Rainer Feike techblog

One of the most watched topics webwide today - Google is changing their search algorithm. Over the last months one had the possibility to beta-test the new Google search (called caffeine). now it’s about to be deployed on the first data centers:

We appreciate all the feedback from people who searched on our Caffeine sandbox.
Based on the success we’ve seen, we believe Caffeine is ready for a larger audience. Soon we will activate Caffeine more widely, beginning with one data center. This sandbox is no longer necessary and has been retired, but we appreciate the testing and positive input that webmasters and publishers have given.

Time to set up your SERP tests for the next weeks!

Actually I’ve lot’s of projects in my “web-queue” - but my favorite is EQUIRA. EQUIRA is a stock chart analyzer C++ software I wrote in 1999. It’s full of AI and FUZZY and GA (that’s Artificial Intelligence, Fuzzy Logic and Genetic Algorithms).
With the today available hosting technology and prices it’s ready for a public offering as webservice and a Drupal frontend for subscribers.

Stay tuned…

Today I read an article about IE8, the MS Internet Explorer that ships with Windows 7 (successor of Vista). The good news is, that it survives the ACID2 test, the bad news is, that it fails the ACID3 test embarrassing. While Firefox, Safari, Opera and Chrome meet about 70 to 80 of the necessary 100 goals, the IE8 meets 20/100.

So, the question is: Are Microsoft programmers lousy? Or is Microsoft still offending the Internet as far as possible? While I don’t think a great deal of them, I am sure they could do it better - BUT I am almost sure, that Ballmer is not willing to believe that times change. Fat client computing is dying, all what Microsoft does with their villainously products is delaying the agony.

They’re hurting the substantial progress of our society - just for their selfish vegetate. And they’re hurting us web developers by forcing us to support their crap.

Yesterday we went to public with another very complex Drupal 6 project. It’s kind of a “local collaboration” platform with classical news attributes.
Pretty much of the business is done in a self-developed module but we also use lot’s of contributed modules from Drupal.org:

cck - to create content types
checkbox_validate + legal - for registration issues
computed_field - for workflows and hidden attributes
content_taxonomy - for taxonomies in cck types
event - for events
fivestar - for content rating
flag - for flagging content for several reasons
flatcomments - to avoid comment-threading
image - for images
masquerade - for testing
mass_contact - for mailings
nice_menus - for some dropdowns as second level navigation
pathauto - for nice URLs
privatemsg - for user postboxes
quicktabs - for tabbed blocks in the sidebar
user_stats - for some forum enrichments
views - for customized views on cck types
votingapi - for fivestar
workflow - for workflows like published purchased content

… puh, that’s a lot - and there are still some modules missing.
Maybe you wanna take a look at isartal.info?

I’ve started to “refactor” my German IT consulting webpages with Drupal 6. Although the update frequency of V6 is still pretty annoying it’s a very stable system already. Most important contributed modules are at least in beta state.
I did a new theme from scratch and thereby got great support from the “devel” module and it’s “theme developer”.
The project runs on a multisite installation together with nine other D6 sites now.

Again I was using

• cck - for my project type and listings
• views - for views
• date - for cck date fields
• token and pathauto - for url naming
• image - for attached images

And as always I’ve written a supporting module to provide some data (like a month name array) and blocks.

(Illustration by Google)

Today Google released a new browser. Naturally I’ve downloaded it immediately (for Windows XP, here) - and it’s fantastic.
First impression: So so very fast, actually all pages are just there, there’s no progress to recognize.
Second impression: It looks different, it looks cool.

On the downside:

- There are no beloved plugins existing (firebug).
- Is Google watching me?

=> Think I’ll use it for browsing next time, but will still use Firefox for development (will never again use MS IE)

Other famous people who already took the survey:
Eloy took it
Myles took it
Thomas took it
Ashwin took it
Adam took it

And you should, too!

Since a while I am thinking about a better possibility to present a link-matrix to my users. Currently it’s just a matrix where I have the topics as lines and a geographic location for each topic as column.
Now, if the user searches for “gewerblicher Rechtsschutz München” she navigates to the line “gewerblicher Rechtsschutz” and to the column 8 (what is the region code for München).

There are several drawbacks:

(1) Too many links on this one page
(2) Too much visual impression confuses the user
(3) Too hard to point to the small href links inside the matrix’s cells

Now - I am thinking about a solution with jQuery…
Anyone any idea? Thanks.

My favorite current project is opentimesheet.org.
It’s about efficient online time registration and recording.
Last 14 years as freelancer I was using a horrible number of time capturing systems. Actually I am using about three at a time now. There are so many of them, and most companies invent their own - starting with excel - ending up in a very special time consumptive “solution”.

Break the rule - join the new open source project!

When you run a website in Germany, you’re worried by laws. Some think you need a disclaimer or “Haftungsausschluss”, some think you don’t.
I found a lawer’s text that’s free for copying. So If you need, or need not, a disclaimer for your Page running in Germany (whatever “in” means) take this free disclaimer.