Minimal remote webserver test.

Using sh and telnet magic.

Workmate of mine had to resort to perl. I was sure it could be done with just a sh-script. I was right. What a beauty. Copy & Paste below or go to pastebin.

#!/bin/sh
timeout=10
tracefile=telnettrace
HOST=$1

telnet_commands() {
 tout=${timeout}
 echo open $1 80

 sleep 1

 while [ "$tout" -ge 0 ]
 do
  if tail -1 $tracefile 2>/dev/null | grep "character" > /dev/null
  then
   echo "HEAD / HTTP/1.0\n"
   tout=-15
   continue
  else
   sleep 1
   tout=$[$tout-1]
  fi
 done
 tout=${timeout}
 while [ "$tout" -ge 0 ]
 do
  if tail -1 $tracefile 2>/dev/null | grep  "^$" > /dev/null
  then
   tout=-15
   continue
  else
   sleep 1
   tout=$[$tout-1]
  fi
 done
}

telnet_commands $HOST | telnet |tee $tracefile

---

Maemo Diablo released!

Go get it while its hot.

[Edit] Apparently you need change distribution to chinook on repositories if you want to install your old applications. Personally I'm going to wait. See internettablettalk for more detail.

[Edit 2] See http://wiki.maemo.org/Upgrading_tablet_OS if you're like me and forget allways the appropriate flasher flags.

Radiohead (post industrial?) remix

Big Ideas (don't get any) from James Houston on Vimeo.

Greasbag Jamboree imminent

Bring em on!

25

Performance of Ajax Applications on Mobile Devices

Mikko Pervilä has released his execellent Masters Thesis on measuring Ajax performance on different mobile devices

From the Abstract:

This thesis evaluates the presentational capability and measures the performance of five mobile browsers on the Apple iPhone and Nokia models N95 and N800. Performance is benchmarked through user-experienced response times as measured with a stopwatch. 12 Ajax toolkit examples and 8 production-quality applications are targeted, all except one in their real environments. In total, over 1750 observations are analyzed and included in the appendix. Communication delays are not considered; the network connection type is WLAN.

Results indicate that the initial loading time of an Ajax application can often exceed 20 seconds. Content reordering may be used to partially overcome this limitation. Proper testing is the key for success: the selected browsers are capable of presenting Ajax applications if their differing implementations are overcome, perhaps using a suitable toolkit.

Go read it

Hill climbers

Excellent hill climbing video from the 30's