Xah Web Dev Blog Archive 2011-06

Researchers Expose Cunning Online Tracking Service That can't Be Dodged By Ryan Singel. At http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/07/undeletable-cookie/

Added to: Cookies, Super Cookies, Your Privacy .

HTML5 Killed the “big” Tag?

Nymwars: Google Plus Account Real Name Policy Debate

HTML: meter Tag

HTML Table, colgroup, col

HTML Table, thead, tbody, tfoot

HTML: Ruby Tag (tutorial)

HTML: time (tutorial)

HTML5 Page Article Tag and Page Structure Tags (tutorial)

HTML Tags Complete List .

HTML “q” Tag .

Amazon Closes CA Affiliate Program. (online marketing news)

Google has finally killed their old search API

I had a old Google search code, like this, from i think ~2001 or so:

<div class="xahlee-search">
<form method="get" action="http://www.google.com/custom">
<div>
<a href="http://www.google.com/">
<img style="border:none" src="http://www.google.com/uds/css/small-logo.png" alt="Google">
</a>
<input type="hidden" name="domains" value="xahlee.org">
<input type="text" name="q" size="31" maxlength="255" value="Search XahLee.org here" onclick="javascript:select();">
<input type="submit" name="sa" value="Search">
<input type="hidden" name="sitesearch" value="xahlee.org">
<input type="hidden" name="forid" value="1">
<input type="hidden" name="ie" value="UTF-8">
<input type="hidden" name="oe" value="UTF-8">
<input type="hidden" name="cof" value="GALT:#008000;GL:1;DIV:#336699;VLC:663399;AH:center;BGC:FFFFFF;LBGC:336699;ALC:0000FF;LC:0000FF;T:000000;GFNT:0000FF;GIMP:0000FF;FORID:1;">
<input type="hidden" name="hl" value="en">
</div>
</form>
</div>

About 2 weeks ago, Google killed it. When you use that to search, it returns:

We're sorry...

... but your computer or network may be sending automated queries. To protect our users, we can't process your request right now.

See Google Help for more information.

The proper way to add a Google search box is to use their new API. I've written how and updated it here: Adding Google Search to Your Website .

Citation Problems on the Web

Discovered a website webcitation.org .

This is nice if you often needs to cite links. Citing links, especially in academic contexts, is problematic due to link rot. The destination link become a dead link, or it may change content to something you didn't expect, or the domain owner can change hands and all things fly (e.g. sold to porn sites).

So, it comes Webcitation.org. Apparently, Wikipedia is starting to use it. I might too.

Twitter Spam Farm 2011 .

Using Google Chrome Sync Feature and What Google Knows About You .

HTML5 Doctype, Validation, X-UA-Compatible, and Why Do I Hate Hackers .

Update: Adding Google Custom Search Widget .

HTML: s strike del Tags

Firefox 4 for PowerPC Mac

Firefox 4 does not support PowerPC Macs. You can download TenFourFox, which is Firefox compiled for PowerPC. Download at: http://www.floodgap.com/software/tenfourfox/. Alternative choice is Camino.

Apple no longer supports PowerPC Macs. So, its Safari is stuck at version 4, while current version is 5. Similarly, the last version of Opera that support PowerPC Mac is 10.6x. Current version is 11. [see History of the Opera web browser] Google Chrome doesn't support PowerPC.

With your PowerPC being obsolete, can't you install Linux? Well, Ubuntu no longer officially support PowerPC neither. Unless you are prepared to spend days, and days afterwards to maitain it, the best choice is probably stay-put with your Mac OS X 10.4.x or 10.5.x, and hope to buy a new machine soon.