We are currently living through a minor sort of plague when it comes to remote editing of PHP-based blogs. As web hosting companies upgrade to PHP 5.2.2, some of you may notice that your attempts to publish or edit entries with MarsEdit yields an error dialog with a cryptic error “XML-Response Parsing Failed.” This bug is caused by a bug in PHP that causes blogging systems to return blank responses instead of the expected XML result.

WordPress was quick to work around the bug, and included the change in their 2.2 release. Unfortunately the 2.2 release also added a minor time zone bug, so we’ll be looking forward to 2.2.1 for complete normalcy.

If you want to fix the bug yourself on whatever system you’re using, the workaround seems to be essentially adding this line to the top of your XML-RPC php file (after the “<?php”):

$HTTP_RAW_POST_DATA = file_get_contents( 'php://input' );

Nasty bug. Easy workaround. Hope this passes soon. I get new support inquiries every time DreamHost updates a batch of servers :)

(Big thanks to “mph” for first bringing this issue to my attention in the MarsEdit Forums)

One of the things I really enjoy about the UK is the widespread availability of “instant takeaway food.” It’s very easy to find something in a plastic wrapper that is of relatively good quality. By no means should the quality of plastic-wrapped foods be the final measure of a culture, but it sure is nice have affordable, tasty picnic lunch within about 5 minutes reach.

People in the US who haven’t visited the UK probably don’t understand. Sure we have “fast food.” We even have a culture dominated by fast food. But the food we get from a restaurant like McDonalds actually takes longer and is less tasty than the food people in the UK can pick up off the shelf at a store like Pret a Manger. Not only do they have a wide selection of cold sandwiches (made fresh that day, it seems), but they’ve even got hot wraps under heat lamps that, miraculously, are tasty and melty when you open them up 15 minutes after buying them.

I’m going out on a limb here, but I suspect that the popularity of Pret in the UK has probably had a huge influence on the entire “ready-made food” market there. While most chain restaurants in the US strive to be the next McDonalds, most chain markets, delis, newsagents, drug stores, supermarket, everybody in the UK strives to be the next Pret – or at least keep you from going to Pret. Thats how it seemed to me, anyway.

I like Pret, and I appreciate what I assume they’ve done for the UK food landscape. I like them so much that I decided to spend some of my free time just browsing their corporate home page. While taking in various facts about the company I was amused to see this clever example of “marketing a negative”:

They’ve used the predictability of a “franchising” link on fast-food websites as a means of drawing attention to the fact that they don’t. The “Franchising” link rates top level placement at most fast-food corporate sites because they’re hoping business people will notice the link and decide to open a new location:

So what use is the “Franchising” link on the Pret page? It’s not there for the hapless business person who’s curious about opening a franchise. It’s there to demonstrate for all who view it that Pret is too cool for franchising. You’d like to replicate us, but it just can’t be done. We’re above the fray when it comes to all of your typical fast-food expectations, especially when it comes to franchising:

“Franchising – sorry we don’t. Please don’t call us and ask for a franchise because we don’t; we really don’t. We don’t franchise. The fact is, we don’t like to franchise, so we don’t.”

Giving top-billing to these sassy statements next to feel-good headings like “natural food,” “good jobs,” and “sustainability” gives viewers the impression that Pret is a real exception. Finally, a fast-food chain that’s bucking the trend in all the important ways. They’re so warm and fuzzy, surely it’s all right for me to eat here, even several times a week! It’s good for the environment, I think. And will solve world hunger and eventually end all war. Pret for all!

In fact, Pret’s and McDonald’s corporate pages couldn’t be more different. Pret is the anti-Ronald and McDonalds is the anti-Pret. Which is why it’s so amusing that McDonalds owns 1/3 of Pret! (Thanks to Marko Karppinen for pointing this out to me). Clearly Pret recognizes the friction this may cause in their customers’ thinking. Doesn’t being part-owned by the anti-Pret cast doubt on their rosy public image? Pret responds accordingly:

“McDonald’s do not have any direct influence over what we sell or how we sell it; nor would they want to. They have invested in Pret because they like what we do.”

Why would a multi-national corporation want to have influence over a business they own a full third of?

Pret really knows how to market a negative.

Google frustrates me by highlighting in their products some of the best and worst of web usability.

Consider Google Maps, which won me over instantly when I first tried it, almost entirely because of the innovative (then) “drag to scroll” behavior you can rely on whenever you see a Google map.

They won me over with a usability boon, which means I suffer through the usability gaffes. I often use Google Maps to locate businesses or other points of interest in whatever area I happen to be in. As luck would have it, the nature of businesses is that they cluster in one place. These are what our parents, who actually left the house, called “town centers.” So if I search for restaurants, I’m liable to see results like this:

This particular map was actually sent to me by fellow Boston-area Mac developer, Paul Kafasis. He was pointing out some local restaurants I should try. But this problem is not unique to this map or even rare. In fact, often the pins line up even more perfectly, so that you literally can’t tell there are more than one at the location.

Google has tons of real-estate to work with here, but to find out what’s actually at the cluster point, I have to go back to the ugly list and click items to see where they pop up in the map. With all that space to work with, surely Google could come up with something better.

The peacock approach would work to at least allow several places to show up at one spot, yet still be clickable. The directionality of the pin makes it clear that they’re all referring to the same point.

Of course, it could get complicated if nearby pins overlap with “the peacock.” Perhaps a “drop-down pin point” would be better, clearly identifying a multi-hit location with a different color and interior shape:

Surely with a feature that is so central to the map’s usefulness, Google can come up with something that improves on the current behavior.

Black Ink 1.0.4 includes a number of fixes to the multiple character support of the application. In particular there were major problems with Undo and with revealing answers, when multiple letters were present. Thanks to a dedicated Black Ink user for bringing these problems to my attention!

Anybody who’s solved a lot of crosswords is familiar with the fun games puzzle authors like to play. Sometimes a clue will contain a play on words, or sometimes an answer will contain an especially creative spelling of a word. I recently came across a clue for a type of running race. As I filled in the adjacent clues I became more and more confounded by the clue. It seemed as though every other letter in the answer was a “K”! I’ve never heard of a KAKAKAKA race! Turns out the answer was “KKKKKKKKKKRACE”. That was obvious, wasn’t it? A 10-K race! Another answer in the puzzle was “DDDGLASSES”.

Another trick puzzle authors sometimes use is asking solvers to enter more than one letter into a square. This is the last thing most of us is expecting, but when you stumble upon it, it’s a sweet victory. Usually the multiple letter answers are the same throughout a puzzle. That is, a three word run like “SET” temporarily becomes a first-class “letter” for the puzzle:

Once you figure out the first instance of the trick, you’re on guard for remaining answers. When there’s a gimmick to a puzzle, noticing it is the turning point to solving the rest quickly.

To enter multiple letters with Black Ink, just right-click the square, or select “Enter Multiple Letters” from the Edit menu.