Alex Jones: Web Technologist, Barbecue Acolyte, Information Junkie, Austinite

Netscape 7

It’s been a while since I’ve immersed myself in a non-IE browser; Netscape 6 was a disappointment after a very long wait and I’m not willing to pay for Opera or deal with the ads which are included with it’s free version. As Internet Explorer comprises at least 90% of the traffic to my sites, I’ve used it for daily use and development; opening the others purely for testing.

Now that I have been coding toWeb standards I have additional freedom in my choice of browsers. While IE will continue to hold the top spot and thus require added attention, I think it’s important to understand how Netscape and standards compliant browsers in general render my work.

So I have been using Netscape 7 as my default browser for a week or so and am exceedingly happy. I love tabbed browsing and the fact that I can bookmark several sites to open at once, each in their own tab. The pop up controls are quite nice, and about 95% effective - though Netscape.com manages to sneak one by (surprise surprise). The printing controls are much nicer than Internet Explorer, providing the ability to shrink Web pages that are too large for paper.

Quite a few tools that can be added to the browser which aid in developing Web sites. In addition to my long list of bookmarks, I have added the DevEdge Sidebar Tab and the PNH Toolbar to my browser. I have used both a good deal in the last week and expect to utilize them even more as we redesign the A. G. Russell Knives Web Site.

It is refreshing to see that the folks at Mozilla (the open source, standards-compliant Web browser that powers Netscape 7 and many other browsers) and Netscape are doing things the right way. I have returned to the fold.

Posted in General

Web Theft

How unbelievably pathetic it is to find people ripping off the hard work of others. v-2 Organisation, which I read daily, has had their design hijacked by a college student at UCLA.

There are a wealth of free template sites available to people who are not designers or do not have the time to spend crafting a site, so there is no excuse for stealing a design from another site. A student would be seriously reprimanded, if not expelled if this were a term paper.

Now, I understand that the best way to learn (D/X)HTML, is to read the source code from good sites on the Web. When I was learning, I often copied the source code of other site to tinker with, providing me the ability to see how the code works. However, I didn’t publish it to the Web and I sure as hell didn’t build a site around it.

Just because the theft is easy, does not make it any less wrong.

Posted in Design & UI

Flicker Flicker Fade Burn

My 17″ Samsung finally gave up the ghost yesterday. A couple of weeks ago it had developed a slight horizontal skew, which while annoying, wasn’t fatal. Over the weekend the symptoms grew worse, a thick, black line vertically split the monitor into two jagged halves. But I kept using it to hold palettes and my instant messaging client, Trillian. As the afternoon progressed, the visible screen continued to shrink and morphed into an hour-glass figure that a 1950’s starlet would be proud of.

Around 3:30, I returned to my office and was greeted by the acrid smell of a self-induced electronic cremation and a blank screen. I pulled the plug; removing all life support.

Sigh.

Posted in General

Pronunciation of GIF

There is an old debate as to how to pronounce the acronym GIF. While it is one of those useless little squabbles we Web geeks tend to prattle on about, it is interesting to see people justify their opinions. Having just read a post titled Pronouncing GIF on NSLog() (which in turn was referring to Chris Pirillo’s post Like Peanut Butter I thought I would throw in my $0.02.

It is pronounced with a hard ‘G’. As mentioned in Erik’s post, the’G’ is taken from the word ‘Graphics’. Add to that, the fact that we don’t pronounce ‘gift’ with a ‘j’ sound. And no, ‘gin’ is not a valid response. Does ‘gin’ end with an ‘f’? Does it even have an ‘f’ in it? Nope. Take your stinkin’ gin back and bring me some scotch damn it!

Okay okay…frankly it really doesn’t matter. English is a messed up language, made all the messier by the rise of acronyms and the geeks who love them.

Don’t get me started on the pronunciation of ‘URL‘…

Posted in Web Development

Stuff I want to Buy from Work

A.G. Russell’s Ceramic Sharpener - $29.95 (Fourth item on the page.)

“Just keep the knife straight up and down and as if scraping a decal off of the surface of the rod, draw the knife down, one side of the “V” and then the other. This will quickly give you a razor like edge. I use this device daily and think there is no better way for most people to sharpen their knives.”

The quote above is from A. G. Russell himself, and I can bear witness that this sharpener sits in his office, easily at hand. When my mom was visiting she mentioned that she had bought a cheap sharpening set from target, the description of which sent little shivers down my spine. I hated the idea that she might ruin the good knives that she so recently bought, so I made sure that she picked up one of these sets.

Once we got home I made use of my mom’s sharpener on our kitchen knives as well as my trusty Swiss Army knife. It is a quick system that can be followed by anyone for amazing results.

I can’t wait to buy it in a couple of weeks.

FeatherLite One Hand Knife (K-93C) - $34.95
While I love my Swiss Army knife, there are times when I would prefer to carry a lighter blade, or feel it is important to have the added safety of a locking blade. So, I’ve done my best to pay attention to A. G.’s recommendations to people and the customer feedback on several knife forums and decided that this is an ideal knife that fits the bill.

It helps that this is the blade that A. G. tends to carry with him on a daily basis - and he has a choice of hundreds of models to choose from!

A. G. Russell Hocho - $64.95
Just the thing to make everyone drool at the next Wild Game Dinner - not to mention general barbecuing. The Hocho is a folding cook’s knife, so it is always at hand when you need to slice and dice your food.

Poker Set - $139.95
I’ve wanted clay poker chips for a long time. The sound of proper chips hitting each other makes the game all the more enjoyable. Sadly, it is likely to be a while before I get to play a few solid hours of poker with good friends. Hopefully I will have replaced the cheap plastic chips (at least half of which were left at my house by Kevin years ago).

Posted in General

World Poker Tour

A couple of weeks back I saw a commercial for the World Poker Tour and scribbled a little note inside my cranium that I should watch it when the season started.

Apparently I need to use better markers when noting something in my head because I completely forgot about the show until I sat down one weekend afternoon and stumbled across it. Fate smiled upon me that day.

As you may know I really don’t give a damn about sports, with the exception of World Cup Soccer which is only available every other year anyway (the tournaments for the men and women alternate, each only occurring once every four years. While I may watch part of a football game on Sunday while gnawing on some ribs or pizza, I don’t follow a team, nor do I schedule anything around a game.

Now though, I have something worth watching: poker. Unlike football, baseball or basketball this game comes down purely to individuals. Players can catapult to the top or get knocked out at any point in the game - due to luck in some cases, but all the more often strategy.

You see, the game requires a mixture of poker strategy and reading your opponents. You may be an amazing player technically, but if you can’t tell when someone is bluffing, or holding a monster hand you are at risk every round.

The show itself is set up very well, providing a view of everyone’s cards and running commentary by people who understand the game exceedingly well. Thankfully, the Travel Channel didn’t try to pare the show down to an hour or less. The two hour time slot provided for each show is ideal.

The only downfall is the fact that the schedule does not follow a set schedule as is the case with football. Rather it bounces from day to day like baseball or basketball. So, I’ve printed out the schedule from the Web site and plan on setting up reminders in the ol’ Palm Pilot.

And the next time someone asks me “hey didja see that amazing Hail Mary play by Johnson on Sunday?” I’ll reply “Could you believe Nguyen lucked out when the river turned out to be a third nine? Talk about a bad beat.”

I love No Limit Texas Hold ‘em.

Posted in Poker

Standing up to State “Super-DMCAs”

I took a little time out of my day today to send a fax to Bill Huckabee, the governor of Arkansas to register my anger about a new bill (HB 2361) passed by the state legislature which would “amend the criminal laws pertaining to cable television and communication services”. Below is a copy of the fax sent to the governor via the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) is trying to curb our rights and freedoms with this legislation. If it is passed, we, as individuals, and even corporations and educational institutions would not have the right to encrypt our own data, including e-mail nor would we be allowed to set up home fire walls to protect ourselves from intruders. The MPAA is trying to strip these rights from the citizens of Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Massachusetts, Oregon, Tennessee, and Texas. I expect more states will be placed in the cross hairs soon enough.

So, if you are in one of the states mentioned above, take a couple of minutes (really, that’s all it took me) and fill out the short form to let your government know that you oppose the legislation:

• Arkansas
• Florida
• Georgia
• Massachusetts
• Oregon
• Tennessee
• Texas

Remember, faxes and calls have much more impact than e-mails. The forms above will let you send a fax from the Web at no charge to you.

Message sent to Governor Huckabee

Governor Huckabee
State of Arkansas
Governor’s Office
State Capitol Rm 250
Little Rock, Arkansas 72201

Dear Mike Huckabee,

I am writing to ask you to oppose HB 2361, titled “AN ACT TO AMMEND THE CRIMINAL LAWS PERTAINING TO CABLE TELEVISION AND COMMUNICATION SERVICES.” This legislation appears to be based on a model bill that has been quietly proposed to many state legislatures by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). HB 2361 would dramatically expand the power of entertainment companies, ISPs, cable companies and others to control what consumers can and can’t connect to the services for which we pay. If enacted, it will slow innovation, impair competition and seriously undermine consumers’ right to choose what technologies they use in their homes.

HB 2361 would criminalize many legitimate uses of digital technology. Widely-used home networking equipment could be banned because it often includes features that incidentally conceal the origin and destinations of Internet communication. Some forms of encryption for email and web traffic might be banned. The use of software by corporations to secure communication with off-site employees would also be unacceptable. Products like Anonymizer that aim to protect the privacy of Internet users against advertisers like Doubleclick might also be imperiled.

The proposed legislation will also chill legitimate computer security research. This proposed state “super-DMCA” bill will make it unlawful to develop or possess the tools that security researchers need in order to carry out their work. In addition, the statute interferes with a researcher’s ability to publish the results of her research by banning the distribution of “plans or instructions” for making an “unlawful access device.”

The MPAA has circulated a “one-pager” (available at http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/states/mpaa2_1apr.php) explaining in vague terms that HB 2361 is necessary to “update” existing state laws to address the problem of “Internet piracy” and “cable theft.” Copyright infringement and cable service theft, however, are already clearly prohibited under existing laws, both state and federal. State super-DMCA measures such as HB 2361 are redundant and unnecessary as penalties for Internet copyright infringement or cable service theft.

For a more detailed analysis of the flaws in this legislation, I invite you to check out the white paper produced by the Electronic Frontier Foundation at:

www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/states/200304_sdmca_eff_analysis.php

HB 2361 is unnecessary, overbroad and harmful to the public interest.
As a constituent, I urge you to protect my rights and veto this awful legislation.

Sincerely,

Alex Jones
14800 Shipe
Gravette, AR 72736
USA

Posted in General

‘PR’-otaku

Some days you run across a resource that is utterly amazing. And while I found this one a good deal after I read William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition, I think I will reread the book alongside Joe Clark’s site: Logging and annotating William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition’.

Posted in Reading

$4 Million Dollar Web Site

A story titled One Luddite, one web site = AUS$4m at The Register notes that the Australian Department of Communications spent $4 million (Australian dollars) on it’s new Web site. Merely $3.4 million over budget!

This is one of those cases where everyone of the parties involved is at fault. There is no viable reason for being that far over budget. The situation is made all the worse as the site is rather boring, if not downright ugly and uses an insane amount of unneeded technology, including an $800,000 Vignette setup.

A great use of taxpayer money.

And why didn’t they call me to help them? I would have been more than happy to invoice them for a few hours. I wouldn’t ask much… maybe $75,000. A drop in the bucket really.

Posted in Web Development

The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace, and the Course of History

Sarah’s mom and dad gave me this book a few months back and as I hadn’t heard of it I was quite intrigued. Philip Bobbitt provides an impressive amount of detail in each page. While this leads to a somewhat dry writing-style, the insights and connections presented easily make it worthwhile. I may begin taking notes as I read to solidify my understanding of the subjects.

Covering the situations surrounding war and peace over the last six centuries is breathtaking in scope, but required background if one is to understand our past and its relation to the tumultuous present.

It is important to me that I challenge my mind these days. It is all too easy to fall into a routine of complacency fed by entertainment devices.

I’ll add more to this entry as I read.

Posted in Reading