I must follow, if I can

I just want to give a shout out to Millennium Systems, my web hosts to whom I refer all of my clients. They were extremely helpful in getting directory permissions and Perl modules set up in order for me to be able to run this blog. I must say, I've been doing web programming for 6 years, and their technical support is the best in the business! Thanks, guys!

More than a year ago I e-mailed Relevant and asked them to fix their website because it was always crashing my Netscape. (Now, don't misunderstand me--I'm not a hardcore Netscape user, but during this particular period I was testing out other browsers, and also using them to debug clients' sites.) When they responded to my e-mail, they said that it wasn't worth it to make sure the website worked for Netscape because 99.9% of web users were using Internet Explorer. I've since deleted the e-mail, and they've since changed their policy on crashing non-IE browsers...

After years of toying with the idea of leaving Internet Explorer, I finally made the leap. When Firefox asked me so nicely if it could be my default browser, I clicked "OK".

Of course, this meant I had to fix my own site to make it cross-browser compatible (translate vbscript to javascript, delete the Microsoft gradient filters, etc.). While I was at it, I finally added a the long-awaited client list and updated my skillset as well.

The coolest thing to happen by far since switching to Firefox is that my Outlook Express loads a billion times faster. Who'd a' thunk it?

I highly recommend this article on Forbes.com about the Firefox browser, as well as this one about PC security on USATODAY.com. Oh, and one more on Slate.com (imagine that: a Microsoft employee rooting for the competition!).

People say it's not possible to mod a Dell... This is proof otherwise.

Still, please remind me not to get a Dell next time!

I got some electrical tape from Radio Shack and jerry-rigged the front panel power switch and LEDs. The metal box hanging loose in the bottom of the case is the front USB panel. There are too many wires to splice, and the computer complains if it's not plugged in. I'll just use the rear USB ports until I can get a new motherboard.

Pretty, isn't it?

Jered Hess meets the Postal Service, right here.
:-)

I don't know why things look so much prettier when I make them for other people... Does this mean I'm really that others-centered now?

Here's a new blog I just launched today for my old buddy J.B.

In Spirit and in Truth
Host: Infosaic.net
Blog application: MovableType

My favorite new design element is the squiggles (courtesy of Squidfingers), configured with a drop-shadow for depth (an idea I got from WordPress).

The header photo is of Eilean Donan castle, at the intersection of Loch Alsh and Loch Duich along the A87 on the way to Skye. Those of us on the Highland team drove past it in the minibus on PrayerStorm '01.

This is for posterity's sake, in case there's ever anyone out there online trying to figure out how to do this him or herself. Matt thinks I should figure out how to mod Mac Mini's, but I'm going to put that off until I can scramble $500 bucks together to get one, but that's going to have to wait, because my priority is getting a kilt in time for John's wedding in Scotland this summer...

This is my new CPU fan. It's a Zantec Quiet Cooler, and it keeps my CPU at only ~7°C above room temperature, which is considered pretty impressive!

(for my blog)

What do you think?

Now I'm pissed! I grew up on the space shuttle. Not really on it, you know what I mean... I've been waiting 2 1/2 years for this, since the Columbia disaster. Finally they were going to go back into space, but they had to cancel the launch because somethine else was broken. What's wrong with these guys? Their goal is to restore the public's confidence in NASA and renew interest in space exploration in general. They won't even launch at night because their whole thing is all about public relations and they want people to see it. It's not the delay that bugs me, it's the fact that more things broke. If they want to restore the public's confidence, having broken stuff all the time isn't going to help...

Well, I'm back online now! Can't access the high-speed goods I've grown so accustomed too, though. Set up new phone service today with my same old number I had for a year and a half. It's going to be another week before they can get the DSL hooked up, but I just dug through a box and found my old 56K modem and plugged it in and was able to get online with Juno. Unfortunately, the connection's only 28.8 Kbps. Man... I feel like I'm the stone age...

What I don't get is why Juno has all these ads trying to get you to upgrade to "platinum service" for $10/mo. when you can get actual DSL for only $15/mo. now...

I'm between DSL services at the moment. The one we had was turned off, and the new one we're getting has not been turned on yet. But lately some people have been preaching to me about the supposed unethical nature of sharing internet access with Wi-Fi. They say it's the same thing as stealing cable.

The thing is, though, it is illegal to steal cable. It's not illegal, however, to leave your Wi-Fi network open without password-protection so that others can use it. There are no laws against it; the phone company actually provides wireless routers in order to encourage Wi-Fi networking. In fact, this article on Slate goes so far as to say that if even if you do have a password for your network but you're using one that's easily guessable, then it's still not illegal because there's no law against guessing someone's password when they make it so easy. What is illegal is cracking someone's encryption and going on their hard drive (without their permission, I mean... your friends have the right to give you access to their shared files if they want to), but using their router to go online is not.

Unfortunately, there are no usable networks accessible from our apartment but our own, so it makes it a moot point. Juno was giving me about 1,000 popups a minute (okay, slight exaggeration), so I'm using a free 5-hour trial period of ad-free pre-paid Budget Dialup, which is super handy for when you're between DSL hookups. And unlike Juno and Netzero, they actually give you access to an SMTP server so you can send e-mail.

DSL's back up!

I am pleased to see that the Discovery finally launched this morning. I had meant to get up early and watch it, but I overslept. I was able to watch the clips online, though. During the press conference, one reporter asked if they felt the public's faith in the program was being restored. The answer NASA gave was that the public never lost faith. People's eyes were opened about the risks and the seriousness of what they're doing, but interest in the space program has actually been growing, not waning. That's cool. He also said there are like 8 billion websites dedicated to the subject. "Back to the Moon, to Mars, and Beyond..."

So I wasn't able to get up early enough to see the launch live yesterday. I thought I had my alarm set on snooze so it would go back off after 5 minutes, but I guess I didn't. I was able to view clips online and on the news later, but it's not quite the same. I might have missed my last chance ever to see the space shuttle take off. It's not looking good for the space shuttle program. According to this AP news story, the shuttle fleet is grounded until further notice because of this insulating-foam-chunks-always-breaking-off issue that apparently still haunts NASA.

I've just launched a brand-new website at www.lorddesign.net. I'm in the process of pursuing potential clients and employers for web design and ASP.NET development, and this site is the perfect way to showcase my skills. There are links to client sites where you can view my work, and the site itself includes links to the source code so people can see my programming skills in raw form.

Please check it out, and let me know what you think! By the way, there are tons of random pictures, so keep hitting your browser's refresh button, or the "reload" link I put for you at the bottom of the page.

I got hired today at Travidia. I'm not working in the run-off-press pits, which is where, I found out last night, a bunch of people I know are now working. The supervisor decided to place me in Special Sections, a day shift in the airport office, so I can be closer to the designers, programmers and developers and get my foot in the door with them. He also had the receptionist make sure and forward my letters and résumé to the human resources director so she can consider me for a developer position. The coolest thing about this company is that it uses ASP.NET and SQL Server for all of its data entry and website stuff, so even if I'm not working in those areas, I told them during the interview, it's still like I'm part of the same clan because I've been working with that technology for 7 years. Cool, huh? It's an entry-level position, but supposedly it's a great company to work for because they elevate you quickly. Plus, if they decide to hire me as a developer, then I'll be making even more, right away. At least it's something to have while I look for something better.

Anyone who's seen me driving in my truck knows that I often like to leave the tailgate down when I'm driving. And Erica even thinks I'm crazy because of this. Well, she's right.

Something I saw on Mythbusters tonight (on the Discovery Channel) just totally blew me away. They proved scientifically that driving a pickup with the tailgate down instead of up actually creates drag, while having the tailgate up REDUCES it! My dad told me years ago that it was the other way around, and I believed him, intuitively. It just made sense to me. But they showed that with the tailgate up, a sort of "vortex bubble" is created in the bed of the truck, like a sort of invisible shell of air slowly moving in a circular motion, which forces the fast air you encounter when driving to go over the tailgate entirely, eliminating drag. With the tailgate down, this bubble is gone, and the fast air is forced straight down onto the bed and gate, pushing the truck against the ground and creating drag.

Who'd a thunk it? (Besides Erica?)

Just thought I should follow up on the computer upgrade progress, for those who seemed to be interested in what I was doing with it last year. As I mentioned in my MySpace blog a couple of months ago, I had to replace the motherboard in my computer. I replaced it with an ASUS P4P800 SE from NewEgg.com, which works excellently! I had gone to Fry's to get a new mobo because I considered it an emergency, only to find out when I got home that the one I picked wasn't even compatible with my CPU, so I had to return it. This one's a perfect replacement, although you would need a larger ATX case like mine to hold it (for those of you trying to upgrade your Dell Dimension 2350). The mobo has an AGP video slot, so I also got a new video card with dual monitor & DVI capability. I also replaced the power supply with a new one from Antec. Replace the mobo also meant I had to buy a new copy of Windows to replace the OEM version. Last winter I also added on a 120 GB hard drive to hold all my music. So now there's nothing Dell about it (except for my Dell LCD monitor, which I purchased separately because it was a great bargain).

It's against the MySpace user agreement to use CSS or other means to disable ads from showing up on your MySpace profile. However, they have no control over your browser extensions, so if you'd like to keep those "TrUe" "8 million singles" "It's nice to be naughty" ads from showing up every time you visit myspace, all you have to do is use Firefox instead of Internet Explorer, and download the Adblock Extension, and the Adblock Filter Updater.

Things are changing in the world of media as a result of this whole Podcasting thing.

John Piper's radio broadcast, which I've been listening to daily for a whole year in Podcast format, is going off the air and leaving traditional radio completely, so they can instead focus entirely on harnessing the power of the internet for daily distribution of the program. By doing this, they're saving $1/2 million a year.

Also, Amanda Congdon, formerly of Rocketboom fame, is doing a really cool video podcast called "AmandaAcrossAmerica". She's been interviewing different bloggers and talking about all kinds of things related to "new media" and what this whole thing means. There are some good interview of Jeff Jarvis and Andy Carvin that analyze where we're at and predict what's coming. One thing to look out for is the "digital divide". We're in danger of leaving behind everyone else who doesn't have internet. For example, we could talk to people and expect that they know all about what we're talking about because they're just as well-informed as us. Think of voting, and the danger of letting people become even more disenfranchised than they already are. Culturally, I think this is something we need to guard against. Jesus told us to take care of His "little ones", and if we are entirely focused on the people who have the advantage of the web, we're going to be passing over a good 10% of the population.

I have an idea of something I'd like to do if I could make the time to do it, and that is to program a sort of Custom Class or API that would enable you to access your MySpace stuff from another website, using ASP.NET. I've tested the technology successfully with a page I wrote in C# which retrieves entries from my MySpace blog and displays them on the test page. Future steps in the project include converting my blog from MovableType to ASP.NET, plugging in my new .NET MySpace reader that I made, and then exporting that in the form of a class that other people can download and install on their own websites. Let me know if you're interested in partnering with me on this project!

Tomorrow at 2 PM I have a telephone interview for a job at Auctiva, a company in Chico, where my pal Sean Brown works. I'm excited about this, for a couple reasons. First, there's the fact that I'd get to move back to Chico!!! Also, I don't want to be stuck somewhere where people are just in "getting by" mode, using servers that are 8 years old and ineffecient linear code with archaic poorly-designed HTML output. I don't want to stagnate. I want to grow and move forward. I want to be on the cutting edge of web programming technology.

At Auctiva, I'd need to make an adjustment to switch from VB to C#, but this is something I want to do. From what I've read, C# is the way to go, because of how closely-entwined it has been with the development of the .NET Framework. I don't have much C# experience, but I hope they'll take into consideration the fact that all the namespaces in the .NET class library behave the same way no matter what language you're using. I'm a really quick study, too. One of my first big projects where I work now was a huge Ajax interface for our company's Intranet site, and I had to learn a lot of JavaScript techniques and Ajax concepts in order to put that in place.

I recently applied for a job at Auctiva, a dot-com in Chico, and today they made me an offer! I feel really good about this. There's a huge amount of peace. And I am thankful for the Lord's providence in this. He brought me to the place where I was ready to move back even if the only job I could get was just another mcjob making $8/hr. And then he drops this in my lap! I am excited for the opportunity to grow, to be a part of a department that will stretch me and grow me, where they even have other programmers who might actually be better than me! Also, I am excited about the fact that the company is product-driven rather than sales-driven. I'll be a part of building something of value, something that's worthwhile (rather than just providing a program to support salespeople at a company where they don't even follow up to make sure the customers are getting the things they pay for). I'm also really excited about seeing all of my friends and being back in their lives on a regular basis! Pat and Andi, Sean and Pina, Kevin and Kristen, Jason, Erica, Bryan, James and Heidi, Miguel and Laurel, Jon and Cori, Chris and Priscila, José and Jeannie, Don and Lisa, Justin and Lisa, Zayne, Taylor, Brian Brophy, Steve! It's going to be so good to see you all!

I just upgraded MovableType from 3.14 to 3.35. This is a test post while I continue overhauling the stylesheet to work with the new class names, but I might go ahead and leave some helpful information in here in case anyone should happen upon it:

Because MovableType is written in Perl and intended for Unix servers, you have to hack it in order to get it to run on Windows (in my case, IIS 6). Here are the hacks:

1. I had to open each cgi file in WordPad instead of Notepad, because Notepad did not properly translate line breaks.
2. I had to go through all of the cgi files and replace "#!\usr\perl -w" with "#!C:\perl -w" on the first line.
3. I had to have the support people at Millennium Systems create a virtual directory pointing to my /mt/ directory, and then I changed the CGIPath in mt-config.cgi to point to that new virtual directory. (Also the static path.)
4. I had to re-upload everything using the Transfer Queue feature of SmartFTP, because FileZilla was bugging out.
5. When logging in to MovableType, I have to type in the url to the new virtual directory in order for things to work properly.

I heard that these newer versions of MT have Captcha built right in, so I won't have to require people to sign in to TypeKey in order to comment (a measure I had to take in order to avoid all the comment spam). I'm really looking forward to using this feature! Historically, most people who have created TypeKey accounts to comment on my blog have forgotten their logins and passwords almost immediately after commenting...

Update: Looks like Captcha won't be available on MovableType until version 4, which is currently in beta. Sorry, guys!

Update 2: I haven't finished updating all of the blogs yet, so for some of them, posting comments won't work. So, if you are unable to post a comment, use the comment form on lorddesign.net to send me a note, and tell me which blog you're trying to comment on, and I'll try to fix it. Thanks!