bytex64.net/blog

By now you know what Jabber does,
It lets you message just because.
But have I told you, I suppose...
Of all the places Jabber goes?

You can Jabber on your PC,
You can Jabber nice and easy.
You can Jabber at the zoo,
Or Jabber while you're on the loo!

On OS X, there is iChat,
But Adium is where it's at.
Miranda IM on Windows
Just stay away from Trillian Pro(s).

Linux folks have quite a few,
Psi and Pidgin name just two.
For those who have a stranger mind
There's even Jabber on Plan 9!

When away, the web is ready
You can Jabber with a Jeti!
If you are a Java hobo,
You can Jabber on with Meebo.

You can Jabber all alone,
By using Bombus on your phone.
If you don't need all that stuff,
moJab-tiny does enough.

If you don't have an account yet,
There's places on the internet,
Run by geeks with lots of fervor,
Try a public Jabber server!

Jabber lurks in every cranny,
It could be used by your granny.
It's in use by corporations,
To manage chat operations.

In Google Mail, look around,
A tiny chat box can be found.
From the home of whiny blog posts,
Fred the Goat does Jabber chat hosts!

It's been fun and it's been real,
With this I end my Jabber spiel,
I hope I've eased your message woes,
With all the places Jabber goes!

I've written a couple of posts about the shortcomings of AIM and the wonders of Jabber, but I don't think I've really explained the situation very well. Here, I'm going to attempt a pragmatic discussion on where I stand and how the failures of the AIM network affect me. If you have a question that's not mentioned here, please feel free to post it in a comment.

"I don't get it, what's wrong with AIM?"

AIM is a closed network. AOL controls all the servers and the protocol used to talk to them. This means that third-party clients have to use a reverse-engineered version of the protocol. AOL has changed their protocol on numerous occasions in an attempt to stifle third-party clients.

Because of this, unofficial clients are typically buggy and feature-incomplete compared to the official ones. Similar problems can be found with other proprietary networks like Yahoo and MSN.

"So... why don't you just use the official version?"

Because I use Linux, and the official AIM Linux client looks and functions exactly like AIM from ten years ago. Furthermore, I also use Jabber, and I don't want to use two separate clients for two separate networks.

"What's so great about Jabber, then?"

Jabber works on an open and freely available standard called XMPP. This means that anyone can make a client that will work with any other client without having to figure out the protocol on their own. This means things work for you and me.

Jabber also has more effective privacy control (like Yahoo/MSN), offline messages (like ICQ), and is supported on a wide variety of platforms (sort of like AIM, but not really).

"Who runs Jabber?"

That's the best part. No one entity owns or operates Jabber. It operates on a distributed set of independently operated servers, just like email. If someone attacks AOL, the entire AIM service can go down. Jabber is not centralized, so it's harder (if not impossible) to successfully attack.

"Does Jabber support direct connections or file transfers? Or buddy icons? How about audio/video chat?"

Sure, yep, and absolutely. The XMPP community is working on lots of useful extensions that make the protocol feature-similar to major IM networks.

"But I already have an account on AIM, Yahoo, ICQ, MSN, and Google Talk! I don't want to sign up for another account."

You don't have to. If you have an account on Gmail or Google Talk, you already have a jabber account on google's servers. See google's handy chart to get started.

"I don't have a Google Talk or Gmail account."

Really? Go get one, they're handing them out for free these days.

"I don't want a Google account."

I'm also offering accounts for anyone on either bytex64.net or dominionofawesome.com. Just shoot me an email or catch me online and I'll set you up. Unlike google, if you don't like it, I can delete your account. :)

"I don't want to install another client just to talk to you."

Fair enough, that is a pretty asinine thing to ask, and I understand completely if you don't want to. The best consolation I can offer is that I will be returning to AIM after the week is over, and that you can use Jabber from at least three places on the web without having to install anything: Meebo, Google Talk Gadget, and Gmail.

Alternatively, you could use a multi-protocol client like Pidgin, Miranda IM, or Trillian Pro. With these, you can stay connected to your old networks and also use Jabber (and other stuff like IRC). I don't recommend using Trillian Pro, though, since it costs $25, and Trillian's basic free client doesn't support XMPP connections. Have I mentioned lately how much I hate Trillian?

"What's your Jabber ID?"

bytex64@bytex64.net

I am officially declaring war.

I have had it with AOL Instant Messenger. I am tired of dropped messages, poorly implemented status notification, and horrendous multi-connection support. I object to using a closed system where the only official client sports ads. I am tired of being a second class citizen on their network because I use an open source client. IM can be done better, and it is being done better.

Next week, July 15-21, I will be disconnecting from AIM. If you want to get in touch with me, you can do it through well supported and open standard protocols like XMPP (Jabber) or e-mail.

This is not a peaceful protest. This is a crusade. My goal is simple: I want to create awareness of better alternatives to AIM. Through this, I desire to weaken AOL's hold on the IM arena by removing people's dependency on it. My ultimate goal is to see AIM fall out of popular use, languishing in the bit bucket alongside Clippy and the IPX protocol.

If I can live without it, maybe I can convince you to live without it, too. In the next few days and following week, I will be explaining the benefits of XMPP messaging and ranting further on the subject. Stay tuned.

I am an unabashed fan of what I like to call "classic" videogaming. "Classic" in this sense doesn't necessarily mean games from the twilight of the phenomenon. It can include other, more modern games that feature the same originality. Games like Pac-Man, Mario Bros., or Sonic the Hedgehog featured original mechanics and set the stage for decades of followers. Likewise, games like Katamari Damashii prove that originality in videogames is not yet dead.

One game I've been enjoying lately that definetly falls into this category is Mischief Makers by Treasure. Treasure is best known for making beautiful and challenging shoot-em-ups like Radiant Silvergun and Ikaruga, but has made a variety of interesting games over the years. Mischief makers is one of the few platformers for the N64 system, and makes use of its graphical power in interesting ways.

Mischief Makers is an exercise in taking the platform game to new and interesting places. As Marina, the Ultra-Intergalactic-Cybot G, your main ability to interact with the game world is grabbing things, shaking them, and throwing them — and you can grab and shake a lot of stuff. You can grab projectiles and throw them back at your enemies. You can grab your enemies and use them as projectiles. You can even grab and throw the hapless NPCs or shake them to get useful items.

The level design is outstanding, as well. Each level in the game showcases a unique concept, making the gameplay challenging and rewarding. One level will have you climbing a swaying tower, another will have you surfing a rocket, and a third will have you participating in a 100m dash at a town festival. So many games create a world by rehashing the same thing over and over. Mischief Makers does not.

Treasure is also known for their flashy boss battles. At the end of the third world, you fight Cerberus α. This isn't a simple fight, though, because he's on a motorcycle. Since you can't run that fast, you are riding — and I shit you not — a cat. (In the previous level, you played dodgeball against this cat and as a condition of winning, it agreed to help you) Now, the motorcycle can shoot missiles, which help you in a few different ways. First, the cat can hop up and ride a missile, allowing you to maneuver more effectively. Second, you can catch the missile and throw it back to damage Cerberus α Lastly, the missiles can be shaken to make them grow and do more damage when thrown.

After a few hits, Cerberus will move ahead of you, and after a few more, his motorcycle will transform into a robo-beast and Cerberus will attack you on foot. A few more hits, and he rides the robo beast and you have to pick up a gun that's bouncing around and shoot him down. Only then does he die in a massive cluster of sprite-explosions. It's beautiful.

If you're a fan of platforming games (think Mario, Sonic, and every second game for the NES), you have to check this game out. I can personally guarantee you that it is made of 150% Pure Awesome.

On the Metra from Chicago to Westmont:

Cannie: If it weren't for you guys, I never would have met Marcin.
Me: ... I'm sorry.

I went up to Chicagoland this weekend to hang out with friends and go to a party Marcin was holding at his new condo. Much fun, food, and beer was had by all, including several rousing games of Apples to Apples. One round, I was the judge, and the green card was "Cold." Yan threw in "Canadians," knowing it would win — and it would have, except someone else put in "Canada." I think you can imagine Yan's reaction. :)

Erickson, Krystal, and I left the party for a while to go find a small bar with a great brew. Somehow, the place was closed (on a Saturday night!), so we took Krystal home, gave up, and went to a Hooters. I had a Key Lime Pie and a frosty Killians, we discussed Fortran and NCSA, and then I went back to spend the night at Marcin's.

Sunday Marcin, Cannie, Yan, Jen, and I wandered around the Taste of Chicago. I had turtle soup, jerk chicken with red beans and rice, a chocolate chip cookie, smoked salmon cake w/cabbage salad, and a slice of watermelon. I got a little sunburned, but it was a good time with good friends.

The zombies have taken out my Internet. Before, I was just worried and scared. I am now officially pissed off.

I was just reading reports of what looks to be George Romero's wet dream come true. Nothing has happened out here, but that doesn't mean much. It would take a day for a zombie to shamble out of town and make it here. We've got food, guns, and people who know how to use them. We're OK, but I'm worried about my friends in the cities. I don't know if they're safer or not being surrounded by all those people. I guess I can take some comfort in the fact that most of them don't go outside much.

Mom's not taking it very well. It seems that this only affects the recently dead, so there's no way Brian would be affected. Still, you can't help but be unnerved by this with a death so fresh in your memory.

I'm connected via my cell phone data plan — good thing I figured this out yesterday. AT&T says I'm not supposed to do this, but I don't really care right now. I've tried calling everyone, but I'm just getting a recording about network congestion. As long as I'm getting those, the network is still up, though. Google is still up, that's heartening. I guess if anyone would be prepared for a zombie apocalypse, it would be the geeks. From what Erickson tells me, AT&T's NOC is built to withstand nuclear blasts, so they should be able to keep the lines of communication open.

Just got an email from Erickson, I guess he's still alive. He says he hasn't seen any zombies personally, but the TV stations are telling everyone to stay inside. I know it's not wise, but I'm going to head into town and meet up with him. I know the back roads, I've got a gun, and I can drive. The family will be safe here, and I also need to find out if my sisters are alright.

Here goes nothing.

BLITEOTW.

'cause I'm about to blow your mind.

chip@tsuchiya:~$ cp /mnt/phone/themes/Flower (1).thm .
chip@tsuchiya:~$ file Flower (1).thm
Flower (1).thm: tar archive
chip@tsuchiya:~$ tar tf Flower (1).thm 
Theme.xml
Desktop.png
Desktop3.png
Highlight --ACA-big.png
Highlight --ACA-small.png
aActivity -ACA-menu.png
aAM -ACA-selected -ACA-tab.png
aAM -ACA-unselected -ACA-tab.png
Input ---ACA-1.png
Input --ACA-2.png
Popup.png
Popup -ACA-title.png
nyflower.gif
Tab -ACA-title.png
AM -ACA-selected -ACA-tab.png
AM -ACA-unselected -ACA-tab.png
Title ----ACA-big.png

WHOA. Give me a moment, I need to collect myself.

Ok, so what I did there, was I copied a theme file off of my phone. That theme file turned out to be a tarball, the de-facto archival format of UNIX. Furthermore, what's inside is PNG graphics and an XML file defining the style. I was expecting a proprietary format, maybe a zip file with some unusable junk inside, but this... Oh ho ho ho, this... is monumental. Someone at Sony Ericsson has a Clue^TM.

But more pragmatically, this means that I have all the tools I need to tweak every graphical bit of this phone using freely available tools and free file formats. When open formats are used, opportunity is created, and where there is opportunity, there is innovation. <RMS>Free Software bretheren, this is the fruit of our labors.</RMS>

I'd like to see the iPhone top that. :P

For a while, I thought I might be part Korean. For the past half an hour, I've been eating kimchi straight from the jar. I love kimchi. Upon further inspection, it seems that kimchi leverages the same lactobacilli microbes as another sour prepared vegetable I like, sauerkraut. In essence, kimchi is like sauerkraut with spices and red pepper added. The moral of the story here is, I'll eat anything pickled with spices and loaded with red pepper.

I saw Shrek 3 with my brother and my mom earlier. It was OK. It was nice to get out of the house, at least. Afterwards, we went to everyone's favorite Asian food store since the parting of Sunshine Grocery, AM-KO. I picked up the aforementioned kimchi, wasabi (horseradish) mayonaise, and a bottle of maple soju.

I now have an UNLIMITED data plan on my phone. More accurately, I have the Media Max 200 bundle, which means all I can eat as long as it's on my cell phone. The Media Net plans prohibit "tethered" use — using the phone as a data connection for your laptop and such — but are much cheaper than the full-blown data plans. This is to say, my unlimited data plan... has limits. Whether there are any technical restrictions in place to enforce these limits or not, I'd be quite interested to know.

The upshot is that I can now be reached on my mobile terminal by emailing "mobile" at [this domain name]. (Have to keep those spambots guessing. You'll figure it out.) I've also got a Jabber client installed, so I can talk to you cool people who use Jabber, and you not-quite-as-cool people who use GTalk/GMail Chat. (GMail Chat folks: One of the best kept secrets of GMail Chat is that it is actually a Jabber client. To add me, click on "Add contact" at the bottom of your "Quick Contacts" list. In the window that pops up, put bytex64@bytex64.net in the text box labeled "To invite other people, type their email addresses here:". Click "Send Invites," and that's it.)

Instant communication from your web browser to my cell phone. What a crazy world we live in.

Appendix: A rant on AIM

I very briefly pondered getting an AIM client for my phone, but here's the deal: AIM sucks for multiple connections. As nearly as I can tell, its method is like so: If any connections are not away or idle, send the message to all of those. If all connections are away or idle, send the message to all connections. This works, but is a terrible kludge. Jabber has priority levels that can be used to deliver a message exactly where it should go (Jabber only delivers a message to exactly one connection). When I log on with my phone, I can be sure that messages will go only to my phone. Furthermore, each connected device has a unique "resource" identifier, so specific devices can be addressed if desired.

Jabber also provides much more sophisticated authorization tools. Status notification (the ability to see whether you're online, away, etc.) is not granted automatically, it must be authorized. Once it is granted, it can be later revoked (they can't see you), canceled (you can't see them), or both. Even without status notification, you can still send messages, or you can block messages, too. You can even temporarily disable status notification to hide from someone. In an age where something will be abused just because it can, these are valuable tools to preserve your sanity.

While it may seem that the title above is a surrealist commentary on my life, or the war, or something else, I assure you that it is meant very literally. The enormous chest freezer in our basement was housing a sub-zero hoard of very nearly pre-George W. Bush era meat left over from a couple of cows we raised ourselves. Naturally, we can't eat that, so I was tasked with... handling it. I took the bagged soggy meats from totes as they began to thaw, and put them into black trash bags, whereupon my dad took them out to God knows where. I honestly don't want to know.

I finally got the right version of the Sony Ericsson K510, and it arrived today. From Vancouver. Canada. It took seven days to get here, and cost $35 to ship. But let's look on the bright side: that's only $5 a day. :-/

Now that I have a working K510a, I can say with authority that it is an awesome phone. Just to scratch the surface, I'll list a few of the things the phone has built-in: email (supporting IMAP4, SSL, and TLS for sending and receiving), an RSS reader, a decent web browser, an organizer (with synchronization), a password saver, a Puyo Puyo clone, and a USB storage interface for the internal memory. With a little work, I have added to this Opera Mini, MidpSSH, and Google Maps Mobile. I am just a data plan away from having an extremely potent pocket data terminal.

The email part has me really excited. An email, even with the larger headers and messages, is cheaper to transfer to your phone than a SMS. Furthermore, SMS doesn't offer encryption between your (not your phone company's) server and the phone. Email can be filtered, blocked, redirected, and mangled a hundred different ways. SMS? No. It just makes sense. I am also obligated by Japanese Culture Appreciator law to tell you that the Japanese have been sending emails to and from their cellphones for years.

Once I have that data plan, I'll have an email address for the phone so you can email me on the go (because I know you want to). I'll also see if I can get a jabber client (because so many of you use jabber... well you should!).

It must be summer, because I don't feel like doing anything responsible.

I went to my cousin's wedding on Saturday. Pretty, smart white girl marries handsome, smart white guy. Lots of nervous handwringing and pretentious display. Y'know, standard stuff. The dinner was good, but not worth what they paid. I talked to my brother about it, and we've decided that his wedding will involve ninjas, motorcycles, and the bride crashing in through the skylight. While on fire.

Another sign of summer is that the insects have arrived. Erickson tells me that cicadas have invaded Chicagoland. It's not hot enough here, yet, but I'm sure they'll be out in full shrill force soon enough.

As I drove home from the wedding, I looked out over the fields to see swarms of lightning bugs (or fireflies, as you may call them) blinking. I guess that's not a sight you see many places, and for me, it's one of the coolest sights of the summer.

The clincher, though, is the June bugs. Huge nocturnal flying beetles attracted to any light they find (like my laptop screen). I'm sure you're asking, "How do huge nocturnal flying beetles get into the house?" This house is as good at keeping insects out as it is at keeping heat in. (i.e. not at all) These things are big, annoying, and creepy. My brother puts it best, "I draw the line when you can hear their footsteps."

With that, here's something completely different.