11:56 AM CST     0 comments

Endless Stair

You are at the bottom of a seemingly endless stair, winding its way upward beyond your vision. An eerie light, coming from all around you, casts strange shadows on the walls. To the south is a dark and winding trail.
Your old friend, the brass lantern, is at your feet.

[grayscape 2000-2001 R.I.P.]

2:01 PM CST     0 comments

Mozilla Update

The back button problem only occurs if you hit back before the page is done loading. The arrow-key focus issue only happens after you restore a minimized browser window. Both situations are annoying, but not unworkable. My main problem at the moment revolves around editing text in a small windowed form. Things can get screwy in a hurry.

I remain committed to using Mozilla as my primary browser until I hit a problem which renders it completely unusable. It doesn't look like that's going to happen any time soon.

8:57 AM CST     0 comments

Better: Mozilla plans to keep her on as its chief

Well, at least Mozilla has their head on straight even if AOL couldn't give a rat's ass.

8:53 AM CST     0 comments

Hmm: TiVo, Bound to be bundled?

This is exactly the reason I haven't bought a TiVo yet. Who's to say that your $249 "lifetime" membership will be honored if Sony or AOL end up absorbing TiVo? Regardless of how revolutionary it is, I simply can't justify paying $10 a month forever.

If Sony, AOL, et al want me to pay monthly then everything else should be free. Free hardware, free updates, and toll-free numbers for program guide downloads. An annual hardware refresh wouldn't be a bad idea either.

8:43 AM CST     0 comments

Ballsy: Blueyonder suspends Code Red infected users

This seems like a pretty good idea to me. The main problem I see with it is that Blueyonder most likely lacks a large enough tech support department to adequately manage the huge number of customers who will need assistance to remove the worm from their machines. It will be particularly difficult since, oops, they won't have net access to get patches.

8:39 AM CST     0 comments

Of course: Mozilla chief missing, presumed pink-slipped

They finally start to make measurable progress and they can their chief. Real smart. It's times like this that I wonder how AOL ended up being the largest ISP in the world.

I wish AOL could see Mozilla as something more than an oft spun, but seldom swung billy-club with which to threaten Microsoft. I fear, however, that it isn't meant to be.

4:43 PM CST     0 comments

Heh: Kevin Smith and His Magic Feather

Funny stuff.

[thanks to Kim for the link]

2:23 PM CST     0 comments

More Mozilla News

I figured out how to set a san-serif font as the default. I'm not sure how I missed it the first time around. There are still a few quirky things though.

The one that bites me most often is that sometimes if something else has the focus, the arrow keys don't scroll the browser window. You have to click inside the browser window (giving it the focus) and then the arrow keys work. I understand why this happens from a programming stand-point, but it still bugs me as a user.

Another issue is that sometimes, but not always, when you use the Back button you return at the top of the page instead of where the original link was. For example, let's say I open cNet and scroll down to the bottom of the page. I click a link, read the article, and then press Back. Sometimes the browser will return to the bottom of the cNet site, other times it jumps back to the top of the page. It's not really that annoying on standard pages, but I use a local .html file for my start page. Every time it jumps back to the top I get briefly disoriented.

Almost every problem left in the stand-alone browser is a little piddly issue. I haven't had a single crash yet (knock on wood). The only thing I haven't tried is a SSL connection. I'm not sure I want to trust it will purchases yet.

11:37 AM CST     0 comments

Yep: Earthlink, do you read me?

This would be funny if it weren't so true. There is a $1500 charge on my previous emplyer's Earthlink account which has been floating from month to month for over three years. Every month they call and are assured that the charge will be dropped, but it never is.

The only reason I know the charge is still there is that I am listed as the e-mail contact for the account, even though I left the company over three years ago. Earthlink just can't seem to find a way to change the contact address for the account. They have tried six times so far.

Generation D? More like Generation DUH.

11:23 AM CST     0 comments

Hmm: Kingston caps ADSL usage for new service

Though as a general rule I am against the idea of band-width caps, 700MB per day seems reasonable to me. If you are downloading more than 21GB per month, you may want to take a hard look at curtailing your internet usage. I'm just saying...

11:16 AM CST     0 comments

Whoa: HP to buy Compaq for Battle of the Bulge

This worries me a little. I've always been a staunch supporter of Compaq servers. In fact, up until now I wouldn't even consider any other server manufacturer. HP, on the other hand, has been losing my loyalty step by step for the past two or three years.

I suppose I'll just have to wait and see whether the good parts of Compaq get killed by the bad parts of HP.