A few months ago while helping to debug a cookie character-encoding problem, I randomly suggested trying the Java J2EE javax.servlet.http.Cookie’s setVersion(1) call, based on the RFC 2109/RFC 2965 claims that cookies labeled version 1 would behave differently. This was a foolish idea, since the cookie RFCs have little or nothing to do with the de-facto cookie non-standard.

Cookie c = new Cookie('Key", "Value");
c.setVersion(1);

Unfortunately, what was meant to be a one-line experiment got checked in, and was silently adding the Version and Discard attribute to cookies for months (note, the Discard attribute signifies a session cookie according to RFC 2965). All the common browsers ignore the version/discard attributes, so no problems appeared. Some typical output from GAE‘s Jetty server:

Set-Cookie: Key=Value;Version=1;Path=/;Discard

However, the recent Mac OS X 10.6.5 update included a security patch to CFNetwork involving cookies and allowed domains. The patch has caused problems for web-developers using local IP-addresses. It also appears that this patch silently changed how Safari treats cookies with the version/discard attribute — rather then simply ignoring the attributes, Safari now actively rejects cookies with version/discard attributes.

Is this a bug in Safari? Or a cookie-validation feature? With no real standard to measure it by, there is no way to tell. Suffice it say, it is best to avoid calling setCookie(1)!

WebFinger is a new protocol for mapping email addresses to public profile information. Despite being named after the classic finger protocol, there isn’t a version of the Unix finger command that supports the WebFinger protocol. So to fill this gap, I’ve cobbled together wfinger – the traditional finger command with WebFinger support.

• Binary: wfinger.zip (Mac OS X 10.6 Universal Binary)

• Demo CGI Gateway:
  

  Or: curl http://wfinger.habilis.net/user@example.com

• Source Code: wfinger repository (compiles on Mac OS X and Debian Linux)

Example (using web-fingerling Blaine Cook):

% ./wfinger romeda@gmail.com

[gmail.com - web finger]

Account: romeda@gmail.com               Name: Blaine Cook
Organization: BT                        Title: Sociotechnologist
Email:                                  Phone:
Address: Belfast, Northern Ireland
Profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/romeda
OpenID: http://www.google.com/profiles/romeda

Links:
        Twitter: http://twitter.com/blaine
           Blog: http://blog.romeda.org/
    del.icio.us: http://delicious.com/lattice
           Yelp: http://blaine.yelp.com
         Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lattice/
            tel: http://tel:447595925264

Latest Tweet:
   #blogtalk2010 finished, really lots of fun. Thanks to @johnbreslin
   and everyone else here for a great event. :-D

The WebFinger-based output of wfinger is mainly fields extracted from the user’s profile using the hCard micro-format. To add some color, wfinger will also display the user’s latest tweet, if a Twitter account is detected. When WebFinger information can’t be found, wfinger falls back to using the traditional finger code/protocol. Thus, it still works with those who have keep the finger-protocol flame alive throughout the dark ages, like bzs and alexis at The World and Panix.

I also added code to look for a new “https://habilis.net/hfinger” relationship in account XRDs. The “hfinger” stand for HTTP Finger, and hfinger URLs should point to HTTP finger gateways that return text/plain finger output. This allows fingerd-like output to be tunneled via WebFinger resource discovery. You can see this in action by wfingering my account (chuck@habilis.net). This will be useful for people who just want traditional finger output, but are on systems that don’t allow port 79 access.

I hope wfinger will generate some interest in the WebFinger protocol amongst the command-linerati and grumpy grey-beard sysadmins, who run the internet. Share and Enjoy!

Boing Boing recently noted the satirical McSweeney’s piece “Leaping off the Page” by Ben Greenman that proposed a 3D typographic system, 3*TYPE, which would allow simple prose to meet the challenges of the Avatar-inspired 3D revolution. However, where would satire be without farce? So taking things to their natural extreme, I present “HTML in 3D!” which implements the 3*TYPE process for any web page.

HTML in 3D is a bookmarklet and CSS stylesheet that produce a anaglyph stereoscopic 3D effect for common HTML text elements (headers, links, etc). It should work in most modern browsers (i.e. probably not IE). Put on some anaglyph red-blue 3D glasses and click the link to see this post in headache-inducing 3D:

3D!

How to use the bookmarklet elsewhere:

• Drag the 3D! link above to your browser’s bookmark bar
• Load any web page
• Don anaglyph red-blue 3D glasses
• Click the 3D! bookmark, and watch the HTML pop!

Thanks to GEKE.NET for the CSS Bookmarklet Maker.

Recently Comedy Central yanked The Daily Show and The Colbert Report off of Hulu [update: in early 2011, the shows returned to Hulu]. I started watched these shows on Hulu because it provided RSS feeds for the full episodes, while Comedy Central has only ever had segment/clip feeds. Luckily, the shows’ sites have feed-like JSON AJAH pages that are easily massaged into a true RSS feeds, so here are substitute feeds. Share and enjoy:

The Daily Show Full Episodes RSS Feed

The Colbert Report Full Episode RSS Feed

The Nightly Show Full Episode RSS Feed

The feeds update every hour, although the shows only appear the morning after their cable broadcast. The Python (and mustache!) shell, XSL (and sed!) source can be viewed in the full-episode feed directory.

Eurasian Lynx by Michaelphillipr

I finally got around to converting Lynxlet from Ye Olde CVS repository into Subversion. By default the cvs2svn tool uses the customary trunk/branch/tag naming. I’ve never much like this naming scheme, in part because “tag” breaks the botanical morphology theme (shouldn’t it be trunk/branch/leaf?)

Since Lynx are carnivores, I decided mammalian anatomy would be more appropriate. So now main development is done on the “snout”, speculative versions are on “tails” and snap-shots of individual releases are “paw-prints.” See where Lynxlet’s snout leads it at the Habilis Public Subversion Repositories.