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Take a look at the login form for walmart.com:

Websites often include a check box under the password field that says "remember my password". I tend to tick this box automatically. Walmart has put a tick box for their newsletter instead. Plenty of people will tick the box without reading the label, thinking it is the remember password option.

Posted Sun Feb 14 19:08:18 2010

I've been writing a web crawler which generates output in Internet Archive ARC file format. I'm used to crawlers like wget which just record the contents of HTTP requests, ARC is different, it wants the headers as well. I knew the Content-Length header, but I didn't know about the chunked transfer encoding. The body of the request is broken into chunks, it is sent as chunk size in hex, then a newline, then the chunk, then a newline. This is important for writing ARC files because I need to record the data as it comes over the wire, not after it has been decoded. My crawler is written in Python, but I couldn't use urllib or even httplib, I get more low-level and use the socket module.

Posted Thu Feb 11 01:36:50 2010
  1. Trying to change the address on my credit card.
  2. On the secure contact form 'Address Change' is one of the options.
  3. Fill in the form with new address and hit submit.
  4. Error: can't change address online only by phone.

Why do they have the option?

Also:

  • Pointless 'clear form' button.
  • There is only 10 minutes to write a message, with a countdown.

Barclaycard FAIL.

Posted Wed Jul 29 15:51:45 2009

Below is an excerpt from a MARC record, the fields of interest are the author listed in field 100 and the contributor listed in the second 700 field. The names are the same, the birth date, highlighted, is wrong in field 100 and correct in field 700. I can write code to catch this kind of error and correct it, but I don't think the same person will be listed as author and contributor very often.

100 $aKnickerbocker, H. R.$q(Hubert Renfro),$d1998-1949.
245 10 $aWill war come in Europe? /$cby H.R. Knickerbocker ; with an introduction by J.W. Wheeler-Bennett.
260    $aLondon :$bJohn Lane,$c1934.
300    $axiv, 276 p. ;$c19 cm.
500    $aAmerican edition (New York, Farrar and Rinehart, incorporated) has title: The boiling point; will war come in Europe?
651  0 $aEurope$xPolitics and government$y1918-1945.
651  0 $aGermany$xPolitics and government$y1933-1945.
651  0 $aEurope$xKings and rulers.
700 $aWheeler-Bennett, John Wheeler,$cSir,$d1902-1975.
700 $aKnickerbocker, H. R.$q(Hubert Renfro),$d1898-1949.$tBoiling point will war come in Europe?
740 $aBoiling point, will war come in Europe?

External links

Posted Fri May 1 22:40:38 2009

I'm excited to see a new data dump of English Wikipedia available for download. First one since October 2008, "dump activity is not considered time-critical".

Posted Sun Mar 15 15:11:11 2009

Waitrose have started selling ready peeled garlic cloves in a plastic pot. These were all reduced, which means they're not selling. They're convenient and you're not getting any small cloves, you can see they're are all a similar size. On the other hand, putting them in a plastic pot means extra packaging. I don't think peeling garlic takes that much time. Looks like ASDA are selling a similar product.

Posted Wed Mar 11 08:18:10 2009

Today Jane and I went to Islington farmers market at William Tyndale school, behind Islington town hall. When I checked the map, I was excited to see lots of buildings. Most were added recently by a user called Blumpsy.

Iris in churchyard of St John the Baptist on Pitfield Street
'Pancake racing here today' at William Tyndale school
Preparing red kale we bought at the market
Buildings and even street numbers in Islington on OpenStreetMap
Posted Sun Feb 22 18:57:30 2009

The excellent TheyWorkForYou sent me an e-mail alert informing me that Wikipedia had been mentioned in the Scottish Parliament.

David Whitton says:

As an experiment, I typed the single word "tartan" into an internet search engine this morning. Some colourful results came up. According to Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia, tartan

"is a pattern consisting of criss-crossed horizontal and vertical bands in multiple colours".

That is a bit different from the description in the bill, and Mr McGrigor may want to send his definition to Wikipedia to update it.

I like that he recommends updating the article.

See also

Posted Fri Oct 10 14:59:35 2008

Transcript:

Bin it to win it!

Four iPods are up for grabs.

All you have to do is make sure you
put your litter in the bin and if you are
spotted by a Council officer, you could
be in with a chance of winning one.

Hackney

Posted Fri Sep 12 20:05:32 2008

Posted Sat Jul 19 14:26:17 2008