NSLog();

Despite the fact that it's no longer my company, I feel compelled to tell you that Freshly Squeezed Software has released (finally) the 1.2.2 update to PulpFiction. The 1.2.2 release fixes several things:

• fixed incorrect folder counts
• fixed the negative flagged counts
• set the article list to be scrolled to the top of deleted items when deleting more than one article
• set the article list to scroll to the center when using the space bar to navigate between articles
• added "Default" to article labels, "None" now doesn't show a label if the subscription has one. Default sets the label to show the subscription label if pref to do so is set.
• fixed parsing bug with < signs in article titles.
• set the name of a smart folder to be the subscription's name when a single sub is dragged to the folder view
• fixed the issue where articles didn't appear in a feed in the feed view if their subscription was deleted and then added back in
• updated to the latest version of growl
• growl will now prompt the user to install or upgrade on first use
• added smart folder options for matching by folder, unread, or flagged

A few of those items included this fix, which should resolve 95% of the "weird crashing" customers were seeing.

A good number of the fixes above were in place when PulpFiction was sold to illumineX, but some of the tougher ones weren't. Now that the illumineX gang is comfortable with PulpFiction's source, I expect to see a fairly regular update schedule. 1.2.2, it's no secret, was a long time coming.

P.S. Don (of illumineX) is requesting features!

Hardy har har.

A: You're wrong
Q: I'v never found that to be true
A: Because it makes following messages more difficult
Q: Why is top-posting evil?

I'll top-post a response if my response is short, like "Yeah, sounds good" or something. Otherwise I inline - and I usually split paragraphs and respond to very specific parts.

Question: What plugins do you use with your blog package?

My Answer: I use MovableType 3.2. I have mt-wordcount, Kill-nav-commenters-gif, MTTimer, MT-Macros, and the built-in SpamLookup and Template Refresh enabled. I've disabled NoFollow simply because I don't allow spamments, so I don't wish to punish valid comments and the URLs they contain.

This question was inspired by Don.

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

It's raining, it's raining, it's raining! It's really really raining!

Yay! Hallelujah!

I think the last time it rained here, the calendar said "July." If it rained in August (prior to last night), you wouldn't know it by me. Lake View is in the worst condition I've ever seen it and I've mowed my lawn all of three times this year. Three times!

Okay, back to work.

A few days ago I traded in a bunch of PS2 games (I now have only three or four) for Madden 2006. A few thoughts, then…

• Online play is nice.
• NFL 2K5's gameplay is both more realistic and more fair. I've never seen so many footballs go through defenders and still be caught by the receiver.
• Kicking is now very difficult.
• The menu system is horrible. Absolutely horrible. You go into a menu, press the "back" button (triangle), and you're taken two menus up. Combined with the fact that there are no breadcrumbs, navigating the menus in this game is next to impossible. I avoid them as much as possible.
• Why, when I push the audible button, can't a menu of my audibles appear so I know I'm choosing the right one?
• The computer seems awfully adept at throwing the ball just as they're about to get sacked for an incomplete pass (that travels a yard or two).
• The vision cones are pretty stupid, and throwing to a receiver not in your vision cone requires pressing three buttons just to get a pass off accurately.

I'll have more thoughts as I play a little more. I'm in the pre-season right now (the Steelers just beat the Redskins). We'll see how the season goes.

P.S. Yes, many of the above are simply the result of EA's lock on the NFL market.

To print a 175-page PDF, Kinko's charges 7¢/page. That's $12.25 to print something just because I don't want to use my own laser printer or to read it on-screen. To FedEx/Kinko's I say "bah!"

Staples charges $2.49 + 6¢/page ($12.99). Plus the hold music when I called the store was "Sometimes" by Britney Spears. Uh hmmm…

Needless to say, I'll be reading this on my screen.

I posted a "job" opening at The Sand Trap .com earlier today. If you like golf and love talking to some of the industry bigwigs, well, it may just be the position for you.

As I was reading "How Much Does iTunes Like My Five-Star Songs?" Jeff IMed to tell me about Pandora.com, which is essentially an Internet radio station that asks you for your favorite song or artist, then plays more music that's similar in style.

Pandora gives you ten hours for free, then looks to charge $36/year. Two things could make this service a little better:

1. Let me play and manage my stations from within iTunes.
2. Let me get lists of songs that are similar to my favorites so that I can purchase the darn music. I'd use a separate $12/year offer that didn't stream music but simply offered this information.

As it stands now, I doubt I'll listen beyond the 10 hours. I'll just skip the R.E.M. songs that come up and write down the others that I like.

Question: Do you feel that iPod sales drive use of the iTMS or that use of the iTMS drives iPod sales?

My Answer: It's probably a bit more of the latter, but in my case, neither drives the other. I haven't bought an iPod in close to two years (the Shuffle I picked up was more a matter of having a lightweight iPod for when I'm hitting golf balls at the dome in the winter). I don't use my iPod much at all except in the car, and I don't buy much on the iTMS. I use the iTMS occasionally to pick up a single or two, but I also buy albums. All of it ends up on the iPod or, at least, on the computer.

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

Question: If record companies forced variable pricing on iTunes, how would you react? (NYTimes.com)

My Answer: I'd stop buying music from iTunes. $0.99 is just the right price. Record companies make something like $0.65 per track downloaded from iTunes, last time I checked. Screw 'em.

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

Brad Choate (yes, there's only one) spent some time with my "Error 500s with MovableType 3.2" issue yesterday and believes he's found the source of the problem: a low Apache Timeout value. Default used to be 1200, but that was recently lowered to 300. The timeout value Interland has set on my server? 5.

A simple perl script was used to test this:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
my $start = localtime;
my $time = int($ENV{QUERY_STRING}) || 1;
sleep $time;
my $end = localtime;
print "Content-Type: text/plain\n\n";
print "Done!\nDuration: $time\nStart: $start\nEnd: $end";

I have a ticket in with Interland to raise the value to 100. The Sand Trap is hosted on a shared account, so I don't believe that there's any way I can over-ride this setting myself. I must be hopeful that Interland has some common sense. If not, well, I'll have to move the site, I suppose.

Yesterday, Carey and I went to watch Madagascar. The movie was fine (the half hour of commercials and previews were not), but what really struck me was just how ordinary the movie was. Particularly compared to Pixar movies.

NSLog(@"Finish Reading %d Words", 372); »

Question: What was your favorite children's movie?

My Answer: I didn't really get into too many movies, largely because VHS was still a pretty new thing when I was a kid. I liked watching Santa Clause (The Movie) as an adolescent, though. But favorite children's movie? Fantasia, maybe?

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

Question: What was your favorite toy as a child? Do you still have it? Do you still play with it?

My Answer: Without a doubt, Legos. I still have my Legos, but I don't play with them.

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

This blog is now running MovableType 3.2. It - so far - is working beautifully.

The Sand Trap is also "running" MovableType 3.2. It isn't working beautifully at all. In fact, it's not even really working.

Since installing MT 3.2 on The Sand Trap, I've had HTTP 500 errors left and right when I rebuild anything (by deleting a comment, re-saving an article, "Rebuild Site," etc.). Initially, I had 500 errors just logging in to the site, but those seem to have gone away. The errors when rebuilding persist hours later.

Permissions (755) are correct. I don't have CPanel (one of the former causes of 500 errors). I didn't have issues with 3.16. I have no idea what the problem could be, and turning on Debug mode hasn't shown me any errors. More information appears below, as I discover it.

I've sent an email to support. They've yet to respond. I'll update when they finally get around to it.

NSLog(@"Finish Reading %d Words", 647); »