Don't Back Down

As I was working on a project, I noticed that the page was no longer rendering in IE (6.0, XP). Strangely, the title had turned into just the URL, as if there was none, and the styles were gone.

On a whim, I moved the title attribute above some meta tags, and it jumped right up on the page, indicating an apparent problem within those meta tags. Sure enough, after looking for just a moment, I found a set of double quotes contained within the tag. Oops.

Apparently IE (6.0, XP) doesn't like this. Interestingly enough, IE on a Mac (5.2, I think I was told) and Firefox, on either Mac or PC, interpreted the string correctly.

While I'm sure everyone else in the world knows this, apparently in Firefox (at least version 1.5, unders Windows XP), you can switch between tabs with your arrow keys. Holy Robin Hood, Batman!

You see, I've been trying to decide if I could do without the LastTab extension since I installed version 1.5 and it was automatically deactivated, and as of now, the answer is "yes!", because I stumbled on this feature by accident (and I haven't seen it documented anywhere).

Read "Firefox Tab Navigation via Keyboard" »

The comment redirection I'm doing doesn't work with Movable Type out of the box. The problem is that you can return either to the page that submitted the comment (static == 1) or to the comment listing (static != 1). Since I had a pop-up window in the mix, neither really worked all that well.

Read "Javascript Redirect Magic" »

I use remote desktop (terminal services) quite a bit. I also regularly use other remote access methods such as PCAnywhere or VNC. As such, I'm almost always greeted by the default wallpaper when logging onto a PC. Much of this is courtesy of Dell, but others do it too. Yet I couldn't figure out how to get rid of it.

Read "Changing the Default Windows Wallpaper" »

Everyone knows the government spends a ridiculous amount of money on fighting "terrorism" and it doesn't really do much. Do you feel safer knowing the government is on the job? I sure don't. I'm ticked that they introduce delays, close down access and generally make life more difficult, all while putting our country deeper in debt and accomplishing absolutely nothing.

Read "Money for Nothing" »

I find it interesting that people are so quick to jump on something these days. For instance, I've been helping the folks at Broadband Mechanics put together a plugin to allow for structured blog content (creatively named Structured Blogging).

True to form, we get an entry on the MT forums about how the (Movable Type) platform is lagging in new features and if that doesn't change, options will need to be reconsidered.

Read "Too Much Time on Their Hands" »

I admit it. I wasn't paying any attention, and while trying to figure out that invoice in my inbox, I clicked on the link from the email and logged into the service. My eyes didn't even notice the strange URL in the address bar until after I clicked the "submit" button. Whoops. Looks like someone went phishing and caught something. I hate it when I don't pay attention. Last time it happened I received the first speeding ticket (or ticket of any kind) that I had received in quite a while. This time I gave up my user name (not that that is difficult for anyone to guess) and password.

Read "I Hate Phishing" »

Recently we've seen the introduction of a couple new additions to the stable of Movable Type plugins, with the pre-release of the Structured Blogging plugin and the beta release of the RightFields plugin.

Read "Structured Blogging and Right Fields" »

This morning, as I went along my merry way, the hard drive on my laptop started making some seriously strange noises. Things that you wouldn't think should come from an electronic device of any sort. Ever. Then applications stopped responding altogether. Shortly thereafter, I decided to shut down the computer for a little while and visit my wife, who was working from home.

Read "Crashing Hard Drive Blues" »

Today is shaping up to be a bit better than yesterday, but I'm still on the long road to recovery. The most challenging piece is perhaps that I had a seizure last night (more accurately, a few small ones back-to-back). Nothing quite equates to a few hours in the emergency room while you're trying to get some sleep.

In any case, I'm back on track now, at least for a bt, and have some updates. While progress is moving nicely towards being able to work as I normally would, I can actually get a pretty good deal done right now. The first thing that I had to do was resolve the keyboard and mouse issue.

Read "Recovery Day 2" »

Some of you may not have realized that I slipped in a comment the other day about having a seizure. Not your fault. I didn't really do so to intentionally minimize things, but I just wasn't thinking about it. So for those who have inquired: Both recoveries are going about as well as can be expected.

Read "Double Recovery" »

The local paper adopted a registration system some time ago. Strangely, using one of the other domains owned by this large media conglomerate, you may access the exact content without registration. While registration is free, this allows you to actually get to the content at times - like today - where the registration server is down. Meaning if I didn't do this, I wouldn't be able to read their links at all. Like that's a good idea...

If you suggest some registration-skipping site, don't bother. They all depend on the registration server at the destination site working. Otherwise there is no server to validate the pseudo-credentials being used to authenticate you.