FloriZla's New Writeups

iHTML (thing)

2003-12-30T10:14:27Z

iHTML is a commercial product developed by Inline Internet Systems of Canada. As Inline's main business was the development of dynamic web sites for corporate clients, it appears iHTML was born as an in-house (homebrew) product. As of today, its focus has shifted to provide e-commerce software and development tools for small to medium-sized companies.

iHTML supports all major webservers: Apache, IIS, Netscape, Zeus and others, and this on several platforms. It does not boast innovative new features (such as full object orientation), but does support the basics that everybody needs such as sessions and persistent database connections. However there are some new twists such as Back Page Processing, which allows for running parts of a site without actually displaying them to the visitor.

iHTML has been used by high-profile companies such as Xerox, Raytheon and Intel, but is also available in a free version.

The main advantages of…

Mouse gesture (thing)

2002-07-24T12:19:18Z

The primary advantage of mouse gestures is, that you can keep your hand on the mouse. Thus, you lose no time switching between the mouse and the keyboard, which is annoying and slow.

Especially for viewing websites this comes in handy, because you usually don't need to type text anyway. And with a scrollwheel-equipped mouse, the user experience gets even better. All the usual actions, such as following a link, reloading a page, go back/forward in the history, close a window, open a new window, etc. can be performed while keeping your hand on the mouse, ready to click on links. Also, it helps one handed surfing.

You can get mouse gestures working in Mozilla (as an installable module) thanks to the Optimoz project. Using JavaScript, you can configure Mozilla's handling of your mouse gestures, and you can add new ones. Like this one, that tells you How to search E2 using mouse gestures in Mozilla. Along with tabbed browsing (also pioneered by the Opera browser),…

Xserve (thing)

2002-07-22T11:47:43Z

Considering the fact that Apple had close to zero experience in making server hardware, they did a nice job. Not that the nifty design matters much in server rooms, but the Xserve has some nice features such as the special multi-channel hot-plug IDE controller and the extensive status information on the front.

And the DDR memory, not yet very common in server hardware, was a complete primer for Apple. The G3 and G4 processors have a very slow (low-bandwidth) FSB, which made DDR memory pretty much useless in the Xserve - the processor can not utilise the bandwidth that the memory provides - making the FSB the bottleneck of the system.

So, can the Xserve use its DDR bandwidth? Yes, certainly. Because it has two processors, each connected to the memory with its own FSB. And also because in servers you have a lot of DMA access, where data is tranferred to and from RAM directly, bypassing the CPU.

A third possible reason why DDR…

Dell (thing)

2002-07-22T10:30:31Z

Dell, the lean, mean, direct-selling machine was founded by its current CEO Michael Dell.

The company is so successfull because it makes pretty high-quality products, delivers good service (to those who pay for it) and has competitive pricing.
These are all things that the competition should also be able to do. But they don't always. Especially the product quality (durability in particular) on some of the cheaper models is a problem for some of Dell's competitors, and the smaller players in the business can't guarantee some of the higher service levels.

But the real wonder of Dell is that it is so darn profitable. Where the competition is struggling to remain profitable, or even loses money on each sold PC, Dell generally can show high profits. This is due to two factors: scale and costs.

The scale is gigantic. As the #1 giant in its business, it has such a stong position that it can negotiate much better prices than…

eland test (thing)

2001-08-20T01:25:49Z

This is what doomed the Mercedes A car in its early days.

A car journalist drove his just-released-to-the-public A in such a brusque way, that the car performed a nice salto mortale. This happened at a press meeting where Mercedes presented its new baby, so pictures of the damaged car appeared everywhere. It was a fiasco.

The press man claimed to be conducting an "eland test". That is, driving pretty fast and then immediately make a fast turn, as if avoiding an eland (better known as moose) crossing the road.

Too bad they didn't have actual shoots of the salto itself. That's also what a couple of German press people thought, and without hesitating they tried to produce a fake salto. They made their A deliberately unstable by using tyres of different diameter, and went for a ride on an airport track, which has more friction than your usual road. They didn't get their salto, but it was real close. And, most importantly, they had…

Saab (thing)

2001-08-20T00:48:45Z

The Saab fighter jets were very important for Sweden's air force. As a country that sits right between Russia and the US, the swedes were not that happy with the idea of the cold war getting any hotter.

The Viggen fighter, and after it the Draken, were true pioneers of the STOL principle. They were designed so that they would be able to take of, and land, on Sweden's plain roads. This enabled Sweden to have many little mini-airports in the middle of nowhere. The advantage was, that even when the main infrastructure would be nuked, they still could operate some planes. And defend themselves, a bit.

The car-maker SAAB has a real good track record concerning safety. They were pioneers (as was the also Swedish and alse safe VOLVO) of protection systems for whiplash traumas. They are known to investigate thoroughly every accident with that happens with their cars in whole Sweden. And they perform eland tests. When you're doing 70 km/h and you get a…