Monthly Archives: January 2006

IE Weirdness

Posted on January 21, 2006 by Kelson

I had a really strange experience with Internet Explorer earlier this week. I had a reason to check Windows Update (checking for driver updates), but no matter what I did, Microsoft Update opened itself in Firefox! Even if I typed the URL into IE, or chose it from the Tools menu. It became clear that the same was true of typing in any other URL, or trying to open a link in a new window.

As far as I can tell, IE had decided that it wasn’t capable of handling new HTTP connections and was sending the URL to the default browser. Continue reading →

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Delicious Ghosts

Posted on January 20, 2006 by Kelson

I have the Firefox extension for del.icio.us installed on several computers. Today I noticed that the Tag button, when hovered over with the mouse cursor and seen indirectly, looks like a ghost from Pac-Man.

Not only that, but it’s dark blue, like a ghost after you’ve eaten a power pellet and can reverse the food chain.

Now that sounds delicious!

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

Firefox DnD/Save As Hang on Linux Fixed!

Posted on January 18, 2006 by Kelson

The most annoying thing I’ve had to deal with in Firefox 1.5 is a Linux-only bug in which the first time you do something in a certain class of actions—drag-and-drop, Save As…, and a couple of other things—it will lock up for a period of time (1 second to 30+ seconds, depending on how many tabs & windows you have open), scroll all pages back to the top, and in some cases, bring up an unclickable extra copy of the pop-up menu.

The bug was fixed before Firefox 1.5 was released, but it was too late for the fix to make it in. I actually suspect this bug is one of the reasons that so few Linux distributions have upgraded their built-in Firefox releases to 1.5, though they could always have just added the patch to their build process. Fortunately, Mozilla has decided that it’s worth including in the first bugfix release in the 1.5 series, which is now available for testing. Firefox 1.5.0.1 should be out sometime in the next few weeks.

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Nightwing must be ticked off

Posted on January 16, 2006 by Kelson

DC Comics’ April releases have been announced, among them Crisis Aftermath: The Battle For Blüdhaven. (That’s the city Nightwing decided to protect when he went solo, downriver from Gotham and even more corrupt.) But the cover doesn’t make me think of Nightwing, or of Batman:

Battle for Bludhaven

Let’s see, there’s American Maid/Captain Liberty, not sure about the guy in the middle, but the three ninjas on the right sure look like they’re forming a hedge.

Could it be true? Is The Tick coming to Blüdhaven?

OK, they’re actually the Force of July (thanks to the Comic Bloc forums for the ID), but wouldn’t the Tick have been funnier?

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PHP Upgrade

Posted on January 16, 2006 by Kelson

I’ve upgraded the server to PHP 5. As with last week’s MySQL upgrade, if anything seems broken, please comment about it here. If you can’t comment, email me at webmaster at this domain name.

Update: It looks like something in my setup disagrees with the combination of PHP 5 and WP-Cache 2. Pages were turning up blank the first time they were loaded, then perfectly OK the second time. Oddly, it was working fine under PHP 4.4, MySQL 5, and WordPress 2.

Posted in Site Updates | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Browser Zealotry

Posted on January 16, 2006 by Kelson

I found a three-year-old blog post by Arve Bersvendsen on web browser zealots that, sadly, is just as true today. Only the names have changed (Phoenix to Firefox).

Seriously, I think these people are hurting the fight for standards….In having to choose whether to believe the Operanians or The Mozillians, I believe J. Random User will believe both. He’ll believe the Opera fans when they say “Phoenix [Firefox] sucks”, and he (or she) will also believe Phoenixers who say “Opera stinks”. And so, J. Random sticks with MSIE.

Arve mentioned his earlier post when he weighed in on the Opera splash page download kerfuffle, which is a great example of why I created the Alternative Browser Alliance. Both Mozilla and Opera have stated goals of promoting choice on the web. Both want to unseat the current dominant browser (i.e. IE). Those goals are better accomplished, if not by outright cooperation, at least by civility. As Arve puts it:

Please, instead of wasting all that time on endless flamewars against the “other browser”, spend your time evangelizing the product you actually use!

Also, a big thanks to Rijk for the shout-out on his blog!

Alternative Browser Alliance

Posted in Mozilla, Opera | Tagged , , , , , | 8 Comments

Bathroom Humor

Posted on January 15, 2006 by Kelson

One of the two soap dispensers in the bathroom at work has been broken for months. I think the building doesn’t fix it because it looks full. Over the past week or two, someone has started writing things like “Broken” or “Still Broken” (or, one day, “Kaput”) on paper towels and leaving them underneath or draped over the dispenser. Someone decided that this makeshift “Out of Order” sign needed an addition:

Out of Order -- Forever

Posted in Signs of the Times | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Commies From Mars!

Posted on January 15, 2006 by Kelson

The Grand Comics Database* is a project to index the titles, dates, credits, covers, and character appearances in every comic book ever published. A sidebar on the home page shows the latest cover scan contributed. A couple of days ago, that cover scan was this:

Cover of Commies From Mars: The Red Planet

The image links to the GCD entry, which is still a stub right now, but apaprently it was printed in 1973 by Kitchen Sink Press. Here’s the kid’s thought balloon:

I’ll play along with these filthy commie invaders from Mars until I can get to my shotgun! I’m little, but I’m all American!

On a related note, I’ve just made reservations to see Scott Shaw!’s show, Oddball Comics, running in LA through February (hat tip: News From ME).

*I’ve found it very useful for finding info for my Flash site. Unfortunately it isn’t big on supporting characters, so I’m still tracking down issues myself to fill in the details. On the other hand, this way I can acutually read the stories.

Posted in Comics, Signs of the Times | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Email advice: Pick a domain and stick with it!

Posted on January 12, 2006 by Kelson

Here’s a piece of friendly advice from a mail server admin to companies that interact with subscribers and customers via email:

Pick one domain name for your business. Just one. Don’t use any other domains in your emails, even if you want to keep order confirmations separate from promotions. If you contract out for some other company to send out a newsletter or survey to your customers, insist that they send it out using your own domain name. If you’re using DomainKeys or SPF, make sure they’re authorized or send it yourself. And don’t even think of making the links through redirection scripts, even if you really want to track which subscribers are clicking.

Why?

Two words: Spam and fraud. Continue reading →

Posted in Annoyances, Computers/Internet, Spam | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Fire Entries

Posted on January 11, 2006 by Kelson

Fire Exit - Alarm on Entry

I saw this sign at a shopping mall food court a few weeks ago. It managed not only to contradict itself (is it an exit or an entrance?), but also to contradict available evidence, as the door was ajar at the time—with no alarm. About thirty seconds later I saw a janitor carry some cleaning supplies “out” through the door as if he were returning them to a supply closet.

And on a related note:

First floor - use stairway for exit.

This probably won’t be funny across the pond, but here in the US the “first floor” is the same as the ground floor. If you leave the first floor using the stairs, you’re not getting out of the building!

Posted in Signs of the Times | Leave a comment