Monthly Archives: June 2005

Going on Safari

Posted on June 10, 2005 by Kelson

Safari LogoA few days ago I noticed that while Safari accounts for about 2.3% of traffic to this site, Mac OS accounts for 4.4%. Since Safari only runs on Mac OS X, that means that just over half of Mac users visiting this site* are using Safari.

I realized that the detail page pulls out Mac OS X, which makes up 2.8%…but MSIE doesn’t say whether it’s running on Classic or OS X. Fortunately IE 5.2 is OS X-only, so we can add in that 0.6%, leaving us with an estimated 3.4% on OS X and 1% on Classic.

So, to the extent that these stats are reliable…

  • Nearly one fourth of Mac users visiting this site are still running an obsolete version of the OS.
  • 65% of Mac OS X users are using Safari, with only 20% on Internet Explorer.

Anything more detailed is going to require going through the logs myself or writing my own stats script, so I have no idea how the remaining 15% breaks down.

*All of hyperborea.org.

Posted in Apple, Browsers | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

The Wheel Turns

Posted on June 9, 2005 by Kelson

CoverI finally talked myself into reading New Spring, the prequel novel to Robert Jordan’s interminable long-running Wheel of Time series. It’s actually a very interesting character study of young Moiraine, and much more engrossing than the last two books in the series have been—perhaps because I don’t expect it to advance the plot.

Anyway, I’ve spent the last week thinking, “I really ought to see if there’s any news on Book 11.” I finally remembered it when I was in front of a computer, and discovered that Knife of Dreams has just been finished, the cover announced last week, and the book is scheduled to be released on October 11.

I came into the series when Book 8, Path of Daggers was the latest, and Winter’s Heart was released during the year it took me to read the series up to that point. I really liked books 1 (once it got going), 4, and 5, and book 2 still managed to keep me up for hours trying to finish when I really should’ve just gone to bed. The problem is that after book 5, he stopped writing novels, and started writing a novel. A really long one that spans multiple books. (Seriously, how long can he drag out the Faile kidnapping story?)

Posted in Sci-Fi/Fantasy | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Unclear on the concept

Posted on June 9, 2005 by Kelson

I just received spam from an organization urging me to boycott Microsoft products because they send spam.

The mind boggles.

Posted in Spam | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Princess Leia, Pole Dancer

Posted on June 8, 2005 by Kelson

Princess Leia (Jabba's Sail Barge) statuette

Don’t tell me you aren’t thinking it.

(From the new Star Wars “Unleashed” statuette line.)

Posted in Humor, Star Wars | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Viral Genesis

Posted on June 8, 2005 by Kelson

Received 9 messages to a set of related spamtraps. All identical, claiming to be an E-Gold payment with an attached zip file containing a scan of the check. Our server found that zip file suspicious and defanged it. The funny thing? While the From: lines all varied, they all claimed to be from Peter Gabriel.

Posted in Humor, Viruses | Leave a comment

Reading Comprehension

Posted on June 7, 2005 by Kelson

I’ve complained about people not reading the page they’re on before they fire off an email or fill out a contact form (and dealt with it here as well), but this is just pathetic—in every sense of the word.

For those who don’t want to RTFA, someone posted a blog entry about Wal-Mart’s entry into online music. A year later, it somehow landed the top search hit for “walmart application online,” and people started leaving comments asking for applications. Dozens of them.

(via IO Error)

Posted in Strange World | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Something for everyone

Posted on June 7, 2005 by Kelson

Today’s spam haul included:

Hot penny Stocks
How amateur golfers (can think like a pro)

Half the second line was cut off, and I misread it as “Hot amateur golfers!”

Posted in Spam | Leave a comment

Fallen Angel Returns… at IDW

Posted on June 7, 2005 by Kelson

It’s official. Peter David’s Fallen Angel is moving to IDW and will return in December! The first story arc will apparently feature Lee’s own origin (we learned Bete Noir’s and Juris’ origins in “Hurlyburly”), and—surprisingly—Sachs and Violens will be recurring characters.

The new artist isn’t signed yet, but J.K. Woodward is being rumored.

Posted in Comics | 1 Comment

iCab beats Acid2?

Posted on June 7, 2005 by Kelson

On Sunday, a development version of Konqueror passed the Acid2 test. In the comments, someone posted a screenshot of iCab also passing the Acid2 test.

I did a double-take. iCab? Das Internet-Taxi für den Mac? The browser with the nice “Make iCab smile” campaign to encourage non-broken HTML on websites but CSS capabilities that have rivaled Netscape 4 as little better than a bad joke? That has been in perpetual beta for years with no sign of shipping a final release?

So I did the only thing I could do. I downloaded the new beta and tried it. Not only did it nearly pass Acid2 (there was a narrow white line across the middle of the face) but it actually handled all the layouts on my own site… something which it had always failed at spectacularly before.

The WaSP Buzz posted a congratulatory note to both this morning. Strangely, iCab is the first browser available to the general public that passes Acid2. The up-to-date Safari is still sitting inside Apple’s development labs, and while you can download the source for the updated Konqueror, you’ll have to wait for KDE 3.4.2—or possibly 3.5—to be able to use it yourself without running a bleeding-edge desktop. Update: Apple has just launched CVS access to WebCore, putting Safari in the same situation as Konqueror: you can download and compile the latest source code if you want, but if you just want to grab an installer, you’re gonna have to wait.

Posted in Web Design | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Elephants in the Web 2: Firefox

Posted on June 6, 2005 by Kelson

Get Firefox!Following up on my comments on Opera, Firefox supporters have a major blind spot as well. It has to do largely with the heavy emphasis on web standards among the developers and the early adopters, and the ideals of the open source/free software community. There are a lot of websites out there that don’t look quite right on anything but Internet Explorer, and there are sites out there that just plain don’t work in anything but IE. This is largely due to three facts:

  • There is a lot of broken HTML out there that has only been tested on IE, and the designers relied on IE’s particular error-recovery behavior.
  • There are sites that rely on ActiveX or other IE-specific code without providing an alternative.
  • There are sites with bad browser-detection logic that deliberately exclude other browsers, regardless of whether they would otherwise handle the site.

In each case you can either change the browser to handle the websites, or you can change the web to handle the browser. Both approaches are difficult, and while the former often yields more immediate results, the latter is more ideal, because it benefits users of all web browsers. In most cases Opera has chosen to adapt the browser, while Mozilla has chosen to promote standards for web development. Continue reading →

Posted in Mozilla | Tagged | Leave a comment