Jon Steward is always is spot on

 

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Appholes
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

I know the article is old, but for those who need to knew.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/social_graph_concepts_and_issues.php

 

 

 

How cool is that for a Google Doodle banner?

Posting from an iPad.. Well the dhtml editor I am using on my blog doesn't seem to work. At least I can post text.

Iran is one of the world's most earthquake-prone countries, but the explanation for the tremors by one cleric left a lot of people scratching their heads. Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi said: 'Many women who do not dress modestly... lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes.' In order to prove him wrong, over 30,000 women have signed up to a Facebook group called Boobquake. It was started by Jennifer McCreight, who wants to test the cleric's claim scientifically, by getting thousands of women to show off their cleavages to see if any tectonic movements follow. 'On Monday, April 26th, I will wear the most cleavage-showing shirt I own,' she says. 'Yes, the one usually reserved for a night on the town. 'I encourage other female skeptics to join me and embrace the supposed supernatural power of their breasts. Or short shorts, if that's your preferred form of immodestly. 'With the power of our scandalous bodies combined, we should surely produce an earthquake. If not, I'm sure Sedighi can come up with a rational explanation for why the ground didn't rumble…' Her plea has met with resounding success, with thousands eagerly promising to flaunt their wares. Group member Rebecca Hogan trumpeted: 'Hell yes. They will be out in force.' And Jenny Love remarked: 'My puppies will be delighted to be there.' We will do our best to keep you abreast of any further developments with the Boobquake group… http://www.facebook.com/pages/Boobquake/116310728391074?ref=search&sid=3406175.1307770904..1&v=wall

Well new to me at least. I saw this article on digg about cars using the bumps and other movements on the road to charge itself. Nnaturally as a Mechanical Engineer I was like "what?" and followed the link.. Man that was the best thing to do all day as I found this interesting website of design and invention.

http://gajitz.com/

 

Lisa Etheridge became an interest sensation in a matter of minutes ViA Twitter and Twit.TV. Leo Laporte

http://twitter.com/LisaTickledPink 

 

 

Being a big GIS fan and such, a discussion about the boundary of Eastern US and western US as we defined here at work, I went looking around for a Zip code boundary utility and came across this site...

http://maps.huge.info/

I especially found their  google Map layout utility pretty  cool http://maps.huge.info/zip.htm

and something I can use for next year when figuring out what city a county is in http://maps.huge.info/county.htm

Also be sure to check out his blog.. I never they still issue new ZIP codes http://maps.huge.info/blog/

 One other random site I ran across is http://www.city-data.com/

I was curious what the google real-time blog search thing found and was happy  to see that google found me in 8 minutes ;-)

Is that their or there:-)

Reminds me of how I got a call yelling at me for updating the homepage without "notice" but no one noticed the 50 other times I updated the homepage without notice.. Spell something wrong and everyone notices :-D 

 

 

 

 

Since 2005, Jib Jab has been putting together these wonderful year-in-review videos. Check out all the previous years on www.jibjab.com...

 

 

Talk about hitting the nail on the head. I would say which one made me giggle, but then I am sure I would get a call from my boss or something :-)

 

Verdana...the font everyone likes to hate. I really have no idea why so many peopel hate the font. Is simple, alllot like Helvetica and is very useful for website content. Not complex, renders well on small or larger  devices, but I guess anything used too much is automatically hated. Personally I like the font, but can understand it it getting a little overplay and is a easy solution in a pinch...  I still use it on my website, but now with 24" 1080P monitors flying everywhre, font smotthing technology, maybe its time for a new font to be king.

Anyways, ran across this interesting article about how IKEA, those awesome swedish furniture people, switch to using verdana in their marketing campaing and print material..

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1919127,00.html

I've always been fascinated with information display ( hence why I am a web-guy) so running across this site a few months ago is almost as addictive as bejeweled.

http://www.visualeconomics.com/


I know there is one other site I ran across but it doesn't come to mind.

and yes I've read Tufte's books... Any other suggestions?
 

Obviously this caught my eye being that somewhere and in several place I mention monkeys and cows.

From her blog

Copenhagen Fashion Week. Pigs and donkeys.

 

Some pretty neat stuff on the web today..

http://www.youtube.com/ReelNASA

Love google (Especially with their partnership with NASA Ames Research Center)

 

Amazing photos.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/07/remembering_apollo_11.html

 

But the one cool recent thing is the number of camera they but on the shuttle these days.

 

NASA is collecting name will be included with others on a microchip on the Mars Science Laboratory rover heading to Mars in 2011!

Submit away!

http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/participate/sendyourname/

http://wpc.puzzles.com/

One of the most odd commercials if seen in a long time. I guess this is the  full 2-minute version of the current 30-sec one playing on TV. (I cannot belive they actually made a full video!) Anyways, its so wrong, but definitely something that could be very very  internet viral. I am curious to see if it does and where this video ends up in a month from now. I will have to keep my eyes peeled on ddigg, cracked, and the other video sharing sites.

I wouldn't watch it if you are easily offended..

 

WIth so many social website thse days, 2009 has to be the year of doing mash-ups,  or being able to dyamically share inforamtion across these diferent websites.

So in my feeble atempt to keep up with the times, I am adding a twitter feed off my latest Tweet to my blog homepage. As my status update or tweet, the goal is to update Twitter, Facebook and my blog simultaneously.

Next is to inject Tweets into my blog so you can read my past tweets..

 

Oh silly Google Aprl Fools Stuff

http://www.google.com/intl/en/landing/cadie/index.html

So a couple of months ago I downloaded the Truphone app for the Apple iPod. Its a VOIP phone service.

I know.. many would be like, "why would I download a phone app on a phone?" Well what if you have a device that is wifi, but not a phone? Exactly... it allows you to make calls over the internet. I know it sounds weird, but you know with free/ low cost wifi/wimax service, why not use what you already pay for to make calls?

So in taking a survey about adding a phone numer to the Truphone service (as currently I can call peopel but they can't call me..) the company had this funny video below. I assume it was some sort of catch marketing plan. But since it involve cow I thought I would write abou it...

Enjoy!

.

AT&T 'You Will' Ads From 1993 About The Future

 

In The Know: Should The Government Stop Dumping Money Into A Giant Hole?

 

Well its been about 4 years that the website site jibjab.com has posted a year in review web video. Well not to disappoint, here is the 2008 year in review

 

Funny how the internet works...

1. CNET write article about finding old songs on youtube.
   http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-10125016-52.html?part=rss
2. Someone post about it on Digg.com
   http://digg.com/music/Finding_rare_songs_on_YouTube
3. 80's music video end up on the front page of digg.
   http://digg.com/music/Men_Without_Hats_The_Safety_Dance_3
4. Additional links show up fomr comments of other great 80's videos and music
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_eSnmYv0KA (Obsession)
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjIrrL8gaNQ (Pop's goes the World)
   http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=7d9hC0sssqs (LIving on Video)
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPeGz25zydQ (Boy meets Girl)
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9p0Ac5bLlI (Sunglasses at Night)
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIyv4drrgeo (Never Surrender)
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_r0n9Dv6XnY (Tarzan Boy)
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuLHHplYRHw (pleasure and Pain)
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOyyrB1wj04 (ThePromise)
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6zBjYIyz-0 (Send me an Angel)
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUjIA3Rt7gk (I Ran)
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxH39QlRuhg (Whip it)
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLKFEq6Zu14 (Cars)
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-RdAzkKlXY (Bette Davis Eues)
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUG0GjdoGHE (Heart of Glass)
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arUqoKjU3D4 (Don't you want me)
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VW0YLWWf2b8 (Hold me know)
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOA4ixV-3jU (Everyone wants to rule the world)
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bqgy1mebh8 (Shout)
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9OGfBGOCpk (I wanna know what love is)
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yh9cNYlmXEY ( Hard to say I'm Sorry)
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBLGlb-MOGg (Drive)
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBLGlb-MOGg (Tonight she comes)
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujnH4yNqL8E (Is this Love)
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8e-vgQSqNtA (Jump)
   

Oh ...and oh my  my this little gem from the 70's

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFGzGfym-7Y (Apache by Tommy Seebach)

and Right Said Fred from the 90's (i think this was the 2nd CD i ever purchased)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipZDG6__Zfc (i'm too sexy) and a re-make in 2007
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q75gREOjyFI

and one last strange video from 2001

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfxUn1PjoLQ (Chase the Sun)

Some intersting information to remember when goiing some margin adjustments

"Four margin values can be declared at once by either specifying two or four values. When only using two values, the first will define the margin on the top and bottom, while the second value will define the margin on the left and right."

"When using the four value margin specification, the corresponding directions are: top, right, bottom, left. To help you remember what the order is, just remember that it starts at the top and then moves clockwise until it reaches the left. The examples below show partial (2) and complete (4) margin usage. "

also

Note: Netscape and IE give the body tag a default margin of 8px. Opera does not! Instead, Opera applies a default padding of 8px, so if one wants to adjust the margin for an entire page and have it display correctly in Opera, the body padding must be set as well!

 

 

Ross Ching

You can check it out on youTube. (http://www.youtube.com/user/rastachingy) or on this site about this specific piece http://rossching.com/eclectic-20 
(download the 1080P if you can) its amazing to watc just on my work 24" monitor..... I can't wait to see what this looks like on my  100" 1080P projector!

 

 

Nice video..  Even has "will it blend..", my personal favorite viral marketing, but I must have missed the rick-rolling reference in there!

 

Check us out at in Second Life!!! If you are wondering I am Pacific Boa...I'll usually be lurking around U Pacific, but need to venture out more!

---------------------------

With the rapid evolution of the Internet and the way that people communicate with each other, Pacific is pleased to announce a new venture that will keep the University ahead of the curve. Pacific is launching a virtual campus in Second Life.

Called “U Pacific,” the online campus is a virtual duplication of the area around Burns Tower. There, visitors will be able to learn about the campus, chat with representatives of Pacific and find out how they can apply or participate in University Life.

So, please join us at 1 p.m. Wednesday, May 7 in the Pacific Theater for a live demonstration and virtual ribbon cutting of the Pacific campus. Elizabeth Griego will be our featured speaker, appearing on the virtual campus to officiate the ceremony. A virtual dance party with live DJ will follow. For those who have a Second Life Account (free), you can log in to the virtual campus on that day at http://slurl.com/secondlife/U%20Pacific/166/141/22. If you wish to set up an account, visit http://secondlife.com/. A valid credit card number is required but will not be charged.

I have tasked with running the online election for the executive board of local Los Angeles Chapter of ACM SIGGRAPH for 2008-2009 (its my third year)!

Let the fun begin...

 

 

 

Some notable April Fools  Day stories....

Virgle (Google's) The Adventure of Many Lifetimes
http://www.google.com/virgle/index.html

Google GMail custom time
http://mail.google.com/mail/help/customtime/index.html

Google Australia gDay
http://www.google.com.au/intl/en/gday/index.html

Microsoft's next generation XBOX 360 accessories
http://www.xbox.com/en-US/community/promotions/2008/spring/

BMW has announced the first details of the new Canine Repellent Alloy Protection system.
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/04/bmws-dog-zapper.html

ThinkGeek BetaMax- to HD-DVD coverter
http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/41/betamaxhd.html

Kia Kee Wii
http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/News/articleId=125400

Yahoo! Buttefunger renamed to "The finger"
http://www.butterfingercomedynetwork.yahoo.com

Flying Penguins from the BBC
http://www.youtube.com/bbc

http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2008/02/10/XML-People

XML is ten years old today. It feels like yesterday, or a lifetime. I wrote this that year (1998). It’s really long.

The title was originally Good Luck and Internet Plumbing but the filename was “XML-People” and I decided I liked that better. I never got around to publishing it, so why not now?

Remember, it’s ten years old; some of the people and companies are in different places now. [Update: In the comments, John Cowan writes Where Are They Now?.]

http://xkcd.com/378/

 

The power of social networking. In my forever quest to have Pacific more represented, I was tasked to create a Youtube channel. I must say its not too bad... check it out ... I wonder if we still will use iTunesU?

http://www.youtube.com/pacifictigers

For you itunes users, check out http://itunes.pacific.edu

AOL News Presents… Where Are They Now? - Click here for another funny movie.

Ingeniux / IIS 6.0 odditiy

file tpye are a tricky thing in IIS 6.0.. I gues by default they are set to only allow specific types...

Who would have know this would be different in the development and production environments.

So my cheat sheet

	CMS.	WEB.
.xml	:-(	:-)
.txt	:-)	:-(

Pacific's new web feature... Thanks Zehno Media for such an awesome design!

Be sure to click on music and select a Tune.. I personally like "Funky Beat"

http://go.pacific.edu/webfeature

http://www.colourlovers.com/blog/2007/08/29/forbidden-color-combinations/

This is awesome.

 

 

Also more news at:

Media Mole Allegedly Attending DefCon with Hidden Camera (Wired)

DefCon drama: Undercover reporter bolts after outing (CNET)

 

 

 

I like this

http://macenstein.com/default/archives/686

 

 

http://wisdump.com/web/the-ebb-and-flow-of-social-networking/

http://www.mstonerblog.com/index.php

 

 

About time I got this to work.

I've been asking up and down about why this fancy CMS  system we use at work and how it can't, out of the box, share data from one page or multiple pages onto another.  It can share pictures, lists of links, and links, but not chunks of text.

The answer I kept getting was, it wasn't in the spec? It really irks me when people say that, butt  what was even better  was, "Well, maybe something like that will be put into the next phase of the project at a cost of $12K."

I about fell out of my chair... anyways..... never to be deterred to figuring out a way to do something, I spent 3 days and little or no documentation (wish I had a copy of the runbook) I came up with this...

http://www.sterni.net/sandbox/cms/bodycopy.asp?xfile=x530.xml

The source...

http://web.pacific.edu/x530.xml

If you can’t tell what’s going on, I am extracting the bodyCopy data from the "XML" page in the Ingeniux CMS system we are using at work and feeding into another. Why? Well because I would like to use information from one page on another without having to copy the data and worry about duplicate, version issues. Also it would be nice to be able to combine data from different page and stick them together and after a couple of more days.. came up with this.

http://www.sterni.net/sandbox/cms/bodycopy-group.asp?xfile1=x7154.xml&xfile2=x7156.xml

I was able to take information form the follow 2 pages and stick them together (Tution and Fees actually). The source of the information....

http://web.pacific.edu/x7154.xml and http://web.pacific.edu/x7156.xml

Now if you take all this and stick it into a external insert page .. waaaaala! you get a page that looks like the CMS, but has information from different parts of the page, which can be updated by their respective owners.  

 

Silly Ingeniux CMS system.. I wonder why this isn't built into Pacific's version for the this content management system. I hope nobody steals this idea and calls it their own, at least mention my name. Maybe I'll get a consulting gig from Ingeniux.

I wonder if I can convince the powers at be to let me use it on the live site.

So as I sit here at work trying not to pull my eyes out, I wonder what the forefathers were thinking when they came up with the concept of content management systems or CMS for short.

So give you some background information, the most amazing thing about the internet/electronic information age is the ability to create instances of this information. A sort of instant carbon copy at the click of a mouse. The idea was people who create the content can keep it and anyone can make copies of the most recent version, instantaneously.

This is basis of the development of hyperlinking. With the creation of the WWW or the web, and website etc, this was extended further by writing and publishing your content and also the ability to “hyperlink” to other people content and vise versa.

Back to CMS’s. Its sounds logical enough, keep documents, forms, booklets etc., in the same place based on some sort of order. Then use the power of a CMS to gather this content and "build" a webpage pages to meet the needs of user. Kind of like a librarian storing book based on some logical order or how a grocery store organizes food, not necessarily humanly intuitive, but useful to the librarian, or the stock boy, or content manager. I believe the content in the CMS should be organized based on how it physically organized in an organization. (i.e. who is responsible for it).

So as I sit here trying to figure out why you would put bananas in the cereal aisle because some odd population of shoppers would likely find it  there because they want to put bananas in their oatmeal is beyond me.

Anyways, Remember kids its electrons, you can jump anywhere in the store instantaneously, no need to move the bananas.

Some useful inormation if I ever need a design job.

http://www.icecreamforeveryone.com/uncategorized/on-finding-a-designer.html

But these links looked cool, so to remind myself to look at them, I am posting them on my own blog :-)

http://web-graphics.com/mtarchive/001717.php
http://boxover.swazz.org/
http://www.masugadesign.com/the-lab/scripts/unobtrusive-ajax-star-rating-bar/
http://komodomedia.com/blog/index.php/2007/01/20/css-star-rating-redux/
http://www.dustindiaz.com/ajax-contact-form/
http://wufoo.com/
http://alistapart.com/articles/prettyaccessibleforms
http://www.flog.co.nz/lab/ARC/ARC.htm
http://novemberborn.net/sifr3/beta1
http://www.mezzoblue.com/tests/revised-image-replacement/
http://www.spiffycorners.com/
http://www.willmayo.com/2007/02/10/css-speech-bubbles/
http://www.schillmania.com/content/projects/even-more-rounded-corners/
http://www.terrill.ca/design/vertical_bar_graphs/
http://meyerweb.com/eric/css/edge/bargraph/demo.html
http://mondaybynoon.com/2006/03/27/suckerfish-hoverlightbox/
http://www.huddletogether.com/projects/lightbox/
http://www.frankmanno.com/ideas/css-imagemap/
http://moneytreesystems.com/css/picpopup.html
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/slidingdoors
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/taminglists/
http://superfluousbanter.org/archives/2003/12/the-art-of-navigation/
http://superfluousbanter.org/archives/2004/05/navigation-matrix-reloaded/
http://www.fiftyfoureleven.com/weblog/web-development/css/light-weight-css-tabs
http://www.simplebits.com/notebook/2003/09/30/accessible_imagetab_rollovers.html

http://pipes.yahoo.com/

I miss the days when the interent was in its infacy and you found something new everyday, but today was one of those unique moments..

http://whocalled.us/

Kinda useful for those random/unknown/caller id blocked kind of moments.

So as you might have notice that my blog has been slacking in new content lately. Life is something complex and one should not try to make even more so . So alot of time one has to give some something and beside my work, it included my blog.

I hope soon enough John's normal crazy life will be back to normal, well at least for a short time and then will again be even turned upside down in a month or so..

In the mean time I will just try to hold it all together...

This question came up quite recently and you know I really haven't seen a decent answer to that question, so I figured I'd try to put one together.

I think the term webmaster has really been violated as I have seen quoted. This is a real disservice to true webmasters and what they do. We are not html monkeys and we are not Photoshop gurus, yes we know how to uses these tools and such but that isn't our primary focus. Just becasue you can copy and past code form one website into your myspace profile does not make you a webmaster or even a web designer.

An HTML monkey does not understand design or what constitutes a user-friendly design and a Photoshop guru does not know how to fix a CSS or HTML error in the code when it occures. Think of a webmaster as a kind of director/producer of a movie, or the architect/construction manager of a building. The one who can put all these tools and skills together into a finished product. that is what the skills of a true webmaster has at his/her disposal. He/she has the knowledge of what is out here and what can be done on a website.

Yes at one time websites were simple HTML and gif images, and can be simple done on Dreamweaver or FrontPage or by hand.. But in today's world a company's website are complex structures of programs and codes, both software and hardware. There are style sheets, flash animations, database queries, file handling, blogs/ instant content updates, management of existing content, calendars, online email, collaboration/ Instant messaging, server optimization, server security, content security, browser  compatibility, ADA/508c compliances and a whole sort of issues that make website what they are today. The scene is constantly changing. Not to mention new methodologies of created websites.  The end result is HTML/javascript/flash/images, but how you get there is unlimited.

One quote I found on the web that I like was this…

One example of a webmaster . Not too long ago, quite by accident, I was able to access secure pages on a customers site merely by using an address that I was given for something else. This wasn't supposed to happen. The "webmaster" took my information .. altered code, etc. .. to insure that it could not happen again. A web designer would not have had a clue what to do.

A webmaster would know how to set up mySQL .. a web designer wouldn't. Or, utilize the cgi-bin for specific purpose .. a web designer couldn't. In other words .. to me .. a "webmaster" is just that. A "master" at doing anything you needed done concerning your web site. Including adding code to your pages.

Webmaster's could tell you ALL the different type browsers used and whether or not your site could be seen in each one. If not, would make changes so they were. Most web designers I've met just tailor pages for most popular browsers.

An even more basic example is a computer specialist. You and I can go to Best Buy and buy Windows XP, MS Office and Photoshop CS2 and install it on our brand new Dell computer. (Yeah, yeah sometimes XP is already installed). Does this make you a computer expert? What happens when your computer goes crazy with a virus and you are about to lose 5 years worth of pictures and documents? How about changing your oil in your car and replacing the timing belt? Or even warming up a TV dinner and cooking thanksgiving dinner... there are a "Masters" of all sorts of things and they should be respected.

note to self....

php.ini file is located in the user/lib folder (I dunno, its just there)
turned on allow_url_fopen thingy

don't forget to restart apache ( the webserver )
/etc/rc.d/init.d/apachectl restart

MS SQL 2000 and ASP

Okay I guess true=yes=1 and false=no=0, but why the heck doesn't ASP/MSSQL translate that.. But 0 and 1 will work just as fine... 

The world wide web(www) as it was initially called by Tim Berners-Lee..Ever wonde why it is www for websites?? .. Now you know..

Read his original 1991 post on usenet.. ( yeah,  usenet was around before the world wide web,  and that how us "old" timers use-to communicate..)

Ah usenet, ftp, archie and veronica including gopher.. Those were the days..

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.hypertext/msg/395f282a67a1916c

 

AT&T  / SBC, you suck really bad at it, so bad in fact that I think I might switch to cable..

Who the hell knew you can talk to 5 people and not get a question answered. If you want the same experience call call AT&T / SBC.

So far,  I have talk to Bob in India, which transfer me to customer service, which transfered me to Orders department,, which transfer me to Online Orders, which transfer me to Pending Orders and each time i sit on the phone for 20 minutes... SO after and hour I still do not have an answer to my question, which simply is "What the hell happen to my DSL upgrade?" 

So far 2 people say it has been order, one says it has been canceled and one say there is not order what so ever.. But thank god I still have my old DSL service running or I would have to steal Internet access from my neighbors.

 

Access denied for user: 'root@localhost' (Using password: YES)

etc/my.cnf file.. what a PITA.

But it shows I need to learn more about MySQL and Linux and unix administration. But the tech support at the ISP for that particular website was absolutly no help either. That and the fact one should never never pick a capital "i" in a password since it looks an awfully alot like a lowercase "L" and will make  you absolutley nuts trying to figure out why the MD5 hash is all wrong

1. Setup Dreamweaver

2. Buy cool template that works with web host

3. Enjoy!

Messing with a DNS server is bad..bad...bad.

Especially when your registrar decide to shut down administration because of maintenance. So kids remember, if you plan on editing a DNS record, changing zone control, deleting a nameserver,  don't do it all at once.... and for god sake  remember to add the backup nameserver if you plan on screwing with it...

3 things

1. MAKE sure users have .NET framework 1.1 installed... (geez.. it would be nice if that was in the documentation microsoft)
2. setspn -a sip/beta.n2tec.org LCService
3. People in South Dakota stay up just as late as I do...

 

Oh how I love thee.. not really.

Microsoft sharepoint is a wonder CMS tools. IT does take care of allot of  tedious back-end stuff that a large organization would have to do manually. the issue is when you are trying to deploy it in a smaller environment, it becomes allot for one guy to handle.

Anyways, I 've been able to tame the beast for now, especially with the constant nagging issue that I have been having with integrating Live communication server 2005. I think I've finally nailed down some important key concepts.

1. Don't give up
2. Certificate server on MS 2003 server sucks, just deal with it
3. Once LCS is installed, go to the certificate server (ususally the subCA) from the LCS machine and select Download a CA Certificate, Certificate Chain, or CRL and click on certificate from the SubCA. and install it in the local machine's Trusted Root Certification Authorities on the LCS machine.
4.  
5. Remember to add a forward looking zone in DNS (Administrative Tools -> DNS). Right click, Other New Records and then "Service Location."  Enter into Service, Port Number, and Host Offering this Service the values _sip, 5060, and the FQDN of the LCS server.
6. In the forest right click, Specify the SIP domain that your LCS will allow., if you are like me using and email address/sign-on names different than your organization's default.
7. Patience... Provisional and propagation take time. 10 minutes minimum
8. Remember.. You are smarter than the computer.
9. Remember to set  in IE the portal at a trusted site with full URL http://portal.n2tec.org for presence icons to work!

lookie.

http://mail.google.com/hosted/sterni.net

Well, I broke my first rule about my new website. I changed something without putting it into the sandbox first.. Sorry about that ... but it is barely noticeable.. I modified my navigation to a non table layout in the quest for a liquid, CSS-p / no table layout design ( which it currently is). My ultimate goal is of course a web2.0 site, but first step is to get all of the tables out of the layout :-)  

So the navigaion looks simple for now, but wait until you can move it around!!!

Not really sure where I was going with that, but I was searching around and found this post on goggle groups (USENET) back from Feb 1, 1995. Oh man... I must have been using a 386 16MHz AST computer to post that on the internet (I don't believe the web was anywhere alive at that time). Anyways at that time I was "borrowing" my friend's email account at UOP since the junior college I was at didn't quite make it on the internet yet. and not many people had email accounts... Ah, the good old days... Google link

Update: After thinking about it, I decided to try looking up the old BBS I use to dial into back around 1992 called "The Wrong Number", and I couldn;t believe it when I saw he has a website now! Oh man I remember downloading programs at 2400bps at midnight. Wow those were the days.

I really would like that webmaster position that "The Record"  posted recently in the newspaper. I also wish I knew who in the world I need to talk to about that position. I've heard about this position for almost 6 months now, but they haven't found that perfect person yet. It is apparent that I have been unable to be "noticed" from whomever is doing the hiring, so I think I'll write a little something hoping whomever runs across my resume and/or cover letter will be like, "Hey ... maybe this guy has some good ideas...". Oh and I know PHP in case that didn't some across on my resume.

Just some ideas....

Navigation. 

• Come up with a way such that readers do not have to scroll miles down the page to get to a section of the website.Maybe an expandable  tree menu/ rollover/pull-down menus. It takes way too much scrolling to get to the other section of the web site that could be better viewed with pull-down menus.
  I am on the fence on this issue. I think its was good accessibility wise, but not so good efficient-wise. I would come up with something that can take car of both needs.  Its not horrible to have 2 set of navigation on the page.
  (Too much stuff  "under the fold".)
• A nice CSS navigation would probably solve allot of this and accessibility issues.

Ads

• The ad system needs work. I would suggest thumbnails when you click on "Dillard's Latest Ads".  It takes 3 click to see and ad where it really only should be one.
• NO competing ads in certain sections. If I was Dillard's, I'd be a little upset that I had to share screen space with some other ads, especially if it is called "Dillard's Latest Ads."
• Make the ad "look" like it belongs there.
• Too many banner ads scattered all over the place. Take a note from the LA times, MSNBC, NY Times, etc.  Either  have rotating ads or in-line story ads ( not a personal fan of in-line ads).. eating of the right 3rd of the page is a waste of valuable "above the fold" / screen space.
• Research suggest that people like across the page ad then ones down the screen. Plus having them at the top or bottom is best. No one like being interrupted while reading a story, but before and after is quite effective. 

Layout

• Why this web site does NOT fit in a 800x 600 space is odd. Either make it fit or go and make it a liquid page . I know this doesn't work for reading, but for other content items on the website it would be good.  Horizontal scrolling is the worst.
• Minimize white space without overloading the reader.
• Move the login box to the TOP of the page. Who puts a login in the middle of the page?
• Should really be moving toward a CSS defined page .  As more page move to CSS layout and away from table layout it solves allot of formatting and accessibility issues.
• Make the layout consistent as much as possible .. Style guides in the web are just as important at print. I would make a standard for how pages should be laid out  given the content.

The back-end

• URL rewrite....  it is bad web style to have a .dll in the URL, I am sure its hacker proof, but it has no meaning and in general URL should be simple. Since 100 or so newspapers, publishers, etc.  use the  Publicus software from Saxotech, I know its hard for me to argue, but a simple script should be able to fix that and leave the CMS system as is. I am not the only one who agrees with this statement (http://weblogs.asp.net/jasonsalas/archive/2005/05/01/405209.aspx)
  
• Getting your separate PHP/MySQL/apache and CMS systems to work together, seamlessly.  I've had to do it with some NASA websites, so I understand the investment in legacy/CMS software, but at the same time want the flexibility in a separate custom built PHP/DHTML environment.
  
• Same with other outsourced sections of the website. I noticed that the obituaries and employment stuff are some features that are outsourced. I would find a way to make it seem seamless also that those services are from a record.net URL. With the onslaught of phishing and URL hijacking, it give a sense of trust when the URL stays consistent.

As you can see I spent allot of time looking at and trying to understand how the web site is constructed and how I could benefit from being part of this organization. I believe that I could reign in the designers, ad managers and coders to get this web site organized, consistent and looking that way too.

Call me. 

 

Yippie!  I know whomever reads this is like, " WTH is he so happy about?". Well let me tell you. Most web sites, yes MOST web sites are pretty static in their ability to scale to  the browser window. If you look at most wiki's, image galleries, blog, and the like, what you will see is a page formatted to fit an 800px (pixel) width (actually something like 770px since you have to also account for scroll bars.) screen with it set to center as you make the browser windows bigger than that.

Anyways, since my early days of web development, I have ALWAYS been looking for ways to fill the screen and adjust automatically to the size of the screen. (Never was a fan of doing more work on making page fit  640, 800, 1024, 1280, 1520, 1920 pixels.. too.)  So as I start rebuilding my new website,  I finally was able to develop a way it to work, along with some other cool web technologies like javascript, some crazy CSS manipulations and soon some AJAX. Anyways , its seems to work for now.  

Many argue that you can't always have liquid pages since the text is very hard to read, and this is true, but for image galleries it works beautifully! So I am still working out for textual content, what I should do. As for now I will leave it the left justified fixed space that it is in now..

Next step is to making it AJAX!

http://webdesign.html.it/articoli/leggi/528/more-nifty-corners/2/

 

Wow.. How does a university with a Class B subnet get shut down by one of the largest DSL providers? Well I dunno, but  access to usc.edu or the ip block 128.125.x.x looks like it has been blocked by SBC as of today. I hope they get this sorted out soon. I wonder if USC's other subnet is blocked?

Wow... I know I am old school when info like this amazes me... Only old schooler, will this mean anything..

Interesting Technique  using multiple blocks... I guess I never thought that you could use a different 256 color pallet for each block...

http://phil.ipal.org/tc.html

All I have to say is Jhead...http://www.sentex.net/~mwandel/jhead/
Simple enough to use to remove EXIF data from your images...

Man, You'll never know what is hidden in your images until you take a look around. (http://blogs.23.nu/disLEXia/stories/5751) 

Actually my reason for removing the EXIF data is that it  was it was totally messing with the image re-sizer in my picture gallery. I was going a little nuts for a few hours trying to figure out what the heck was going on. Anyways, after pouring over the Internet, I found out what it was.. I guess Microsoft's fancy GetThumbnailImage() method will use the thumbnail if present, but have not idea how to tell it NOT to use it so I just decided for goodness sakes and for security to remove all the data so I don't also have to worries about transmitting GPS data along with my silly pictures!

As my work continues on updating my old website, I have been playing with image upload and image galleries. The #1 thing that I was interested in was a automatic image resizing utility for IIS/ASP (yeah I know PHP graphic libraries are a no brainer,  but I am ASP guy). Another feature is builting the gallery from the images directly and not having to depend on a database table for it.. I am a BIG fan of just dropping files into a folder and a server "smart" emough to figure out what the heck is going on ....

Anyways after some long investigation I stumbled upon some nice built-in utilities using ASP.NET and some work from The Code Project and from betaparticle. Best $20 bucks I've spent on a something in a long time, Thanks Matt.

I think I will have a semi decent image gallery for free. Not that I am not a flickr fan, just as a webmaster I should be able to do all this on my own.

Now if I can add some fancy AJAX (web 2.0) so I can move images around that would be cool... (Yes I am working on that...)

http://www.codeproject.com/aspnet/Thumbnail_Image.asp?print=true

 

I've been working on this online voting system for the Los Angeles Chapter of SIGGRAPH (http://la.siggraph.org/vote ) for about a month or so and finally feeling like its going to actually work. 

Only  5 more days to my birthday....