If it doesn’t fit elsewhere, it goes here.
I found a little tool called qprint, which I am now using to decode quoted-printable posts before submitting them to the blog database. This involves first checking to see whether the post is encoded, and if it is, decoding it. If you don’t do this check, things screw up even more.
From RFC 1521 (the MIME RFC):
Rule #1: (General 8-bit representation) Any octet, except those
indicating a line break according to the newline convention of the
canonical (standard) form of the data being encoded, may be
represented by an "=" followed by a two digit hexadecimal
representation of the octet's value. The digits of the
hexadecimal alphabet, for this purpose, are "0123456789ABCDEF".
Uppercase letters must be used when sending hexadecimal data,
though a robust implementation may choose to recognize lowercase
letters on receipt. Thus, for example, the value 12 (ASCII form
feed) can be represented by "=0C", and the value 61 (ASCII EQUAL
SIGN) can be represented by "=3D". Except when the following
rules allow an alternative encoding, this rule is mandatory.
So that explains it, then. Now how to deal with it? …
By the way, I’ve reverted to my old blog script for entering this post! :)
AAaarrggghhhh! Evolution is putting the weird characters in the e-mail! Even when I’m apparently sending plain text it plays around with character encoding. Damn!
The URL problem was not a bug in our blog script. Rather it was a copy and paste error. Viewing the message source of the e-mail I sent revealed some weird characters at the beginning of the URL. Strange. Must remember to be wary of copying and pasting URLs into e-mails in the future. Just to prove it’s not a problem with the script, here’s a link I typed by hand: Vegieburger.
So the first bug uncovered with the new system is the weird thing it does with web links that appear in an entry. Check out the Vegieburger link in my last post.
Sitting in the Indooroopilly food court on Saturday afternoon eating a Hungry Jack’s Vegieburger, Nigel and I observed about five women wearing ugg boots. I had no idea that the sheepskin footwear had become such a popular fashion in this country! I’d have less to say if I was sure that those boots were being worn for their practical benefits (i.e. warmth and comfort) rather than because they’ve become a trendy fashion item. They even have these lace-up uggs now, which don’t even look good for heaven’s sake.
Nigel and I were at Indooroopilly to watch The Day After Tomorrow. For the record, I’m still not sure what day that was. However, I quite enjoyed the story of mass destruction due to climate change. Okay, it probably wasn’t factually correct and the acting wasn’t of the highest standard, but let’s face it, you don’t go and see a film like The Day After Tomorrow or Independence Day for their closeness to fact and great acting. You go for the blockbuster effects and over the top plot. The chance to suspend my brain for a couple of hours was thoroughly enjoyed.
I added a new account to my machine and set up its .procmailrc to redirect any mail sent to it to my blog script, which Nigel modified, so that we can add posts to the blog database simply by sending an e-mail. There are probably security flaws galore, but I don’t care. I’ve added this entry with the new system. I’ve also started re-writing my blog servlet so that other people can have blogs customised to look like their own website. That’s the reason Nigel was helping me. As if he’d do it for free. :)
In the period that my blog was down (between mid-April and mid-May) Nigel also celebrated his 23rd birthday. I got him Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which I thought would dovetail nicely with his recent acquisition of a motorbike. He seems to be enjoying the book so far.
I also finished reading Two on a Tower and really loved it. I know it’s not supposed to be one of Hardy’s best pieces, but I don’t care. I liked it, and that’s that. Hardy’s brilliant writing ability was in evidence, but his style was not as melancholic as in his other books. The plot was less depressing than Jude and Tess, even though the ending was sad. If I had any grievances with the book, it felt like he really rushed the ending. It’s a pity, because it could have been a really, really good book. Also, if you get down to it, there was nothing very novel or unique about Two on a Tower. It’s really a straight up and down romantic tragedy. But it’s a Thomas Hardy romantic tragedy, and the way he writes makes it worth reading. Tess is still the best, though.
Now I’m reading something really different: Rebel Without a Crew by Robert Rodriguez, who wrote and directed El Mariachi, Desperado and Once Upon a Time in Mexico among other films. It’s very amusing. Rodriguez is famous for filming El Mariachi for $7000 – a feat unheard of in modern times. Even more interesting is that he sold his body to science in order to make enough money to begin shooting the film!
The Champions’ League Final was played and won by Porto overnight. I was too tired to wake up and watch it. It’s very rare that I’m too tired to watch a football match! Yesterday the first match in the 2004 State of Origin series was won by NSW. I only got to see a small part of it because I was preoccupied with a phone call. It’s only Rugby League afterall. :)
The monthly NWWT meeting took place today. I was able to report my prototype was finished. The researchers and engineers working on the LiveSpaces project seemed very interested in my service discovery protocol. Hopefully they’ll want to use it in their work. I should also look at getting it integrated with the PACE work. But the PACE group is pretty busy at the moment.
I’ve almost finished marking the second COMP4301 assignment. Six assignments left to mark, I think. No more pracs to attend! But the third and final assignment is due on Monday.
I have to start working on the paper I’m supposed to be writing with Steven Livingstone. The paper is based on his honours work, which was about bridging Jini and Twine. There’s only about two weeks left before the submission deadline.
I should also have mentioned that Sasi submitted his thesis on Monday. Good luck to him. Hope everything goes well. We’re having drinks and/or lunch next week.
This blog is boring and needs sprucing up. Hopefully there’ll be some interesting material to report soon. :)
A couple of weeks ago I had a paper accepted to a workshop in Spain. The paper was about the application of complex systems theory to service discovery. It’s a workshop, so I’m not even sure why we submitted. I like the paper, and somehow I’m feeling as though I wasted it. Jaga’s going to Spain. I’m finishing off my thesis. :)
I’ve finished the service discovery prototype. I’ve got the local-area half working, the wide-area half working, and they’re nicely glued together. Now I just have to collect some data and finish writing. I’m not sure how relevant the peformance data is going to be. The main goal of my project was to define a protocol that can work in all sorts of computing environments. I think I’ve achieved this, regardless of what the performance data say. The figures shouldn’t be bad, it’s just that they won’t really mean much. But I have to do it for completeness, I suppose.