Wednesday, October 31, 2001
This site was inaccessible for several hours this morning, not because my servers flaked out again (yeah, like that ever happens anyway...), but because of an indeterminate router glitch at my service provider's head end. I think that this may be the first time in the six odd months that I've had a dedicated ADSL connection that there's been any sort of prolonged outage whatsoever. Maybe we've actually got decent ISPs here in Calgary after all. Maybe I can stop worrying about the fact that this same ISP has been bought out by their biggest regional competitor. Maybe good things don't have to change. Maybe I've just been too lucky for too long.
Tuesday, October 30, 2001
What's a week without at least one new version of some web browser that needs to be tested against all of your site designs. A quiet week, that's what. Well, come on feel the noise, because Netscape has just gone 6.2 with all the pomp and circumstance of a soggy box of crackers. I guess it's not that bad, but I noticed that one of the features of this version is "improved stability". Yep. Come to think of it, hasn't "improved stability" been a "new feature" in every single version of Netscape since the birth of the blink tag? Me thinks so.
Monday, October 29, 2001
Still can't decide if it's for you? The iPod FAQ might help.
After a three month hiatus, the grantcam is officially back in action. I splurged on a new USB camera to replace the reliable, but unfortunately unsupported, Connectix Color QuickCam that had worked so well for so long. If the QuickCam drivers hadn't stopped working when I upgraded every beast in the stable to Mac OS 9, it'd still be kicking out fresh JPEGs like its new über serial cousin, the Kritter. If asked, I'd have to say that the quality of the images that came out of the QuickCam were better than those from the Kritter. This is probably due to the beefier optics that Connectix used to plunk into those cute little plastic eyeballs before their hardware became so much Logitech bait. I guess I shouldn't complain, seeing as the Kritter has a much faster transfer rate and the ability to capture at twice the resolution. Enough about that already. You're probably just happier than a pig in poo because you can see my happy, shiny face again. Right?
Sunday, October 28, 2001
Pagemill. Treadmill. Peppermill. Windmill.
Friday, October 26, 2001
If you happen to own an Apple Pro Keyboard like I do, take pleasure in the following fact. It has now been proven that pouring half a cup of blueberry tea into the keyboard will not damage it in any way. However, it is suggested that you dismantle the keyboard in order to sop up or drain out whatever liquid you happen find inside. Please be aware that this type of action will more than likely void your warrantee. I'd be feeling much stupider this morning if the keyboard didn't work, but it does. What a klutz.
Thursday, October 25, 2001
Happy birthday dad. Nice hat.
Microsoft has just pinched out a service release for the Mac version of Internet Explorer 5.0. It's not earth-shattering news by any measure of excogitation, but it does offer a couple of fixes for extracurricular media plug-in and Entourage specific issues. Go on, patch away.
Oh, and the Macromedia/Adobe patent lawsuit has been clarified. As if you care.
Ah, there's nothing quite like a link from Quorporation's Newstoday® site to more than double your single day visitor traffic in one swift kick. Thank you people, I'm pracitically overwhelmed with emotion at the moment. Scouts honour.
Tuesday, October 23, 2001
I knew that the interfaciators over at Iconfactory had collaborated with Microsoft on a couple of heavy projects before, namely the Macintosh versions of Outlook Express and Office 2001, but it knocked me on my keister to discover that they had been pixel farming the fields of bliss in Windows XP as well. And other than that recycle bin icon that looks like a cross between a grocery bag and an umbra garbino, it a pretty swell pile of renderments. I'm practically impressed. Via webintosh.net
I can forgive the hype. I can ignore all of the wishful speculation of what it should or could have been. I can even drown out the grumpy mumblings of all the dissenting uniplatformists. When it comes right down to it, I think I'm in love. Sigh.
Snap. Crackle. Pop. Just when I was starting to think that the firmware update I mashed into this system over the weekend was a huge mistake, things are working again. Of course, that fresh install of system software and the hunting down of a couple of questionably valid preference files probably didn't hurt either. But that's beside the point. I almost had to face the grim reality of living without the use of KeyQuencer... oh, the inhumanity.
Sunday, October 21, 2001
Why can't these two pixel slinging idiots just make up and move on already? Instead of pounding the collective snot out of each other after school every day like a couple of mall rats who just stole the other moron's girlfriend, why can't they just use the brains they were given and start innovating again? Sheesh.
Serendipitous email poetry:This message failed and it had rejected.Wasn't that beautiful?
Maximal number of dispatch intents exhausted.
Saturday, October 20, 2001
You Are Extremely Numerous
Ruminations and thoughts on the upcoming AppleScript Studio application development environment for Mac OS X. Of course, this article also taunts the tenaciously stubborn HyperCard user (hand raised accordingly) with the wistful premise that our favorite rapid prototyping tool may not have died under the hobnailed boot of the irascible Mr. Jobs after all.
Friday, October 19, 2001
Parenting Tip #219: If you happen to find an unmarked Ziploc® bag in the fruit bowl on the kitchen counter, do not assume that it is a leftover from a lunch box. And for goodness sake, do not throw it away. It more than likely contains the very first baby tooth that has finally managed to escape the confines of your youngest daughter's gum line. Whew, that was a close one.
Are nine year olds supposed to be able to use the term "sound-bite" in context?
With every single day that passes I become more thankful that I escaped from the village of the damned when I did. Case in point, I snagged the following graphic from the recently reskinned and semi-portalized gettyimages.com home page. I realize that this example is but one of several messages that cycle on the page, but could someone possibly explain what slice of the market they are targeting with this? Is it the consumers of baked goods? The after-school birthday party demographic? The Russian constructivist-inspired creative director with a certain gastronomic craving?
If you want chocolate cake, you need a Vachon Jos. Louie, not some lame-ass digital content provider. Please tell me that I'm not the only person who finds this particular concept and execution beyond the realm of stupid. Please.
Thursday, October 18, 2001
A quick note to all those folks who rely on my cranky old server to host their digital piles of blandishment. I just upgraded the ftp server to a version which hopefully (should the claims in the documentation hold even a slightest bit of truth) will be a bit less tempermental in the connection department. If things are still looking cattywumpus, please let me know. For example: if you're absolutely sure that you clicked the correct button in Blogger, but your damn blog entry involving airborne underpants didn't show up... that's what I would call cattywumpus. Capish?
Hey, it's only 7:00 pm. Of course I'm brewing a fresh pot of coffee. Paradiso Dark Swiss Water Decaf, as a matter of fact. Full bodied and tranquil, yet vital. Sort of like me. Gak.
What was up today you ask? How about an extended stint beta testing a VNC client on my Newton. Well, I guess you can't beta test a piece of software that's technical an alpha release, but that's beside the point. And how geeky is that point? Let me illustrate with this screen dump. Oh yeah, real geeky. And no, the screen dump was not mocked up in Photoshop, Garrett... Thanks for asking, though.
Wednesday, October 17, 2001
Sing praise to the higher being of your choice. Just when I needed something to take my mind off biologically worrisome current events, the fine folks over at Bare Bones Software had the good sense to release BBEdit 6.5, which among other things, finally adds integrated support for Cascading Style Sheets. Hot damn, I'm a geek... While they were at it, they also threw in a new grep engine, updated the PHP language support, and added some deliciously helpful snap-to-edge properties (a la Adobe) to the tool palettes. Now I feel much better about getting on with my day. Thank you.
Monday, October 15, 2001
Top, right, bottom, left. Top, right, bottom, left. Top, right, bottom, left.
I think my previous employer is finally getting the hang of all this information technology. Through the magic of mail forwarding, I received the following automatonic note from their next-to-useless intranet server:Subject: Please update your oneplace profileGolly, I wonder why my employee profile would be missing critical information such as professional title, work address, and job roles? Do you think it might be because I haven't worked there for six months, you morons.
Date: 10/10/2001 01:37 PM
From: xxxxxxxx@gettyimages.com
To: Grant Hutchinson, ghutchin@eyewire.com
Hello Grant,
This email has been sent to you by request, because your current oneplace profile may be missing some critical information.
Here is a brief list of some of the items which may be missing from your record:By supplying us with a thorough profile, you are helping maintain a useful system for all of our users. Please pay special attention when filling out your Job Roles, being sure to make a complete list of all of your responsibilities and skills.
- Professional Title
- Work Address
- Job Roles
To update your personal record now, simply follow this link and log in using your oneplace password: http://intranet.seattle.gettyimages.com/
Thank you for your cooperation in helping us to build a better Intranet!
GettyImages - oneplace
Sunday, October 14, 2001
Thanks, Howie.
Oh, in case you missed it, Mozilla 0.9.5 was released on Friday. Get it here.
Brent Simmons, one of the worker bees over at Userland, has started a weblog specifically geared toward Mac OS scripting concerns and news. This is particularly timely given the recent improvements to XML-RPC and SOAP protocol support in Mac OS X 10.1 and the availability of jiggy little AppleScript nuggets such as Tim Conner's BlogScript. This site is going to replace Just AppleScript in my frequently visited list, which unfortunately has been rather anemic of late. Via Scripting News
Friday, October 12, 2001
I had a great day going until just before supper time. Now it feels as if someone is banging on my stomach from the inside. I think a humdinger of a flu bug has taken up residence. Yuck. [ Update ] It appears what I have is not a flu bug, but more likely something that feels like a gastrointestinal bubble the size of a yam lodged somewhere in my south forty. If it was truly a stomach bug, I'd be woofing my cookies about now. But since nothing is moving at the moment, I'll just have to wait this out. Crap, I'm uncomfortable.
As if redesigning an entire web site wasn't enough to crow about on a Friday afternoon. Today marks the six month anniversary of my quitting my previous job. Six months. Incredible. Based on this milestone, I would appreciate everyone noticing that I did manage to get something accomplished after all. (See previous post.) There should be some sort of commemorative plaque or gold star on my report card for this sort of thing.
I just relaunched a site that's been under my care for a couple of months now. The Newted Community is a gathering place and information resource specifically aimed at users of Apple's abandoned Newton platform. The whole site came preloaded on a Cobalt Cube2 that I purchased from the previous admin, who unfortunately had lost access to his free hosting. Now, while safely plunked in my basement, I had time to evaluate how the beast was put together, brush up on my Linux skills, stumble through a few Apache config files, and generally tidy the place up a bit.
The result is a spiffy new standards compliant, style sheet-based site that loads about two hundred percent faster and eliminated the need for low bandwidth versions of the support pages for folks surfing via dial-up on their Newtons. Mr. Zeldman would be proud. Just for reference, here's what the home page looked like before I took a sledgehammer to it.
Now, if I could only get my butt moving and finish the redesign for this site.
Wednesday, October 10, 2001
If you ever have the opportunity to purchase a Linotype-Hell Saphir Ultra flatbed scanner for a very reasonable price, do so. However, if you happen to leave said scanner on the floor of your office until you find the time to connect it to your workstation, do not under any circumstances stub your toe on it. Crap that hurts.
Tuesday, October 09, 2001
Can you say "scalability problem"? I knew you could.
For those of you still looking to scrape a bit of cream of the top of the .com crop, a few previously snarfed domain name of the week candidates have become available once again. Why settle for a second-run .info domain when you wrap your ever-lovin' name server around the likes of edgecurve.com, crashhappy.com, toastedkitten.com, typopostive.com, or the nose-thumbingly poetic andalligotwasthisstupid.com. How can you possibly resist? How?
Monday, October 08, 2001
It's been a very busy, very appropriately named Thanksgiving long weekend. The latest bit of excitement occurred around 3:30 this morning. Once again, my wife and I have been bestowed the familial titles of auntie and uncle. Fourth time's a charm. And I do believe that we can finally unload all of those boxes of clothes that our daughters zoomed through. Welcome to the world, little Katie Scarlett. We've been waiting for you to pop in.
Sunday, October 07, 2001
Today is our anniversary. Our twelfth anniversary, if anyone is counting. For what has literally been years, I have been promising to put together a compilation of songs for my wife and this weekend I finally got around to completing it. Jewel case inserts, track listings, the works. These are not romantic songs, or even songs that could be described as "ours". These are my wife's favorite raunchy rock songs. Remember high school songs. Give your cardiovascular system a workout while you're power walking songs.
The crow reference on the other hand... now that's romantic. Hee.
Saturday, October 06, 2001
It was warm, sunny, and absolutely still all day. Then, as the sun starts meandering towards the horizon, in trundles a herd of ill-tempered clouds and it starts raining like who knows what. And the wind, the wind. What is this? The middle of May? I hope the campers didn't get drenched.
Friday, October 05, 2001
In Praise of Apostrophes
Something for all of my friends bound to the pen. Or the keyboard.
It going to be a perfectly beautiful Thanksgiving weekend here in Calgary. Especially beautiful for my wife and eldest daughter who are off to girl guide camp. With the guiders off enjoying all of the autumnal pleasures of the Alberta foothills, my six year old and I are left to forage for ourselves. Not that it's a daunting task, mind you. We quite enjoy being able to spend this kind of time together... inventing games, inventing supper, and inventing ways not to drive each other completely bonkers. Besides, after she goes to bed, I can stay up until all hours finessing style sheets and defragmenting hard drives without any guilt whatsoever. Be sure to have immeasurable piles of fun at camp you two, we'll be missing you both.
Thursday, October 04, 2001
It's time to manage the initiation phase constraints of your current development workstream and evalute the wireframes for scope creep. Notify the stakeholders of any production slippage and brush up on your buzzword bingo while your at it as evolt.org presents A Project Management Glossary for your due diligence. Get aligned and buy in. Via Digital Web Magazine
We may have been taking the wrong approach to controlling macro viruses and the like. Why bother patching your software to eliminate existing security issues when you can just get your vulnerabilities updated instead? I mean, it's so simple when you think about it.
Why do so many geeks juggle?
Often asked, but seldom answered. WebWord poses the question that has been on the minds of technical professionals since the first digital twinklings of ARPAnet. Hey, wait a minute... who are you calling a geek anyway? I guess if you've got the shirt, you pay the price.
Aw, shucks. It twern't nothing. Glad to oblige.
Tuesday, October 02, 2001
Too funny. I just found out that if I send a certain chunk of data to a Windows 2000 box using the infrared port on my Newton, I can exploit a known buffer overflow vulnerability and, like the tilt switch in a pinball machine, cause the system to reboot. Of course, a patch is available. But what fun is that? Damn, sometimes I miss working in an enterprise environment.
Do they call it a "dummy" password because that's what the customer service representative will think you are after you phone and ask for a new one?
Monday, October 01, 2001
The minimalist Mac web browser WannaBe has been bumped to beta 10. Now featuring fully functional HTTP authentication, not just that stuff that crashes all the time. You were waiting for that, weren't you?
Need a smile? Read An Open Letter to Adobe over at WebReview. Hee.
The Interface Mafia site has been around since August, but I only just stumbled across it while perusing a link via xblog entitled Redesigning the OS X Dock. This isn't just a bunch of sucksters hanging around on Carracho, bitching and complaining about how crappy the icons look in this program or that one. These guys actually provide valid commentary, intelligent reviews, and Lord help us all... visual mockups of how to improve the existing graphical components of the software they're using. The aforementioned article is but one of several in which the Mafiosi have illustrated the weaknesses of an interface and then suggested improvements alongside of the original. Nice work if you can get it. Nice work if they can keep it up.
Crap, I've had a lot of spam today. What's the special occasion?
Network Solutions, and its parent company Verisign, have evolved the sanguine process of managing domain name ownership into a chaotic, stumbling mess. This dysfunctional conglomeration of once useful independent service providers epitomizes what is inherently wrong with technology sector consolidation. Then again, I was certainly pleased to welcome the arrival of my very first (and reasonably generous come to think of it...) referral payment based on traffic generated by my available domain name of the week page. The amount of money I made sending poor, lost souls into the VeriSign pit of doom might just end up paying for the transfer all of my own Netsol registered domains to another registrar. Wouldn't that just piss them off?
