Most Recent Stories & Articles for February 2005
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The Web will suck your life away
- Posted On: 2/16/2005
Yes, the internet sucks the very life from your lungs! Information overload is an every day occurence. I was re-visiting the ideal, "web standards" this morning. Staying on top of web development is a difficult chore and demands continuous education. Although an excellent foundation and "foot-in-the-door" for employers, college degrees are bunk for the world of technology (though I wish I had mine, so employers didn't have an immediate excuse to discard my resume).
So, I wanted to find out how much support the most recent versions of internet browsers out there have for "the standards". I have always admired the work Mozilla has done to adhere to standard compliancy. I was also very impressed with the tremendous success FireFox had in its recent release. Netscape 7+ seems to have good support for standards. IE simply hasn't changed for a couple of years. I hate to say it, but although Microsoft hasn't completely supported the standards initiative (which they should!!!), I really enjoy working with the fact that their browser hasn't changed (yes, despite TONS of security vulnerabilities and REALLY BAD reliability of standards implementation). I am currently in Opera 7 and haven't used their browser for more than minutes at a time for several years now. WOW! Congratulations Opera! I really enjoy this experience. With recent statistics showing that Opera is currently one of the fastest browsers for Windows, I may even convert. Who knows...
Let me get this straight standards-lovers... Your idea for a solution is to accept that browsers currently provide too much backwards-compatibility and so, your solution, is to simply embrace standards "as best you can" by compensating TONS of browser-specific workarounds and overly-simplifying websites so that you do don't have to do any work to display your website on multiple operating system platforms and browser software? hmm... NO. I simply can't embrace traveling back in time to use design elements of the 20th century with the code mark-up of the 21st. It seems like everyone who pushes CSS standards is also pushing site design like, AListApart.com and "Little Boxes". I commend these organizations and individuals for their hard work at adopting standards and attempting to wade their way through the muck-entrenched browser-incompatibilities by designing simplified websites that work for "everyone". But, I accept that 1) my website isn't for everyone, 2) Some people may not be able to view my website, and 3) I am providing some means of indirect support for Browsers to not fully comply with standards. NO. Well, not entirely on #3. Sure, they can spin a story saying that "Since Eric and a million others still use old, deprecated HTML mark-up to build their websites, we must support them." NO. Drop support for deprecated HTML completely from popular browsers a
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Lullaby for My Nephew
- Posted On: 2/14/2005
I wrote a song for my nephew as a present to both him and my sister before he was born. I figured I would share it with the world now. Feel free to sing it to your children, but keep in mind that I do have rights to the song, so don't try to make money off of it (if that's even possible)!
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GoDaddy.com Is Happening
- Posted On: 2/3/2005
What a company to work for! GoDaddy.com is constantly pushing the bounds of the domain registration industry and continues to branch out into other venues. They are just down the street from the company I work for. Hmm...
They have purchased 2 spots for the Super Bowl this weekend and even pushed the bounds of censorship by getting their 2nd ad submission to Fox rejected. Bob Parson, founder and president of GoDaddy.com, embraces Blogging and writes regular updates on the company, politics, and his own personal life. With odds of 25-to-1, their ad is expected to be the best Super Bowl commercial (scroll to the VERY bottom) according to Bet World Wide TeleSports.
I am tremendously grateful for Bob's personal convictions regarding community out-reach programs within his company. I have learned quite a bit about the domestic violence that occurs hourly with children not yet in the foster care system. As Bob points out, "It saddens me to know that a child is a victim of serious abuse in Arizona every hour, and that nationally a child dies every 12 seconds as a result of child abuse." Amazing. Truley a tragedy of humanity that these issues even exist.
Being an active participant in their industry, I can certainly say that GoDaddy.com is headed in the right direction. I have used Register.com, Network Solutions, and other registration companies in the past and I am convinced that GoDaddy is the best solution out there. Too bad my hosting company has an internal partnership with Network Solutions. Sorry Bob.
Check out GoDaddy's great service below:
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Blog²
- Posted On: 2/3/2005
The Power of Blogs²
I avoided blogs when they first became popular simply because of the "craze". Developing internet software, I am one of the first to notice these things and one of the last to adopt them. I simply wouldn't have the time to adopt every new technology for the web that appears. But, us web developers do need to know about them all.
So, my blogging journey began last year, December 2004, right here on MSN Spaces. I didn't take much time in learning all of the ins-and-outs, but simply signed up for an MSN Space and a BlogSpot. I have been impressed with a Blog's flexibility, ease of use, general sense of "community information sharing", and power. It makes sense... Something so simple for people to use to communicate and reach each other. Paved Roads? Freeways? Phones? Satellites? Cell Phones? Radio? E-mail? Internet? Chat? Blog?
Most of you out there have no clue how to create a centered, 3-column, 4-row table with column headers and alternating row colors in HTML (no cheating with WYSISYG editors) and I'll bet you don't care either. No, humanity, once comfortable with Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, is generally concerned with making repetive tasks less complicated. Watch marketing use target words like "hassle-free" and "stress-free".
Where am I going with all this? Simply pointing out that Blogs have changed our internet for good. Searches now regularly return Blog entries as valid results (which could be a bad thing for valid research). There are more and more tools for Blogging being release all the time. Blogging has developed new breeds of search engines that even automate how you can notify them when you have made updates to your Blog (pinging)! TAKE NOTE SEARCH ENGINE PROVIDERS (Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, etc.) - Adopt a form of this utility to receive notifications and drastically reduce the need to regularly index the many unchanged pages, providing better search performance for everyone! I'm not forgetting the many thousands of other amazing ideas out there like link-lists, etc. But, the Blog stands above all the rest.
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MSN Newsbot Revamped
- Posted On: 2/2/2005
If you are into MSN, Microsoft, Google, or internet business, you need to check out this guy's blog once in a while...
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Talking about MSN Newsbot Revamped
Several of you have emailed/IM'd me in the last couple of weeks to talk about how you've disliked the changed being made to MSN Newsbot on MSNBC. I've agreed with that view, but it looks like they were just tweaking things "live" in advance of the revamp.
Check out the updated MSN Newsbot on MSNBC @ http://newsbot.msn.com. I only have one major request...and that is that they add a "sort by date" or allow some way for users to know that the items they are seeing are the freshest available. While MSN Newsbot has more content sources than Google News, the lack of control is unnerving to someone like myself who searches for particular news items several times a day. This is a feature that the Google News Beta has.
To my Canadian friends/visitors, check out http://ca.newsbot.msn.com/!
Here is the word from the official MSN Search blog
As some of you may have noticed, MSN Newsbot, our personalized news aggregator, has undergone some changes as a part of the MSN Search launch. The UI is now integrated with the search product. In the US this means moving easily between Newsbot Search and our partner MSNBC. For all our international markets Newsbot is wholly integrated into Search.
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Over 1 Million Visitors! (in a day)
- Posted On: 2/2/2005
"Over 1 Million Served" - I think this is a trademark of McDonalds.
My MSN Space received over 1 million visitors yesterday afternoon and evening from Microsoft.com.
Check out the attached "screenshot" of my MSN Spaces stats. I am so happy! Abbie also received a couple thousand visitors from CNN.com (read the comments to this story). 
Actually, it was discovered yesterday how MSN Spaces tracks visits to a "space". The image depicting my 1,106,349 visits yesterday was not "doctored". It is the real thing. Now before MSN gets upset at me... I have submitted a "feedback" ticket exposing the vulnerability. They had better fix it too, because I think it may be susceptible to DDOS attacks. I'm not willing to give it a try that's for sure!!! I think I pushed my "legal" bounds doing what I did just to get 1M visits to explain the vulnerability. I suppose I could have just submitted a ticket.
Whether or not this "issue" is a hacking vulnerability, is for Microsoft to decide. It is, however, a problem, since I could issue mock referrals to any "space" I wanted from any website I wanted. This would be in clear violation of the Section 4 of the Terms below. My fun on Abbie's stats is likely a violation of this section and I am hoping MSN will show mercy and not shut-down my space.
(hug) I should note that my silly 1M mark hardly affected your server's resources (no worries - can't explain here since it might give away the vulnerability).!!!SHOW MERCY MSN!!!
I have "ceased and desisted".
Contact MeMSN Website Terms of Use and Notices
4. NO COMMERCIAL, UNLAWFUL OR HARMFUL USE OF THE MSN WEB SITES
The MSN Web Sites are only for your personal use. You will not use the MSN Web Sites for commercial purposes. You will not use the MSN Web Sites in any way that is unlawful, or harms Microsoft, its affiliates, resellers, distributors, servic
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Photography Update
- Posted On: 2/1/2005
I was able to take some even better photos last night of the orchids than yesterday's shots. Getting better with practice I suppose. I use the 5 megapixel Canon Powershot A95. My step-son uses the Canon Powershot A80, a very similiar 4 megapixel model. Everything I've read says to buy the A80 instead of the newer A85. So, if you don't want to pay for the A95, then look for a refurbished A80.
- Shop for the Canon A95
- Opinions on the Canon A95
- The A95 is a top-10 digital camera
- Read in-depth digital camera reviews by the pros that you can understand
My eyes were opened to the many complexities of photography last night. It's truly fascinating. Digital photography helps to automate so much of the manual world. I realize that the pros out there still prefer manual photography with a professional camera for many of their own reasons, but I can't help but stand in awe at what our society has accomplished. Apperature settings and f-stops, shutter speeds, flash output, optical vs. digital zoom, image effects, lighting settings, ISO speeds, and the list goes on and on....
What truly boggled my mind was the hour I spent using Macromedia's Fireworks MX (I am very familiar with Adobe Photoshop as well, so I'm not forgetting about it). The number of effects and possibilities for manipulating your prints astounded me. Using just one of the shots below even!
Well, I am hooked on this photography thing. I'll have to take a few more shots of the orchid, but I'll quit posting them left and right on my blog :) I'll work on some general shots for ya'll.
