Drupal permissions & filters
While I’m learning Drupal, I will share my experiences on this blog, hoping that it may be of any use for others. This post would be the first of this newly established tradition.
I wanted to set up the book content type with wiki-like editing abilities for all registered users. So I enabled the edit book pages and edit own book pages permissions on the Access Control page (of course that’s not all you have to do to get the book content type wiki-ish). Only to find out it did not work: the “Edit” button would not appear for book pages, no matter what I tried. After disabling modules that could possibly cause this, checking the logs and further playing with permissions, I still did not find the cause. Only after some “print $var; exit;“-ing I was able to narrow down the cause to this line in modules/node/node.module:
// If the node is in a restricted format, disallow editing.
if ($op == 'update' && !filter_access($node->format)) {
return FALSE;
}
And then things became clear.
When first playing with Drupal, I had created a book page, entered using the Filtered HTML input format. But later, I had installed the BBCode input format and made this the only allowed input format for all users. Which means filter_access() would return a FALSE when checking if a user has access to the Filtered HTML filter, and thus the Edit button would not appear for any regular user!
Moral of the story: choose your input format before creating content (even before creating content for testing purposes)!
DriverPacks.net project going open source
The DriverPacks.net project - which targets the lack of default hardware (driver) support in Windows 2000, XP, Server 2003 and soon Vista - is going open source! It already contains virtually all drivers available for these OSes and will soon be adding BartPE, WinPE, RIS, Sysprep and OPK support with YOUR help! Let’s prove open source IS better!
Interfaces, metaphors & multi-touch
Today I stumbled upon this very interesting article at bit-tech.net. You might not expect this kind of article on a website that labels itself as a casemodding/overclocking/hardware reviews/gaming site, but it’s really interesting. No complete book of course, but a very interesting evolution analysis of the HCI during the past decades.
Multi-touch is anything but a gimmick, but to manipulate 3D space with the mouse we need to add extra inputs. If using a normal touchscreen is like using a single mouse then multi-touch is like using ten - or more! In fact, you’ve probably seen a multi-touch in action – or a representation of one. If you’ve seen Minority Report then you have, the diminutive Mr Cruise and his cronies use one to edit video.
All the scenes where he’s flapping his arm around aren’t actually as far from reality as you might think, because those are the kind of intuitive gestures and feedback that you can expect to use and receive from a multi-touch device when it’s used with an appropriate user interface.
Appropriate interfaces are needed, and fortunately they’re almost ready to hit the streets. Jeff Hann’s work on multi touch interfaces uses simple gestures to manipulate objects on the screen. When you watch him use the interface, all the motions he makes to control the world seem intuitive and easy to learn and experiment with.
While Jeff’s work may be confined to the world of research, both Microsoft and Apple are working on their own versions behind the scenes. Microsoft’s PhotoSynth uses an interface that seems designed to be used with a multitouch display. While the application itself is incredibly cool, it’s interesting to see how the interface works, seeming very similar to the photo browser Jeff uses in his multi-touch demonstration. You can hear the operator’s mouse wheel whizzing away as he jerkily zooms into the images; in Jeff’s demonstration the same actions are performed effortlessly by placing two fingertips on the screen and moving them away from one another.
Technorati Tags: HCI, interfaces, GUI, multi-touch
My web 2.0 app. Powered by EC2. - update
Got this in my mailbox from Amazon this morning:
…
Just as Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) enables storage in the
cloud, Amazon EC2 enables “compute” in the cloud. Amazon EC2’s simple web
service interface allows you to obtain and configure capacity with minimal
friction. It provides you with complete control of your computing resources
and lets you run on Amazon’s proven computing environment. Amazon EC2
reduces the time required to obtain and boot new server instances to
minutes, allowing you to quickly scale capacity, both up and down, as your
computing requirements change. Amazon EC2 changes the economics of
computing by allowing you to pay only for capacity that you actually use.…
This will definitely result in some very nifty new apps: no more fixed server costs, but truly dynamical, based on the amount of traffic you get. Every one says Google is the most innovative company when it comes to new web services. To the end-user, that’s perhaps the case. But I think Amazon is definitely surpassing Google when it comes to providing the services necessary for creating The Next Web 2.0 Killer app. First S3, now EC2. Amazon does have other web services available, but I think many will agree with me that these are the most revolutionary ones.
The main difference with Sun’s Grid Compute Utility is the scale: Sun’s Grid Compute Utility is basically ‘rent-a-grid’ on demand, while Amazon’s EC2 is more ‘rent-a-server’-esque.
Unfortunately this is a limited beta, and I was too late… I will definitely track EC2, also here at my blog. I bet it will be very beneficial for Amazon in the end! (In let’s say 5 years from now.)
UPDATE
I forgot to mention one of the main features: the price. The price is very reasonable (as is S3’s pricing scheme): $0.10/hour. That’s only $2.40 for a day. I’d say that’s incredibly cheap for keeping your website online during a traffic peek!
Technorati Tags: web 2.0, amazon, amazon ec2, computing on demand, web services
So THAT is how to get rich fast!
The “Web 2.0 Bullshit Generator” will generate “bullshit-compliant products and services” with the click of a button. I also appreciate that the creator has included links to related services to give the budding entrepreneur all of the tools they need to “sell your company to Yahoo”.
Use Bullshitr to define your product
Use Buzzphrase Generator for your marketing materials
Name your company with Andrew Woolridge’s Web 2.0 Company Name Generator
Create your logo with the Web 2.0 Logo Generator
Sell your company to Yahoo
Repeat
Very funny stuff. My bullshit was “disintermediate blogging platforms” which sounds pretty good to me.
Funniest review every by ArsTechnica
Imagine a review with a general tendency like this:
Imagine a desktop publishing program or word processor that allows only a single document. Now imagine that document doesn’t exist. This is the document model for iWeb.
With this final conclusion:
Four big problems and a handful of smaller ones means iWeb 1.1.whatever gets a 5, but it could have been worse. It could have been Aperture 1.0. Does it suck? Yes, iWeb kind of sucks, but it sucks like ingesting smoke from a torch while calling forth the spirits of beasts to hunt by placing them on a wall. It sucks, but it sucks in the way of the worst program you have ever loved, the one that lets you create.
Just go on and read the review for fun… it’ll definetely make you laugh 
Technorati Tags: arstechnica, iweb, apple
HoudahSpot - Spotlight’s missing link?
Once more a superb macZOT offer! This time it’s all about HoudahSpot, an application that uses the Spotlight API. It allows you to enter a complete set of conditions, in much more detail than Apple’s Spotlight allows. This allows even faster searching of specific content! If you remember the filename, you’re fine with Spotlight. No need for anything more advanced then. But when you need to find an image file, don’t remember its name and only remember that the resolution is 1600×1200 for example, then HoudahSpot is certainly a must-have! See the screenshot below to see what kind of filters you can set (yes, that’s right, you can set any filter!). It’s like Apple’s forgotten missing link between fast and advanced searching of (local) content!
If it’s still the 16th of June when you’re reading this, you might be able to get a free copy of HoudahSpot at macZOT!
Technorati Tags: mac os x software, spotlight