Reisunorg

I must admit, this might be offensive to some, but I think it is a pretty cute idea.

I might want to put this Google Gadget on the right side of this page, unless it offends too much.

rtmpdump is a utility to save to file video streams using the rtmp protocol. Hulu.com does, although recently they have changed their site to encrypt PIDs to easily do this.

I’ve added another Yahoo component, Yahoo Answers to the right side.

Although I consider myself a “techie” (or geek) and teach a web development course, I must admit I have not had the time or interest to keep up to date with the youtube.com phenomenon, until now.

What makes youtube actually useful to me now is the fact that I can download the videos that it serves, for offline viewing. www.keepvid.com is a great resource

I’ve also been out of touch with Japanese TV dramas, after having been pretty heavily into them before. I have only recently seen 電車男, the apparently hugely popular TV drama (movie, book, manga, etc.) in not only Japan but Asia. Obvious attractions include: relating to a “geek gets the girl” story, however improbable (we all want that dream to come true); and the gorgeous 伊東美咲

It is the classic bait-and-switch, to show more inventory on your web site than you actually have in stock, I assume hoping that when the order is placed and the item becomes “backordered” or “unavailable” the customer will then buy something else that is in stock. Still, a pretty crummy business practice.

I want to highlight some stores that I have personal experience with that do this:

• www.1800mobiles.com  (March 2007) I wanted to get a 1100mAh battery for my Cingular 3125 (HTC StarTrek) phone. Google has this first when you do a search, and indeed the website has it “in stock”. Once I placed the order the next day I get the following email:

Dear XXX,The item(s) listed below is/are currently back-ordered with a 1-2 weeks estimated time of replenishment. We will ship your item(s) as soon as available.

   QTY:  2
   ITEM: STAR161
   DESC: Cingular 3125 1100mAh Lith-Ion Battery
   OPT:  
    

Thanks,

1800mobiles operations

       Then about a week later I get an email that summarily cancels the order, saying that the product has been discontinued or some such (I unfortunately deleted the email out of disgust). Of course, this product is still listed (as of April 2007) on the web site as available and “ready to ship.”

Beware of 1800mobiles.com!

Well I finally sat down and did some hacking, after what seems like forever. A lot of things have happened recently, both personal and professional, but that is for another post.

 

I finally installed both django and trac on my DreamHost account. I have both reisun.org and reisun.com pointing to my DH account, and will be adding features to both domains slowly. Right now, I will start with reisun.org.

 

• http://django.reisun.org Django frontpage
• http://trac.reisun.org Trac site

 

I followed some other people’s blog posts about installing django and trac on DreamHost, and for the most part they worked, although not surprisingly not without some modifications. When I have time I will outline my procedure here.