Matthew R Hall's Blog

NZ Film archive with Ready to Roll!!

2010-04-27T18:22:00.000-07:00

Look old kiwi music videos....

http://www.filmarchive.org.nz/readytoroll/view.php?id=15

CenturyFinds revamped shipping prices

2009-07-16T11:08:00.001-07:00

Sophie has changed the shipping prices on her site at http://www.centuryfinds.com . So I shall shamelessly link to her blog article describing the how and why of this marketing masterstoke...

2009-01-24T14:31:00.000-08:00

This cool Silverlight powered view of products on my wife's site is attracting visitors like she wanted. However the visitors seem to be more geeks interested in the Silverlight technology rather than people wanting to aquire mid-century collectibles.

Anyhow Silverlight is starting to get pretty interesting.

Kung Fu Panda

2008-11-22T19:40:00.001-08:00

Sophie wrote a cool nano-review of Kung Fu Panda here. I personally have seen the movie seven times now. Four times in English, twice in French and once in Spanish.

Also on the DVD are lessons on how to use chopsticks and a short video on how noodles are made. This movie is getting viewed at a rate and frequency that I haven't seen since Nemo was introduced to our lives!

I'm seeing freaking Pandas in my dreams. Thank goodness for the BBC, which has a sobering Panda story to bring us back to reality....

Dumped the Taurus for a Civic EX Coupe

2008-05-11T12:31:00.000-07:00

Dumped the Taurus for a Civic EX Coupe and am much happier. The 350 watt sounds help. It took a couple of days to remember how to drive a stick with only my subconscious mind engaged : )

Victor (pictured) approves.

This car actually handles, unlike the Taurus which always left me feeling like I was captaining a giant cheese.

Nerd Test

2008-05-04T13:27:00.000-07:00

Chris Koenig, a Microsoft developer Evangelist was brave enough to post his Nerd score online.

His socially acceptable ranking of "High Nerd" sounded cool, so I took teh test and got:

My car is shit

2008-03-06T19:54:00.000-08:00

My Taurus is depreciating to near zero dollars value. It is dented, has a cracked windscreen, and sucks gas like an infinite void. Its handling has drunkenness built in. It randomly stops running when it rains. It is gold colored.

My new car needs are:

Enough road presence that I don't get crushed by good ol' boys in trucks. (not a Honda Fit)
26 mpg highway (US gallons at that)
Some cool (if I have seen one with a Jesus fish on the back, then it is not cool)
Not slow
Not a truck or SUV or a Crossover
Not gold colored

Gaggia Carezza Review

2007-08-19T13:30:00.000-07:00

Its a little bit noisy and has some ergonomic foibles, such as the inconveniently located water reservoir and the low steamer. However I love this machine for the quality of coffee it produces and the price! My video review focuses on the operation of the machine and not its few shortcomings. I'm not affiliated with Gaggia and paid for the machine with my own money.

Google Analytics JScript Permission Denied Error

2007-08-05T10:36:00.000-07:00

Google Analytics is a very useful web server statistics service. To use it you register your site with Google and include some Javascript in each page you wish to track.

When adding this feature to Stalled Clothing's website I came across an error in IE 6 on windows XP Service Pack 1. The first time a page containing Google Analytics loads a "Permission denied" error is shown.

If I open IE6 and visit Slashdot.org, I get the error, when I then go straight to StalledClothing.com, I don't see the error!

Closing the browser I can then re-open and do the same thing with StalledClothing first (error) and then Slashdot (no error).

So if your site is the first one with Google Analytics that your user sees this session - they get the scary error message.

I used Visual Studio 9.0 (Orcas) to see where the offending exception was being raised...

_udl.hash is the object and property to which the script, urchin.js, is denied permission! Merde!

Looking at the object in the debugger shows that the mysterious _udl object is nothing scarier than document.location. The script is remotely hosted on Google and the the _udl object is pointing to the current document, http://www.stalledclothing.com. This error just seems to be some draconian anti cross domain scripting kludge in IE 6.

Whatever the real cause is, I can't find it quickly. I just wanted the error to be invisible to any IE 6 luddites.

Dirty hack to save users from seeing the nasty dialog

To hide the error I used the php include statement to put the script in the page instead of the Script tag normally used. Then I added some Javascript exception handlers that will allow the Google Analytics code to silently fail in IE (or any other browser).

<script type="text/javascript">

try
{
<?php include('http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js'); ?>
} catch (e)

{
//do nothing
}

</script>

<script type="text/javascript">
_uacct = "UA-2286967-1";
try{
document.location.hash;
urchinTracker();
} catch (e)
{
// do nothing
}
</script>

New House

2007-05-24T18:31:00.000-07:00

We moved into a new house in Katy, Texas. Its slightly bigger than the apartment in London that we used to live in. Space isn't at a premium in Texas, which is one of the reasons we love this state so much!

I added this picture to Panoramia so that it would show up in Google Earth but as they get humans to vet each picture it's taking some time to show up.

Windows Vista Review

2007-02-01T07:02:00.000-08:00

My friend David Graham just took delivery of a shiny new laptop preloaded with Windows Vista Ultimate Edition.

Take a look at his review. He's a bit of a Microsoft fanboi, but he keeps his critical side well focused in the review...

Ice storm coming?

2007-01-15T17:59:00.000-08:00

Halliburton sent out an email to employees today saying "Please do not get on the roads if icy conditions exist".

As this is Katy, Texas I'm hoping that the term "icy conditions" is open to broad interpretation.

Its just about freezing outside ( 30F 0C ) so we'll see what the morrow brings...

I've driven in worse in the UK and New Zealand, but as Texans tend to crash when it rains, it may be wise to give them a wide berth in icy weather. Especially as I drive a car, not a Truck or SUV. An F350 dually spinning towards my Taurus is not a wake-up call I want.

Shooting the Ruger revolver

2007-01-14T20:27:00.000-08:00

I shot my friend David's Ruger revolver for the first time. Though it is designed with 44 magnum in mind he had it loaded with 44 special, a less intimidating load that I found pretty easy to control. It was a sweet shooter with a very smooth trigger.

The 7" barrel wasn't as unwieldy as I expected either.