DRM - Daniel’s Random Mutterings

An interesting (well, to me anyway) tangent to my recent post about GetAFreelancer. While looking through my Google Analytics report, I just found a number of referrals from rentacoder.com. Looking further, I find that someone had been looking for a developer for build a solution for “Video Blogging using Django and Flash(tm) Video (FLV)”.
If this sounds vaguely familiar, it’s because it’s the title of one of my earlier blog posts. That’s right! My blog posting was cited as a reference on a rentacoder.com posting: “The initial scope of this project is to establish a Django-based video blogging site to accomodate YouTube-like functionality, as described by the DRM blog at http://blog.go4teams.com/?p=56. The blog includes the essential code snippets.“
I’m actually a bit flattered. Of course, it’s hard to ignore the obvious question: “Why the %&§§%§! did you not contact me?”.
Unfortunately, the offer was not bid on, was later canceled and nothing seems to have come of it. Pity! Might have been an interesting project to follow up on. Maybe there are some takers in the Django community? I’d be willing to participate by sharing some of my trogger.de source code, if that would be of any use.

Technorati Tags: django, rentacoder, youtube

Having klicked through from a Techcrunch posting, I have just discovered GetAFreelancer. I’m amazed. And amused. Is this for real? Are people really doing business over this service?
Just for the heck of it, plonk some names of Web companies / brands into the search box. The results are astounding! Someone has a budget of $300 to $1500 for developing an EBay clone. Great! I’ll take you up on that offer just after I return from the Caribbean vacation I’m financing with the $1000 I make from building this guy a Digg clone from scratch. Oh and someone is offering to build a Twitter clone for $1365.
Just on the off-chance that there are people out there who can actually deliver on something like this, here’s my list of job offers:

• EUR 750 for a Google clone.
• EUR 1500 for a Google AdSense clone (must be fully internationalized)
• EUR 850 for a JavaScript reimplementation of Microsoft Project (must be able to read MS Project files uploaded over the Web GUI).

Any takers? I’ll even throw in the Donuts you need over the course of the three days you’re scheduling to build the system.

Technorati Tags: freelancer, auction, business, nonsense

CYA-Style Disclaimer: I am of course in no way questioning the validity of the GetAFreelancer service or the quality and sincerity of their product. Just a couple of the offers posted on their site.

What I’d like to have is a Dilbert cartoon making fun of people who still feel the need to plaster Dilbert cartoons all over their office and in the office kitchen.

That is so “bubble”.

This (see screenshot) was on the technorati front page when I just visited. People have accused me of having a strange sense of humour — I just find this extremely amusing.

I’m furious! I came across a site today, technorepublic.com, that reproduces my entire Blog entry “Video Blogging using Django and Flash(tm) Video (FLV)” (which was on the Digg front page and has been linked to from a large number of places) without my permission. This guy has the audacity to copy and paste my entire posting (with apparently some minor reformatting) to his Blog. The Blog is, of course, littered with AdSense and other banner advertising. Oh, and to add insult to injury, the images contained in the posting are linked from my server. So I get to pay for the bandwidth, while he gets the AdSense revenue.

The site contains no contact information that I could find. A more thorough analysis of his site reveals that almost all Blog entries are lifted from a large number of sources, including a recent posting from Guy Kawasaki. Of course, technorepublic.com doesn’t credit most of his sources. Not only that, but his site claims “Copyright 2006 TechnoRepublic.com”. What a laugh!
Especially annoying is that he rips off a lot of Blog entries written in the first person form. So now he has a Blog claiming “I just added Flash-based (FLV) video blogging support” (no he didn’t! I did!) or “Ever wondered how you draw a ribbon in Adobe Illustrator? A while ago a reader e-mailed me with this question.” or even “Blog reader Curtis Thompson asked me a very good question a few days ago:” (the last one taken from the posting by Guy Kawasaki, the other from a designer’s extremely cool blog).

Thanks to this blog entry: My Top 10 Best Wordpress Plugins, by John Chow, I am just exploring the Wordpress Related Entries plugin for Wordpress.
If you’re reading this entry on its own page (as opposed to on the main page), it should give you a list of related posts below the entry.
So far, I like what it’s doing. I haven’t explored enough yet to know what it bases its “related” decision on (other than the fact that it needs a full-text index). There’s a lot of comments on Mr.Wasabi’s page and I’m a bit confused whether it honors Technorati tags, for example.
On thing I discovered about the installation: Whatever I did, the related_posts() call kept ignoring the parameters I passed it and simply dumped the titles of the related entries in a single row. No matter which parameters I gave. In the end I just edited the related_posts PHP script itself and plopped the values right into the script. That appears to work.

Edit: Ironically, the plugin shows no related posts for this post. It seems to work OK for the other entries, though.

I’ve just been dugg for the very first time:

Okay — so that’s what that looks like. Now I know:

I just found these via eatmyhamster.com: A collection of metaphors/similes supposedly written by high-school students.
“5.: She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.” Classic!
I’d love to steal use the one or the other of these in the right situation. Like number 20: “The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.” But I just know I couldn’t keep a straight face.

Tags: Metaphor; Humour

Yes!!! One of my favourite cartoon characters is back. Berkeley Breathed’s Opus the penguin, of Bloom County fame, reappeared a few weeks ago on comics.com, with a weekly strip. Berkeley had announced this some time ago, and now we can read it online.
If you can, grab the Bloom County cartoon collections from Amazon. You won’t regret it.
And now repeat after me - ‘Pear Pimples for Hairy Fishnuts’.

Technorati Tags: Cartoons, Opus

I used to like Amazon’s recommendation feature, with recommendations based on my purchase history. I actually used it regularly to browse the Amazon site, looking for new and interesting stuff. Quite often, I’d end up ordering a couple of the recommended books. Very nice!
Recently, though, they’ve changed something in the system and now I hate it. Now, recommendations are based on stuff you look at, or you’ve looked at in the past. This sounds like an idea a computer guy would come up with and quickly implement, over the weekend. In reality, it’s terrible. You just look at one book about veruccas — not because you’re actually interested, but because someone you sorta kinda know mentioned this book as a possible birthday present and you’re checking to see how much it costs — suddenly your whole recommendation list and “personal page” is full of unpleasant-looking books about weird foot diseases (with a foot-fetish softporn book thrown in for good measure).
That’s not a recommendation. Thats like an extremely pushy bazaar stall owner trying to aggressively sell me every single thing I happen to look at. Also, it seems that every time I look they’ve moved the button for clearing my viewing history into a new hard-to-find place in the menu.

Amazon - give me back my recommendations. I want to spend my money!

Technorati Tags: Amazon,Books