Site’s Moved

Well, this is the end for this blog. I’ve imported everything (your comments have not been dropped) and it’s all over at the new kidkonia blog: blog.kidkonia.com. I won’t be updating here much longer, but I’ll keep it up for linking.

PSA

So, I finally got around to actually buying a domain name and hosting plan. Here’s the deal: this blog is moving. Where to? http://blog.kidkonia.com/ (not up as of writing). Still will be running WordPress, and I’ll import all of the posts so nothing will be lost. But there’ll be one major change: ads. Yes, I will be running Google AdSense on kidkonia.com. Why? Well, I’d like to take some of the burden of payment off of my shoulders. That’s it. I don’t really expect to make money from it or anything, but they’ll be there.

Tiddly Winks

I’ve been using Google Notebook for a good while now. But what I don’t like is that Google doesn’t provide an offline version. It’s a great tool, and I would love to have it on my desktop. So I set out to make an offline version from the original (Firefox’s Save As… Web Page (Complete)). But after going through over 1000 lines of Javascript, it occured to me: where’s the notebooks? I did some research and found it it was AJAX based. So that was a no-go.

But I continued Google-ing and reading for a while, until I stumbled on a post about some new technology or other that could make it possible. For Windows. But as I read the comments, somebody brought up something they used and liked better, TiddlyWiki. A bit more searching brought up the link. It was actually rather amazing, to me.

It was an alternate Wiki system. It describes itself as a “non-linear reusable web notebook,” but its much more. Built with pure CSS, HTML, and Javascript, it is all in one HTML file. You can have plugins, stylesheets, random CSS, macros, themes, the works, while still just contained inside of that one file.

There are a lot of different uses for it. Some people use the “flavors” (modified versions distributed with plugins or themes pre-installed) MonkeyGTD and d³ as GTD systems. Others use it as a blog (you can deny non-admin editing), or as a way to present stuff at work (aided by the Presentation distro), and some as a simple notebook.

It’s got all kinds of stuff written for it. All macros and plugins are just combinations of CSS and Javascript and HTML, so anybody can write one. There are some that change it to a more Wikipedia style (combining SingePageModePlugin with BreadcrumbsPlugin, and the right style), some that add calendars, splashscreens, GTD systems, little toys… the system is your playground. It’s very cool, and I highly recommend checking it out.

You can run it anywhere, as long as you use IE or Firefox ( > 1.5). I’ve even got it running on my DSL installation. As for hosting, I know for a fact that GooglePages can run at least 1 copy of it, with plugins and themes. There’s also TiddlySpot, which is just for TiddlyWikis, and offers a bunch of pre-installed flavors to start of with (though Standard is still an option).

Live Free or Die Hard

If you have not seen this movie, get over to to your theater. This is not a movie you want to miss.

Let’s start at the beginning. A guy hacks a computer. Maybe ten minutes later, stuff starts blowing up. You’ve got everything from C4-packed computers (not kidding), to an entire factory, all mixing and matching shrapnel. There’s more to the movie than explosions, of course. I’m not saying seeing Bruce Willis smash a totalled police cruiser into a helicopter while getting shot at wasn’t cool, it’s just that there was way more to the movie than that.

There was a decent plot (You hear that, Pirates of the Caribbean?), which, of course, required half the props blown to tiny, indistinguishable pieces. The humor was also decent, and well-placed, so even the cheesy jokes flowed smoothly. If nothing else, stay to make sure Bruce talks to the villain a few times over a radio. Funny stuff. It was relatively plausible, too.

<SPOILERS>
First off, sorry for the sketchiness of details, I watched it about a week ago. On to the spoiler…

So a cop (Bruce) is sent to pick up one (Jason Long) of maybe a couple hundred hackers on a “black hat list” who might have hacked the DoD (Might have been something else, but whatever), but one by one, they’re found inside of blown-up wreckages (yes, you do get to see the computers blown up). Along the trip, a group of well-armed foreign people speaking who-knows-what-ian attempts to kill them. Several times. But they make it there anyway, and are sent to some other important place. Along the way, their guide is shot, the traffic system, the stock market, and most of DC go offline. So, they have to make sure it doesn’t happen to the East Coast by heading over to this one place that provides all the power to it. There, they are attacked again (predictably, isn’t it), and kill the main villain’s girlfriend (“Asian chick? Likes to kick people in the head?”). Bruce’s daughter is kidnapped, as is the hacker played by Jason, who is almost forced to unlock the US money market for Joe Villain. But then Bruce comes and blows some stuff up, shoots himself in the shoulder (knowing that a point-blank range, it will kill his captor), and overall saves the day.
</SPOILERS>

What are you doing here, still?! Go watch this movie!

4.5 out of 5
(What? I don’t have half a star!)

Side note: Yeah, I will eventually get around to watching Transformers. I hope it’s soon. My brother said it was good.