Month: January 2004

Categories
Mozilla

David Hyatt’s right

David Hyatt seems to have generated some waves over his recent posts regarding Safari “bugs”.

I must say he’s 100% right, and I applaud him for taking a stand.

I’m a web developer for several years in one form or another. I’ve had a web presence for several years now. I started out just using Netscape Communicator and Claris Homepage for web site development. Not knowing ANY HTML. Slowly I learned.

Over the past 2 years now, I’ve become almost obsessed with writing “the perfect code”. A website that looks good in all browsers, is small, and works perfectly every time.

What I’ve found is that you can save tons of time by just using valid code. Since I’ve been an addict about validating my pages, I haven’t had rendering issues. I used to have many bugs that would drive me crazy. Fix one thing, and it breaks in another browser. It was a mess. Since I went with good valid HTML (I still prefer HTML 4.01/Trans with sparing use of CSS, since it breaks a little nicer IMHO in older browsers).

And being a Mac lover and Mozilla addict, means I’m also well aware of how webmasters ignore standards, as long as bad code breaks in a desired way in IE. It’s been driving me crazy for years.

I’m going to keep generating valid websites. I have no intent on going back to my ways of the past. Some pages will be invalid for some time until their backend is updated appropriately. But all new systems/pages written will generate valid HTML. And that’s my plan from here on out. Why? Because it’s faster than patching for eternity, it works, and it’s the RIGHT way of doing things. It’s cheaper really. Cleaner code is less bandwidth and more efficient business wise. Read here for more on that. Good companies want valid code as well.

I really hope some other webmasters beside myself start listening to Mr. Hyatt. He’s a wise authority on web development giving his experience in Mozilla and Safari. If there’s a webmaster out there that doesn’t monitor his blog(s), I encourage them to start doing so, and read up in his archive on his past posts (you can skip the pop culture ones if you want… but he’s got good taste in games, and especially TV i.e. HBO)

Perhaps he’s just started a revolution that will change the web? Perhaps he’s only enlightened a handful of webmasters. Either way… Thank you.

Categories
Tech (General)

I’m not alone

Survey on most hated technology is out. And I’m not alone.

I’m a geek, I carry a PDA almost everywhere. I have a home fileserver, laptop with WiFi hard drives and 1GB RAM, I like Linux, I enjoy geek toys.

But I hate cell phones. Annoying, distracting, bulky, silly.

I hate them in the train, in the mall, in the movies, in class. I hate when people use the Walkie-Talkie Phones in silent places. I hate hearing someone’s dirty conversation on the trainride home. I don’t want to know what your imagining doing to the body of your signifigant other. It’s sickening.

I hate phones ringing in restaurants, places of worship, funerals/funeral homes.

I hate being in touch 24×7. I like being able to say “Oh, I missed you? I was out for a while today”.

And those idiots who don’t look before changing lanes because they have a cell phone to their ear.

Or those older people who SCREAM over their cell phone, as if your voice needs to travel to the person over the air.

To hell with cell phones. To hell with annoying Cell phone users.

Categories
Photos

New Photos

Third Eye Blind

Put up some new photo’s. Well kind of.

Over the summer, Bryant Park had concerts every Friday morning, for Good Morning America. The other day I stumbled upon a video of it (as it was broadcasted on TV). I was able to point myself out (well, not really… but whatever).

So here’s the Third Eye Blind captures Pretty cool to catch a concert on your way to work, and still be at your desk on time:

I think I found me
Where's Waldo?
I think I found me
Third Eye Blind
Third Eye Blind
Third Eye Blind
Third Eye Blind
Third Eye Blind
Third Eye Blind
Third Eye Blind
Third Eye Blind
Third Eye Blind
Third Eye Blind
Third Eye Blind

BTW: Bryant Park is also a wireless Hot Spot.

Sidenote: Yes, that’s a Bryant Park is valid XHTML. Pretty cool. WiFi and XHTML. Pretty techy! 😀

Categories
Personal

Semester IV

My 4th semester of college starts tomorrow. Hopefully I’ll be able to pull up that GPA. Accounting II should be a boat load of fun (why I can’t be an accountant).

Also in the works this week is some template porting for MacVillage.net, locking down the template, and writing some smaller scripts that will be used on the site (those silly little things that need to be done, but aren’t fun like the more complex systems in the work). Also on the agenda is getting Thunderbird’s source to download/compile.

Categories
Mozilla

Good idea for Thunderbird Plugin

Props to whomever can implement this:

I miss being able to open links in emails in tabs. Props to whomever can restore the “Open in New Tab” menu item to Thunderbird, and have it open in a new tab in Firebird.

That right now is my biggest Thunderbird regression. I miss my tabs.

Other than that, so far I’m rather satisfied. More details on my feelings on Thunderbird as my default email client later. I’ll also give a brutally honest review of Firebird as my daily browser. Illustrating what I like, what I love, and what I hate.

Overall, I’m doing pretty good in the new SW. I got my profile transfered (despite no import utility present). And I’m giving it a go. I know already I’m not going back. But that doesn’t mean SeaMonkey wasn’t good.

More info later.

Categories
Accettura Media

Server Outage

There was a rather serious server outage yesterday. Server has been up since this morning, but the backend wasn’t quite there, so I couldn’t post until now.

Sorry.

On a sidenote, the syndication feeds for category archives changed a few weeks ago. I know a few places including Mozilla Blog Updates haven’t updated their links yet.

Sorry for the abrupt change.

On a plus side, things are looking good for MacVillage.net, despite loosing a day of work due to a server outage.

Categories
Mozilla

Transitioning to Mozilla Thunderbird

Last night, I felt it was finally time to move to Mozilla Thunderbird. I decided to take a moment, and document the move, and show exactly where the strengths and weaknesses are.

Note, these are all my own personal opinions and thoughts. Everyone else’s millage I’m sure will vary. These are things that I noted and felt were worthy to note:

UI inconsistent for Address Book’s IM and Write Buttons (Bug 231218)

Account Wizard Focus Issue (Bug 231216)

Wants and desires:

Minimize to System Tray, just like AIM and Winamp can. It’s nice not having the clutter, since I have it open the all day long. (Bug 208923)

Ability to use my own PKCS#11 Module for securing the password manager (Bug 184947)

Lockout with master Password Authentication (Bug 23161)

General Reflections:

UI is a bit more zippy. It’s also a bit more fluent. The menu bars are much more logical. The extensions are much nicer. The theme is yummy. Having it separate from the browser is a definite advantage. It just feels more appropriate than integrated.

I’m glad to be a bit more modern ;-). Firebird has been growing on my since the summer, so now I get to play with it more.

Etc.

Temporary patch for AIM icons not showing status (and most likely never will). I’ll enhance that to squash a few bugs when I get to it.

Categories
Space

Send your name to a comet

How neat is this. Send your Name to a Comet. Think there is a chance ET will pronounce my last name correctly?

It’s geeky, perhaps even silly. But it’s pretty cool to think about.

Categories
MacVillage.net

Were transitionally compliant, and transitioning

Today I hit a milestone for MacVillage.net. During the transition to the new systems, I will be keeping the old layout. But since it’s going into a new Content Management System, it will need to be updated a bit. As a result, I made it valid HTML 4.01 Transitional.

So far most of the test pages in the staging area, are completely HTML 4 Transitional VALID. I hear so often it’s “impossible” to make larger sites with content management systems valid… well I’m well under way.

Valid HTML is better for everyone, and I’m glad that the site will be valid.

At the current time, I’ve decided to officially freeze the current site. Only automated systems, and other key news systems will be updating as usual. But I’m done developing under the old system. I’m downloading an image of the current system, which I will use for porting the initial relaunch with.

It’s still a little while away, but this is a major shift from R&D to “staging”. After extensive work in this level, we will move to production.

All systems GO!

Categories
Blog

Screwed up the blog

🙁

I butchered it tonight when upgrading. Decided to clean out some plugins I didn’t use. And it got really messy. It should be mostly restored. Damn I hate making mistakes.