Entries from September 2005 ↓

fireFTP is a tiny extension to Firefox that provides full fledged FTP capabilities. Being an extension to Firefox, it works cross platform. It’s very small (less than 60kb) and opens up neatly in a new tab in FireFox. It supports passive mode, can remember connection details, resume downloads, automatically set transfer modes and even work over a socks proxy.

I used Filezilla for FTP earlier and got hooked to fireFTP after using it once. If you don’t use Firefox yet, fireFTP is a great reason to switch

We are using Multipart MIME based MHT files (aka WebArchive aka Mail HTML) to create reports that can be viewed/printed/edited in Word. This is the easiest way of generating reports from a web application as standard HTML/CSS can be used. The packaging format is like an email with attachments. Everything into a single .mht file - main document, images, header/footer and finally a filelist.xml file which ties things together. You can also rename the .mht file to .doc and the users would not even realize it was generated using HTML.

I am facing some weird problems with this format on the Mac version of MS Office. The document works perfectly on Windows. When you take the file to Mac and open it in Office X, it shows everything but the images.

Weird also because even if you create a new document on the Mac itself, save it as MHT and then open again, the images disappear. Yet, they are there in the MHT file if you open the file using a text editor.

This is ofcourse driving me crazy as I write this

One hack that seemed to work was to refer to the images in the document without the folder name. E.g. For Office for Windows:

But for Office X:

This too is working in some cases and not in some. I am trying to find a pattern on it right now, and will post a comment once I nail it down!

I was discussing with a friend who's done Landmark and an insight appeared. One possibility needs another! For any possibility to be fully present, you will have to have a lot of other possibilities present as well. It's like a chain, one needs other, the other needs another.

I am the possibility of trust and freedom. Now trust and freedom can not survive on their own. If there is no love, self expression, power, creativity or integrity. If there is no love, there is very weak foundation to the trust. If there is no self expression, love would be paralyzed.

Possibilities work in tandem. They can't live in isolation.

What is your possibility?

Recently a client requested a copy of his website. We had developed the site three years ago, the site was discontinued after a year. Now out of the blue, he wanted to host it again.

We checked up our backup, but could not find the files. The client was pushing for the files! What to do?

Then came an idea! The Way Back Machine!

The Internet Archive is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Like a paper library, we provide free access to researchers, historians, scholars, and the general public.

Archive.org not only archives websites, but also movies, speeches and text. I entered the now defunct website address of the client on the site, and jumped with joy with what I saw next. Archive.org had enough versions of the website for me to pick from.

I then tried to use some offline browsing software to download the whole site Tried with three different software, but it did not work because they do not allow spidering (and hence downloading) the site. So had to manually download all the pages and images and get things to work.

But archive.org saved the day!

Jack Covert writes on Marketing Profs:

With the start of autumn and a new school year comes a renewed emphasis on learning. That's true for those of us who haven't ridden a big yellow bus for many years.

So, among the dozens of marketing books published every year, here are three published in 2005 that are worth reading (and buying). (and then a bonus book)

1. Bag the Elephant: How to Win & Keep BIG Customers by Steve Kaplan (Bard Press, 190 pages, $19.95, hardcover, August 2005)
2. All Marketers Are Liars: The Power of Telling Authentic Stories in a Low-Trust World by Seth Godin (Portfolio Publishers, 175 pages, $23.95, hardcover, May 2005)
3. Brand Hijack: Marketing without Marketing by Alex Wipperfurth (Portfolio, 288 Pages, $24.95, hardcover, February 2005)
4. The Big Moo: Stop Trying to Be Perfect and Start Being Remarkable by The Group of 33, edited by Seth Godin (Portfolio Books, 180 Pages, $19.95, hardcover, October 2005)