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Technobabbles - Voyagerfan5761's Blog

I try to sound like I know what I'm talking about. Don't be fooled.

reMAP: IMAP reConceptualizedFebruary 7

Gabor Cselle, the founder of reMail, recently posted an idea for replacing the IMAP email protocol with something with which working would be easier. The proposed name? reMAP, short for reimagined Mail Access Protocol.

He calls for a RESTful design that among other things would globalize message identifiers (rather than changing them the instant a message is moved to a new folder), replace folders with labels (a la Gmail), require the server to handle email search indexes, and make conversations the basic unit of email (instead of individual messages). reMAP would also make handling MIME messages unnecessary; the client could simply call the server with a request for text or HTML message representations without having to deal with parsing the MIME format itself.

I personally am in agreement with his entire proposal. The experiences I've had with IMAP in the past have highlighted shortcomings in a standard that was drafted over 15 years ago. Email has changed a great deal since then, but IMAP has not been revised to accommodate the enhancements made by newer clients and services like Gmail.

If IMAP is to be improved, it's probably appropriate to just completely replace it with something new. If the new system

A Thought About Efficient IT AdministrationFebruary 2

I'm kind of calling out St. Kate's Enterprise Computing Services department in a way, because I want to know why they would schedule a restart-required software deployment an hour before the computer lab is to close.

Can anyone with experience in Information Technology and management of company/school computer networks tell me why the times chosen to deploy new software are chosen? My experience last night of a new software deploy completely disrupting my very limited time on the computer happened at Saint Catherine University, which has a generally great library (unlike Concordia University in Saint Paul, though Concordia used to be greater).

Plenty of people were using the computers, and all got interrupted. Why? Why not schedule the deploy for after-hours and save everyone the hassle? When logging in, the computers at St. Kate's even display a message encouraging users to log off their computers at night so updates and new software can be deployed during off hours. I would define off hours as the times when labs are closed, not an arbitrary time like 21:00 (as was chosen a few days ago for a non-restart-required installation) or 23:00 (as was chosen for last night's disruptive reboot-required deploy).

Maybe the IT staff go home at the usual lab closing time and they don't want to stick around after closing to monit

“Houdini” plugin for WordPress is no magicianJanuary 30

WordPress The F***?! satirical composite
Logo source and trivial modification with GIMP

I've seen some pretty absurd WordPress plugins show up in the Plugins dashboard widget on this site, but the recently-released "Houdini" takes the cake so far. It claims to prevent spammers from copying the contents of any post or page upon which the [houdini] shortcode is placed.

The fact is the internet is open can lead to theft especially to content stealing and plagiarism.

Until now, there was very little to discourage and deter this serious crime. Yes content theft and plagarism is a crime in some jurisdictions.

You cannot rely on others or the authorities to continue to police the internet as they do not have enough resources. You need to protect your content and deter this theft.

The basic form of content theft is to copy and paste your content to another medium.

Well Houdini, prevents this using a little known special algorithm that prevents

iPad? Of course I want one, but…January 28

Image by toykyo via Flickr

Technological progress can suck sometimes. I have wanted an iPod Touch for about a year and a half, to have the ability to play music and games while on the go as well as gain access to email, tasks, calendar, contacts, etc. while away from a computer (but near an open Wi-Fi network). I almost bought one last year, then I got wind of the upcoming third-generation models: more storage, etc. etc. So I waited. Then the Apple Tablet rumors really started in force, and I really don't have that much spare change anyway, so I continued to wait.

And on Wednesday last—yesterday, that is—the bombshell dropped. Apple announced the iPad.

I got the news late in the day, so there wasn't any point in trying to get out a quick post. There's not even any point in posting about its technical specifications or features, since that information is well covered by Apple as well as others and is a mere search away. But I do want to say this: The iPad has very nearly stolen my desires away from the iPod Touch.

Why would I want an iPad anyway? The form factor appeals to me. I like its thin, light construction, and the fact t

Why I’m Always Promoting DropboxJanuary 27

Image via CrunchBase

If you've had much interaction with me regarding computers, no matter what the medium—Twitter, Facebook, email, dinner conversation, small talk during a gathering—I've probably mentioned a service called Dropbox. A few of you have already succumbed to my uncharacteristic marketing tone and signed up, but I thought I'd blog about it and perhaps get more people on board.

I'll start with the reasons I like the service, and then explain why, exactly, I'm doing this a little later.

The site bills itself as an online synchronization and backup solution. I use it mostly for the backup, but that will probably change in the future. After all, it was created by a couple guys who were tired of forgetting their flash drives. It's ironic to note that my current use of Dropbox is to back up my 8GB (soon to be 32GB) SanDisk Cruzer Micro, using a modification contributed by another user.

Dropbox is just plain fun to use, and it has a lot of cross-platform compatibility. It synchronizes files b