Monthly Archives: October 2006

Advantages of standards-based design: Compatibility

Posted on October 12, 2006 by Kelson

Microsoft is really pushing for people to make sure their websites and apps are compatible with IE7. Apparently this is a real concern for a lot of people who relied on certain proprietary features, bugs, and quirks in IE6. I guess they figured they wouldn’t have to worry about future versions. (Hmm… I wonder where they got that idea?)

The fact of the matter is, I’m not worried. I tested my personal sites and the sites I’d built for work months ago, using the IE7 betas, and more recently with RC1. I made a couple of minor changes to some stylesheets, but that was about it.

Why? I’ve been writing standards-based code for years. I validate it from time to time, and I test to make sure it works in the latest versions of Firefox, Opera and Safari as well as IE. So the code was already portable.

Plus, anything new I’ve built since January has been designed with IE7 in mind from the beginning.

Most of the changes were to workarounds for IE6. Either stopping them from running on IE7 (if the bug was fixed), or keeping them running on IE7 (if it was done using a CSS hack).

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

Assault via Battery?

Posted on October 10, 2006 by Kelson

Received the replacement battery for the PowerBook yesterday. It was shipped out via DHL, with a prepaid return label for shipping the old battery back via regular mail.

Last night I drained the old battery, plugged the new one in, and packaged up the recalled one in the box. At lunch today I went to the post office to send it off.

As I was walking up the steps, I remembered the “Does this package contain anything liquid, explosive, or otherwise hazardous?” question that postal clerks are required to ask. If you’re mailing a defective battery that could theoretically burst into flames, how exactly are you supposed to answer?

I figured it would be best not to joke about it.

As it was, I just said it was a laptop battery straight out, so the question didn’t come up.

Posted in Apple, Strange World | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Pumpkin Patch Day

Posted on October 10, 2006 by Kelson

[Windows]Well, it’s the second Tuesday of the month. With Microsoft’s regular update cycle, that makes it Patch Tuesday.

It’s also October, the month leading up to Halloween.

I hereby declare today to be Pumpkin Patch Tuesday.

Gourdzilla

Update: Mozilla’s Josh Aas has carved the perfect pumpkin to go with this declaration.

Posted in Computers/Internet, Humor | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Infinity, Inc. and Beyond!

Posted on October 7, 2006 by Kelson

In 52 Week 21, Lex Luthor’s super-heroes were finally given a team name and code names: Infinity, Inc. About half of the individual names are recycled from former members of the real Infinity, Inc.: Fury, Skyman, Nuklon, etc.

Interestingly enough, it turns out that a month ago, someone posted a different set of names:

Actually it’s Lumina.

The rest of the Luthor’s JLA is:

Trajectory/Eliza Harmon
Omnivore/Hannibal Bates
Ultimate Man/Jacob Colby
Reaver/Erik Storn
Herakles/Gerome McKenna

I don’t know where swallowhawk got the names (presumably somewhere offline), but it’s interesting to note that nearly all of them were changed by the time the team made its official debut.

All but one, in fact: Trajectory. And her story didn’t end so well.

Posted in Comics | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

In Your Office

Posted on October 7, 2006 by Kelson

A long row of furniture stores sits in the city of Lake Forest, on a frontage road alongside the 5 freeway. Among them is this:

In Your Office: Home and Office Furniture

I can just see the exchange at the workplace:

“Nice chair! Where’d you get it?”
“In your office.”
“Hey! What’s the big idea!”

Posted in Signs of the Times | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments