The 9th Circuit actually gets it right this time, with an extension of libel protection to online self-publishers, like moi, and those who participate in online discussion lists.
The site will be going down for a bit this evening as we move the server. Should be back up some time after dinner time, CST.
UPDATE, 7:30 PM CST: And we’re back…
Thanks for the quick move, Jim. This was just a physical move for the current server, as prep for our move to a new box in the near future.
Marc Marshall brings up the excellent point that Microsoft has come full circle with regard to Internet Explorer. His is the last post in Macintouch’s Browser Future report for today:
The bottom line in this situation is this: For the past several years, Microsoft gave away a free browser to kill the competition, and succeeded. Now, they have stopped development of their standalone product, and are giving people exactly three choices to get their “standard” product: 1) Buy Windows. 2) Use MSN for Internet access. 3) Pay them $10/month or $80 per year. No free options, no free upgrades.
The price is higher than Opera or Omni’s paid competition, and you don’t have a free option, and you have an ongoing fee. In fact, if MS starts charging annual licensing for Windows, there will be no lifetime-licence-purchasable version of IE. This sounds like exactly the sort of consumer hostile situation that monopolies create, and governments are supposed to protect us from.
Now that they’ve pretty much saturated the market, Microsoft has been scrambling on how to consistently generate revenue. They have long discussed subscription software licensing, and this situation with IE appears to be the first shot across the bow. Unfortunately, I do not forsee the mass sheep of Windows and IE/Mac users torpedoing the Microsoft Bismarck any time soon.
Ok, not really, but it’s really ticking me off. Why is it that my site validates as XHTML 1.0 Trans, validates as CSS2, looks perfectly fine in Safari, Camino, even IE5/Mac, yet looks like complete dung in IE6? I know, I know, IE6 doesn’t fully support the CSS2 spec, yet, so I’m sure that’s playing a huge role. I suppose I could drop it to CSS1, but I’d rather be posting than fiddling with making the site look exactly the same in Microsloth’s stupid Windows browser.
In Microsucks’ defense, there are some font issues with the site in Firebird, but at least pages scroll properly in that browser. I haven’t tried Opera for Windows yet.
Speaking of the dress-code-aware genius that is Dan Benjamin (is that enough, Dan?), he offers up some delectable food for thought on the discontinuation of standalone IE development for the Mac. I say standalone, because it seems that IE will continue on in MSN for Mac OS X.
Zeldman sums it all up rather well.
From here, as it has for several weeks now, it looks like a period of technological stasis and dormancy yawns ahead. Undoubtedly the less popular browsers will continue to improve. They may even gain in market share. But few of us will be able to take advantage of their sophisticated standards support if most of the market continues to use an unchanged year 2000 browser.
But enough, and enough, and enough. We are glad of the latest versions of Opera, Mozilla, Konqueror, Safari, and Omniweb. But on this grey and rainy day, this news of a kind of death brings no warmth. To Tantek and Jimmy and their colleagues on the IE/Mac team: for what you achieved on behalf of web standards and usability, much respect.
When it arrived, IE5/Mac was the standard for web browsers. It shamed Netscape. Complacency and stagnant development, however, have left it behind technologically. Zeldman mentions reasons people switched from IE to Camino or Safari; I switched for all the reasons he discusses, including that it’s one less Microsoft application on my system. There are choices people, and they’re better than the “standard.”
If you’ve ever been interested in how your email gets from your computer to someone else’s, or how your browser knows how to load up a web site, you need to read Dan Benjamin’s excellent DNS primer at MacDevCenter. It’s geared toward Mac OS X users, but anyone can learn the basics of DNS, IP addresses, routing, and all that other techie stuff that makes the Internet work, boiled down in to simply terms by Mr. Benjamin (of Hivelogic/Hiveware fame).
Oh, and hire this dress-code-aware guy, if you have the need. Too much talent to not be getting paid well by someone, somewhere.
As I mentioned previously, I’ve been working on a site redesign. I decided today to take it live. (You can ignore the links in the archived post; they’re flip-flopped now.)
The entire site does not, at this time, reflect what you see here on the main page. I had planned to wait until it did to switch over, but at this rate, if I continued to wait, it would be a long one. So here it is, hope you like. If you hate it and just have to see the site the way it was (and updated just like the main page), click on the Retrolook tab above and enjoy.
Not that those of you who stop by regularly really care; I know you’re reading with NetNewsWire anyway. :)
Business Week Online has a good article on the growing pervasiveness of weblogs, and what they mean to mass media and consumers. I like Nick Denton’s term of “open-source media.”
DNS address, that is. In preparation for the move to our “new” server, we’re changing out our DNS name servers some time late this afternoon/evening/weekend. So if you can’t get to the site later tonight or over the weekend, it’s just because the DNS is repopulating, and that kind of takes a while.
Is there anyone that Microsoft doesn’t see as a competitor?
“We do view Google more and more as a competitor. We believe that we can provide consumers with a better product and a better user experience. That’s something that we’re actively looking at doing,” said Bob Visse, director of marketing for Microsoft’s MSN Internet services division.
What’s wrong with the Google user experience? I think it’s great. I love the simple, minimalist interface on the main page. If you need more advanced features, they’re a click away. If I want a bloated, crufty, way-too-much-happening-at-once search engine, I know where to go already, thank you very much. But I’m sure Microsoft is doing some sort of “innovating” in the search engine sector.
I am working on a redesign of the site’s layout and navigation, a preview of which can be found here. That page also automatically updates, just as the main page does, so if you already prefer the new look, you can temporarily bookmark the new-look page. Comments and criticisms are welcome, especially from those of you whom I did not previously email on the subject.
There are now some screenshots of the TypePad interface up at the main site, including the photo albums feature. Having just recently moved over some of my own photos, this is interesting. I may hold off on any more conversion/moving until after TypePad pricing is announced and/or it goes live.
IE/Win doesn’t fully support the PNG graphics format, and Zeldman points to an online petition that is now just shy of 7,000 signatures. (Yours truly is #6977.) Every modern web browser with the exception of IE/Win has full PNG support built in, including beta browsers Safari and Camino. Please sign the petition and let’s hope Microsoft will listen; they’ve only been promising this since IE 4.
So I had put off two minor projects for the site for a while: a colophon, and moving all my photos from my .Mac account over to this domain. As of now, those two projects have been finished. More photos will be forthcoming, as I will likely move the photo albums from my old domain over to this one, so that everything is in one place. Permanent links to both are in the new Navigate sub-menu to the right. Enjoy!
Brent links to a novel proof-of-concept usage of his flagship application, showing how versatile NetNewsWire can be.
At the same time I decided to upgrade my MovableType engine to 2.63, I donated some funds to Ben and Mena. By doing so, I received a couple of keys to plug in, so when I post something new, the site would show up in the MovableType site’s “Recently Updated” section.
I began receiving an odd error message when saving posts, after I had done all of this. I reinstalled the upgrade package. Then I removed the recent-update key; problem solved. I tried the 2d recent-update key; problem returns. I take out the 2d key; problem solved. So now I know, and I’ve let the Trotts know, so we’ll see what happens.
UPDATE, 5/19: Turns our your doofus host doesn’t have a certain Perl module installed. Obviously, I thought some time back, why would I ever use that? Thanks, Ben!
Ben and Mena’s latest venture sounds intriguing, especially if the basic service is something that runs only $7 a month. I’d be interested in something more advanced, as I like putting up photo albums, which is an advanced feature/option. No firm pricing information just yet, and no other details, like how much space you get, how many email addys, etc.
Ben Hammersly got a sneak peek:
The features are remarkable: there is a very powerful, but extremely simple, template builder. Users can redesign their weblogs and create fully compliant XHTML pages, with out knowing what that last phrase means. There is a built-in photo album, built-in server stats, so you can see who is coming to visit you and from where, built-in blogrolling (listing the sites you like to read), and built-in listing for your music, books and friends, producing a complete friend-of-a-friend file for every user.
Final judgment pending until full details are disclosed, but it sounds promising.
I don’t know what it is, but sometimes I get this minimalist bug. So yesterday I decided to kill the parchment background (thanks again, Lee!) and just go with white. Helps save on the bandwidth for dial-up users as well.
Also, I added in a dotted separation line for the banner title and description at the top. I really like the way the site looks in IE 5/Mac. I just wish it looked as good in Camino and Safari. I’m soliciting feedback on this new addition, so leave a comment!
If I wasn’t so happy with Movable Type, I would definitely be looking at Hiveware’s Soapbox. You can learn more here.
So this morning I took care of two minor items I’d been meaning to get to.
First, I used Hiveware’s awesome Enkoder to encode my email address (bottom of right-hand column on main page). Last month, I began receiving my first spam to this address, after having this site on line since October. While I will remain on some spam lists for the forseeable future, let’s see the gutless scum try and spider me now! (Enkoder is also available as a standalone OS X application.)
Second, I removed the Lucida Grande font from the stylesheet. Yes, it was a nod to OS X users, but Verdana is much more readable, and thus remains the primary font called.
I know I’m half a month late in noting this, but Gruber confesses to why such a quick update to the 1.2.1 release of SmartyPants was necessary:
See, back in 1998 I became the owner of a South American woolly monkey, whom I named Paco, with the intention of training him to assist in my freelance graphic design work. Everyone told me this was a terrible idea, that it would not work, that at the very least I would need a chimpanzee or orangutan, that a mere monkey would never be able to do graphic design.I was unswayed. Do you know how much food chimpanzees and orangutans eat? And for chrissakes, an orangutan can beat you up — I’ve seen those Clint Eastwood movies, those [BLEEP]ers can pack a punch. I do not need to be coldcocked by my lower-primate assistant. What I wanted was a monkey, a loyal friend who, when otherwise unoccupied, could sit on my shoulder and pick crumbs out of my hair.
Gibson ruminates on how everyone now can have their own mediated persona, thanks to the meme of the weblog.
Thanks to Mark Newhouse’s article on Unix fonts, I was inspired to revisit the fonts called for in the site’s CSS style sheet. Now, OS X users should be greeted by Lucida Grande at 11 px for for the main text font. All others will see Verdana, Geneva, Lucida, Helvetica, or Arial, in that order. Lucida is really there for any Unix readers that may happen by (say hello in the comments!). If you’re a Windoze user, and all you’re getting is Arial, then reinstall IE to see about getting Verdana loaded; it’s a much, much, much better screen font than Arial, and I’m not just saying that because my site looks better in it. Others will as well.
Fellow ATPM staffer Eric Blair is blogging at raoli.com. The jury is still out on what “raoli” means. :)
Thanks to the nagging hints of some people, I have modified the RSS doc to show the full text of each post, rather than just a line or two. Props to Lee for the quick and easy tag fix.
Raena and I don’t see eye-to-eye on a lot of stuff, but she’s a fellow Mac-head and ATPM staffer, so she can’t be all bad, can she? ;)
Anyway, she’s been blogging a while…
So I think enough changes have been made to the site within the past few weeks to warrant a full version upgrade. :)
Inspired by re-reading Robin Williams’ The Mac Is Not A Typewriter, I chose a monospaced typewriter font and created a new banner logo, as well as a new tagline graphic. Thanks to Michael for assistance in finding the font. The new retrophisch logo next to the name banner has been ready for a while, and my heartfelt thanks to my friend Francisco for producing what I could only envision in bad sketches. The aforementioned Macintosh book classic also inspired me to move to smart punctuation, and was reinforced by Lee’s doing so on his own site. As previously mentioned, John Gruber’s SmartyPants provides this.
Lee created the parchment-ish background picture for me, and I am grateful. Michael and Lee both provided assistance with behind-the-scenes MT, HTML, RSS, and CSS stuff, and they have my thanks. Brian has inspired me to add a bulletin board to the site; I envision having respective private boards for my family and my fellow ATPM staffers. I hope to have those up in the very near future.
When you’re a type nerd like me (never would guess that from the monospaced logo for the site, would you?), things like smart punctuation matter. Things like having curly quotes, full em dashes instead of two short dashes, and nice ellipses. You know…ellipses. So thanks to John Gruber’s SmartyPants plugin for MovableType, you should now see pretty “quotes,” full — I said full — em dashes, and proper ellipses…
Thanks to Lee for the setup assist.
Well, Gruber has released SmartyPants 1.1, and Lee’s using it. I suppose I’ve been mulling over its use long enough. Buckle up, smart punctuation is coming to a retrophisch.com near you.
Anu of the A.W.A.D. list is now gleaning example text from books found at Questia, an online library. It is a subscription-based service, though you can search for free. It appears, from the comments, at least, to be a real boon to researchers of all levels.
Michael notes that Salon has adopted a new pay-or-click-through-multiple-ads model. Might be worth it for some, but I never thought Salon was worth much when it was free.
Ok, so now I’m worried.
A few weeks back, I noticed that Gunnery.Net had dropped off the ‘net. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, as I figured Marv might have been moving hosts, having domain issues, etc.
Last week I started digging around; I noticed all of Marv’s domains (at least the 4 others I knew about) were off-line as well. All email to any address I ever had for him come back as undeliverable.
Now I haven’t spoken to Marv over the phone since before I stopped helping edit Gunnery.Net, but I decided to give him a ring. Disconnected 866 number. Disconnected long-distance business number. Hmmmm. Ok, I can understand killing the 866 number, those things cost major dough. I can even understand killing the biz number if he wasn’t using it any more.
Then today, disconnected unlisted home number (what can I say, he trusted me). Like I said, now I’m worried. Marvin Stenhammar was in the U.S. Special Forces in the 1980s; he was forced to retire due to a severe injury and a degenerative bone disease. Lucky for Marv, he married a Norse goddess of a doctor, who looked after him when she wasn’t at the hospital. Did they move? Or something worse?
I can’t head over to the SIG-L email list and poke around; the email list about SIG firearms Marv and I met on no longer exists. Or if it does, it’s on a different email server that I have been unable to google. I’ve googled Marv’s name and domains and have come up with squat, at least as far anything recent is concerned.
If you know of whom I speak, and you have information, please drop me a line at: retrophisch at retrophisch.com (sorry, anti-spam measure). I’d just like to know, you know?
Michael links to this article on MSNBC about Google, its pervasive nature, popularity, and a little history. And since MSNBC’s articles tend to disappear after a while, here’s an alternative link.
Thanks to code deciphering from Michael, you can now see the categories I use for my posts at the bottom of each post. If you click on the category link, you’ll get a page that displays all previous posts in that category. MT rules.
Speaking of ATPM publisher, and pal, Michael Tsai, Michael started his own weblog back in September and failed to mention this to anyone on the ATPM staff. :)
Like myself, Michael (never Mike, always Michael) is using Movable Type to drive his blog, though he’s doing a much better job in getting the HTML that MT produces to validate. Now if I could just fix my MT templates to look as good in Chimera Camino/Mozilla as they do in IE.
For crying out loud, now I have to worry about spam links showing up in my blog. Spammers are now stuffing blogs’ referral logs — a list that automatically updates links to sites that have linked to them — with links to sales pitches and porn sites. Yet more proof why spammers and the marketing companies that support them are the scum of the ‘net. (Thanks, Lee!)
I remarked to my buddy Brian that “retrophisch” sounded like something out of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, since it reminds me of “babelfish” from that series. Brian responded with a definition, based upon the one for the babelfish:
retrophisch: n. Living organism which is placed in the auditory canal of intelligent life forms. Used as a universal translator. Disadvantage: Translates to pure Anglo-Saxon English, hence the prefix “retro.”
Jim McKenna and John Lieberman have begun a campaign to send back 1 million CDs to snail mail spammer AOL. Just send Jim and John any AOL CDs you have received (yes, at your own expense), and when they collect 1 million of them, they plan to drive to AOL headquarters and dump the load at the front door.
AOL is not the only ISP that engages in this practice — AT&T and Earthlink are guilty, as well as others — but AOL is by far the worst abuser. Most people who receive the AOL CDs in the mail, or in a magazine, just toss them. The campaign is to simply ask AOL to stop sending out unsolicited CDs and contributing to more waste in landfills. Address info is at the aforementioned site.
One door closes, another opens. Welcome to my weblog, or blog, retrophisch!
Further blogging at digitalpembroke.com is now suspended. That site will be undergoing extensive redesign and reorganization, and will essentially be used for non-blogging purposes. So from now on, stop by retrophisch.com for the blogging goodness you’ve come to know and love!