mysql> select * from locations where location_code = 'SIN'  limit 1\G
*************************** 1. row ***************************
          location_code: SIN
          location_name: Singapore Changi Apt
multi_airport_city_code: SIN
          location_type: A
      location_sub_type: A
           country_code: SG
             state_code:
                 active: 1
               latitude: 01.22.00N
              longitude: 103.59.00E
1 row in set (0.10 sec)

Very useful, especially when SELECTing multiple fields where the output becomes unfit for visual consumption (you know what I mean, just go SELECT some stuff in your MySQL command line and you’ll see if you don’t).

Well, the ad actually labelled it as a “Red Panda“, but we all know that red pandas are also called firefoxes.

So, I took some time to clear the backlog of unread articles in my 289 feed subscriptions at Bloglines recently so I can “start over” at Google Reader and not have to read the same unread articles twice. Export Bloglines to OPML, import into Google Reader… It went painlessly and I noticed that Bloglines “folders” got converted into “Tags” in Google Reader – mmm, taaaags. But oh wait, what’s this when I try to “manage my subscriptions” – tags, folders and labels. I’m getting confused.

Just to make sure that they really are the same thing, I created some test tags/labels/folders, and yes they are actually the same thing (meaning if you add a new folder, it becomes available as a label and tag). I’m sure the terms used will be made consistent as Google Reader moves out of beta (or rather, gets further along as a beta).

If you noticed how unorganized my Bloglines subscriptions are, that’s because organizing feeds was a pain on Bloglines back in the day (it was clumsy to organize feeds into folders, you had to select a feed, scroll to the dropdown, and select the action to move it into a folder), but that’s not really a problem now with the new drag and drop interface for managing subscriptions that Bloglines pushed out recently (I think). Thankfully, Google Reader makes managing subscriptions easy as well with the familiar Gmail-like labeling.

Anyhoo, I started using Google Reader for a bit to read new articles in my feeds, and it wasn’t long before I just found my killer feature: ‘mark items as read when you scroll past them’.

This preference will tell Google Reader to only mark those items you have scrolled across as read. I hated it in Bloglines where clicking on a feed would mark all its articles as read, especially for those prolific blogs or those for which I have a backlog (200 entries is usually a little too much for one sitting for good blogs). I have to say it again, this is the killer functionality for me. I’ve been bitten by interruptions and crashed browsers once too many times. I always click on feeds (in Bloglines) with more than 50 unread articles with no small amount of trepidation, fearing that I won’t be able to read them all or that I’d do something to crash Firefox (which is surprisingly common when you’re working with large datasets in JavaScript). This often results in my reluctance to click on feeds with more than 50 unread posts, and with the vicious cycle 50 becomes 200 (the Bloglines limit for unread posts) and the feed rarely gets read (happens with blogs like Scoble or news websites like The Register).

With this feature in Google Reader, I can click on “All items” even if it says there are 1 gazillion unread posts and still feel safe about not losing my place. Those of you using non-web feed reader applications may scoff at this (I’m really not sure, I haven’t used one in a long time so I only assume something like this is common in applications like NetNewsWire or FeedDemon), but I’ve yet to see this done in a web application. Offline feed readers are not really an option for me unless they integrate to an online (i.e central) source (let me know if one exists!). For this feature alone, I decided to make a switch to Google Reader from Bloglines.

Google Reader can get a little slow though, but then I only have 512MB of RAM right now so it probably isn’t indicative of anything (the new Bloglines is slow on the Macbook Pro as well I noticed). Hopefully all this will be moot when I get the 2GB RAM upgrade that’s waiting at the store. Other than that, Google Reader seems faster to respond network-wise (which I’m not surprised at, considering that it’s Google (and their distribution channels)), and it’s also prettier. Yeah, looking good matters to some people, like me (not that Google Reader is fantastic aesthetically, but it’s far less staid than Bloglines).

Now all that’s left is to keep those fingers crossed for some sexy Gmail integration – I’m thinking something like RssFwd, a wonderfully useful creation by Choon Keat. I use RssFwd to track some important blogs and to track the latest releases of TV show torrents (Choon Keat is not gonna be happy about that though heh).

Extract Any Archive with Ruby

This is really neat if you could never remember what commands or command-line arguments you need to extracting archives (.zip, .tar.gz, .tar.bz2 – those kinds of archives).

With this Extract Any Archive script written in Ruby, instead of

tar jxvf DonkeyPr0n.tar.bz2

you can simply do

e DonkeyPr0n.tar.bz2

Instant gratification!

Slim Timer

SlimTimer is one another of those productivity-keep-track-of-your-todo-list type applications – I like it because seeing the time ticking away gets you motivated on sticking to the task at hand. You can stick it into your Firefox sidebar and all that AJAX-y stuff makes it behave like a normal application.

Feedalizer – transform web pages into RSS feeds

Choon Keat pointed this out to me recently: Feedalizer (backed by Hpricot). I played around with it and it was so easy (and fun) to use. Whipped up a Mongrel news feed (code) for Mongrel news (which didn’t have an RSS feed). The hardest part was figuring out which Hpricot methods to use to parse the bits I needed.

Served by Apache 2.2, mod_proxy_balancer, and Mongrel

I got off my butt and set up Apache 2.2 with mod_proxy_balancer to load-balance a cluster of Mongrel processes, if you’re still seeing this, that means it hasn’t crashed, yet :p. Just kidding heh – I’m finding this setup pretty stable, though there was once the mongrel processes seem to have been over-loaded with requests (with 96MB RAM I can only run 2 processes, and even then I run out of memory real fast due to automated comment spam – does anyone have any solutions to blocking automated comment spammers before they even hit your website?).

In any case, I learnt quite a bit as I was setting up my deployment environment for Rails, and hopefully someone will be able to benefit from that when I finish my post on the topic.

(You’ll have to log out and log back in if you don’t see the button – well, at least I had to.)

So what is Pandora? (You’ll want to skip this post if this is old news to you.) With Pandora, you enter a few songs or artists that you like, and it plays similar songs that it thinks you’d also like to listen to. Nothing really special, except that the results returned are based on some Music Genome Project and it seems to do pretty well in playing great songs I like from bands that I’d never heard of before. It has a Flash interface through which you basically do everything, and it will stream and playback songs, and you can have different “stations” for different types of music/artists you’d like Pandora to match against (so I can have, say, one station that plays songs like “Stare at the Sun” by Thrice, Weezer-like songs, and heck, even throw in a little Bowling For Soup for a little pop punk flavor).

As it plays each song, you can give it a thumbs up by indicating you like it, or if you indicate your distaste, it’ll skip to the next song. It uses this to fine tune the type of songs it plays for you so it learns more about your tastes the more you use it. In practice, I haven’t used it long enough to observe any noticeable improvement in the selection of songs it plays for me, but then I’m a mere 1-day old user. That said, I’ve liked roughly 4 out of every 5 songs Pandora has played for me – that’s pretty awesome.

Anyhow, the service is free and sponsored by ads, but you can also sign up for the paid service to remove the ads (that’s the only difference between the free and paid versions, for now). There are convenient links for you to buy any songs that caught your fancy from Amazon.com or Apple. Apple really needs to set up an iTunes music store here soon, rather than late next year as was mentioned in the papers today – I’d have bought some tunes already if not for that.

So check Pandora out if you haven’t already or just read about it in passing – if you love your music and are finding a shortage of new tunes to hum or sing along to, this could be your answer to unravelling new favorite artists and songs.

Oh yes, that’s Trackback spam.

What other neat GreaseMonkey stuff did I miss?

And for those of you who wrote to ask if I was OK, thank you for your concern. I’m rather fine, not doing too well balancing work, writing, and a World of Warcraft addiction. I’ll be blogging more once I submit my final draft, but before that, blogging will remain sketchy.

Oh, has any Community Champion got their autographed Firefox T-shirt yet? I haven’t heard anything from sfx, but then again, I haven’t really been keeping up.

And would you look at that: “muvee autoProducer crack” comes up when I enter “muvee”. And of course typing “chu yeo” in there doesn’t give “chu yeow”. More on how it works in the Google Suggest FAQ.

Stuff like Delete songs from On-The-Go playlists and Create multiple On-The-Go playlists should have been there out-of-the-box, while Hear Click Wheel clicker through headphones is nice to have. Can’t wait to try it out tommorrow when syncing in the office.

Ugh. You need to use the charger (the Firewire one) to flash the firmware. Now I’m stuck with a useless iPod mini for the rest of today and the long commute home.

Looks like a cool thing to implement on this weblog. There’s a WordPress plugin, but plugins don’t work on the nightly I’m using so I’ll probably wait until WordPress 1.3, or if I ever get my butt off to try to get a CVS version to work.

(And yes, this is a concise, rushed entry because I’ve got my Half-Life 2. It’s Half-Life 2 weekend!)