Monthly Archives: August 2003

Adam's Idea

Weblog

It's so simple that we all should have thought of this sooner. Think Avantgo and RSS sleeping together, or add iSync for a threesome. Doesn't Userland have an Avantgo site? I hit that site–it's Scripting News for Avantgo. Adam, is this close to what you were thinking?

Steve's Stupid CSS tricks

Weblog

Fixed some mistakes I made in my template, mainly the side elements–I had deleted some tags I shouldn't have. (Bad grammar?)

I'm reading the Zeldman epic DWWS, but to me it's more entertaining than instructional. That's because I haven't finished the “Definitve Guide to CSS” or “Eric Meyer on CSS”. I'm convinced that CSS is the way to go, I just need a bigger brain.

I wonder if Messers Zeldman and Meyer handcraft the majority of their CSS?

VoIP Really Works.

Weblog

The corporate office of my new employer is on the ball when it comes to technology. You would think a 100 plus year old publishing company would smell like old books. Not so. I installed a Cisco SoftPhone, part of Cisco's AVVID product line, and tested it today. I am happy to report that it works very well over a T1, Cable modem, and even 802.11b. The sound quality is just as good as a regular digital or analog phone. What is even better is that my voicemails are sent to me attached to emails, making them portable objects and freeing them of the confines of a voice only system. My laptop is now the hub for all of my communications: email, instant messaging, and voice. I will only have to use my cell phone when I can't get on a decent network connection. [X-log]

This scares me: Ads everywhere

Weblog

I'm going to preface this with a disclaimer: I like Russ and his comments make me think. In this case, I think he's slipped a cog. Read the excerpt, then my comments below.

Mobile Advertising

GoogleAds have made me a believer again in online advertising.

[snip]

The fact is that I first thought about mobile advertising in terms of interupting the user and taking over their display for a minute – almost like pop-ups, but actually are just interstitials that go away after a few seconds, like Salon's annoying ads. And that's just it. On a mobile phone with a shaky connection (even with the best of current networks) a small text link above or below your mobile content might actually be the best route. Simple, honest and straight forward, just like Google's text ads.

Lots to think about. I wonder if Google is thinking at all about the mobile market? They should have a Moble.com (get it?) which indexes just mobile sites (WAP and XHTML-MP) and sell mobile advertising…

[Russell Beattie Notebook]

The idea that ads would ever come up on my phone makes my skin crawl. Imagine the situation that makes the evening news. Lady getting carjacked can't make a call because her phone is being pushed ads. I realize that the situation described may be extreme, but when will we as consumers draw a line? When will someone stop and say, “Get that ad the hell out of my [insert device here]!” Why not put an LCD panel in a refrigerator, allowing the 'frig to display your family calendar most of the time, but ads for products the rest of the time. Around dinner, it starts to spew ads for steak, because the Beef Council knows your 'frig is in Amarillo and they have a bunch of extra cattle to sell.

Russell, I like the way you think, most of the time. If you have advertising revenue subsidize an essential service, then there will be a segment of the population that will trade the inconvenience ads for convenience of the product. That devalues the product and sells the ads to the lowest spending group of consumers.

Tell me why this makes sense. Where's the long term? If you say there's no long term, then why not play the market or gamble your money in Vegas?

I'm keeping my Powerbook

Weblog

I'm keeping my Powerbook.  I thought that a nice gentleman in California had bought it, but he didn't come up with the money.  That's good news for me–I was missing it already.  Since I already had it backed up, I decided to wipe it and start from scratch and not to install Classic.  At first, I wanted MacOS 9 dual boot capability, but I came to the (now obvious) conclusion that I don't use Classic.  My final holdout was Microsoft Office, specifically Office 98 since it runs better in Classic that Office X runs in X.

I had become used to several tweaks I had made in my install of Jaguar, specifically using Cocktail to change transparency on the dock and some unix stuff like fink and the developer tools.  I did the reintall of Jaguar last night, using the retail disks.  First thing after the reboot, it snagged the updates, so I ran through those installers.  Whew, finally done.  What was the first app I reinstalled?  NetNewsWire, of course!  Best of all, my weblog never had to suffer.

My firewall was the problem

BloggerCon, Idea, My Hobbies

I have a wireless access point and firewall combo that protects my meager home network from the Internet. Yesterday, I disabled the wireless interface (since I wasn't using it) and all seemed well.

My caution was rewarded with inconvenience. Even though the firewall settings displayed no changes, port translation was affected. Since the disabling the wireless connection was the only difference, I heeded my little voice and turned it back on. I changed the port number for the source, saved the settings and retried. All was well. I changed it back on a hunch; still working.

Just to make sure, disabled the wireless interface, again changed the port numbers for the translation–no workie. I had the wrong firmware installed on my firewall–Rev B vs. Rev A. Downloaded new firmware, installed, reset, all fixed.

Update:  I'm reposting this from work to make sure all is fine remotely. –Now twice–

Send Steve BloggerCon Update

BloggerCon

I received two donations yesterday. One was from Ingrid and
one from a friend a business advisor, Juliet Mee. This gets me to an
important milestone: $200. This gives me enough money to pay for the gas
round trip (25 MPG, 1400 miles, 15 gallon tank, $1.80/gallon) and maybe some
snacks along the way.

I also received word from Wendy that my request for a press
pass was approved, pending confirmation of my press credentials. A quick
phone call to the Springfield Business Journal and we're all
set. Wendy, Clarissa's out of the office until late next week. They want to have her sign off on the whole deal before I send you anything. I'll call you if something changes.

I'll write more later. I'm headed back to the house to fiddle with the
firewall. By the way, Jake's right: Mozilla Firebird rocks. If Safari
didn't exist, I'd use Firebird instead. On my Windows laptop at work, I
have it installed and it's fast-fast-fast for rendering pages.