Travelocity disables flexible-search option for international flights

Travel, Web

I was looking around for some flights in September and went to my usual source which was travelocity’s flexible search option. However, it seemed to have disappeared. I did a search and found the followingarticle from smarter travel.
In essence, because international airlines have started to screw around with various add-on prices, travelocity’s flight listings did not comply with some US government department regulations. What is the solution? As far as I can see either or both of the following options

travelocity should allows it’s non-US websites to use this feature as it does not have to adhere to this regulation
some regulation forcing airlines to quote all-in prices

After yesterday’s events, perhaps airports in general should be avoided for a while.

How to kill your wife

Tech, Thought Provoking, Web

Hit and Run runs through some of the data released by AOL last week and finds some disturbing searches being made.

America Online is getting raked over the coals for releasing a portion of its users’ search data. It deserves all the criticism it’s getting, but I have to say I’m a little freaked out by some of the AOL subscribers as well.

Take this search history, for “user 17556639”:

17556639 how to kill your wife
17556639 how to kill your wife
17556639 wife killer
17556639 how to kill a wife
17556639 poop
17556639 dead people
17556639 pictures of dead people

Typing Speed

Web

Testyour typing speed here.
Email me if you beat 49.24 wpm with 10 mistakes.

Install PHP 5 on Windows

Tech, Web

I’ve just spent the evening upgrading my local copy of Apache and PHP to versions 2.1 and 5.1 respectively. (Yeah, I know, I’m a real party animal). Anyway, it took just a couple of hours thanks to a great online tutorial by Edward Tanguay. It takes everything step by step, explaining each option that needs to be done in order to get your local webserver running php pages locally. Check out the comments for any unforeseen errors.

Vyew

Groundbreaking, Tech, Web

One problem that occurs frequently when developing projects remotely or training remote users is that one usually needs to have a custom application that both sides can use (Net Meeting) for example. Now comes a website, Vyew that offers real-time collaboration with remote access and the only requirement is to have a recent browser version with Java 1.4 and Flash 8. That’s it. I set up a sample meeting and did a short presentation using a notepad and a conference call over Skype. It worked wonderfully The only feature that doesn’t work so well currently is real time desktop sharing but it will be developed further. And the cost? Currently, it’s free although no promises are made about what the business model will be in the future. However they do say

If you sign up now, we will provide the registered userâ€™s features to you for at least two (2) years.

I believe it’s really worth a try.

Help win the bet

Web

This is yet another ingenious idea of how to attract people to a strange website. helpwinmybet.com was put together after an argument by a guy whose girlfriend didn’t think that he could develop a website that would attract 2 million unique hits. Basically, the girl made a bet that either the guy would wear a t-shirt that displayed a message saying he was an idiot or she would agree to a threesome. The counter at the bottom of the page is already at more than 2 and a half million. I wonder where he is going to find the other girl…..

Performancing