Yay! Odin Web Services are improved. We now have icons for folders and files identified by MIME type. Folder Icons are configurable. Folders have Introductions and Descriptions stored in the desktop.ini.  I've added a tracker bar, so navigation is now incredibly easy. File sizes are listed and it looks like this:-

Incredibly despite all this flashiness, pages still render pretty fast. One of my more complex folders contains 28 folders and 111 files in various archive and executable formats, and it renders in less that 2 seconds. I think that's pretty fast.

I know how long it takes to render because that is also listed at the bottom of the page.

I should really be talking about what a wonderful Christmas we had... but... actually... that's a bit boring. I mean it was wonderful, but it was Christmas. Everyone has a wonderful Christmas... or they don't. And there's not much to say about it other than what has already been said time and time again.

Far more exciting and new for me is that I have configured Web services on Odin (my main PC) and got CGI running, and written a single CGI program which produces pages for Odin on the Intranet, listing all the shared files which have previously only been available via SMB (Windows file shares).

The layout isn't exciting, as yet, but it's clean and informative... I think. Here's how pages look:-
The service currently lists folders (directories) first, and as headings, then files below, and smaller in the main central pane, there are links to the top level folders on the left and news items on the right. I haven't gone in for Parent, and though I had a tracker bar, I wasn't keen on it as it was, and reduced it to the Contents Heading. The main page header will take you straight back home.

You can't access any of this from the internet I'm afraid, but that's only because my firewall, and possibly our home router, which my wife manages, would block you. So if someone MSN me they want something I could temporarily open the port to the net, and give them a URL. How cool is that?

I have plans for this facility which go beyond just replicating SMB shares via web browser with a few news items of course. Browsing my files even I can't remember what all of them are just by their name alone. Back in the days of command line driven OS... and I'm going as far as Win95 without IE4 shell integration, I still ran MS DOS 7 as primary shell with the NOGUI=TRUE tag in MSDOS.SYS and ran Win.com \Corel\Draw4.0\CDrw.exe whenever I wanted to run a program, with 98 I would oft have the default shell changed from Explorer.exe to 4DOS.com. lol

Anyway I liked the fact that 4DOS provided descriptions of every file... (among other things) Originally this was essential, because of the 8.3 file names in DOS. 8 Characters and three reserved isn't a lot to describe the hundreds of files on your system uniquely, and long paths of sub-directories is only a partial solution. Describe was a predecessor of Meta Tagging in many ways, and should probably have been standard for a long time, as it would make modern desktop searches much more effective.

I also used it post "long file names" to describe the contents of zip archives or whatever. I miss this terribly in Windows, and though I can set comments in the Summery tab of Properties, and display this as a column in Explorer, setting that is nowhere near as simple as typing Describe WinSol1.01b.zip "Solitaire for Windows Version 1.01 Beta" in the command line. For me at least... Especially with tab completion.

Yup, I'm an oldbie g33k. I like command line interfaces. They're a pain in the butt for drawing, but for issuing commands there's nothing quite as efficient as a decent CLI. 4DOS was/is defiantly that. There was a description stream in BeOS too, and comment in Amiga were stored in the .info file which isn't much better than Explorer, but at least there are Commadore and 3rd party Icon Info command line tools for accessing stuff in Workbench icons.

In Windows the Comment field of the summery page (which only exists on Windows 2000 and above on NTFS5 File Systems) is stored in a separate file stream, like the attribute streams in BeOS, but they are encoded in some manner I cannot find any documentation about. So the description "Solitare for Windows Version 1.01 Beta" in a comment field in Windows is read back as the text "þÿ".

Now how do you work that out? I imagine this is just a reference to a database of comments somewhere in a hidden system area, but as I say, there are no command line tools to access, read, or modify comments that I can find, and no documentation on how to do it other than "Right click the icon, select properties, change to Summery tab, click the comment box and type a comment" Even then, if you try it, you will find there is not Summery tab for some types of file, and most folders.

4DOS descriptions where stored in a 2 column tab delimited hidden system text file called DESCRIPT.ION. How simple is that?

I still have a lot of these floating about, and continued using them on archive CDs and such for years. I also created a Win16 and DOS based GUI for CDs which utilised them in Borland C++ 4.5, but this became difficult to port to Win32 and got dropped in favour of storing html files with descriptions. I can read html in DOS, Win16, Win32 on an Amiga, Mac or *nix X-Windows system. However writing up html files for each directory is a pain in the bum too!!! And consequently it frequently just doesn't happen, where describing files was pretty instinctive self documentation.

I described what a file was, why one utility was better or worse than another, what I had changed about a file and why. I re-write installers for old programs no-longer supported to install them on newer systems or just with more automation... "What you need to ask me what my default language is? I told the OS, you could just look it up you know?" That sort of thing.

I intend to add web interfaces to DESCRIPT.ION files, and thus resurrect them. (\o/ I get to be a priest class at last)
I will probably add to the desktop.ini files of Windows an introduction / comment field for describing the general contents of files too, as the old INI format is quite easy to read from a command line or any programming language too.

The first thing I plan to do, however, is to include Icons for Folders and Files, and then to expand the File Icons to identify, at least Web standard MIME types, and integrate those in to the page... Previews for images, playing mpegs, movs, mp3s, flv, pdf or even avi or wmv in the page rather than downloading them or displaying them in a page to themselves.


All of this should greatly improve the accessibility of files shared on my system. For me, and the others in my house, not to mention if I should open it up to someone outside. And I think it's a great exercise in corporate information management. One of the biggest problems in information workers collaborating on files, is understanding someone else's filing system... even if they have one.

It still amazes me how many people who, when asked where they saved last nights dinner menu, or financial breakdown and cost analysis say "In Word"... To me that's like asking "How many sugars do you take in tea?" and getting the response "Oranges". The answer seems to bear no relationship to the question what-so-ever.

Anyway... That's what I've been up to lately and what I'm planning.

Well I think the 2.0 WoW patch is finally settling down... for me at least. I've replaced Discord with Trinity, and though I miss my XP Bar, at least I can easily assign keys to Stances. My Warlock made 40 last night as I'm working on her wile everyone else is grinding for Epix in Battle Grounds. Bert isn't speced for playing Battle Grounds, and since most people are waiting to see how much easier it is to get better kit in The Burning Crusade instances and even Outlands, Bert is probably better off not doing much at the moment.

In other Game news, anyone following things I do, or who has similar interests might like to look at my Nation State, The Principality of High Bosogravia.

As if being the Guild Leader of weren't dictatorial enough.

Actually most of what I do in the Sabbat tends to be pretty diplomatic and democratic, High Bosogravia however is a principality and I am it's Prince. I don't hold democracy dear there, because otherwise I can't get my nation to where I want it. I do let the people decide where their tax money goes on taxation day though, which was actually the quickest way to get Health, Social Welfare and Education on high priority. The many calls from industry are ignored completely, and the Car is illegal in Bosogravia.

That's the trouble with democracy, ultimately industry gets a greater share of the vote than people, even if people are doing the voting. They consider their jobs, their lively hood, their promotion prospects and their consumer interests above the greater goal of the nations health, cultural and spiritual diversity and freedom. Many typical invasion of privacy and militaristic tenancies that most dictatorships fall in to, I am simply dismissing. However I have kept National Service, and have refused to loosen up on the recruits.

The point there is that discipline is an important skill that only a military training can teach properly. Parents and School Teachers can only point the way, to do more would break the caring relationship that it is important that they also foster. It is my hope that I will not have to send anyone other than carrier military in to combat, but can utilise these young people on draft for all the good humanitarian work the army does.

I have had an income tax rate of 100% of earnings for some time now, and though I had hoped for about 75% with  more for the very wealthy, it isn't too great a concern for me. At that level people will have to relight entirely on state welfare, which means they won't be concerned how much they earn, only how much welfare they are entitled to. I would obviously allocate greater welfare to the more productive, within their own means. Recently Dental Hygienists acquired so much welfare they became the new aristocracy. That is taking it a bit too far, and only occurred because I refused to fluoridate the water supply, preferring instead to make dental care free and funded by the state.

Anyway, if you're interested in seeing what kind of national leader you would make I would recommend setting up a nation state.

I just had to post this GRR to a recent security at home bullet in and to really get it off my chest I'm sharing it here.

In case they change the page here's a summery:-

Weirdness with the Web: 3 stubborn Internet problems you can fix

The text on Web pages is too small to read

Some Web designers love to torture the public by putting up Web pages with small text. Or, perhaps that's just my excuse for my aging eyes. Thankfully, Internet Explorer contains a useful setting to change Web page text on the fly.

Solution #1: Make the text larger on a single Web page

To enlarge the text on the Web page you're currently viewing

1.	On the View menu in Internet Explorer, point to Text Size, and then click Larger. fig4. Enlarge the text on a single Web page
2.	If the text still seems small, go to the View menu, point to Text Size, and then click Largest.

This choice works only on a page-by-page basis. The solution enlarges the text only on the page you're currently viewing. The next Web page you go to will have the text back to the original size.

If you're finding all Web pages difficult to read, you may want to change your monitor settings. Check out the next solution for more information on this.

Solution #2: Bump up your monitor display size

To increase your screen resolution

1.	1. On the Start menu, click Control Panel.
2.	2. In Control Panel, double-click Display. The Display Properties dialog box appears.
3.	3. Click the Settings tab. Adjust the Screen resolution slider to one of the following screen settings (see Figure 5): fig5. • 800 x 600 • 1024 x 768 • 1280 x 1024 Adjust your screen resolution
4.	4. Click Apply. The Display Properties dialog box remains open, in case you need to tweak your screen resolution some more. When you're satisfied, click OK.

Chris Tull Chris Tull is a freelance writer and designer based out of the Dallas/Fort Worth area. He is the author of Web Designer's Guide to Adobe Photoshop (Wordware, 2006).

My responce:-
Okay, first and foremost, I would not recommend INCREASING resolution to improve the readability of web pages.

Second, I wouldn't recommend taking the screen resolution below the maximum available for your monitor for anyone on an LCD flat panel, especially if they are using ClearType font smoothing which I would recommend for readability of web pages. In fact recommending users decrease the resolution is a complete nightmare for me as a system maintainer, and I usually try to take this ability away from users, or they complain their high definition screen looks "fuzzy".

Thirdly Changing the font size only works on pages which DON'T use cascading style sheets and the ones with text that is too small usually do, because otherwise your browser will base sizes -3 to +3 based around the DEFAULT font size you set. The correct solution is to use the zoom feature of IE7 or Opera, or in Firefox to change the DPI of your display... though this is made harder in FF2. Alternatively change the DPI of your entire display, though depending on how the UI of your Windows applications is written this may produce unpleasant side-effects, due to a consistent lack of foresight by Microsoft that has not yet been rectified/patched. Maybe Vista will change the norm, who knows.
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To be fair this guy is a Web designer not a system manager, and even I have MS qualifications. I don't know how much Microsoft vet the things we say after we're qualified, but there is a lot of variance in views among MS Certified Professionals, as Microsoft don't like to publish very stringent style guides, and when they do, they change them a couple of years later. I guess this encourages creativity, but when MS scupper it everywhere else with their closed attitude to APIs and non-modular technologies, or undocumented modularity I don't really see why.

I'll harp back to the Amiga which promoted great creativity among it's user base and kept up-to-date API details on every single library in the system and a very strict Style Guide, then when stuff people wrote stopped working if it wasn't completely style guide compliant they just sat back and said "Told ya so."

Anyway Chris if you read this the stuff about Adware and pop-blockers was spot on, but the legibility issues should really not be solved in the manner you suggest on most XP systems. If you are using a CRT you can reduce the Rez increasing it will just make stuff look smaller. Strictly speaking the OS should pick up the DPI and size of your screen and set the resolution and DPI settings accordingly. This shouldn't be a user configurable option... Especially with LCD technology.

Okay so the 2.0 patch is out and every single AddOn for WoW is broke. I've been fighting to get the system in any way like I can use.

Also Priest and Warrior talent specs are broke. All the Priests are going Shadow, so no more Raid heals, and all the Warriors are going DPS for the Epic PvP rewards, so no more Raid Tanking. Well Bert isn't going that way. I never made him to do DPS and PvP, I have a nice Lock and a Rogue for that. Bert will remain a Raid Tank, but this does mean that for now, while everyone else is getting PvP Epics in BG Bert is sidelined while I level Anna.

Guild is quiet, I think everyone is shell shocked. We aren't having as much fall out as the larger guilds tho, who are set up solely for 40man Raids and of course now have no Tanks and no Holy Priests and simply cannot do the Raids, Many of those are just breaking up.

The bottom has completely fallen out of the Auction House, and Epix worth 400g last week won't sell for 30g this week. Nexus Crystals are abundant on the AH, I suspect for exactly this reason.

Anyway, I'm still desperately missing Discord Action Bars, but that will be replaced with DUB sometime after the release of BC. Till then I'm gonna have a play with Flexbar. I don't mind a bit of coding, what worries me is can I get my Stance Dance hot keys back?

On the subject of Coding I got enough installed on my system again to complete the IWA 1.0.0.2 update and fix the last remaining niggle bug... The documentations not showing their full name. And I've now hosted it at ui.worldofwar.net. I'm just a little bummed it has to go through approval before it gets listed. I was hoping to link it in on our Guild Forums new 2.0 Extras Thread. Oh well. Soon is good enough.