Archive for October 2001

All right, I found out why High Tech Texas did not work for me and this is how to fix it:

Go to RealPlayer to get your options, select Preferences > Transport. Be sure to have “Use specified transports” selected and “Use specific UDP port(s) selected with 7070. It works.

Dallas locals – watch High Tech Texas on Channel 8 – WFAA on Sunday, October 21 from 10:30 AM – 11:00 AM CST. Non-Dallas locals, you can check it out online sometime after that date. Susan Clot de Broissia, Cristina Aguirre, and I discussed DigitalEveDallas and today’s freelancing and networking situation. Please pay no attention to the woman in purple. She had no idea what the heck she was talking about.

Yesterday’s Webreference newsletter reviews Molly Holzschlag’s newest book, XML, HTML, XHTML Magic. OK, I admit it. I reviewed it and I was tough as nails – 100% honest and 0% bull.

What a bad night to sleep lousy… the day before I go in front of the camera and get more poundage added. So, my eyes will look bigger than Gonzo’s (I couldn’t think of anyone else on three hours of sleep).

Shirley shared a great link for fonts. Wow. I like the Frank Lloyd Wright style fonts. If I had the luxury and need to buy fonts, I’d head right over to P22. I’m glad I didn’t find this Web site when I was searching high and low for a western-style font because I would’ve bought it to use on a Web site that never panned out. P22 has the best looking one I’ve seen to date called “Way Out West.”

Speaking of fonts, ALA has spoiled us with another double issue! I started with Typography Matters by Erin Kissane. It’s good to see spelling and punctuation get coverage as you know I am an ardent supporter of grammatically correct content especially on professional pages. I don’t worry about content on blogs and people have caught my errors, of course. It’s the graphics and businesses Web sites that shouldn’t have such errors. Anyway, the article also offers something I had not thought about before… “typographically correct punctuation.” The article discusses the use of straight quotation marks as opposed to curly quotation marks. I’ll leave you hanging here so you can go read the rest of it for the details.

The other article is about a common discussion topic for women — the trouble with men. Err, wrong magazine, it’s actually the Trouble with Em ‘n En. Creative title drew me in — hook, line and sinker. OK, am I using the dash correctly? Again, I never bothered with the — dash since I’m too lazy to look up the character when it’s faster to do this – twice. Yeah, I should use the Visibone HTML card that I have right here at my desk with the handy dandy quick character reference.

If you don’t have time to read the article, then walk away with the following advice that I learned today: “The entire range from through Ÿ are invalid characters, and consequently should not be used.” However, there are some other useful rules listed in the article that are new to me. Need to squeeze that new found knowledge into the overly crowded brain. Another touchdown from the kind folks of ALA!

Game Boy Advance review of Fortress published today in the Dallas Morning News.

Can anyone view the High Tech Texas video??? I’ve tried and tried on a cable modem AND a T-1 line and no such luck. Yes, I have RealPlayer and Windows Media Player loaded and both worked fine on other Web sites.

Wow, it should be a great game! Tomorrow. Photoshop Tennis. Coudal channel. Heather “Jezebel” Champ vs. Derek “Mr. Community” Powazek. Figures I won’t be around to watch it in action since I will be at High Tech Texas’ studio, but I’ll get to quickly watch the action and not have to wait for each player to return the serve.

I’ve been collecting Web design / publishing resources for a long, long time now and just when I think I’ve found all the goodies — another comes along. New Breed Librarian Colleen Bell put together Web Publishing Curriculum Resources, which includes workshop outlines, guides to CSS, HTML, resources, and a recommended reading list. Thanks to Neat New Stuff I Found This Week – Copyright, Marylaine Block, 1999-2001 for the linkage.

Think you can’t move faster around a computer? Think again. I received my Just the Tips, Man: Word 2000 book for winning the NerdyBooks newsletter contest. These tips include keyboard shortcuts to quickly move around a software program. Of course, the first I learned were CTRL-C and CTRL-V for copy and paste and ALT-TAB to move between open applications. They have saved me a lot of time and the book is an opportunity to learn more timesavers.

Already, I learned new shortcuts! Pressing ALT-F and then 1 2 3 or 4 is a speedier way to open a recently opened file in Word. The book is set up like those desk calendars that stand up like an easel. Instead of ripping out pages, you flip ‘em over since it is nicely bound with a wire-o bound. My goal is to try to learn a few shortcuts per week so it will become a habit and not something I forget in two minutes.

The tips series characters are cute and make it fun to use. Kenneth, the young kid, represents very easy tips. Shagg, the hippy, shows you some easy ones, dude. Guy Martini, Vegas-lounge singer wanna-be, shares the cool tips. Tomboy Shelli, who reminds me of me as a kid hooked on sports, passes you some funky tips. Grumpy Mr. Nester prepares for you the long and annoying tips. Finally, the Harvard School of Tipology graduate, Professor Lester, walks through the complicated tips.

Yes, the book is worth every cent. OK, so I didn’t buy it, but whenever a family member has a birthday — this will make a good gift! No, the authors didn’t bribe me. I am just a happy winner who actually likes and uses the tips!

Thanks to Ezine-Tips editor, Janet Roberts for leading me back to the famous iVillage quizzes by asking, “Are you a kitchen slut?” in her foodblog (Warning: do not go there on an empty stomach!). When I got there, I saw a Halloween costume personality quiz. Since I haven’t decided what I want to be or if I even want to bother, I took it for the heck of it. Results:

“You never do things on the spur of the moment and are extremely organized and meticulous. You refuse to take chances and analyze each possible scenario before acting. You lean towards perfectionism. When it comes to Halloween parties and costumes, you love classic costumes and more than likely will wear the same one you have worn for years!”

OK, I admit it. I am organized and meticulous (think Monica on Friends). I’m not spontaneous mainly because I have two kids that can’t stay home by themselves. Refusing to take chances… not so sure about that. Perfectionist? Yep. Classic costumes? Well, do you call a cell phone a classic costume? That’s what I was last year. Here’s what the quiz suggested I wear for a costume and my comments:

• Witch – been there, done that, no more.
• Frankenstein’s Bride – overdone.
• Indian Princess – yeah, right. Me, princess? Ha.
• Medusa – Hmm… do I want to turn everyone into stone?
• Southern Belle – Frankly, my deah, I dahn’t give ah dahmn!
• Any Disney Princess (Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella) – Yeah right. I was begging my daughter not to be a princess AGAIN. This year, she is Hermione from Harry Potter.

In cartoons, we see a character banging himself into a ceiling or falling off a cliff (Wile E. Coyote, who else?) and then seeing stars, birdies, and whatnot. Now, you can see them for real if you’re a Cowboys or Cardinals fan. NextDraft reported this newsbyte, “A company in NY is coming out with designer, non-prescription contact lenses that feature the logos of your favorite NFL teams. While the lenses are non-prescription, anyone who buys these things may want to see a doctor.” Interesting that the Dallas Cowboys didn’t even make the list of the top 3. Boy, does that tell you how bad they are these days with the 1-4 record and their one win coming from a 0-5 Redskins.

Finally! I added a 5th page of Gotchas with lots of yearly mistakes. Groovy. Buck Banks wrote me an email about by Webreference article on Confusing Word Couples. He did a better job than I could in explaining the difference between comprise and compose. Here’s what he said:

In my experience, the most common mistake is to use “comprise” when “compose” is correct. A fine and simple explanation of this is given by the Associated Press Handbook:

Compose means to create or put together. It commonly is used in both the active and passive voices:
She composed a song. The United States is composed of 50 states. the zoo is composed of many animals.

Comprise means to contain, to include all or embrace. It is best used only in the active voice, followed by a direct object:
The United States comprises 50 states. The jury comprises five men and seven women. The zoo comprises many animals.

Thanks to Rob and MizDos for the linkage!

Anyone going to Web Design World in New Orleans next month? I am trying to get there – Working on it. Let me know if you go and maybe we can meet… unless you’re a weirdo. It’s gonna have Zeldman, Molly, Finck, and more.

Been going to User Friendly Comics for lots of laughs since someone close to me is a tech support manager.

We’re treated to two articles in ALA.

Flash Aesthetic covers four different Flash aesthetic elements that stand out from the crowd including: Scaling, 2-D Style, Heavy Strokes, and Motion Without Cycles. There are links to examples of each element so you can get a feel for them. I would’ve liked to see more examples.

It’s reading articles like How to Succeed with URLs that make me wish I had access to my UNIX server so I can try out the cool techniques.When I signed up with my Web site hosting service, I had been using them as my ISP and they had what I needed at the time. I am pleased with their service since they have great uptime and all that. The only thing I can’t do is go directly to it via Telnet and create my 404s, play with Apache and its modules, and so on.

Back to the ALA story. This is a tutorial for people who are building and/or maintaining a dynamic PHP Web site and want a PHP instead of regular expressions solution to manage URLs that make your hair cURL. OK, bad joke. The way it works is that all requests for the server will be redirected to a PHP script for handling the requested URL and determining which to load. The redirection commands are entered in the .htaccess file, one of the most important files that comes with the Apache server.

This method does have a vulnerability in which someone could access directories below your Web root or execute scripts on your server. The article gives several solutions to avoid exposing your security holes.

I was glad to see the competition back online last week. Doggone, I can’t remember who I voted for last week. Damned cold, sinus or whatever the hell is clogging my brain. In today’s match, Rob Corradi from preloaded in the UK faced Daniel Althausen from designers-drug in Germany. Go check out the volleys and vote who played a smooth game. The first time I viewed Photoshop Tennis, I was confused about the whole game. Now, I am hooked. It’s the sport of Web designer kings and queens.

Do you think the 7 Habits that Business2.0 put together make up a successful dotcom? You get the opportunity to rate each habit. One of the habits: “Hire a ‘vampire’…”

Damn it, I need to move my ass to get the Digital Web article done. Da pressure! Da pressure! If my stupid head would clear up so I can see the words floating around…

The review of NetObjects Fusion MX is targeted towards non-techies and non-desigers. Hardcore Web coders and designers will hate this software because it spits out non-standards compliant code. We wouldn’t want to wish anyone out of business, but NetObjects has been struggling and was going out of business although you wouldn’t know it from its Web site. The software is probably going to be sold cheap and non-Web savvy small business owners will want the software so they can get their business online without a consultant.

Nashville Gold, general fiction by Dekker Malone. Good for a quick and fun read.

Pink Lady has another game out. This time, Barbie saves the animals. Oh boy!

October – National Breast Cancer Awareness Month

OK, let me start off by saying those of you who got here by searching for nudity aren’t gonna find any here. This is an important topic and Dori prompted me to do an entry along with the fact it is National Cancer Breast Awareness Month. It’s also Disability (and Deaf) Awareness Month and I am sure a few others. I hope she doesn’t mind my linking to her health report, but this is a real story and it can happen to anyone. It happened to my mom.

A month after I moved to Washington, DC from Fort Worth and extremely home sick, Mom came to visit me and brought news with her. News I thought I’d never hear. She had a tiny lump that was malignant and was having a lumpectomy after returning back to Texas. It didn’t seem real especially since her parents lived past their 80s without cancer and their parents died of other causes. Plus, I was never home with her to see her through the surgery and radiation. 12 years later, she remains cancer-free. But also 12 years later, I know scores of people who have had lumpectomies, mastectomies, and one wonderful former professor from American University who died in her 40s. In fact, one of my cousins just had a mastectomy last week.

Check yourself. I do have one pet peeve about this… what about women with lumpy breasts? It’s impossible to know the difference!

Get yearly mammograms if you’re over 35. I haven’t reached 35, yet, but I am going to ask my doctor for one because of my mom’s history… and now my sister. She doesn’t have breast cancer. She has liver cancer. We found out last January. She is undergoing chemo and has had one report of the cancer shrinking. Last report – no change. She is feeling OK. I just wish she could get a good job to keep her mind occupied. She was laid off not long after she began treatments.

Ironically – my dad’s side of the family has a lousy medical history, but none of it cancer.

Take care of yourself. We want you here for as long as humanly possible.

Web world is still shouting about the infamous W3C Patent Policy. So, I won’t stand in the way of that and encourage you to post clear constructive criticism like Zeldman did. When anger or some other emotion shows up in a posting, people tend to move on and ignore it. Stating facts and backing them up speaks volumes. Also, Zeldman indicated in his blog that the group may be heading back to the drawing board next week. One more day to mail comments before tomorrow’s cutoff date.

I learned something new today. Shirley posted an item along with links about Web Site Credibility based on research from Stanford. It gives me a lot of food for thought. For example, all the blogs out there are personal Web sites and the vary in their style. Some joke around, some are serious, some are disgusting… they are just being what they want to be. On the other hand, I’ve landed on e-commerce Web sites that I refused to stay one more minute because it was poorly constructed and unattractive, or as I call them, “cheap looking.” Somewhere my subconscious is telling me this is not a credible site, not a place where I feel is a safe place to shop.

Didn’t feel like reporting on anything today and wanted to do something cheerful. Webreference reviewed Jakob Nielsen’s newest book, Homepage Usability: 50 Websites Deconstructed and I got it in my head to do a song on him. Here’s what popped up. Apologies to Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice for messing with their song and Dr. Nielsen for making him the subject.

JAKOB NIELSEN
Sung to the tune of Jacob and Sons from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
Music (scroll down to select from list)
Lyrics

Way way back many years ago
Not long after the Internet began
Jakob co-founded Nielsen Norman
He proclaimed himself the usability man
Jakob. Jakob Nielsen.
Depended on old browsers to earn his keep
Jakob. Jakob Nielsen.
Spent his days talking and making designers bleep

Jakob was the founder of a whole usability nation
Thanks to the number of supporters he had
He was also known as usability guru, but most of the time
Everyone called him a passing fad.
Jakob. Jakob Nielsen.
Use no graphics and only black text says his book
Jakob. Jakob Nielsen.
If you want your users to take another look.

Usability Engineering was the first of his books
Multimedia and Hypertext the next in line
Advances in Human/Computer Interaction
Designing Web Usability that made us all whine
Jakob. Jakob Nielsen.
Homepage Usability is the latest one

Jakob. Jakob Nielsen.
Jakob — Jakob’s favorite one
Jakob. Jakob Nielsen.
Jakob. Jakob Nielsen.
Jakob. Jakob Nielsen.
Jakob, Jakob, Jakob
Jakob. Jakob Nielsen.

This book review has the distinction of being the first php Web page on meryl.net. If you want to learn more about the people behind it, check out their Backup Brain.

Wow… I really won something! A few weeks ago, I started receiving a fun newsletter called Who Knew? from Nerdy Books that covers tips and tricks using everyday software such as MS Word, MS Excel, Operating Systems, and more. They have a great contest in each issue where you have to figure out how to accomplish the task in the fewest number of steps. Somehow, I pulled it off and was the winner of the September 27 challenge.

Webreference Newsletter – 404

Webreference Thursday newsletter covers 404. Gosh, I’ve been meaning to create a personalized 404 page, but shame on me — I haven’t gotten to that yet. Well, does learning CSS and PHP make up for it? Anyway, back to four-oh-four. I explained in a previous iBizBasic why it is called 404 and not “error page” or “666″ (sometimes we feel it’s more of a 666 than a 404!). The article covers 404 error handlers and options for implementation. I like the 404 page the authors, students at Michigan State University, created for the college. They take you through the steps of creating a 404 error handler using Apache and IIS. I learned how to do it in Apache when I took a Web server class and it was actually fun.