2007 January

Comment Spam: More Than A Minor Annoyance

Although I do have the absolutely wonderful and I-can’t live-without-it Askimet plugin installed here, I still look through the messages it catches every few days. What’s worse than having to waste time even looking at them is trying to ignore what’s in them. Various prescription drugs (I’m keeping things G-rated over here), and links to what I will leave as explicit videos litter the Askimet Spam page litter my screen every time I look at it.

Eventually, someone is going to (or I will) say enough is enough, and just get rid of comments once and for all. We all hate weeding through spam emails (which affect a much greater majority of people than comment spam does), so why should we feel the smame about comments?

Todo Management: Hi Tech and Hip Tech

Web Worker Daily points out 20 different ways, both digital and, well, analog to keep track of what you’re doing in life. From commercial software to freebies to a stack of index cards with a binder clip, there’s bound to be something simple or snazzy enough for you to get your thoughts in line.

For Your AJAX Apps: Loading Icon Generator

Weblog Tools Collection came across this great Web 2.0 freebie, which lets you generate those throbber icons for your site. Big time saver, and produces nice-looking icons too.

Useful Tips for WordPress Theme Design

cre8d design has written a pretty good list of resources for WordPress theme developement. They include one of my personal favorites, W3Schools.com, which has a lot of useful Web tutorials.

Extreme Road Rage

My van driver has this thing for racing through intersections at yellow lights. Pedal to the metal bro. Tonight he was approaching an intersection, and the light turned yellow when he was maybe 150 or 170 feet from the corner. At that point he floored his GMC Safari, and sort of made the light. If that happened at Francis Louis Boulevard going south, he would’ve been caught on camera and got a nice ticket in the mail.  Strange thing is that he decelerates as he exits the intersection, which is pretty much pointless in most situations. Personally, I think running red lights is the worst sort of non-accident offence; also up there is speeding, and cutting off other drivers should be some kind of crime. New York City has so many wonderful drivers out there, yet also a large handful of not-so-good ones. Why is it so easy to get a license these days?

How Opera Revolutionized the Internet

Ever since its young ages – way before Firefox was even a speck in someone’s mind – Opera was leading the pack with some of today’s most common features, like tabbed browsing and many more. Today, Opera is probably the leader of browsers in terms of power and sophistication: it includes an integrated mail client, a feed reader, phishing filter, widgets, and many other major and minor features that make your browsing experience better.

Until a short while ago, Opera was ad-laden until you paid for it (although the text ads option produced neater Google-powered ads). Not too long ago, as of version eight-point-something (I don’t remember the exact number right now), released September 20 (see Opera’s Milestones page), Opera became totally free.

Customization is priority number one: Any toolbar and button can be positioned virtually anywhere. For example, I like to have a new tab button directly to the left of the tabs, like Netscape 7.2 had. In Firefox, the only choice I have is on the far left of the toolbar above the tab bar, while in Opera, it can go anywhere I could possibly want. In the later versions, there is a feature called Widgets, which are essentially the same as anybody else’s implementation, except that they are part of Opera, not the OS.

Opera sets new standards for speed – even Firefox comes second to Opera. The page rendering speeds are simply blazing. When I left Netscape for Opera, this was one of my first observations. Pages render in seconds, not days, as in the case of Internet Explorer 6.

The integrated feed reader and  mail client are a bit different, but work pretty well. Upon viewing a feed’s URL, Opera will display the feeds contents all scrambled up, but will ask you in a polite dialog box whether you want to add it to your feeds. Reading feed messages is normal, but the message pane does not display images, like the readers in other apps do (I think).

The only way to really get a feel for Opera is to use it. It’s a bit different than other browsers, but once you get used to it, you will never want to use another browser, except for the times you visit a site nobody ever bothered to code properly. Go grab Opera now – it’s free!

Finally Have All Presents

Today marks the absolute completion of the present stream of the 2006 holiday season. Yesterday I received yet another fifty dollars; this will not be spent on anything immediately. I decided that I should end my spending spree, which took place upon today’s arrival of the Smith Helmet Helper that I had several troubles ordering (one store didn’t like my Amex Gift Card at all, and the one that did take it at first gave me a slight problem, but my order was fully processed the next night) and a keyboard extension cable (which the need for surfaced after the re-do of my room).

The helmet helper was pretty much what the stores say it is. It is a flap of rubber with plastic clips on the ends, and it replaces the buckle on Smith ski goggles while lengthening the strap to allow the goggles to better fit over a helmet. Installing it was a snap, and the pressure against my glasses (oh thank goodness for the OTG goggles I have) that I experienced without the helmet helper was non-existent. I am happy with the product itself, but I feel that the shipping charge ($7.02 for a $4.95 item) was a bit excessive, especially because it took over a week for Brown aka UPS to make it to my house.

The keyboard extension cable is just that - a cable with a PS/2 male and female connector on opposite ends. Not much to say; I just shut down my computer, connected the cable between the original keyboard cable and my computer, and viola, done. Now i don’t have totake my keyboard out of the drawer before closing it – a royal pain.

Who said the holidays ended in December? Not me. Especially when delivery companies take their lazy time.

First Major Award: 2006 Trap17 Awards

What really surprises me is that I won an award from a place that I am not physically affiliated with. Even though I only have a virtual relationship with the forums, Trap17 had nominated me for and awarded me with the “Consci[enci]ous Voicer” (in the awards listing, the complete reading is used) award for 2006. I’m not really sure what got me the recognition, but I am guessing that my dozens of reported posts contributed to it. No matter what got me it, I’m happy people appreciate what I do, and I hope that I can continue to help out for a while.