A week ago, I was searching for something on Google and came across a link to this very site in my search results. It was linked to a page in my archives about PHP. So, I did the natural thing of clicking on it.

Because of the way the archives worked, the page no longer had any entries regarding PHP. Every time a new entry was added, each entry was pushed back by 1 entry on the archive. After 5 entries were added, it had been pushed off that archive page altogether.

This worried me. A URI should point to the same information all the time. So I began work on a new archive system today. It’s now done and available for all to see (the Archives are here for those who don’t know).

This time pages are archived by date, rather than some arbitary position that doesn’t matter. So, it’s now far more static and indexable.

Some surprises came out in this years oscars: the only oscar for Adaptation was given to Chris Cooper (Best Supporting Actor). How they managed to lose Best Adapted Screenplay is beyond me. Stupid academy.

I’m quite glad the Lord Of The Rings didn’t win many awards this year. The films have been moderately impressive visually, but quite overblown. There’s a big difference between epics and tedious detail; Peter Jackson just doesn’t see it.

I just found out about another reason to switch browsers to the Gecko family (I use Phoenix personally): keyword searching.

Imagine you want to use a search engine, say Google, (or any site that provides a search facility) to quickly search for information on horses. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could just type “google horses” into your address bar and have it give you all the search results? Well, you can. And here’s how to do it:

1. Go to the site of your choice (we’ll use google), and enter a simple keyword (we’ll be using horses). You’ll get something like “http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=horses” back as a URL string.
2. Remove the search term (horses) from the URL and replace it with “%s” (with the quotations) to get something like “http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%s“. Bookmark this string.
3. Go into “Manage Bookmarks” and look at the properties for the bookmark you just created. In keywords, add “Google”.
4. Go back to your browser and type “Google horses”, and you’ll get your search results.

Very simple, yet extremely clever. I’ve already created a few bookmarks that you can use (just add keywords): Feedster, Google, and Dictionary.com.

Remember, you should be able to do this with just about any site with a search engine, so try it out a lot. Unless you use Internet Explorer. In which case, upgrade and then try it out.

Technique via Surf*Mind*Musings

I’ve made a few more changes to the site. Firstly, I finally got round to writing a new About page. Rather than just being a horrible mixture of previous about pages (themselves mixtures of earlier about pages), it’s an entirely original one. Hooray for not being lazy for ten minutes!

I also added a Code section to the site. This will archive various scripts (including the PHP challenge entries) and programs; for public consumption.

So, the BBC are testing the nation again. First time, they wanted to know our IQ (I did well), then our knowledge of current events and now… relationships. From objective subjects (IQ tests must be objective to count for anything) to something that is so subjective as to be viewed differently by everyone. Great thing to test.

Next up on the BBC’s schehdule is Favourite Things: you have to pick your favourite film out of a selection of 5 and are then castrated for getting it “wrong”. If only Stalin had thought of this.