When Web Rookies Attack

I'm working my way through the Windows 2000 Server Administrator's Companion. It's 1520 pages long. At this rate, I should be done in time for Windows 2005. There's both something good and bad to be said for the proliferation of WYSIWYG HTML Editors. It lets lazy people like me make good looking pages quickly, but at the same time, anyone who can use a word processor figures they can make a great web page without researching or understanding any of the underlying technology.

I'm trying to get some staff people to correct their new web page, where I noticed none of the images were working when I loaded it in Internet Explorer. Delving into the code, I found out why:

img src="staff/John%20Smith"

I stripped out the <>, but, if you don't put an extension on your image files, you're going to confuse the heck out of browsers. Darned Mac users. :)

When I contacted them about it, they said "Oh, we just looked at it in Netscape, never Internet Explorer."

While you can find a lot of tips over at http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/ here are my personal pet peeves:

Not testing web pages with more than one browser

Not testing how web pages look for people running at 640x480 or 1280x1024

Using tiny images of something that needs to be shown in more detail, make them thumbnails that link to a bigger image!

Multicolored backgrounds that look bad no matter what color text is layered over them

I'm SOOOO thankful that Mac OS X is going to finally bring three letter file extensions to the Mac, I'm tired of getting disks full of files that people want to use on the PC, with no extensions to guide me in converting them. A typical example:

Student: I need to open these files on a PC, and I made them on my boyfriend's Mac.
Me: Okay, what kind of files are they?
Student: Ummm...typing files?
Me: Typing? You mean Word Processing?
Student: Yeah.
Me: Okay, what word processor did you use to make them?
Student: Umm...I don't know, whatever he has on his Mac.
Me: Was it Microsoft Word? WordPerfect? ClarisWorks? AppleWorks?
Student: Umm, I don't know, could you just try them all?
Me (after 15 minutes of trying every file converter I can find): I can't get it to open, you're gonna have to find out what program you used at least, and knowing what version it was would be helpful too.
Student: Well, I'll just go print it on his computer...

So why couldn't I convert it? It was an Adobe Pagemaker file.

Who's afraid of Win2K?

We're looking at tape backup drives. I think Sony made a mistake on this page. Wow, using 8 DDS-3 tapes, I can store a whopping 192 Megabytes! Hmm...at that rate, I'd need 40 tapes just to store my MP3's! Yesterday, I mentioned the article I'd read about Win2K being the real deal. The author had stated that he didn't like the server product, after being unable to locate any of his stories about it, I e-mailed him asking why. He responded thusly:

As it happens, I go into all the details in my next technical lead. That should be up later this week on the Sm@rt Partner page (http://www.smartpartnermag.com). The Readers-Digest Version is: no enterprise tools, Active Directory has major holes in it, and the real killer, there are now seven, count'em seven, W2K certified apps, and none of them are commonly used back office programs. Unlike Workstation, where most programs tend to work, Server can have real fits with many standard back office software packages. I found that Exchange and Lotus Domino (_after_ the fixes!) simply couldn't run reliabilly. Even if you could, when you're talking back office, most big companies demand that their programs be OS certified. With W2K Server today you simply can't do it.

Steven

Most of his gripes shouldn't affect our implementation here. We're going to use it mostly for authentication and file serving. At this time, I don't even have any apps planned to run on the servers yet. My Windows 2000 Server CD came today, but the licenses didn't, though they were on the same order. Weird. You've gotta love Academic Pricing, it cost us $108 per server license for Win2K Server.

Fast enough for ya?

Windows 2000 is the real deal. At least that's what this article over at ZDNet states. The author praises Windows 2000 on the desktop, saying it's definitely the best Microsoft Operating System available in that role. For some reason (I haven't read his previous articles) he dislikes it as a server OS. I've got limited experience with both NT 4.0 and 2000 Servers, and while 2000 is certainly more complicated than NT 4.0, it's much more powerful as well. The ActiveDirectory stands to create an entirely new method of locating and managing resources within an organization. That debate aside, I've got to agree with him, you may have to buy some new hardware for Windows 2000, but after using it for two weeks, you'll never want to go back to an earlier version. Slashdot linked to a great article by Lawrence Lessig today. It talks about copyrights, and how copyright law has gone too far, it's very interesting reading. While reading the commentary from the Slashdot crowd, I came across a chilling statement

No copyright has expired in this country since the end of World War 2.

Just think about that for a bit, then read this page for an break-down of when copyrights expire. As Lessig mentioned, the copryights on Irving Berlin's works will have been in place for 144 years before they expire. As Lessig points out, I don't think this is what the framers of the Constitution intended.

To me, this represents the incredible influence that Big Business has in our legislative process. Check the Constitution folks, there's nothing in there that guarantees someone the right to make money in the future, because they've made money in that manner in the past. I just wish our governing body would start repeating that mantra...

I just used my first 800mhz PC, a Dell Optiplex GX110. Wow it was fast, I can't wait for our 850's to get here! It was the first machine I've loaded Photoshop on, and thought "Wow, that was quick". Of course, Adobe will come out with 6.0 in a couple months, which I'm sure will be slower.

From the newest issue of This Is True: Jason Pitt and Bill Wood of Walsall, England, wanted to hire some new staff for their business. They called the local government-run jobs center to place an ad, but the center wouldn't allow its wording: they wanted to advertise for "hardworking and enthusiastic" employees. "They told us 'You can't put that, it's discrimination'," Wood said. A Walsall Jobcentre manager spokesman said the ad violated the Disability and Discrimination Act. Secretary of State David Blunkett personally intervened and ordered the agency to back down. (AP) ...Now for the quiz. Which is more discriminatory? 1) Asking for a hardworking and enthusiastic employee. 2) Declaring that a disabled person can't be hardworking and enthusiastic.

I received a horseshoe in the mail today from Marlboro. I've never smoked a cigarette in my life, but a couple years ago, a friend and I filled out a form for a nifty free maglight. Apparently, Marlboro has tracked me down at my new address. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with this rusty horseshoe, or how it would induce me to smoke...

I installed Windows 2000 on the Sony VAIO that I have home for the weekend today. It's actually faster than Windows 98 was! I don't know why, but Windows 98 always took about 2 minutes to boot on this machine. Windows 2000 takes less than a minute. It took me over half an hour to get all the drivers installed though. Everything worked with the drivers on the CD, but Sony had posted updated drivers for all the components, plus Windows 2000 versions of all of their software programs for power management. The only thing that doesn't work is playing DVD's.

Today, I started the Carbohydrate Addict's Diet. To log my experiences, I also started another weblog, over at http://cad.weblogs.com/. This is designed to be a diet that you stay on for life, not something you use to drop 50 pounds, only to gain it back. I'm optimistic that this diet will probably work for me. I've never really made a formal attempt to diet before, but I can see how this plan works. The thing I like most, is that this diet allows you a "reward meal" once a day, in which you can eat whatever you like, as long as you do it in 60 minutes.

Return to Sender

I set up a new HP Laserjet 2100 printer for the Associate Dean late yesterday afternoon. This morning he called to tell me it didn't work. He was right. The paper jams every time you try to print, and one of the little rollers that guides the paper out of the printer and into the tray on top is broken. There's nothing quite as disheartening as setting up something new only to find it's broken. John asked me if he should reconsider buying this model. In all fairness to HP, I should say that it appears that this could have been caused during shipping, but it's not entirely clear. I've had good experiences with HP printers, so I'm not ready to give up on them yet.

On a credit application I filled out a week or two ago, it asked for the phone number of where I work. I put down the number here at work, so they can call to verify I'm employed here. Yesterday, the main line rang, and I answered it:

Me: CHFA Tech Services, this is Seth.

Them: Hi, this is [Bob] from [XYZ Bank], and I'm just calling to confirm that.......uh....Seth Bokelman works there, and has so for at least six months.

Me: Yup.

Them: Thank you very much, that's all I need to know.

Does this seem a little non-secure to anyone else? :)

I hope no one from hotbot.com has a reason to send me e-mail. After receiving an average of one message per day about setting up an account to accept credit cards, I've told the mail server to obliterate any mail coming to me from hotbot.com upon receipt. I think that spamming should be grounds for justifiable homicide. I decided to block the whole site, since the e-mail addresses keep changing, the latest was sdfasdfsdf@ekvsxvbcdwf.hotbot.COM. I sent the message on to SpamRecycle.com, they apparently use it to try and stop spammers.