If you’re trying to debug problems with Java applets in Safari, you may have wondered, like me, how to see a “Java console” of the sort that’s available in Mozilla-based browsers. One way that I found, by mistake, is to Control + click on the red “X” that is displayed when a Java applet won’t run:

This afternoon’s background music.

Today’s background music.

The Flickr page for tag ‘pei’ has an interesting mix of Prince Edward Island vacation and I M Pei architecture photos.

A few weeks back, I added a little Flash “play this audio file” widget to the bottom of posts that have audio attached to them:

Since then I’ve heard from three people who’ve wondered why they’re being prompted to install Flash when they visit the weblog.

I’m wondering about Macromedia’s claims of Flash penetration, and whether they exaggerate the real situation “on the ground.”

As a sort of unofficial test, can you please add a comment to this post if you’re being prompted to install Flash when you visit (I’m attaching a tiny audio file just to make sure the Flash widget shows up). If it appears that it’s a widespread problem, then I’ll either remove the widget or get more sophisticated about Flash detection.

Okay, I’m looking for a word that describes the portion of the day when it’s “regular business hours” in both Copenhagen and Charlottetown.

Copenhagen is GMT+1. Charlottetown is GMT-4. So when it’s 9:00 a.m. in Charlottetown, it’s 2:00 p.m. in Copenhagen. And when it’s 5:00 p.m. in Copenhagen it’s 12:00 Noon in Charlottetown.

In other words, there’s a 3 hour portion of each day — 9:00 a.m. to Noon in Charlottetown, 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. and 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. in Copenhagen — when we’re both “at work.”

What is that overlapping part of the big “time Venn diagram” called?

We recorded Live From the Formosa Tea House: Episode 4 this afternoon over lunch. At the Formosa Tea House. Live.

We recorded in the coveted back room of the Formosa, with a very simple technical setup. We all sat around Dan James’ APEX435 microphone, which ran into Steven Garrity’s Behringer Eurotrack UB802 mixer. We took the output of the mixer and plugged it into my iMic, which was plugged into a USB port on my laptop. I did the recording in Sound Studio, saved as an AIFF file, then imported the file into iTunes and converted to an MP3 (24 kbps mono, VBR medium quality).

This episode runs one and a half hours. It didn’t feel “too long” when we were recording it, so we’ve decided to release it completely unedited to maintain the “three guys having lunch” feel. It may feel too long to listen to. Things we discuss:

• Our technical setup.
• Recent travels by Dan to Peru and Peter to France and upcoming travel by Steven to London and Paris (for his honeymoon). [starts 2:42]
• London bombings, “terrorists are people too.” [starts 28:30]
• Steven’s Canon PowerShot S330 digital camera motor goes bad [starts 36:00]
• Queen Street Commons update (and QSC vs. ATC). [starts 37:15]
• An extended riff on the differences between employees, entrepreneurs and freelancers, the responsibility to be “open” about what we do, charging for “mind share” vs. “billing by the hour,” refusing to write proposals for new projects, “adults don’t really know what’s going on,” how we price our services, how we select our clients. [starts 43:50]
• Steven is getting married. [starts 1:13:00]
• Wikis, Wikipedia coverage of London bombings, the Rukapedia, the silverorange wiki. [starts 1:14:48]
• A brief mention of Plazes. [starts 1:28:45]

You can subscribe to the Live from the Formosa Tea House RSS feed if you want to become a regular listener. We’re also in the iTunes 4.9 podcast directory — just search for Formosa.

I’ve started a new entry in the Rukapedia: Things That Are Not What They Used To Be.

Last night, after working for almost 8 hours without a break, I stumbled out of my desk to go home. Simultaneously, Steven Garrity galloped downstairs from silverorange. In my foggy PHP-induced delirium, I heard Steven’s gallop, and thought it was me coming down the stairs. Which was very confusing.

This morning, I was reading through comments about my Flickr images, I read this (highlighted text is mine):

I thought this text was actually somebody’s comment. I took great offense.

We’re off to record an episode of Live from the Formosa Tea House now; if I sounded like a jet-lagged bumbler, you’ll know why.

One of the fringe benefits of being leader of the small ineffective cabal working to keep the name Compass in use to describe the CBC Prince Edward Island supper hour television newscast (the show that infidels insist on calling Canada Now) is that I have been able to cultivate agents inside the CBC operation. One such person was kind enough to anonymously drop off the Compass pin pictured here. I wear it proudly.