A waste of bits and bandwidth

The guys at [tag]30Boxes[/tag] said they had an answer to [tag]Google[/tag]‘s calendar and it looks like they were right. I have to admit that I have started to use Google more lately. Mostly due to the clean interface and the link sitting there in [tag]Gmail[/tag].

However, now that 30Boxes has released [tag]Webtop[/tag], I’m back on board. Finally a really cool online desktop to go along with the calendar. “Hey Narendra, now how about some calendar view options?” That would be cool.

I finally took the plunge today and installed some alternative [tag]firmware[/tag] on my [tag]router[/tag]. [tag]Linksys[/tag] is well known for it hackability and it’s something that I’ve been meaning to get around to for a while now.

The upgrade was fairly painless, though I did find I had to close the browser after re-setting it. That key instruction was missing and I was sure I had turned my router into a brick before I figured it out.

The feature list is really cool, though all I’ve done is to boost my [tag]wireless[/tag] signal strength. So far I haven’t noticed a jump but I was kinda conservative in my setting. The firmware has a huge feature set and I’d say that I understand about 5% of it.

Of course that’s not really the point, is it?

I had my first experience with [tag]Automator[/tag] on Sunday evening. It started when MiHwa sent some pics of her trip to [tag]DeokSu palace[/tag]. This was the palace we went to last year only to find it was closed for renovations. We watched the guard changing ceremony and then hiked to [tag]Gwanghwamun Palace[/tag] all while my cold festered culminating with my ears blowing off my head on the flight to Japan. Of course you already knew that so let’s move on…

Anyway, in one of the pictures she had what I would call her serious face. I know that face as I have caused it to appear on more than one occasion. It’s bad news my friend ’cause when I see it I know I’ve dissappointed/angered her and will shortly be entering the world of hurt.

So we were chatting away and I was laughing that I needed to write a script that would display that picture at 9PM every night. Why would I need to see this picture at a set time every night? When she was here, she instigated the thou shalt not smoke after 9PM rule. I bristled at first, mostly because there was now a rule where there wasn’t one before but soon I accepted it (sort of). Now she’s 8,000 kms away and well, sometimes I ‘forget’ about the rule.

So I decided to give it a shot and see if I could pull this off. I fired up Automator and 10 minutes later, I had it working. It was so easy it’s practically stupid. MiHwa was sorta happy, though not all that impressed with the idea of me using her picture to remind myself of the rule.

At least she could concede that is was kinda cool and now, I have an automatic reminder of how I disappoint her. That’s real life tech…

Spec commercial for a ‘new’ [tag]iTalk[/tag] cell phone from [tag]Apple[/tag] by award winning filmmaker Christopher DeSantis with design by Gregory DeSantis.

I don’t think you need to be an Apple fan boy to drool over this phone. Too bad that it only exists on [tag]Google[/tag] video…

Well, thanks to Karan, all of you who are stuck in the middle ages can rest assured that the site now can be read in [tag]Internet Exploder[/tag] without selecting all the text first. The bug had actually had been bothering me but not enough to sort it out as it didn’t affect me and I have very little empathy for people who do stupid things of their own volition. *stirs the pot*

Karan, who will single-handedly defend Microsoft from all verbale attacks (which makes for fascinating dinner party conversation between us) started troubleshooting the bug this afternoon. A new Microsoft toolbar had him asking me a million questions about my [tag]CSS[/tag].

[14:40] Karan: you notice how in your style.css you have color: /*#9C9C9C;*/ #ddd;
[14:40] Karan: get rid of the commented piece
[14:40] Karan: it’s skipping that line
[14:40] mark: you think it’s viewing the commented colour?
[14:40] Karan: i think it’s just ignoring it
[14:41] Karan: in the dev toolbar it shows the body color as #000000
[14:41] Karan: if i override it to #ddd it works
[14:41] mark: hmmm….
[14:41] Karan: so i’m thinking it must not like the comment
[14:41] mark: so IE doesn’t respect comments…. *begin rant*

So, I start to investigate it a little. I hadn’t looked at it in a few weeks but I started to remember some of the things that I had done when I was doing my [tag]CSS reboot[/tag]. So, the resolution is as follows… Internet Exploder sees a comment in the CSS and… IGNORES THE WHOLE LINE rather than ignoring the comment.

Why am I not surprised? I’ll now embark on a sweep of my CSS files to remove any comments. Lord only knows what the page is going to look like when I’m done. Still, it’s good to know that the bug is resolved. Thanks for the help buddy! Now get back to work…