders innovation and competition, and generally sucks.

In other countries, one goes to a store and buys a cell phone that he or she likes.  Then, you go and buy service for that phone.  You pop in the SIM (since most of the world uses GSM technology) and off you go.  In the US, you go to the carrier and they tell you what phone you can get with the service you want.  The hook is that they subsidize your phone by locking you into a contract and overcharging you for service.  This cycle will be hard to break out of since US customers are used to the 'free phone' from the carrier, but the end result will bring lower prices and better features overall.

I have been a gaim user for a couple years and have been using 1.5 for quite some time. For just my work jabber IM, I switched to Spark because I could easily set my status (a request from my team) and some other minor stuff. Spark was missing some important features like being able to search your chat logs. Also, during the period that I was using Spark, I ripped Gnome off of my laptop since I am running fluxbox without any gnome-y stuff these days. After that, hyperlinks in my Spark chats no longer worked. The Jive Software community never answered my posts about this issue, so I dumped Spark and went back to gaim where I can set my http handler in the preferences. What a concept!

I jumped up to Gaim 2 beta 5 which is still in package.mask in gentoo, but I mucked around to be able to do the install. I like it. I can set my status in a jabber account, but there is an option given as to which accounts get a different status when setting said status in the jabber account. This is stupid. I have to set this custom masking for every status message that I set. It also has smooth scrolling, which is no big deal to me. Seems a little slicker in general.