Archive.
Monday, December 31, 2001 Link
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We're heading down to Zoo Year's Eve tonight. As with past years, it should be a blast. I get to try out my new lobster mittens too. However, I must remember to wrap the rest of my body in enough layers so that none of my other extraneous bits freeze themselves off. Ouch.
Sunday, December 30, 2001 Link
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Presenting the final domain name of the week for 2001. I'm so clever.
Yes, as a matter of fact, I do like spending my Sunday afternoons undoing a bunch of stuff that I apparently screwed up on the Linux box last night. Ding dang it, there should be warning labels on these things.
Friday, December 28, 2001 Link
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Bingo. /etc/rc.d/init.d/custodiat {start|stop}
Who can tell me what the heck the custodiat process running on my Cobalt Qube is doing? And more to the point, why in the world is it using 43.7% of the available memory? Is it safe to kill this thing?
[ Update ] I found a very detailed post on the cobalt-users mailing list that actually tells me what custodiat does and this other bit of wisdom indicates that it is apparently safe to kill the process, but there are a few other things to take care of as well.
If this isn't required reading for people who build web stuff, it damn well ought to be. Please read this short guide to doing JavaScript pop-up windows properly and then spread the word.
Thursday, December 27, 2001 Link
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By the way, the rest of Daniel Berlinger's aforecited Archipelago weblog has been a lively read too. I mean, anyone who has actually been using both a BeBox and a PowerMac 6100 up until recently can't be all that bad. This guy is a man after my own heart. And Daniel, if you'd like to give that decommisioned BeBox of yours a new home, please drop me a line. Mine could use the company. Seriously.
Time to give a small bit of it up for Glenn Anderson. And speaking of small bits, as of about a week ago the original creator of the wonderfully minimalist Eudora Internet Mail Server announced that he had licensed the software back from the technologically schizophrenic Qualcomm and has started developing it again. More to the point of all this, version 3.1 of the indefatigable EIMS will have a bunch of new authentication tweaks, bug fixes, and other programmatic loveliness squeezed under its compact, 68K-friendly bonnet. If ever there was a time to dig that SE/30 out from under the pile of laundry in the closet and fire up a secondary mail server, now would be it. Via archipelago
Wednesday, December 26, 2001 Link
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Apparently my free content management system of choice had a bit of an issue to contend with today. Fortunately, all seems to be better and the patient is resting comfortably. However, for all those folks who utilize my vast, yet humble hosting services in order to publish your weblogs, please be advised that I am changing ftp logins as we speak. Your new passwords are, as we say in the business, in the mail. If you can't access your particular server directory or if Blogger is burping like an anærobic digester, just let me know.
Sunday, December 23, 2001 Link
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Let's hear it for sunny afternoons, skating in circles without falling down, cold feet, a couple of glasses of Tapiz Malbec, and home made pizza with parmesan and corn meal crust. Woot!
Friday, December 21, 2001 Link
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For those of you wanting to get into the nitty gritty bits, Tantek Çelik posted a list of the specific CSS improvements made to Internet Explorer 5.1 Mac on the www-style mailing list. Via zeldman
In the past three days I've attended two multi-hour meetings which included sketching boxes and arrows on an electronic whiteboard and a requisite conference call. Amazing as it may seem, after eight months of going cold turkey, my brain didn't start to ooze out of my ear even one little bit. I must be in better mental shape than I realized.
Thursday, December 20, 2001 Link
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I know that it's mentioned casually within the context of something far greater in scope and aptitude, but wise and generous? Why, thank you Mr Mango Pudding, sir.
Just in case you haven't stumbled across the news anywhere else this afternoon, I'd like to point out that BBEdit 6.5.1 is now ready for your pleasure. Grab yourself a coffee and find out what's new and improved. Codeheads out there will make a big messy pile of noise about the addition of stuff like Java Server Pages support and that Python scripts can now be executed by the HTML includes processor. That's all well and good, but the things that spin my propeller are more along the lines of the "twist lists using theme dinkers on nine" and a "better looking de-hierarchicalizer widget for the results list". Whoa. Via versiontracker, of course.
Speaking of debilitating annoyances. Help facilitate the elimination of all things Windows through the adoption of alternative operating systems by visiting this handy one stop shop run by an obviously fine fellow with a good heart and too much free time. Via webintosh.net
Once again our hero staves off a series of debilitating annoyances by waving his ever-present Reality Mallet™ over the heads of his enemies. Their arms flailing madly, the vanquished curs race back to their hovels. Flushed with recent victory, our smiling hero trundles off down the nearest path in search of a frothy decaf latte.
Tuesday, December 18, 2001 Link
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Damn.
Carefully, he advances towards the sleeping giant. Internet Explorer 5.1 for Classic Mac OS has been released today. According to the read me document included in the download, the new features are as follows:
- Interface Extras - The new Interface Extras preference panel provides greater control over the Internet Explorer user interface.
- NTLM Version 2 Support - Internet Explorer 5.1 now supports NTLM version 2 authentication in addition to the previous support for NTLM version 1.
- General Enhancements - This update offers enhanced reliability and compatibility over previous versions of Internet Explorer for Mac.
Did you know that NTLM is sometimes referred to as the "Microsoft Internet Explorer Won't Ask Me a Password Authentication Protocol"? Oh, the things you learn using Google. And you've got to love that generic catch-all description of "enhanced reliability and compatibility". That's got to be good, right? As always, cautious optimism is recommended. Via dangerousmeta
Tousle-topped Howie is living high on the European hog for the next couple of weeks. Does that mean we'll have to temporarily adjust to a crap-reduced lifestyle? Hell no. The indubitable Mr Craptastic is still managing to pinch out a comfortable stream of blogservations for us to be jealous about. During your stay, be sure to enjoy the gallery of Swedish adventure captured with the one and only portable craptasticam. Vi kommer att behöva ett par fungerande vandringskängor!
Monday, December 17, 2001 Link
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Cover your heads and stand clear everyone. I just finished writing my first bash shell script in over seven years. And go figure, it worked too.
What the hell was I thinking? Sometime Friday afternoon I succumbed to the metaphorical arm-twisting of a good friend and former work mate of mine. If I'm not mistaken, I believe I actually agreed to begin working with him (and a handful of other former cohorts) on at least a couple of fulltime projects starting in January. But it doesn't stop there, good readers. I get to warm up to the task by attending what can only be described as strategic planning and creative development meetings starting this week. I dearly hope that the eight months I've spent at home since leaving EyeWire haven't caused certain mental faculties to evolve into an advanced state of entropy. I'd better start with some light stretching. I'd hate to pull something on the first day back.
Sunday, December 16, 2001 Link
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This weekend seems backwards to me.
Friday, December 14, 2001 Link
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Isn't it ironic? Nary a day after the Web Standards Project goes on hiatus, the engagingly blunt Matthias Gutfeldt took me to task in a lively exchange of electronic mail for subscribing to the whole WaSP instigated browser upgrade program in the first place. While I couldn't completely agree with him regarding the questionable value of limiting web content based on the amount of standards-compliancy in your browser, he did make some valid points. I made a point of re-reading his article from earlier this year, which countered the original browser upgrade program altogether. Perhaps you should read it as well. Then follow my lead, and use it as another piece of information from which to form your own position on what to do with your site.
Thursday, December 13, 2001 Link
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And people tell me that I have a bunch of old crap lying around. Courtesy of the Google Groups Usenet Archive, I'd like to present my first ever Usenet post which dates back seven years almost to the day. Cripes.
Just what the world needs. Another crazy apple rumors site. Snort.
There's been a goodly amount of folks linking to Owen Briggs' Design Rant in the last couple of days. One more pointer to it isn't going to hurt anyone. And if you design or code sites and haven't trundled over to read this yet, please do. He's expounding on some fundamentally important stuff. Click. Peruse. Absorb.
Wednesday, December 12, 2001 Link
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I was in a tidying mood tonight and discovered that I had ten Adobe applications, full versions and updates alike, that had never been registered. I'd better get on that first thing in the morning. I'd reallt hate to miss out on great benefits like technical support, early notification of product upgrades, new product announcements, and special offers. You never hear about any of that stuff if you don't register your software, right?
Alright, who was the wise guy that said that 6.x browsers were nothing but the berries? Everybody's flavour favourite, the emphatic A List Apart, does what it does best and describes a couple of annoying bugs in them there next generation page parsers. They certainly aren't the end of the world, but you should be aware of them nonetheless. Via zeldman, of course.
Monday, December 10, 2001 Link
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Stop it man, you're making my brain hurt. Left coastal friend Noel has done it again. First it was his font metrics parser and now it's this. Dynamically editable text displayed on an customizable arc path, again using Flash. Would somebody just hire this guy. Until that actually happens, here's something else for you to crank through the new feature grinder Mr Smarty Pants... how about allowing me to select the typeface on the fly as well?
Sunday, December 09, 2001 Link
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Thanks to everyone who sent it suggestions regarding my quest for an MP3 batch processing solution. It's looks like the way to go is to use iTunes. By specifying a custom import configuration and changing the default music folder, I can suck in as many of my existing ripped tracks as I want and then spit out the Jenny Craig versions without fear of overwriting the originals. A swarthy tip of the toque to Mr Mixl, Moose, and Stereoboy for their high-band filtered input.
Saturday, December 08, 2001 Link
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Something came over me this morning, somewhere between my first tall latte and my second cup of regular brew. I went ahead and installed the Mac OS 9.2.2 update. One of the component revisions in this update is the bumping of AppleScript to version 1.7, and true to Apple's form of late, it's very thinly documented in terms of what exactly has changed. Well, apparently quite a bit has changed, because half of my scripts no longer work and the rest are running at about quarter speed. According to various reports on MacInTouch and MacFixIt, I'm not alone in my suspicions that AppleScript be broken. I downgraded to AppleScript 1.6 and everything is back to normal, at least in the script department. The rest of my system seems to be functioning properly, if not a bit more responsive. Of course, that could simply be the subconscious effect of having solved the aforementioned problem.
Friday, December 07, 2001 Link
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I'm looking for a piece of software that will let me batch downsample a wide variety of MP3s to 56 kbps mono. Mac only, of course. Any suggestions?
Brilliant. Enhance the functionality and usability of online forms using a few extra tags and attributes to the various form elements. A mildly aged tidbit over at Gazingus shows us how. These simple additions are so obviously useful, that there is really no excuse for not doing it on every site you work on. It makes me want to add more forms to my sites just so I can take advantage. Via webgraphics
Following up on my post about using proper ligatures on web pages, eagle-eyed blog scout Jerry Kindall brought up a couple of very good points. Points which had been completely obscured by my own typographically-induced fog of discovery:
"[Using ligatures makes] it nigh-impossible to search for words like "aesthetic"
on your site, should one want [or] need to."
Indeed. Even though some search engines such as Google can apparently understand, properly encode as a query, and then return search results for a given ligature-ensconced term, they do not automatically make the connection that "æsthetic" is the same as "aesthetic". Therein lies the problem.
"...we could get Web browsers to start using ATSUI (Apple Text Services for Unicode Imaging), which can automatically display ligature glyphs where appropriate without changing the underlying text. But that seems a long shot. Or maybe browsers and search engines could be smart enough to know that "ae" really means (ae|æ), but doing that for every possible accented letter or ligature would be a pain and it would probably end up being inconsistent and confusing across various search engines."
Sigh. It seemed like such a good idea at the time. I've been tossing around a few solutions on how to get around this limitation in how search engines index the content on the page. One possibility would be to wrap each of the words containing a ligature with an anchor tag that included either a name or id attribute. The word æsthetic could be coded as <a name="aesthetic">æsthetic</a> or <a id="aesthetic">æsthetic</a> as an example. However, I am unsure as to whether search engines even index the text contained in these types of attributes. Perhaps the title attribute is a better place to put this since it is meant to be a form of alternate and additionally descriptive text. This is how Mark Newhouse over at iBlog handles inline definitions. By placing the alternate text or definition in the title attribute of a span, the user can obtain additional clarity on a given term - like this: æsthetic. Maybe the search engine would take this hint as well. Any other thoughts on this?
Thursday, December 06, 2001 Link
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And now class, let's visit the Microsoft Crash Gallery, which is currently exhibiting some of the advances in the user experience afforded by Mac OS X. Expect nothing less from your software. Via myapplemenu
A fluke? A strange burp in the log file data? An inexplicable traffic spike? No, nothing like that. It's completely explicable after all. The available domain name of the week ended up being politely metafiltered yesterday. Now, back to your desks everyone.
On a related note, perhaps it's time to refresh your colloquialisms.
Are your ears ringing, or is it just me? There's nothing quite like spending the morning on a cross-town field trip with a bus load of fourth and fifth graders to make you stand up and state your appreciation for your quiet home and a hot cup of coffee. On the bright side, the poor kid beside me on the ride back to the school could have woofed his cookies (or Mandarin orange slices, to be more precise...) down my pant leg instead of into the ice cream pail on his lap. He's back home. I'm back home. And at the end of it all, my wife and I thoroughly enjoying my daughter's choir sing their little elementary school hearts out. There you go.
Tuesday, December 04, 2001 Link
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Instead of grabbing onto the first dorky new acronym that Dave happens to mention on the Scripting News site, I have a much better one for you to perpetuate. DWAT. And just to make sure that it's perfectly clear, it's DWAT as in "disappear without a trace", not this or this or this. DWAT. Could prove useful, don't you think? Spread the word.
Monday, December 03, 2001 Link
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What's in your clipboard right now?
By the way, I've updated all my past blog entries to use a proper æ ligature rather than the mundane ae vowel pair where appropriate. All future instances of æsthetic blandishment will benefit from this change in a minor chord. You can thank Mike for the pestering.
I'm certainly not expecting that anyone will be woefully taken aback, let alone pleasantly surprised, by some of the additions, subtractions, and blatant alterations made to the recommended links to your right. However, I thought I'd mention it anyway. A jubilant, belated hello to highindustrial, tremendo, and jish. Sorry that took so long, fellows. It's into the dustbin for uxblog and goodexperience who both currently appear to be asleep at the usability wheel. And a fond farewell to likable, yet sparsely populated trickykid. Yo, Issa. One post a month does not a weblog make.
Sunday, December 02, 2001 Link
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Will the CSS wonders never cease? I'm now officially a theme. A laundry basket load of spring-fresh thanks goes out to Daniel for enticing (or is that badgering?) me to play around with style sheets even more than usual and then on top of it all, including my very own look and feel on his site of plenty. Click over to the waferbaby prefs page and select the style of splorp. Now available on finer sites everywhere.
Saturday, December 01, 2001 Link
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My friend Noel continues to smear the line between geeky usefulness and æsthetic wonder. What the heck am I talking about? Just sniff around his site and you'll find sweet-smelling bits of digital joy like his newest gizmo, a dynamic font metrics parser for Flash. It's cool, little hacks like this that start to fill my brain up with all manner of ideas for type-based interactivity. Now, where do I start?
So, after having it sit and ripen on my desk for three weeks, I finally decided to install the package of Virtual PC on my main Mac. Now, I say to myself with just a hint of smugness, I can properly test all the whacked CSS design I've been doing lately in a flexible cross-platform, multiple browser environment. Right. The version of Virtual PC I purchased is a simple Windows 98 SE install. I decided to go with Win98 instead of Win2K or one of its other twisted relatives because it was the standard PC-based OS that we used back at EyeWire and I had already established a fairly healthy love/hate relationship with it. After the initial installation, I fired up Internet Explorer in order to buzz over to the Windows Update page and find out how many security patches and critical updates my newly acquired operating system required. Apparently, only eleven of them. Unfortunately, I couldn't install six of those eleven because of DLL errors and some strange animal identifying itself as a ThunkConnect32 failure. Is it any wonder there are so many unpatched PCs on the net? Crap. Please tell me why I am doing this again.
[ Update ] I received an email from Tom Collins who solved this very same issue by deleting the W95INF32.DLL and W95INF16.DLL files from /WINDOWS/SYSTEM/. He had to boot into DOS mode to do it, but it solved the problem. He mentioned that since my page is one of the few that came up in a Google search for ThunkConnect32 and Virtual PC, I should add this little note to it for all the world to see. So there you have it.
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