This is splorp.

Archive.

Thursday, February 28, 2002 Link / Comments (0)

Nuts. Due to an odd ADSL outage early this morning (Technical explanation: you know the red blinky light on the front of your apparently discontinued modem which indicates that bad things have happened - well, it was on...), the Cobalt Qube that hosts the Newted Community site and several hundred email accounts lost it's router gateway configuration and decided to disconnect itself from the network. Lovely. Since the server is at home, I'm currently at work, and the web-based administration tools only work when the box is actually on the network (go figure), this issue can not be corrected until later this evening. Sigh. Obviously, this means that all Newted Community hosted sites and email accounts will unfortunately be inaccessible until my butt is back at home. Apologies all around.

Wednesday, February 27, 2002 Link / Comments (0)

Where does the time go? Yes, another signpost along obsolete technology highway goes flying past in the rear view mirror. Please ignore my lame prose for a moment and take note that today marks the fourth anniversary of Apple (or more accurately, Steve Jobs) deciding to unilaterally discontinue development of the Newton. So, is the deep green platform truly dead? If you're a regular visitor to this site, you'll be able to answer that question yourself with a resounding nada. There has been an honest, measurable surge in development of new software and updates to legacy packages over the past couple of years. The online focal points for Newton users such as the Newted Community, the NewtonTalk mailing list, and the UNNA file archive have been growing consistently. There has even been a half dozen or so Newton-focused weblogs launched during the past few months. I won't go on any further about how viable I think the Newton platform still is, or how exciting it is to be on the brink of having a wireless driver and access to high-capacity ATA storage cards - you've heard me blather on about that stuff before. I just wanted to make sure that people remember the day that some guy named Steve made a decision. A decision based, not on logic or business rules, but on a personal vendetta. A decision made at the expense of a promising and still unmatched technology. So there.

Tuesday, February 26, 2002 Link / Comments (0)

While we're on the topic of posting odd assortments of uniformly framed pieces of digital artwork, waferbaby is pleased to announce that the several month gestation period for the one hundred panel fusion is finally over. Ah, these things definitely get better with age. Whether you're irrepressibly curious or just plain nosey, my panel is second from the bottom on page four. Time well spent, don't you think?

Underground parking garages. 5th Street and 5th Avenue Southwest, Calgary. 26 February 2002. Copyright © 2002 Grant Hutchinson

Underground parking garages. 5th Street and 5th Avenue Southwest, Calgary. Good old sod Daniel thought that my photo of the window blinds yesterday was a bit lacking in terms of inspirational forethought. I guess the lighting and colours captured my attention more than my audience. Ah, well. Today, the world outside these office walls is dull and grey and very much uninspiring, but I'll see what I can come up with anyway.

Monday, February 25, 2002 Link / Comments (0)

Window blinds in the living room, late afternoon. Calgary. 25 February 2002. Copyright © 2002 Grant Hutchinson

Window blinds in the living room, late afternoon. Calgary. My favourite low-cal web server, MacHTTP has really started to hit its stride. Open source code. Ongoing development. Active user community. Increasingly regular updates. And speaking of regular updates, another beta has been posted for all the world to see. This new version fixes a few things but also improves upon a couple of necessary features that I've been keeping my eyeball on. Namely, additional support for automatically kicking off Windows-propagated virus (a la Code Red) connections and improved start-up performance when local domain name services are sluggish. A beautiful piece of work by Chuck and friends. Beautiful. And yes, I did have a nice weekend. Thanks for asking. I stop what I'm doing for a couple of hours on Sunday to watch Canada kick a bit of rink butt down in Salt Lake City and what happens? Adobe decides to finally release Photoshop 7.0 on the world. Then, as I was just about to say to myself that it would be nice if I had some other new software to mess around with, good gosh golly if GoLive 6.0 and LiveMotion 2.0 aren't available for shipping off the warehouse dock as well. And did anyone notice that ImageReady now shares the same version number as its big pixel-pushing brother? Ok, so maybe I'm the only one who thinks that particular tidbit is of any interest whatsoever. Since ImageReady is basically just a huge Photoshop plug-in, why not give it the same version number, right? Back to the matter at hand, MacCentral has a nice overview of the new Photoshop, replete with copious Aqua-flavoured screen dumps. It appears that the only thing holding me back from switching to OS X is choosing a mail client to replace the venerable Claris Emailer and figuring out how to sync my Newton without using Classic. So much to think about. So much to do.

Friday, February 22, 2002 Link / Comments (0)

After much reflection, and a fair amount of staring in slack-jawed disbelief at the following table, I've come to the conclusion that using text ads is probably not the best method of spreading the word. Any word.

It's a darn good thing this ad placement was a freebie, otherwise I'd be right ticked off about the somewhat low response rate. At long last, I've discovered that I'm not alone in my wish for an out-of-the-box, rack-mount Mac system from Apple. It seems that researchers over at the Human Genome Project would rather use Macintosh computers for their clustered number crunchers, providing they would actually fit in a rack cabinet. As nicely designed as the G4 towers are, they just don't cut the mustard when you're trying to cram as much processing chutzpah into as little space as possible. Imagine having powerful and modular, non-Intel computer systems, compatible with industry-standard equipment racking, that don't end up looking like some weird-ass hardware store science project. That's quite a concept when you get right down and think about it. You might surmise that a few mid-sized internet service providers and heavyweight creative houses would be interested in something like that, wouldn't you. I really wish Apple would get a clue about this. Any clue at all.

Gravel on playground slide. Calgary.

Thursday, February 21, 2002 Link / Comments (0)

Thanks to the meticulous Paul Sowden, I am now well aware of this tidy little production called Blogzilla. Ah, yet another geeky something or other to consume, digest, and expunge on a regular basis. And while we're on the subject of wanton consumption and digestion, the perpetual textual blitzkrieg over at Slashdot has apparently warranted the creation of a new section dedicated specifically to Apple and its kin. Whatever next?

Wednesday, February 20, 2002 Link / Comments (0)

4g?kill? It's full-blown, random generated style sheet fun and other related chaos over on the waferbaby prefs page. Dig in, ya'll.[ Update ] Ian comments: "Is it coincidence that every random CSS I hit on at Waferbaby's site makes the screen look like a UNIX Motif session?" Ooh... here's a little something entitled how to hide CSS from buggy browsers. Given that I'm about to start coding three brand new sites from scratch within the next couple of weeks, and I'm going be to using as much pure style sheet æsthetic as I can get away with, I found this collection of trickery a very worthwhile peruse. Via webgraphics

Sunrise from the parking lot. Deer Velley Shopping Centre, Calgary.

Tuesday, February 19, 2002 Link / Comments (0)

Calling all Blogger Pro users. Has anyone out there managed to get the Set Post Time/Date feature to work properly? I'd really like to move a couple of posts around, if for no other reason than to provide correct chronological sequencing of recorded events. The only thing is, every time a try to post to the past, the entry gets slapped up on top of the pile. It probably has something to do with the inability of mortal beings to mess around with the spacetime continuum. Or perhaps it's just a bug. Screen capture of confusing Adobe tagline from myapplemenu.com

Screen capture of confusing Adobe tagline from myapplemenu.com

See, I told you it was confusing. I'm glad it's not just me.

Colourful pavement, pink sneakers, and scooter. Calgary. 18 February 2002. Copyright © 2002 Grant Hutchinson

Colourful pavement, pink sneakers, and scooter. Calgary. I just realized that I should probably tip my jaunty toque to Ed for indirectly inspiring me to start including photos in my weblog on a regular basis. The similarity in presentation is intentional. By any measure, it's simply a fine idea. And the blithe captioning doesn't hurt either. Without even trying, Adobe software probably ends up filling more hard drive sectors on this planet than Microsoft security patches. With that in mind, you'd think that they'd want to protect that market penetration with a savvy product pitch and a solid concept for their brand identity. You'd think. It appears that Adobe has just announced a new ad campaign and branding initiative obviously meant to freshen the air surrounding their rather ethereal "Everywhere you look" tagline. So what did their fancy, schmancy hired brainpans come up with to position the Adobe name firmly in the mind of the target market? Tools for the New Work. Pardon? It's for those tools in New York? Someone's been fooling around in Newark? What? Doesn't exactly dance around in your head like a soda pop jingle, does it?

Monday, February 18, 2002 Link / Comments (0)

Sun streaks across dial of vintage kitchen scale. Calgary. 17 February 2002. Copyright © 2002 Grant Hutchinson

Sun streaks across dial of vintage kitchen scale. Calgary. I seem to be having to deal with a fair amount of unfocused energy today. I paid some bills online. I perused a few blogs. I purged some unwearables from the closet. I made the kids lunch. Beyond that, I can't quite figure out which way to point. I feel like an accident waiting to happen. Maybe I'll go shoot some more pictures around the neighborhood this afternoon. No harm in that, right?

Saturday, February 16, 2002 Link / Comments (0)

There's nothing that'll knock the beige Februariness out of you like a brisk bicycle tour around the neighborhood on a spring-like afternoon. Nothing that is, except maybe the constant stream of slushy meltwater that your front tire shoots up into your crotch. Hoo hoo hoo!

Vegetarian pizza for dinner. Calgary. 14 February 2002. Copyright © 2002 Grant Hutchinson

Vegetarian pizza for dinner. Calgary. All the recent burbling about hacking together bits of dissimilar technology to keep unsupported platforms alive is about to bust out into the mainstream. I can just feel it. To prove this theory, I just noticed that the illustrious Damien has been messing around with a WaveLAN card in his Newton like the rest of us green-bleeding geeks. Pretty soon we'll all be using vintage MessagePads to wirelessly control our iTunes play lists via micropower web servers. Now if I could only get the email addresses in my contact database synchronized with my desktop. Dang.

Friday, February 15, 2002 Link / Comments (0)

Water valve in stairwell. 4th Street and 8th Avenue Southwest, Calgary. 14 February 2002. Copyright © 2002 Grant Hutchinson

Water valve in stairwell. 4th Street and 8th Avenue Southwest, Calgary. I'm beginning to think that this daily picture thing I started is deserving of its own slice of the site. Perhaps I'll jimmy together a gallery section this weekend. That would give me even more reason to document the mundanities of suburban sprawl and the other visual delights I stumble across. Heck, I might even dig through the old transparency archives and slap some of those silver halidic dandies up here. I seem to recall being a professional photographer at some point in time. I must have something reasonably interesting to look at. Something that has been otherwise languishing away in acidic, decomposing storage containers. It's sad really... but just you wait. Danyon was desperately seeking assessment. Well, you need not dither about your hardware performance any longer. I told you I could locate a copy of the evasive MacBench 5.0 just so you could peruse the inner worth of your candy apple beige, overclocked, streamline baby. Never underestimate the power of a carefully chosen Russian file server search engine, my friend.

Thursday, February 14, 2002 Link / Comments (0)

Don't you just love it when someone proves a point through sheer pluck and attitude? More specifically, someone demonstrates that a seemingly dead and abandoned technology can be dragged kicking and screaming into the present. What the heck am I yammering on about? Please direct your attention to the inaugural release of Eric Schneck's iTunes Plug-in for Newton.

"One of the key features of Newton is that it never dies - it just gets new batteries. If you use iTunes and Newton, there is no reason for not using them together. With [the] plug-in for iTunes installed, you will be able to simply dock and transfer your favourite music directly from the music library on your Mac. Simple as that."

Ok, it's not quite as simple as that. You still need to use multiple high-capacity flash cards or else wait for the release Paul Guyot's ATA Support to get a decent amount of storage space. And Eckhart Köppen's current iteration of the MAD Max player is still a bit rough around the edges. But remember, this ain't some pocket-sized, scroll-wheeling, gigabyte-storing, FireWire-connected iPod, sonny. This is a full-on, pant seam-splitting, lo-fi hardware hack of love. Get over it.

Sand bags and truck bed. Deer Valley Shopping Centre, Calgary.

Wednesday, February 13, 2002 Link / Comments (0)

Microsoft Internet Explorer Cookie Viewer Dialog

As bothersome and intrusive and generally misused as cookies can be, at least this one proffered by Dictionary.com tells you exactly it's purpose in life. And yes, I have seen your pop-ups lately. Thanks for asking. Well, I guess this makes it official. After approximately three weeks on the job, I have once again been telephonically entrenched into the work place. Yes, my voice mail has finally been configured and is standing by, ready to accept your calls. Let the phone tag begin.

Parkade ceiling and walls. 4th Street and 8th Avenue Southwest, Calgary.

Tuesday, February 12, 2002 Link / Comments (0)

It's been four hours or so of SWOT analysis this morning, most of an afternoon bubbling over with the excitement of building clipping paths and changing colour modes in vendor-supplied images, capped off by an evening filled to the brim with ftp directory creation and email account tidying. I do believe that adds up to a rather productive day. Unfortunately, I didn't get around to posting a daily picture (yes, I'm trying to do this on a reasonably regular schedule now...) and the cable for the camera is on my desk at work. Maybe you'll get two for the price of one tomorrow.

Monday, February 11, 2002 Link / Comments (0)

I'm not sure what the heck I'd use it for, but META/DMA's Layer Splitter sounds like it could be a darn useful utility for someone out there. The basic premise of this software is that it separates each layer from a Photoshop or Illustrator document into its own individual file. One word of warning before you visit the META/DMA site. Although their product has been developed to make your graphic documents more accessable, they apparently didn't put the same level of thinking into the development of them there web pages. There are two versions of the site available, one of which is the obvious, full-blown, animated Flash extravaganza. The other version consists of nothing but rendered GIFs. Nary a static chunk of text nor an alt tag in sight. Of course, I'm sure they did a complete usability study based on the demographics associated with their perceived customer base, so it's probably alright. Back in December, I posted a link to this very simple guide regarding the use of JavaScript when creating pop-up windows. It wasn't such a bad guide, but it didn't paint a completely accurate or comprehensive picture either. As my friend Toby pointed out at the time, it made some rather broad assumptions around the capabilities of browser clients and certainly didn't take into consideration all of the technical and compatibility issues that accompany inline scripting. Ever the diligent online elf, Toby passed along a pointer to this recent article over at evolt.org, lovingly titled: Links & JavaScript Living Together in Harmony. It does a much better job of describing the how, why, and whatfor of using JavaScript in the realm of the href. Not only does this article provide a much more thorough and browser-agnostic take on creating pop-up windows, but it also tackles a few more complex implementations of scripting in terms of client side dynamics. Basically, I'd like you to just forget that I ever mentioned that other link. Thanks.

Water and light play in alley. 4th Street and 7th Avenue Southwest, Calgary.

Sunday, February 10, 2002 Link / Comments (0)

I'd love to stay up late and chat, but to be completely honest, this weekend has left me utterly exhausted. I promise that I'll be freshly pressed and ready for the regular prattle tomorrow morning, ok?

Saturday, February 09, 2002 Link / Comments (0)

Do you design typefaces? Probably not. Do you use typefaces? If you said no and are still reading this, then you're lying. Do you use typefaces that you've never paid for? Gotcha. Go read David John Earls' bit entitled License or be damned, and then let me ask you that last question again.

Friday, February 08, 2002 Link / Comments (0)

Yo, Mr Sixto. Thanks for fixing your wonky <blockquote> tags, as they had been annoying me to no end. And just because you broke down and listened to me spout off about it, I'll even buy the first round of coffee next week. Deal?

Thursday, February 07, 2002 Link / Comments (0)

www.kibbles-n-bits.heinzpetproducts.com Now that's what I call a user-friendly domain name. And speaking of user-friendly, make special note of the gratuitous use of Flash in a highly obnoxious manner. Original link via highindustrial who, I should point out, were in fact referring specifically to the product known as Snausages® and not the parent brand of Kibbles 'n Bits® as one might assume. So there. Obviously on the prowl for instances of blatant copyright infringement and other disreputable design deeds, faithful reader Brian Levy passed along a link to the following company. I can't quite place where I've seen it before, but the logo for Axcess Knowledge seems awfully familiar. I wonder if it was based on some previous design or identity, like this one perhaps? Hmmm, what would happen if a certain large corporate legal department found this coincidence as interesting as I do? I guess we'll find out, since a little bird just sent them a terse email on the subject. One week into February and I've worn shorts to work four out of five days. You just gotta love those chinooks that barrel over the mountains and turn the entire city into a giant beige Slurpee®. Of course there's a downside to this gorgeous, spring-like weather. The atmospheric pressure change that accompanies the winds, when combined with the high speed elevators in the building where I'm now plunking my butt, makes my ears to pop on a much more regular schedule. Huh? What did you say? Pardon?

Tuesday, February 05, 2002 Link / Comments (0)

It's just one browser extreme to another. New versions of both the ultraslimfast WannaBe and the componentacular Mozilla are on the loose and heading to your town. Lock up your validators and hide the china. Who would have thought that there was so much latent desire to slap random graphics on laminated slabs of lumber? Hundreds of board designs have been posted over at the BD4D + Foundation Skate Deck Design Competition site, including a few sundry gems submitted by yours truly. If you don't mind twiddling your various digits while waiting for the often painfully slow Microsoft-powered pages to load, you'll be able to vote for your five favourites. Speaking of voting for your favourites, my humble entries can be found buried deep down on the one hundred and twenty ninth page. Design numbers 1485 through 1488, respectively. Not that I expect anyone to take any time away from their hectic schedule to go register and vote on my behalf. I just thought I'd mention it in casual, conversational manner.

Monday, February 04, 2002 Link / Comments (0)

Adobe has tweaked their venerable type browser by adding a new section stuffed to the x-height with pop up menus and enticingly referred to as the Type Advisor. Although the ability to select and browse Adobe typefaces based on style has been around a while, these new ways to slice up the library - by theme and by use - are interesting, if not somewhat subjective in their divisionary tack. I'm not complaining. I'm deeply pleased that there is still someone at Adobe who gives half a flying em quad about typefaces and the organization thereof. But I must, and oh how I must, point out the absurdity of a few of these obviously unfinessed classifications. To wit: I would never have chosen Zapf Dingbats as a font suitable for video titling. (Scroll down, way down...) Likewise, the choice of either Times Phonetic or Stone Phonetic would certainly be an interesting point of discussion in the context of a resumé. Oh, and does anyone else find the face Calcite even a tiny bit sexy, besides maybe its designer, Mr Kobayashi? Yeah, nothing says sexy to me like the "crystalline texture" of a "retro chancery script". Kern me baby one more time. This afternoon I corresponded with one Paul Sowden, an apparently lovely fellow in his own right. Paul was kind enough to point out that I had somehow mislaid my permanent links for the month of February. Tsk. Must pay more attention. After a jaunty tip of the hat, I sauntered over to his own online establishment and noticed that he had jotted down a wonderfully digestible tutorial (...lightly disguised as impromptu dialogue and most likely the product of an extremely active imagination) on the subject of creating menu lists using CSS. Entertaining. Useful. Compliant. I do believe that counts as three out of four horsemen of the apocalypse.

Sunday, February 03, 2002 Link / Comments (0)

Another week, another addition to extracurricular copia verborum. Yes, I've had yet another term published in the copiously indulgent Pseudodictionary. At my current rate of derivative linguistic deployment, I might just have to make this a regular feature. What happens when talented people working for a brain-dead software company finally get up and leave? Cool shit happens, that's what. Check out this teasingly tasty product description.

Six Degrees is timefreeing technology that helps you work more efficiently and complete projects faster. Six Degrees continually makes connections between the messages you send, the files you create, and the people you work with.

Maybe I'm just a sucker for compound neo-marketing terms like "timefreeing", but I think I agree with Joel Spolsky and I need this product yesterday. It also makes you wonder what all the talented people that used to work for another brain-dead company are about to cook up, doesn't it? Well, it makes me wonder. After several days of the Go2Mac site being out to lunch with no call forwarding, a revamped O'Grady's PowerPage has reappeared to take its place and its traffic. Ah, it's just like the good old days... and backed up by the following blurb in the sidebar: "Welcome to the new (old) PowerPage. Six years, and back to basics, better than ever." Thanks Jason. A lot of us have been wondering where you went.

Saturday, February 02, 2002 Link / Comments (0)

A well intentioned tidbit from the in box this morning...

Subject: Rubber Sheet for Inflatable Products
Date: 02/02/2002 09:14 PM
From: 3Beni International Co., Inc., james@3beni.com.tw
To: glossary@splorp.com

Greetings,

May I ask where do you currently buy rubber sheets from for your inflatable products? Would you be interested in looking for second source? Outsourcing from Taiwan can absolutely make your boats more competitive without sacrificing their quality?

We are representing a manufacturer in Taiwan who is currently expanding their existing production lines, industrial rubber belts, to rubber sheet that is good for inflatable products, specifically for inflatable boats. Equipment and facilities are co-designed by Germany and Japan companies.

Let me know if we can assist you in sourcing for best-value rubber sheets.

James C. Lin
VP, Marketing and Sales
3Beni International Co., Inc.
3350 Shelby St., #200
Ontario, CA 91764
Fax: 909-9454545

Thanks for asking, but I'm quite satisfied with my current rubber sheet supplier.

Friday, February 01, 2002 Link / Comments (0)

What on earth is the internet coming to? Let me assure you that it's probably worse than the most disturbing thing you possibly imagine. Case in point, we now have to deal with sites offering visual depravity along the lines of Digital Data Porn. Those of you with weak constitutions would do well to turn off your computer and go outside right about now. Via the massive lindkvist.com In case all you codeheads were buried up to your armpits in

tags and missed it yesterday, BBEdit 6.5.2 has been delivered and is waiting your approval. Via dangerousmeta

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