Don't Back Down

Posted by Chad Everett on March 23, 2005

Spring Cleaning Time »

As is typical, I've decided that I'm no longer happy with my current blog layout, so I'm playing with some other options. I like the colors and the layout at this point, but we'll see if it sticks. If you're reading in an aggregator of some kind, drop by the site to check out the header and footer - those are the only visible changes.

I also noticed that my (X)HTML wasn't validating, and neither was the CSS. Blech. I fixed the (X)HTML by closing a tag and fixing a keyword, but it was still only "tentatively" valid. Something about needing to specify the character encoding. After browsing a couple of options, I settled on a meta tag - mostly because I couldn't get the .htaccess-based methods to work right. Seems to have cleared up the problem.

The CSS was about to get me, but then I read this piece on generic font families. Seems that I put quotes around the monospace font-family declaration in the CSS, and because that's a generic font famliy keyword, quotes aren't allowed. That's just goofy. But it ought to be fixed. At least on the index page. Who knows if the rest will work. I'll give it a better look in the near future.

Posted by Chad Everett on March 23, 2005

Are Speed Monitors Useful? »

It seems that nearly every time I drive these days, I see those monitors that provide you with the speed you are traveling, in conjunction with the speed limit for that area. As a bonus, when you're above the speed limit, the displayed speed flashes. If you're way above (5mph+?) it flashes rapidly, as if just flashing won't tell you - it has to blink to let you know you're going as fast as you are.

What I really don't get is that these monitoring devices are invariably on a relatively busy, but not too busy, street. That means that, more than often, there is a stream of cars headed by the device. As a result, I have no idea which one I am - even though I try to match up my speedometer to the sign to see if it matches. Maybe they ought to use some sort of technology so only the current measurement would be visible to you - otherwise I have no clue if it's me, or one of the boneheads in front of or behind me!

Posted by Chad Everett on March 23, 2005

My First Referrals »

Just yesterday, only minutes apart, I received two emails from Site5, explaining how I had two credits for referrals coming to me. The first thought was that it was odd, because there were two of them back-to-back. So I wonder if perhaps someone out there signed up and then did so again, mistakenly, meaning it was only one.

After talking with Denise, we decided that perhaps the affiliate signups are done on a periodic basis, meaning that the two accounts may have been created over the last week/month/something, and that they just sent them out in a batch. Nonetheless, it's neat. Whoever signed up using our link, thanks!