With the exception of getting rid of popups, I generally prefer not to block advertising on Web sites. If a site is funded via advertising, then I think the ethical thing to do is download the ads if I’m getting value from the content. (Except for popups because, you know, they really suck.) Well, I have an ongoing problem with BlogAds that I’ve mentioned before. When I open a page that publishes BlogAds in Firefox, I’m often forwarded to a page that contains only the contents of the BlogAds frame from the page I actually wanted to see. Usually I can see the content I actually wanted after I hit the back button, but sometimes that won’t work and I just get repeatedly forwarded to the page containing only ads. I’m tired of putting up with that, so I installed the AdBlock extension for Firefox and blocked all content from BlogAds. It’s unfortunate that it came to this, because I would generally prefer to support the types of sites that rely on BlogAds for some of their revenue.

Update: I’m finding out that BlogAds is providing advertising for a lot more sites than I originally had thought, judging by the lack of ads I’m seeing on sites I frequent.

Adrian Holovaty has written a Mozilla extension that fixes some of the problems with allmusic.com.

Jeff Veen also mentions that mp3.com is an AllMusic licensee and provides access to their content. (I can’t get to mp3.com from work because it’s blocked by our filter.)

I mention the article written by a woman who was freaked out by a bunch of Arabs on her flight that seems suddenly ubiquitous only because you should know that people are talking about it, and how moronic the article is. (This way, when your relative or coworker asks you if you heard about that lady on the flight with terrorists you’ll know what they’re talking about, and you can give them a good tongue lashing.) Anyway, Rivka of Respecful of Otters does the yeoman’s work of pointing out just how absurd the article is. The thing I like about the article, though, is that it’s a perfect litmus test that enables on to suss out how someone sees the world based on their reaction. If they buy it hook, line, and sinker then they out themselves as a bigot who lives in fear. If they react with revulsion and mock the people who believe the article, that says something about them as well …

Here’s a good reason to use Bloglines.

It figures Apple would release a new iPod only a few months after I got mine. The main feature that appeals to me are the iPod Mini controls, which are much nicer than the old style iPod controls. I’ve never run the battery all the way down on my iPod (while listening), and I haven’t filled up its hard drive yet. And hey, I’m not as bad off as Karl Lagerfeld, who now owns 40 dated iPods and a custom made bag to hold them.

Joel Spolsky observes that Microsoft bought out the company that makes the best search add-on for Outlook not to improve searching in Outlook, but rather to improve MSN’s search engine. They’re killing the search add-on that everybody seemed to love effective immediately.

So, Joel has updated, and Anil mentions that the searching component in Lookout was actually Jakarta Lucene, an open source text search component. So who knows why Microsoft bought Lookout?

Miguel de Icaza said something in an InfoWorld interview that kind of blew me away. I have to go off and think about it, in terms of the Web, my career, and so forth. What he said is, “Avalon is the next ActiveX.” He then goes on to talk about the ways it improves upon ActiveX. If it really takes off, that’s bad news for those of us who don’t earn our salaries programming to Microsoft APIs.

The controversy over the Brazilian invasion of Orkut is yet another ugly reminder of American provincialism. Here’s an example from the article:

“When the average Orkut user goes to look at community listings to see what’s out there, he’ll see a list populated with pretty much all Portuguese communities,” [John] Gibbs said. “This is highly frustrating since Orkut is not a Brazilian service.” For those Americans who make their living developing Web applications, the fact that this stuff is catching on in a huge way around the world is the best news possible.

All I can say in response to that is just, die. I could type up some long lecture about Brazilians having as much right to use the service as anyone else, and so forth, but we should really be beyond that at this point, shouldn’t we? For those of us who make a living building Web applications, growing interest in the Web is absolutely great news.

Eric Sink has a good article on MSDN about how to hire developers. I agree with most of his recommendations. The one about looking for people with degrees from good computer science programs stings a bit, since I don’t have that, but I suspect that it’s good advice. To me, his last piece of advice on hiring is the one that marks my hiring strategy — look for people who have a passion for developing software. When I interview people, that’s the biggest thing I look for. I want to work with people who are writing software because they can’t really imagine doing anything else for a living.

The New York Times issues a mea culpa today on its editorial page:

During the run-up to the war, The Times ran dozens of editorials on Iraq, and our insistence that any invasion be backed by “broad international support” became a kind of mantra. It was the administration’s failure to get that kind of consensus that ultimately led us to oppose the war. But we agreed with the president on one critical point: that Saddam Hussein was concealing a large weapons program that could pose a threat to the United States or its allies. We repeatedly urged the United Nations Security Council to join with Mr. Bush and force Iraq to disarm. As we’ve noted in several editorials since the fall of Baghdad, we were wrong about the weapons. And we should have been more aggressive in helping our readers understand that there was always a possibility that no large stockpiles existed.