Older blog entries for salmoni (starting at number 522)

13 Nov 2006 (updated 13 Nov 2006 at 12:25 UTC) »

I've been writing some Javascript obfuscation stuff lately which is kind of fun in preparation for a new academic website I've been planning. If the code is useful, I'll release it under an open source license, though to be fair, there's little of it. I'm not used to using Javascript, but it seems straightforward enough.

The release of Java under the GPl actually encourages me to do Java development. I was always wary because of the proprietary nature of Java before (years ago when I was chosing languages), but this seems like a better deal for me.

Good idea robogato about the spam threshold. In my spam searches, I've come across a large number of unused accounts (ie, someone has joined and not posted anything or only made one post many years ago), but I've left them be. I only recommend removal if I'm sure they are spamming - and if not, I say that I'm not sure about them and leave it to other people's judgement. But perhaps we could put another button on there saying "this is NOT spam!" which removes spam points? Or if someones account goes over the threshold, instead of being automatically deleted, it gets reviewed by someone (maybe yourself)? That way, we have a final arbitration before deletion. The (virtually) empty accounts I mentioned earlier, well there's not really much point in keeping them, but the user might come back so they're best left alone.

But people who are obviously using Advogato to sell things: well, they can go. And here are some more:

wendywang, to50108, holhan, Phillippe, factories, JasonWhitehouse, Zackery, Rafael, Lazaro, OSullivan.

Maybe's are: mang2 (see the second entry: "This account exists pretty much so that I can blatantly self promote my latest *non* Free Software project"), mike32 (links are only commercial looking), arnabbh (ads for books about open source), etaexportimport. Use your judgement carefully folks.

Not spamming but flaming: desrick.

Does anyone know if there is a general academic collaboration website?

Just so that researchers can contact people in the same field who are looking for, or have projects that need help? Kind of like a dating agency for academics or an employment agency for research projects?

Imagine: you're a new researcher will XX knowledge and skills from a recent Ph.D., and you're looking to get experience on a similar kind of project.

On the other side of the world, there's a small group doing this kind of research, but they don't have someone with XX knowledge and skills. The group advertises for a collaborator and the new researcher applies. Matched up nicely!

I've looked for one but found nothing like what I thought of. There are sites with specific aims (eg, for open source people, or in particular university websites), but nothing usable by everyone.

I know that folks like to collaborate with people they know, but I've done work with folk that I've run into on the 'net. Wouldn't it be easier to be able to search to find something relevant instead of hoping that your name gets heard?

Responses here or to me at salmoni using my gmail account please.

6 Nov 2006 (updated 8 Nov 2006 at 14:43 UTC) »

Spam: pkumar, pet, garywjm, fermenter, salewinch, bgrice, nbrise, exporters, chinagifts, chinamap, WebHoSting, and chinasuppliers.

Possibles are: OpenSourcesJapsEye (NOT WORK SAFE, but just a sad flamer with lots of foul abuse) and araparaokopchuk06 (I don't know what this says).

Another: PHPGuy.

Later - all gone now. :^)

I know this isn't really the place, but my department made it into the Guardian today for our work on e-learning!

The THES awards will be soon (15th November), so 18 of us are travelling up for the bash. We're up against 4 other people for this award but I don't think we've got it.

robocoder

A script would be nice, but I noticed that a lot of spam still exists on http://old.advogato.org which is is still spidered by Google.

Try this: a spammer called 'domain' now defunct, but the account information exists here in old.advogato.org. The same thing is for projects too.

I guess that a lot of this spam stuff still exists on the old part. Does old.advogato.org eventually mirror www.advogato.org? Or is this information kept intact?

The 'old' also doesn't allow spam marking either.

27 Oct 2006 (updated 27 Oct 2006 at 12:12 UTC) »

More spammers: product, domain, chokan*, shirley922*, nbzhonglin*, youyouyu*, madeinchina*, hisupplier*, autoparts, and nanxiang*.

* - These accounts I cannot mark as spam - the widget doesn't appear though I can certify and rate the diary.

Possible spammers are tycoon, tydie, neoxsoft, net123, nivesforsto, frozen. Use your judgement on these - I'm not sure myself.

Spam projects: LED, onerovalve, automanufacturer, youyouyu, chinahomeappliance. I've changed the details and removed all offending material - maybe harsh, but hey. If you want to check the original content, try Googles cache which should have them for a few days.

Many projects created by (but not linked to from his/her page) chokan are spam too. Try this Google search for more (like gasolinegenerator, ccfl, ledmodule, militaryberets (!), ledstrip, and waterpump. I've left these last ones for admin or any interested user to change.

Have fun! I'll use Google to look for some more.

Some of these accounts might be on http://old.advogato.org which is still spidered by Google.

Later...

The marked accounts above I could now mark as spam. Good.

juice-extractor OF CHINA aokychina ling2

Back to work...

Bye bye sanitaryvalve! Another spammer hits the dust.

I love this spam reporting measure! :^)

Ok I'm thinking now. SalStat has not been touched for a long time and probably won't be.

But I've been developing a new statistics package with a wicked interface (IMHO, way better than the top commercial competition), lots of tests (e.g., 12 types of quantiles - believe me, they are out there!), an archiving plain-text file format (to facilitate auditing of analysis), and lots of other nifty features.

I originally intended to release it under a proprietary license. Yeah, my bad etc. I just want to create a commercially viable company with which I can make a lot of cash.

But the recent stories in places like Slashdot have got me thinking. If I released this software under an OS license, would I still be able to make money? The thing to do is to identify sources of income.

This would largely be through support, but sadly folks, I do not feel that this will be enough to keep even just myself in pizzas, never mind a thriving business.

But there is the possibility of a dual-licensed version. One would be under an open source license (and zero cost too) that offers the basic tests, useful (but not the most useful) features, and a community who use it.

The other would be under a proprietary license which has the advanced stuff (syntax, connections with databases, more advanced tests, the best of the UI, etc).

Obviously, having two different programs would be difficult. Other people's contributions may make the pro version obselete and their code could not be incorporated (btw - all the new code is written from scratch) without their agreement.

I guess the way forward is to provide a skeleton with some basic tests, and have proprietary modules that offer really cool stuff to those who wish to pay for them.

But I'm not sure. I've spent a lot of time on this, and there is evidence that people will appreciate this work a lot when they need to analyse data in a friendly environment.

Any opinions?

I've just been using Googles "office" suite which is tremendous fun. Jell and I made a spreadsheet to budget for our wedding. I'm in the UK and she's on the other side of the world, but we worked collaboratively on it simultaneously.

And it's great fun! Seeing things added, removed or taken away while I'm doing something else is quite an experience.

However, watching the budget climb slowly but inexorably upwards by the second as my love recorded her wishes was alarming!! ;-)

I recommend trying it. It's good fun. The most fun I've had using a spreadsheet. I think there might be an article on this somewhere focusing on the usability of live collaborative tools. My work researches collaborative learning (in medical education), so I'm familiar with the field.

And of course, I start wondering if there's some kind of game that could be played using this. Perhaps some kind of pattern completion game played at furious speed?

But it brings me to another question. How does FOSS figure with complex and well-featured web applications? I wondered if the dependency of many users on a single current source inhibits the development of FOSS? At first glance, a concentrated pool of developers would seem best, but that was said about kernel development at one stage.

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