In what should be a surprise to nobody, a judge ruled yesterday that “the ‘good faith’ test under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was subjective, not objective”.

What that means in essence, is that a fair suspicion of copyright infringement is enough to demand a site remove content. But in the print world, actual proof of infringement is required. This is great news for shady types, as they should be able to get their competitors into trouble just by claiming they have infringing content on their site and then come up with a reasonable sounding reason for thinking they might have.

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A reader on the notetab list asked for a clip to generate a list of words with a first letter capitalized (the rest of the word can be upper or lower cased so long as the first letter is capitalized). I tried a couple of versions that worked pretty well on my test files. Because the sort function puts umlauted characters at the bottom of the alphabet in a sort and the reader wanted to preserve umlauted characters, I decided that this method was better. This clip ran 8 minutes for the reader on a 500K file. I didn’t disable screen update so you can see the progress, but that also slows the machine.

Here is the clip:

; by don at htmlfixit.com
; using a bunch of Hugo's ideas
; runs a text file and makes
; a list of all words that start
; with a capital letter
^!Menu Edit/Copy All
^!Toolbar Paste New
^!Replace "^P" >> " " ATIWS
^!Replace ")" >> " " ATIWS
^!Replace "(" >> " " ATIWS
^!Replace """ >> " " ATIWS
^!Replace "^T" >> " " ATIWS
^!Replace "," >> " " ATIWS
^!Replace "[" >> " " ATIWS
^!Replace "]" >> " " ATIWS
^!Replace "< " >> " " ATIWS
^!Replace ">" >> " " ATIWS
^!Replace "~" >> " " ATIWS
^!Replace "!" >> " " ATIWS
^!Replace "@" >> " " ATIWS
^!Replace "#" >> " " ATIWS
^!Replace "$" >> " " ATIWS
^!Replace "%" >> " " ATIWS
^!Replace "^" >> " " ATIWS
^!Replace "&" >> " " ATIWS
^!Replace "*" >> " " ATIWS
^!Replace "_" >> " " ATIWS
^!Replace "+" >> " " ATIWS
^!Replace "=" >> " " ATIWS
^!Replace "|" >> " " ATIWS
^!Replace "{" >> " " ATIWS
^!Replace "}" >> " " ATIWS
^!Replace "" >> " " ATIWS
^!Replace "/" >> " " ATIWS
^!Replace "?" >> " " ATIWS
^!Replace "." >> " " ATIWS
^!Replace ";" >> " " ATIWS
^!Replace ":" >> " " ATIWS
^!Replace "" >> " " ATIWS
^!Replace "•" >> " " ATIWS
^!Replace "– " >> " " ATIWS
^!Replace "´" >> " " ATIWS
^!Replace "’" >> " " ATIWS
^!Replace "“" >> " " ATIWS
^!Replace "‘" >> " " ATIWS
^!Replace "`" >> " " ATIWS
^!Replace "¡" >> " " ATIWS
^!Replace "¢" >> " " ATIWS
^!Replace "£" >> " " ATIWS
^!Replace "¤" >> " " ATIWS
^!Replace "¥" >> " " ATIWS
^!Replace "§" >> " " ATIWS
^!Replace "©" >> " " ATIWS
^!Replace "«" >> " " ATIWS

^!Menu Modify/Spaces/Single Space
^!Replace " " >> "^P" ATIWS
^!Replace "^P´" >> "^P" ATIWS
^!Replace "^P-" >> "^P" ATIWS
^!Replace "^P " >> "^P" ATIWS
^!Menu Edit/Copy All
^!SetClipboard ^$StrSort("^$GetClipboard$";1;1;1)$
^!Select All
^!Toolbar Paste
^!Jump 1

; following is to dump all numer or lower cased
; first character lines
:DumpBad
^!If ^$GetRow$ = ^$GetLinecount$ Sort2
^!Select +1
^!IfTrue ^$IsEmpty("^$GetLine$")$ NEXT ELSE SKIP_2
^!Keyboard DELETE
^!GoTo DumpBad

^!If "^$IsNumber("^$GetSelection$")$" = "1" SKIP
^!If "^$IsUppercase("^$GetSelection$")$" = "1" SKIP_4
^!Select Eol
^!Keyboard DELETE
^!Keyboard DELETE
^!GoTo DumpBad

:GoNext
^!Jump +1
^!GoTo DumpBad

; following is to eliminate single characters on one line
:Sort2
^!Jump 1

:Sort2a
^!Select Eol
^!IfError END
^!If ^$StrSize("^$GetSelection$")$ > 1 SKIP_2
^!Keyboard DELETE
^!Keyboard DELETE
^!Jump +1
^!GoTo Sort2a

This also removes any single character lines (under the theory those aren’t words).

Significant things done in this clip:
generating a list of words by replacing most non-alphanumeric with a space
replacing all double spaces with a single space and a return
sorting of the words that are now on single lines using the function in notetab
elimate all lines that don’t have an uppercase letter as the first character (note that we needed to use the test clip info to be sure that ^!IsUppercase was alphabetic before testing if it was upper case)
remove lines with only one character on them

I found something interesting the other day … non-uppercase characters were testing positive for ^$IsUppercase. While you might presume only an uppercase character/string would test positive for this, it is actually testing to be sure there are no lower-case alphabetic characters. The opposite is also true with ^$IsLowercase testing for Not Uppercase. So you first need to be sure you don’t have either a number or a non-alphabetic character if that is important before using either ^$IsUppercase or ^$IsLowercase

Testing the ^$IsUppercase function:

; by don at htmlfixit.com
; any-non lowercase non-alphabetic
; character tests positive as Uppercase
^!SetArray %Original%="0";"1";"|";"?";"a";"@";"1";"+";"=";"F";"`";"~";"-";"q";"L";"[";"}";" ";"x"
^!Set %count%=0
:Loop
^!Inc %count%
^!If "^%count%" > "^%Original0%" End

^!If "^$IsUppercase("^%Original^%count%%")$" = "1" UPPER ELSE NOTUPPER

:UPPER
^!Info "^%Original^%count%%" is POSITIVE when tested as upper case -- even if it isn't a letter
^!GoTo Loop

:NOTUPPER
^!Info "^%Original^%count%%" is negative when tested as upper case
^!GoTo Loop

Testing the ^$IsLowercase function:

; by don at htmlfixit.com
; any-non lowercase non-alphabetic
; character tests positive as Uppercase
^!SetArray %Original%="0";"1";"|";"?";"a";"@";"1";"+";"=";"F";"`";"~";"-";"q";"L";"[";"}";" ";"x"
^!Set %count%=0
:Loop
^!Inc %count%
^!If "^%count%" > "^%Original0%" End

^!If "^$IsLowercase("^%Original^%count%%")$" = "1" UPPER ELSE NOTUPPER

:UPPER
^!Info "^%Original^%count%%" is POSITIVE when tested as lower case -- even if it isn't a letter
^!GoTo Loop

:NOTUPPER
^!Info "^%Original^%count%%" is negative when tested as lower case
^!GoTo Loop

I wanted to see if ^$GetLinecount$ updates on the fly every time a line is deleted. It does as shown by the following clip:

; by don at htmlfixit.com
; this clip is to show that
; if you delete lines the
; variable ^$GetLinecount$ updates
; itself on the fly

;create file
^!Menu File/New
;put 10 lines in the file
^!InsertText 1^P2^P3^P4^P5^P6^P7^P8^P9^P10
;display linecount, should be 10
^!Info Line Count: ^$GetLinecount$
;put cursor at bottom
^!Jump Doc_End
;select to line 6
^!SelectTo 6:1
;delete last 5 lines
^!Keyboard DELETE
^!Keyboard BACKSPACE
;display linecount, should be 5
^!Info Line Count: ^$GetLinecount$
; it works! ^$GetLinecount$ updates

For those of us that choose not to use any part of the Microsoft Virus Transport System, (henceforth to be known as Outlook, Outlook Express, Internet Explorer and Internet Information Services.) We sometimes are forced to deal with Outlook users that can’t seem to stop themselves from using RTF (Rich Text Format) files. Microsoft had an ugly habit of encoding the E-mail in a TNEF archive. TNEF is a proprietary format that non Microsoft E-mail clients can’t read, and so all we see is an attachment called Winmail.dat.

After finding myself in that unfortunate position last night, I decided to find out what I could do about it. I’m a big fan and user of Mozilla Thunderbird and it doesn’t understand Winmail.dat files any more then any other non MS program. Fortunately, help is at hand and I will now give a brief detail on how I got Thunderbird to give me my attachments and not just the winmail.dat file. (For a better option for Thunderbird users, see the update down the bottom “Lookout”)

First step is to head over to http://www.fentun.com/ and download the fentun.exe file. It says it’s only for Win95/NT, but it works great on both my Win98 and WinXP machines. Save that file somewhere, I just put it in my program files directory (c:Program Files).
Next step is to open Thunderbird and find an email with a Winmail.dat file, and upon finding it, double click on it, (the winmail.dat file I mean.) A “Opening Winmail.dat” box will pop up, and you should select “Open with” and click on browse, then simply browse to wherever you saved fentun.exe and select it. Be sure you tick the checkbox that says “Do this automatically for files like this from now on”.

That’s it, from then on, double clicking on a Winmail.dat file in Thunderbird will automatically open Fentun which will show you what files are in the archive and offer you an “extract” button. Just extract the file in question and bobs your uncle.

It seems like every time Microsoft comes up with another method to try and lock users into using their products, someone comes along and gives away a tool that allows us to get around it. Isn’t the Internet great? One day when I get lots of free time, (it could happen) I’d like to write a Thunderbird extension to automatically and transparently handle TNEF files, but don’t hold your breath as I’m way to busy to take on another project right now.
This little article is specific to Thunderbird (and Mozilla mail) but people with Eudora, Pegasus or any other non Microsoft e-mail clients will get Winmail.dat attachments too and the same process will apply to them as well. Fentun will work with any E-mail client that can call external programs to handle attachments, (pretty much all of them).

INSERT for THUNDERBIRD USERS There is a new extension under development called (appropriately enough) Lookout and it’s purpose is to integrate a Tnef reader into Thunderbird so it need not be an external application like Fentun. So for Thunderbird users at least, winmail is no longer a pain.

Blog is one of the “top ten” words being looked up and has been added to the dictionary. I am not sure if that is necessarily a good thing, and I am not sure the definition is even accurate at this point as many blogs are no longer simply personal (ours being a perfect example). I was reading the other day about the “blogoshere” and I see that is now on the verge of being a word as well. Is there just one blogosphere (as the article I was reading suggested) or are there many blogospheres (more like biomes or ecosystems)?

In the BBC breakfast new was some advice on how to deal with the latest scam in which a computer user’s Internet dialler is diverted to a premium rate or international number.

Amongst the list of advice was to consider changing your web browser and that a popular new browser is Firefox, which is less susceptible to security threats than Internet Explorer!

Also pointing out that Firefox uses a pop-up blocker with will prevent most rogue diallers from loading. So Firefox is getting noticed.

Hazel