a word of advice, part VI:

restricting my choices does not mean i'll do what you want.

there are certain times when restriction can be a good thing (like designing within boundaries - go here for ideas), and others when it's to the point of distraction. this has an effect on everything, but i'm speaking in this case only of web sites and their design. i've been to some ok sites, i've been to some excellent sites, and i've been to sites that make me wonder about a room full of monkeys or someone throwing their keyboard in a paint shaker (aka shite code).

don't make me use one browser, especially when there are more standards-compliant options out there, and not everyone is on a windows system. not everyone who right-clicks is trying to steal your material (not even your shitty background), and not everyone who is going to steal your material is going to right click. pay attention to what you put up, and be prepared for someone to take some of it. that's part of the price you pay to be in the public ocean of information called the internet.

do i have 100% original content and code and scripting? no, but i don't try to hide it either, and i try to learn from it so i can write my own. i comment my code when i use something from someone else (go ahead, check here). do i make sure that my sites work in all browsers? no, but i try to go for standards compliance and "tweak" where i have to (almost always in IE). i forget where i read it, but someone made an analogy to televison: it shouldn't matter what browser you use, the page should look almost completely the same. you wouldn't see the news differently on a toshiba compared to a sony compared to a magnavox tv, would you? the same should go for web sites, for the most part.

don't force me to use one option, don't tell me that it has to be this way, don't tell me that everyone else does it this way, so i should too... standards are ok, but make sure they're for everyone to follow and not completely biased toward one group just because it's the popular one right now. look at where netscape was a few years ago... the were at the top and designers made sites for them. hell, even acrobat reader was geared for NS, and barely worked for IE up until version 5. things change, and if we make sites that work for most anything, it won't be a hassle and a project every time there's a change in the weather.

that's all for today. feeling a little rambunctious. whee.

ok, who needs some help?

...with their site, i mean.

i get asked about the skins i did (they're in the directory), and how to tweak them. one thing: look for some of the comments when you're looking at the skin code. i added stuff in there to make it (hopefully) easier to tweak. a lot of times you can just search for the text you want to replace...

unfortunately i don't have a lot of time right now to work on web design, including writing (like here). i have a side project or three that i'm trying to get to as well, and it hasn't been happening. believe me, i would much rather be able to do this... like i mentioned before, there are some great resources out in the web that can help you out a lot. one thing with the skins i can help with: if you have a large image (width-wise), it can "push" down below the right-hand sidebar. that's because of the css, and that i haven't tweaked it to fix that problem. let me know if you're having a problem, and we'll see if we can fix it...

have a good long weekend, for those of us who get to...

i mean honestly...

who throws ham?

i went to visit some friends up in NH this weekend, and parked down at the end of the driveway (as i usually do) behind my friend's car (where his usually is). i wasn't even there for ten minutes when he came in and said,

"why is there a piece of ham on your windshield?"
"what are you talking about?"
"there's a piece of ham on your windshield..."

and sure enough, there was a slice of ham sitting right on my windshield. luckily it wasn't on the paint, it wasn't sunny out, it was only there for a few minutes, and also luckily i use rain-x so it came right off without being a huge mess. heh. but really, who the hell does that? what, someone just randomly had some cold cuts in their car and threw them out? why my car and not my friend's (not that it's any better)? maybe it was a drive-by lunching. wtf.

who am i to deny my readers?

if you can tell me, maybe i'll write about it.

so i was perusing some of the comments from my last post, and there, at the bottom, was a simple request:

You. Update. Now. - Age

Posted 5/20/2004 at 8:54 AM by Age

and so here i am, updating like a madman. who could get me to do their bidding like that? who could make me drop everything and write? well, it's not who you think... sorry Age. heh. nobody can *make* me, but people can certainly request (or at least make me think it's a request). that looked like a request to me.

what have i been doing, besides neglecting xanga? working, and working on a couple of side projects. in addition to learning freebsd (yeah portupgrade!), php, mysql, and apache... i've decided that i want to start using and learning plone. to put it simply, the thing just frickin' rocks, and i've only found the tip of the tip of the iceberg (yes, i said it twice). it's along the lines of what i think i've been looking for, and not to put any other CMS down, but this is great.

i highly suggest you check it out, even if you don't think you'd be interested. what i'd like to do is find a web host that uses plone and allows people to set up their own plone site. yes, it'd be a lot of work (and mybe i just need to rtfm to find out), but it could make for some great sites. i'd like to start my own, and if/when i do, maybe you'll all be invited.

i'm also working on another project which involves writing, and i might need a little while to get the bugs out, but i think you'll like it. the only hint i can give is that you might have already seen a bit of it on here. any guesses? that's all i've got for now... but i hope you're all in good spirits and health, and you're enjoying things 'round here. have a good one.

a word of advice, part V:

learn, and then learn some more.

in case you haven't noticed, i haven't been around too much lately... very busy with a lot of projects. for those of you asking questions about how to do things, i think it's awesome that you want to know, and i wish i had more time to help out right now. things are still super-busy with the new job, and i have a couple of other projects i'm working on (see send us your balls as an example).

one, if you want to know more about css and the box model hack (which can be used for skinnable sites), go to glish. you'll see exactly where i got a lot of the markup for the skins i have in the gallery... there's also a list apart, which has some really good articles on web design in general. i would still recommend webmonkey, but they're not so much there anymore... check out w3schools, and get info on almost any tag you can think of...

then there's the way to learn as a lot of us did... play. just play. right-click on your page and go to "View Source" (make sure it's your public page if you're skinned), and save it to a folder on your own system. open it up in your favorite editor - mine's textpad, which has syntax highlighting; or vim, which is another crowd favorite - and look at what you've got. don't rely on a wysiwyg (like frontpage or even dreamweaver or homesite) to do all the work for you. be the man (or woman) behind the curtain, play with the code, and make it do what you want, not what some application thinks.

when you're finished, you can run it through a validator which will check the code for you to make sure it follows the standards... the ones that the world wide web consortium (aka the w3c) set are what browsers should follow (IE doesn't do a very good job at this, especially with style sheets - try mozilla). try this for html/xhtml, and this for css... there are others listed on the html validator and a lot more outside the w3c, if you want to look for them too.

just to be clear, this doesn't mean that i'm not still here to help, and you can still ask me and others around here if you run into a problem... i just don't want you to have to wait any longer than you need to if you can't get something to look right. thanks for reading, and have a good one.

a thing or two...

about a thing or two (maybe three).

one, love the new job (still) and it's been keeping me quite busy. i've gotten a lot accomplished, and in addition to those first builds... i'm setting up a total of 20 laptops, one of which is mine. it's a sweet ibm t41, and so far it's been great.

second... in addition to redesigning the internal site stuff, i'm going to be working on external sites, and i think i might need some input on how to do it. feel free to comment if you'd like more information, but details are limited right now.

third: waste. waste is an awesome private p2p client that allows you to do your own encrypted filesharing... which means that for a lot of business-type people (or anyone else), you don't have to set up a file server or a vpn to share stuff. a friend and i set it up so i have my home system, my laptop, and his home system can share files, documents, movies, etc (and yes, any other type of file you can think of). it's pretty easy to use, and it has drag and drop for sending files and a chat/im client built in. anyone else try it before?

new job. new place. new people. new stuff.

i have a new job, for those who didn't know... i like it a lot. i'm the IT person for a small-ish company that's part of a larger company, so i get the benefits of both. so far i've rebuilt about five laptops, six desktops, and there is a lot more to go. been busy, but thoroughly enjoying it. i might even have some input on redesigning the intranet for them (sean, any ideas? heh.). going to bed now, have to get up early and go have fun. miss my old team, but not the old job.

thanks to everyone for playing... isn't that a fun game?

anyone else have a game that can be played on xanga? i'd be interested to get something else going, even if it's on another name. d*mn, i had something else i wanted to say, but i can't think of it. if anyone remembers, could they let me know? thanks.

the name game.

has anyone played this before? *m. told me about it, and what we've played is a modified version of what's in the movie go. basically, you start with the name of a famous person, then the next person has to think of a first name that shares the same first letter as the last name from the previous person. does that make sense? for example, let's say we start with john wayne... the next person would have to think of a name that starts with "w" - like william hurt. then the next person would pick an "h" name, and so on. when played in real life, it's usually in a circle, and if someone picks a double (like mickey mouse), the play direction is reversed. anyone want to play this? here are the rules for my version, played in xanga:

1. famous people only, so no naming your friends and relatives (unless they're famous. then it's cool.)
2. one name per comment, and you can't put in another name until someone else has gone.
3. double letters - hrm... i was thinking that the last person to go would have to go again, but i want people to keep it going. we'll just let those go by for now.
4. the game ends when nobody can put another name up.

yes, there will be other posts in the meantime, but feel free to keep checking this one out. this is a great game for road trips, ice breakers, drinking... and to start, i'll give you a name:

kevin smith

[ update: please go to the last page of comments to see the latest name to play on... thanks. ]

i'm old.

ok, not really, but you could imagine, right?

i had a good time on my birthday, and went to outback steak house in lowell, ma. it was the same crew as from *m.'s birthday... we all got the victoria's filet, which is just super tasty, and that was after the aussie cheese fries.

...i have three more button-down shirts, all of which rock, and *m. got me a bottle of absinthe! i haven't had a chance to try it yet, as i don't have sugar cubes to use. before you go crazy, this is a slightly different version than "true" absinthe, which isn't legal in the US (FDA ruling, it's not criminal to have it!). it's as close as you can get though, and instead of skipping one of the key ingredients (wormwood), they use a variant known as "petite wormwood" instead. i'll post after i've tried it though, don't you worry. i can't wait to let the green fairy out.