Comcast has been recently been bragging in their advertising that they have “doubled” the speed of Comcast Hi-speed Internet service. Of course, what they have really done is increased the speed your modem is allowed to work at. Since all cable users on a local trunk share a connection, cable modems have “governors” in them to make sure no one takes too big a slice of the bandwidth pie.
I don’t know if the recent increase indicates that they’ve improved their equipment, that they overestimated the load such speeds would put on their pipe, or if they just aren’t selling enough broadband, but I do know I like it. I just finished downloading all 169 Megs of OpenOffice 1.0.3 for Mac OS X (w/X11) in 7:47. Average speed was around 370K per second. Faster than a greased weasel.
Having been a week since my last blog entry, I thought I’d allay any fears (hopes?) of my demise. Not quite dead, just far too busy. I’ll try to do better next week.
Serendipity check: While thinking of a title for this post (you’ve probably noticed that I fancy myself clever in that department), I considered the old Mark Twain saw “Rumours of my death have been greatly exagerated”. I rejected it for two reasons. First, it’s overused. Second, it seems like I looked up the text for that once before, and it’s not exactly what everyone thinks. Instead I thought of the above quote from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. While Googling to check the exact wording, I stumbled across the (self-proclaimed) world’s most accurate script, a scene-by-scene script of the movie. Much of the dialog is linked to soundbites of the actual dialog. How cool is that? (The quote itself is from scene 15)
The only downside is that all of the dialog is in Real Audio format. Guess it’s time to go download that spyware free Real Audio distro from the BBC.
Things have been quiet here for several days, because my time has been tight. I’ve had alot going on offline; online I’ve been working on a website design concept. Having a good photograph at my disposal, I decided to go for Eric Meyer’s complexspiral effect.
If you are using Internet Explorer, don’t bother clicking that link until you’ve downloaded a real browser (like, say, Firefox). Because IE doesn’t correctly support CSS1 (specifically, background-attachment:fixed), this fantastic effect doesn’t work. Unfortunately, the site I’m doing this design for needs to work with IE. Somehow, I had forgotten that IE doesn’t support this effect, and so I’ve spent around 6 hours over the last couple of days putting together a layout based on this effect.
Back to the drawing board.
My birthday present from my wife arrived today (it was backordered)… an Orion Skyquest XT10 Dobsonian Telescope. This is a 10″ Newtonian Reflector (primary optical element is a parabolic mirror) mounted on a Dobsonian-style alt-azimuth mounting.
I’ve been an astronomy buff ever since I was a kid. We used to take family vacations to an island off the coast of Maine, where my father grew up. The view of the night sky on a clear summer’s night was breathtaking. Far from the light polution of the cities and suburbia, the sky was awash with stars. On some nights the Milky Way was so bright that it could be mistaken for a cloud at first. Ever one to need to master my environment through knowledge, I bought books on astronomy and began to learn my way around the night sky.
Last summer, we had a real family vacation… my parents, my brother and his fiance, and my family all rented a house on the island for a couple of weeks. As always, the wonderfully clear night sky rekindled my interest in astronomy. In addition to picking up a couple of new books, I picked up a magazine, and learned about the upcoming (at the time) Mars’ opposition in August, which would be the closest Mars and Earth had been to each other in around 30,000 years. After we returned from vacation, I continued to spend time outsite at night, albeit with alot of light polution. I continued to improve my knowledge of the constellations, and tracked Mars’ progress as it grew in brightness each night. Adding to my interest was my son, who at 8 years old is intensely curious and loves to learn about the planets and stars. Teaching him is as much fun as learning myself.
Since that time, my interest has continued. Over the past few months, first Saturn, then Venus, and now Jupiter have come onto the nightly scene along with Mars, which is still visible although much fainter than it was last August. Through it all I’ve lamented my lack of telescope. I have a smaller telescope my parents gave me years ago, but the eyepieces are lost. Every time I considered buying new eyepieces, I ended up contemplating a larger scope instead. It’s finally here, and it’s even bigger than I expected. Of course, tonight was cloudy, but not a total wash. The clouds were mostly high, thin cirrus clouds, so some celestial citizens were visible, if a bit hazy. I got a nice view of Jupiter, including four of the moons, and some visibility of the darker cloud bands. I spent alot of time tryng to see Saturn (I still need to better align my finder scope in daylight). When I finally found it, I giggled like a madman. When I increased the magnification a bit (100x), I was stunned. Incredible. I called everyone outside.
My first supplemental purchase will be a Barlow lens, a device that increases the magnification of any eyepiece. While magnification is not the most important feature of a scope (light gathering power is), for planetary viewing, higher magnifications are very useful. After seeing Jupiter’s clouds and Saturn’s rings at 100x, I’m reallying looking forward to a closer look. Common Barlow options include 2x, 2.5x, and 3x; any of these will make a nice improvement to my views of the planets.
Eventually, I’d like to start a second blog dedicated to astronomy. I’ve tinkered with it a bit locally on my Powerbook, and I have some ideas for how I’d like to set it up. However, I have a couple of projects I need to deal with first. For now, I have a lot of sky to explore.
One of the taglines currently being used by the Mozilla Firefox project is “Web Browsing Redefined.” Today I stumbled onto a Firefox extension which redefines CSS development. Editcss allows you to edit the CSS for a web page in real time, and see the results rendered in real time. It’s a simple concept, but an absolutely amazing experience to use it for the first time. I can’t wait until my next redesign or side project to really put this thing through its paces.
The editing pane shows up in the sidebar, the same place the history window appears. This turns out to be a good orientation, since most CSS files are long lists of short rules. The extension combines mulitple CSS files in the order they are processed, commenting each section with its origin (embedded, link, include). After editing is complete, you can save the final CSS to a file.
I’m no longer powerless; my new powerbrick for my Powerbook arrived today. Six more days of warranty support. And no, I didn’t buy Apple Care.
I’m a little behind on my reading and blogging; but I’ll try to get caught up over the next few days. Nice to be back on my Powerbook.
The latest release (0.8) of Mozilla Firebird is now available, but it isn’t Mozilla Firebird. The browser has be (re-) re-named Mozilla Firefox. This change comes hot on the heels of the last renaming, from Phoenix to Firebird, and leaves the associated mail client project, Thunderbird, without a good reason for being named for a cheap brand of wine.
The name change (redux) is not without reason, as explained briefly by the Firefox Brand name FAQ and at more length by Mozilla Firebirdfox lead engineer Ben Goodger. The short version: the first renaming was due to trademark issues around the name Phoenix; the second renaming was due to a name collision with another open source project that may not have been a trademark issue. I won’t go into an IP rant, others do a better job. I will say that while this was probably the right thing to do, and the time it took was unavoidable (read Ben’s account above), its unfortunate that all of the name recognition already built by Firebird has to be tossed.
Along with the new release comes a new focus on marketing, beginning with a Button Campain. Snide remarks about how well web-word-of-mouth worked for Howard Dean aside, I think it’s a good idea to get a unified branding effort out in front of the public. I am a little perturbed about this text from the bottom of the buttons page:
Mozilla Firefox™ and the Firefox logo are trademarks of The Mozilla Foundation. The Firefox logo is not licensed under MPL and may not be used without the prior consent of The Mozilla Foundation.
Does this mean I cannot create my own badge, or modify existing badges? I might consider using the little one, but the colors do not fit my layout (I use white text on a gray background). It looks like I don’t have the right to make a new button, only to use those provided. Update - see end of post
Lastly, if you look over the provided buttons, you’ll see a confusion of message: there are three different taglines/slogans. These are:
- The browser, reloaded
- Web browsing, redefined
- Take back the web
I think the project should select one and can the others. The last thing this project needs is another identity crisis. It’s time to send a single, unified message.
Update: Ben was kind enough to leave a comment. He said that the marketing message is still being refined, which is great. Even better, he provided clarification on the use of Firefox iconography. In a nutshell, the logo can only be used in conjunction with the official Mozilla.org project (as opposed to 3rd party custom builds, etc.) This means that I can create a variation of a Firefox button, as long as it is used to reference the Mozilla Firefox project. When you put it that way, it makes plenty of sense. I’ll try to get a color-adapted version up on the site tonight or tommorow.
Today is my 32nd birthday. My buddy Sean got me a dual G5 Powermac… sort of.
It started yesterday, at the office. I had been waiting for a time-sensitive email on my personal account, so I had my Powerbook on. When the email arrived, I began sending a reply. The “reserve power” warning came on; ten minutes of power left. I kept typing. Suddenly realizing I had only 4 minutes left, I grabbed my copmuter bag and pulled out my power supply. Plugged it into the wall, stuck it in the Powerbook, and nothing happened.
Three minutes. Look at all the apps that are open… never get everything closed down in time. Why didn’t the light come on? Trying to bend reality to my will by ignoring it, I unplugged the cord from the Powerbook and plugged it back in. Nothing. Two minutes. Grasping the cord near the powerbook, I lifted the brick to see if the AC cord was plugged in snuggly. My foot was on the AC chord, however, and I ended up yanking the brick to a halt in midair, like a child on the playground with a friend grabbing each arm, tugging in opposite directions. Then the green light went on. And then off.
One minute. I jiggled the cord a little, brick still suspended in the air, and the light came on green. After a moment, it turned yellow… the battery was now charging. Slowly, gingerly, I lowered the brick to the floor. Power continued to flow. Immediate danger passed, big problem remaining.
This happened late in the day; when I packed up to go home, the PB was not fully charged. Later last night, I took it out and sat on the couch and read some email, caught up on some blogs. Eventually, the partial charge ran down, and it was time to plug in again. I grabbed the cord, earlier problems forgotten until I plugged it in, and nothing happened. Remembering the prior fix, I gave the cord a jiggle. On-off. Jiggle, shake. On-Off-on. Lower slowly. Off. Sharp wrist snap, On. Lower slowly. Still on. Resume computing irritated.
Of course, by morning I’d forgotten all this (where is my head, anyway?). I tossed the PB and cord in the bag and headed to work. I was again expecting an important email, and pulled out the PB around lunch time to check for it. It rolled in a little later, along with another email telling me something I ordered had shipped. Ooooh…. Fedex Tracking Numbers! I left the Powerbook on the desk the rest of the afternoon, occaisionally waking it to check my tracking numbers (obsessive? compulsive? don’t be silly) and my email. I never did bother to plug it in. Still had a little charge left when I headed home.
At home on the couch, eating dinner and surfing, I decided to run OS X Software update. As the update was winding up, I was running out of juice. Dinner finished, I decided to put the Powerbook in the office and let it charge for a while. Of course, when I plugged it in, no juice. I tried the jiggle trick, and the light flashed on and off a couple of times, and then nothing. I’ve fooled with it three or four times for 10 minutes a pop, and I can’t get it to charge. It’s powered off, but only 10 minutes of juice remain.
The good news is, my 1yr warranty is good for another week or two. The bad news is, I sure don’t want to wait for Apple to ship me a new cord… it this point I’ll be powerless all weekend. The closest place I know of to get a replacement is Compusa, which I’m boycotting for eternity. The next closest place is the Apple store, over an hour away; and I have about 0 chance of getting there this weekend with my parent coming to town for a visit.
So, for now, I’m unable to check email (I’ll be alot more desparate before I use webmail), I’m falling behind (further) on my blogs, and I probably won’t be posting much.
Welcome once again to “This is Your Link!” And now, here’s your host, Art Linkblogger!
- Chessops is an excellent way to study chess openings.