Month: October 2003

Categories
Programming

Updated Site

I updated this blog to take more advantage of CSS. Thankfully it did lower the page size a bit, and as there are more posts, it will be even more evident.

Only implemented on the homepage right now.

If anyone has suggestions on compatibility with all browsers (in particular improving the display on NN4), shoot me a line, or leave a comment. Would like to make the site look better in Netscape 4, and older browsers. But don’t want to sacrifice page load.

Also, see something else that can be cut out (without adverse effects to design, or compatibility) let me know.

Categories
Apple

Panther Coming Soon

Apple Announced Mac OS X Panther ships in a few day (October 24th to be exact). I’m excited, but I doubt I will upgrade very soon. In all honesty, I just moved to 10.2 rather recently. Why you may ask? Because I value my stability, and upgrading always introduces new issues. My system is running great, I don’t get to use it that much (on this Wintel laptop during the week)… So why upgrade?

Mac OS X 10.2 is really good. I love it. The performance is good, so is the stability. As long as I can patch it to meet my needs, it stays.

Not to mention 10.3 isn’t officially supported on my Beige G3 server, and I don’t feel like using unofficial patches at this time. My B&W G3 could take it, but I don’t see a clear advantage to upgrading at this time.

Perhaps Apple would realize that it would be better to do more incremental free upgrades, rather than charge $100+/year to upgrade to the latest. Smaller upgrades to less damage. Giving it’s clientele an OS that’s always updated with no costs is very attractive to home users, especially with MS doing all this “Activation” and licensing stuff.

Home users aren’t very inclined to upgrade, it looks technical. So if it costs money… They don’t want to bother. Leaving users running several versions of OS X, and making work harder for developers.

Free smaller upgrades are more attractive, as they encourage people to upgrade. Making the Mac OS community more consistent with OS version, hence more attractive to developers.

It’s less work to support just 1 version, than several. Keeping users as close to this as possible would be more beneficial, than the current method. Not to mention free OS is very enticing to potential Wintel converts.

Categories
Programming

Were going to CSS, HTML or XHTML

Ok, I’ve gottin quite a few emails, and a few comments on this. I’m going to turn the site a bit more CSS savvy, hence degrading the “experience” a bit more in older browsers. Mainly Netscape 4. Why? Because the page size is to big. I won’t do away with tables 100%. But will greatly reduce my dependency, and the amount of table related HTML being used. The page size on the homepage is just way to big. I think most would agree.

Some stats for the curious…

Continue reading “Were going to CSS, HTML or XHTML”
Categories
Mozilla

Palm Sync

Palm Sync is now working. David Bienvenu was able to working for some time with me on getting it working. Hopefully he can get this thing improved, and patched up for Thunderbird soon.

Here’s my notes:

  • I can add a record in Thunderbird, and it goes to the Palm, but not vice-versa.
  • A bit inconsistent, I need to add a record via Thunderbird to get it to sync initially. It should sync the first time.
  • Bugs 205952 and 206001 These are data loss bugs.
  • No Conduit UI to select Sync type (221413)
  • Sometimes records can appear twice… don’t know why. No bug for it that I can think of, if I can find something more about this, will file. David saw this too, so I guess that’s enough.

Overall, great to see it going.

Categories
Mozilla

Palm Sync and Patent fixing

David Bienvenu is working hard on getting Palm Sync working on Thunderbird. The last essential feature before I can move to Thunderbird for mail. Hopefully he learns the Palm Sync code well, and can fix those pesky bugs that have been driving me nuts as well as the new one I filed earlier today. 😉 Awesome to see it getting attention. Looking at the Mozillazine forum (I remember a few other threads as well), it’s a popular feature. I’m sure that others will appreciate the effort just as much.

I adjusted my flash animation on Accettura Media to bypass that new IE “feature” thanks to the whole patent lawsuit over embedded objects. Seems to work fine on all browsers. So goody.

It’s a busy day for me… lots of work in the next 72 hours, so not sure if there will be any more posts for a few.

To the pile of books on my bed….

Categories
Mozilla

Disruptive Innovations

Looks like Daniel Glazman is serious (as if we thought he wasn’t). Disruptive Innovations apparently has a website. Composer++ is listed, though the product page isn’t complete yet.

Noticed this when my logs had a mention of it (look under press).

Wishing Daniel the best of luck. This is great for him, as well as the Mozilla community. Composer is a solid product, and seeing it continue to mature is a wonderful thing. It’s by far the best free WYSIWYG HTML editor. Now it’s just going to destroy the competition. How cruel. 😉

Categories
Programming

Porting to XHTML

I’m strongly thinking about porting this blog back into XHTML (same design, new code). Granted I loose you “older browser” fellows.

So my questions are as follows:

1. To go Xhtml or not?

2. If stay with HTML 4.01… how to make the page smaller, keep it valid, and retain all contents and formatting.

3. Just post less on the home page, so the page size is smaller?

4. Leave as is?

Please comment by the comments link below or email if you prefer.

Categories
Open Source Programming

GCC for class

In my ongoing voyage of picking up some C++, I’m now using GCC on my laptop for class, and MSVC in class. That makes life a bit easier for me… less lab time. That makes life much better.

I’m burnt. Sleep. Much more work today than expected. Not fun. At least tomorrow is the end of my week (I don’t do Fridays). So I can relax @ 4:45 PM. Actually I can’t. Exams to study for. But at least tomorrow I can think about it.