Don Tai (Canada) Blog

Regex is an acquired taste: initially bewildering and bitter, but given time it grows on you. Eventually you begin to appreciate its bouquet. Small, efficient, and powerful, Regex epitomizes good code. This is an advanced discussion of Regex I have found useful in Pipes. If you are new to either, then read up and play.

Other reference material includes Regular Expressions in Yahoo Pipes, but is a tad dated. The Pipes forum is very helpful, especially hapdaniel.

Sunforce 12v Power Sports Charger 50014 is but a battery maintainer, not a charger

Solar power has always been enticing idea. You point a panel to the lovely sun and it returns usable power. With few exceptions the sun rises each and every day, so theoretically you have unlimited access to power. Unfortunately the reality of economics creeps into the equation, initially taking the shine off solar power. Wanting to play with the technology, a Canadian Tire sale on small solar panels allowed me to try it out.

The RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Logo. RSS is so useful but abused.

Should not an internet feature with the label “Really Simple” in its name, be in fact really simple? After working with Really Simple Syndication (RSS), unfortunately this is not or is no longer true. In fact wider variations of this very useful tool threaten to reduce the effectiveness of this useful tool.

Wikipedia has a great definition of RSS:

On Dontai.com I scan the world for RSS (Really Simple Syndication) blog and news feeds that deal with China and Japan. These RSS feeds are funneled into categories for me to read. Sometimes certain RSS feeds misbehave and therefore need to be deleted. One particularly annoying issue is an RSS feed that continues to show up as “most recent”, even when the article is obviously older. When these feeds show up as most recent they clog the news feed, pushing down more recent articles to a lower ranking. This is most annoying.

Our local Toronto Public Library branch has been closed for renovations for a couple of months but reopened on Wednesday. The main change was the absence of the checkout counters, as well as the people that worked behind them. Like at Home Despot they now have a self-serve touch screen checkout system, which gave me a lot of trouble.

The transfer of domain names from one registrar to another seems like a pretty common event, but I still had difficulty getting it done. The old registrar will throw up roadblocks to try to prevent you from leaving, while the new registrar just wants you to register with them, regardless of if you complete the transfer registration process. Since I am not either registrar and am not asking you for money, I can give you the straight goods on what you need to do.

DotEasy has been my web hosting company for 7 years. Due to a lack of features I wanted to move web host providers from Doteasy. Various ploys and excuses were used, in the end resulting in DotEasy freezing my account for 2 months and thus blocking my web site move. Other issues with Doteasy include their technical staff trying to retain you as a customer instead of doing what I asked them, wasting time and prolonging the time required to move. Finally there is the negative option billing, where if you do not cancel your hosting account and do not pay, they will continue hoisting and bill you anyway. This is an unethical business practice masqueraded as better security. Due to these three issues I strongly recommend to not use Doteasy as a web host provider. DotEasy adheres to rigid policies that do not allow for good customer service, and can hold you hostage so you cannot move to another host provider.

Mike Holmes exudes credibility because of his knowledge and actions, not because of a slick web site.

Home renovations shows are useful to me because they educate the public in the care and feeding of your home. Like any system, homes need maintenance and upkeep. Knowing what to do can prevent major damage and expense in the long run. On occasion, these seemingly mundane shows highlight issues that stick to me. Recently Mike Holmes, from “Homes on Holmes” and “Holmes Inspection” lamented that one of his customers found a contractor online, thought the guy was legit and handed him $25,000CAD for a basement renovation. This legit contractor subcontracted out and created a structural and aesthetic disaster of dangerous quality. Mike’s conclusion: You can’t find a legit contractor from a web site. I agree with him.

New Colgate toothpaste cap is difficult to open when your hands are wet. This is a clear usability problem.

I normally do usability testing on computer and internet applications, but usability testing can be even more important in everyday items, such as the new packaging for Colgate toothpaste. You gets an “Arghh” moment when a product does not work or is more difficult to use than it should be. Yesterday morning I was in the bathroom washing my hands. After a quick dry I reached for my toothpaste to brush my teeth. Lo and behold, with my slightly damp hands I could not open the new Colgate toothpaste top! My hand kept slipping on the shiny plastic polypropylene cap. Clearly this is not the intent of the designers of toothpaste container. Sure it looks very slick, but will certainly anger many people.

I hate when automatic software adds odds and ends to your system that seemingly does not have any benefit. Even more, I hate when they give you no option to disable it. I have almost as much hate for software that allows you to disable a function, but does not completely disable it, leaving you to clean up the residual mess. Such is the case with Sun Microsystem’s Java Quick Starter, automagically installed when you upgrade to Java 9. Sure you can uncheck the JQS box, but that is certainly not enough, as it leaves a trail of destruction for Firefox and a service that is stopped but not completely killed. Sun should really know better. Here is my 3 part kill method: uncheck the service, remove from Firefox, remove the service.