Number Crunching on the Beeb

From the BBC:

"In a market estimated to be worth Β£7.6bn in total, Β£6.1bn is e-commerce – something the BBC isn’t involved in.

Another Β£1.6bn is accounted for by internet service providers – again, a market the BBC isn’t in. "

…am I reading it wrong or do those numbers not add up properly?

Blogger API

I spent quite a bit of today getting our blog editor to support Blogger API. Once done it should let users post using a variety of tools (I, for one, am looking forward to blogging from my mobile πŸ™‚ — tools I’ve used/tried today:

BlogBuddy – nice and small. Very sensitive to API errors, so not a good program to test with. No WYSIWYG — it’s just pure HTML, which is a shame and it’s been undeveloped for over a year, which is a great shame.

w.bloggar – very powerful but the interface is quite confusing at first. It’s counter to what I want (a simple interface).

Mozblog – I use Mozilla all the time so this would’ve been ideal. Unfortunately it’s incredibly buggy to the point that it’s unuseable. Shame – I like the idea of this and look forward to future versions!

PowerBlog – this is nice and tidy. Simple to use, but introduces ‘plops’ which seem to refer to places you can blog – absolutely awful word if you ask me… has a brilliant debug feature, so I’m using it currently to debug the server.

Here are the Blogger API implementations. Green means I’ve implemented it. Red means it needs to be done. Gray means that it’s not going to be implemented:

blogger.getRecentPosts
blogger.getUsersBlogs
blogger.newPost
blogger.editPost
blogger.deletePost
blogger.getUserInfo
blogger.getTemplate
blogger.setTemplate

If I get a chance I’ll also implement the metaWeblog and MT extensions. I’m also looking forward to implementing the Echo API when it’s finally done.

Happy days

Today was the hottest day on record in Britain. I’m all for global warming if this is what we can expect πŸ˜€

Anyway, serious stuff now – just trying to remember classic programs:

The Krypton Factor – the flight simulator rocked.
Blockbusters – I always thought it was unfair one person had to be by themselves while the other two paired up!?
Dungeons & Dragons – don’t get me started on that bloody unicorn
Knightmare – Blue screen escapades with dodgy acting. Genius.
Parallel 9 – Saturday morning crap-fest with a sheep called Nobby.
Motormouth – Same as above, except replace sheep with Neil Buchanen.
— Side note – was it Motormouth that had a huge life-size game of Mouse Trap in it?
The Tomorrow People – Just too cool for other words.
Dynamo Duck – Crime solving canard. Very funny stuff.
Going for Gold – Brits had obvious advantage with language barrier!
Fun House – I really wanted to go on the race circuit.
Challenge Anneka – thought the intro credits rocked. Also, blatent abuse of local Homebase stores.

Other things I remember clips of but can’t identify the program….

What was that one where the kids had to solve clues and run through different rooms of a house finding stuff? (the audience could see it all – it was like a huge wendy house with no front wall).

There was also a game where the kids were ‘shrunk’ and had to grab letters from a giant soup bowl and make up a word or something.

Any contributions/additions welcomed!

Summer is here

I think we can safely say summer is here now – weather forecast for this week: at least 32 degrees C in places, and I’m sure 36 in central England. Excellent!

Another sign of summer is the butterfly invasion. I love butterflies πŸ™‚ and had oneΒ in my room today. It was huge! Naturally I took a photo before catching it and letting it free outside…

Butterfly

When Spam Killer met Spam Killer

This is brilliantly ironic! I use SpamAssassin to rid my inbox of those invitations to enlarge my genitalia, spy on my employees or help some friendly Nigerian with his cashflow. It usually works well, except today I get a response from an email I’d sent – and that was labelled as spam. Better still, it was an automated spam filter email πŸ™‚

SpamAssassin said:

This mail is probably spam….
Content analysis details: (5.40 points, 5 required)
NO_REAL_NAME (1.0 points) From: does not include a real name
HTML_LINK_CLICK_HERE (0.1 points) BODY: HTML link text says "click here"
HTML_10_20 (1.0 points) BODY: Message is 10% to 20% HTML
FORGED_YAHOO_RCVD (2.7 points) ‘From’ yahoo.com does not match ‘Received’ headers
CLICK_BELOW (0.0 points) Asks you to click below
PRIORITY_NO_NAME (0.6 points) Message has priority setting, but no X-Mailer"

…and here’s the email that triggered this….

"This is an automated reply being sent by my spamkiller software.
——————————————————————
Hello, you recently sent a message to me at xxxxxx@yahoo.com.
My mailbox is protected from junk mail by ChoiceMail – a permission-based email system that requires senders to be granted permission to contact the recipient. It prevents any spam or email from unregistered senders from ever reaching my mailbox.
Please click on the link below to verify your identity.

[Click here to request approval]

When your browser opens, fill in your name and a short reason for wanting to send e-mail to me. If your reason is acceptable, your first email and all subsequent e-mails from you will be delivered to me normally. If you do not respond to the spamkiller, your original email will be deleted automatically.

There is no need to send your original mail again.

Please be aware that a response is required within 4 day(s) to prevent your messages from being automatically deleted. "

…Wonderfully ironic isn’t it πŸ˜›