‘Technology’ Category

  1. A fast guy in tights programmed my web site.

    November 15, 2007 :: 1:49 pm

    Category Geek, Technology | Tags: | No Comments

  2. Microsoft Fucks It All Up

    July 8, 2007 :: 5:54 pm

    As a professional designer of web sites and e-mail communications, I think it’s very important to adhere to standards. Any designer worth her salt uses the best tools for the job and keeps up with the evolution of standards as defined by the W3C. That’s why I’ve spent years learning to write beautiful, lean, mean, efficient standards-adherent CSS and HTML.

    One of the thorns in designers’ sides is having to write “fixes” into our code to make up for Internet Explorer’s failings. With the recent release of Internet Explorer 7, a number of those failings were corrected and so we had hope that perhaps Microsoft was finally coming around and using W3C standards and stopping the crazy cycle of developing “standards” of its own, the equivalent of taking its toys from the Internet sandbox and going home.

    HOWEVER. Oh, and do I mean HOWEVER. With the recent release of the Outlook 2007 e-mail program for PCs (and by recent I mean January… yes, I am a little behind), Microsoft decided not to include the newly developed Internet Explorer 7 HTML rendering engine and instead to use the Word engine to render HTML in emails. The non-standards-compliant, circa-1997-ish Word rendering engine.

    A huge percentage of people use PCs, and a large percentage of those users use Outlook as their primary e-mail program, and that means that Microsoft has effectively taken e-mail design back a decade. How can designers NOT comply with these arbitrary rules set by the maker of the most popular email program on the planet? We have to. We are forced to play their game, and write bad code to accommodate this brand new, horribly crippled e-mail program, otherwise a majority of our users would receive e-mails that look like shit. And e-mails that look like shit make users think poorly of your brand and your company.

    What this means for me and countless other e-mail designers is that, because Outlook no longer supports a number of extremely basic HTML and CSS tags, we will now have to begin using outdated bloated code to assure that our e-mails display properly in Outlook 2007. It does not support, among other things, background images in divs and table cells, float positioning, and ALT TAGS. Yes, you read that right: it does not support alt tags. You know how when you get an email and the images don’t load, but a little bit of text displays in their place so you can tell what it’s supposed to be? That little text bitlet is an alt tag. And they’ve gone bye bye. And since background images are no longer supported, our emails will become much plainer and less attractive.

    Microsoft’s reasoning is, apparently, that since the majority of their business users use Word to create HTML emails, then Outlook needs to use the same engine to display them.

    I say, bullshit. There is NO REASON why Outlook should not make use of modern, standards compliant code rendering. If anything, they need to fucking update the craptastic Word rendering engine.

    In both my professional and freelance lives, I am now going to have to begin redesigning everything I do to accommodate Outlook 2007. It will be more work for less payoff. We designers are used to having to write CSS that will degrade gracefully in older browsers; I never thought I’d have to write code that will degrade gracefully in the newest version of the most popular email program made by the largest software company in the world.

    Way to go, Microsoft.

    Category Design, Geek, Technology | Tags: | No Comments

  3. MacSaber: Turn Your Mac Into A Jedi Weapon

    July 2, 2007 :: 10:20 am

    Now that you’ve spent entirely too much money on your fancy sudden motion sensor equipped Mac laptop, I predict you’ll soon be swinging it around like a loon.

    Introducing MacSaber. Using your Mac’s sudden motion sensor, this software turns your computer into a Jedi weapon almost worthy of taking on the real thing by making authentic lightsaber sound effects. It senses speed for the lightsaber movement sounds and acceleration for different levels of striking sounds.

    This beta is not yet compatible with the motion sensors in older Mac laptops, but I understand you can move the window around to get the idea.

    Category Apple, Movies, Sci-fi, Technology | Tags: | No Comments

  4. Misdirected answers

    May 23, 2007 :: 3:56 pm

    I just got a text message from a number I don’t recognize… three of them, actually. The first one starts out:

    Chemistry answers 1a 2c 3a 4b 5b 6c 7e 8c… 

    And goes on like that over the course of three messages, all the way up to answer #77.

    I considered texting back “Wrong number!” but that would make me a party to cheating. Looks like someone is going to fail their Chemistry final!

    Category Technology, Weird Stuff | Tags: | No Comments

  5. Wonder Bread Freemason Bus!

    April 17, 2007 :: 12:46 pm

    Weird Dream
    I dreamed last night that Doc joined a secret society, sort of like the Freemasons. They had come to our house in a huge bus shaped like a loaf of Wonder bread. He let them in and they made their pitch, and he decided to join because members got to wear neckties that had a little lever at the top that when you pressed it, made a really loud train whistle sound. He told me that he really didn’t believe what they were telling him, but he signed the papers because he wanted the train necktie. And who wouldn’t?!

    Mmmmm Chocolate
    In other news, I got accepted to be in a taste test focus group study on chocolate bars! Next week I’ll get paid $60 to spend 90 minutes eating chocolate and giving my opinion. Can’t beat that with a stick.

    Work Bites
    I spent 8.5 hours at work on Saturday, finishing up a project that was supposed to launch today. We found out yesterday that it has been delayed for another week because the client, at the very last minute, decided that she didn’t like any of the copy we’d written. Just a global “I don’t like it,” no specifics given. I wasted my entire Saturday for nothing. At least I got a free lunch (or was it really free? I did trade my weekend for it!).

    Dot-Matrix Printer Bike
    I read a few weeks ago about a guy who custom built a bicycle equipped with a laptop computer and cans of water-soluble spray chalk. It received messages that people submitted to a website and printed them out on the sidewalks as he rode down the street. I think he was arrested before he ever got to use it (something about intent to perform criminal mischief/graffiti, and how coincidental that this was during the time of the Republican National Convention in New York City). It’s genius, though.

    Category Dreams, Links, Technology, Work | Tags: | No Comments

  6. Free broadband! Don’t miss out!

    April 1, 2007 :: 9:22 pm

    Sick of paying your internet or cable company hundreds of dollars each year for broadband access? Now you don’t have to! Just sign up for Google’s new FREE broadband service, Google TISP (Toilet Internet Service Provider). Simply drop the supplied FiOS cable into your commode and flush. The rest happens automatically!

    Google TiSP (BETA) is a fully functional, end-to-end system that provides in-home wireless access by connecting your commode-based TiSP wireless router to one of thousands of TiSP Access Nodes via fiber-optic cable strung through your local municipal sewage lines.

    “I couldn’t be more excited about, and am only slightly grossed out by, this remarkable new product,” said Marissa Mayer, Google’s Vice President of Search Products and User Experience.

    Try it now!

    Category Links, Technology | Tags: | No Comments

  7. Odd spam e-mail subject line

    January 10, 2007 :: 8:41 am

    “Must be fit, have nice face, to get fat Chinese baby.”

    And here I was, wondering why my fat Chinese baby never came in the mail. My face is nice enough, but I’m a tad out of shape. If only I’d known!

    Category Technology | Tags: | No Comments

  8. Yes those are clouds.

    January 4, 2007 :: 5:46 pm

    Hi! Yes, I have changed my masthead from that indescribable mass of orange and green brushstrokes to a photo of storm clouds.

    My annual urge to redesign my blog has taken over. Stay tuned for the final version.

    Category Art, Blog, Design | Tags: | No Comments

  9. roll with it

    September 22, 2006 :: 3:44 pm

    This is pure genius! Hell yeah, I want to listen to music or a podcast in the bathroom! It’s pretty much the one place in my house that is not set up for music: no television, no computer, no radio, no iPod docking cradle and speakers. That might appeal to some people (warm bath, good book, silence), but my Something Shiny Disorder doesn’t let my brain relax for very long. I figure that I average about 45 minutes to an hour in the bathroom over the course of a day – showering, fix hair, brushing teeth, contact lenses, peeing, etc. – so why not make the most of that time? (And I’m not a typical girl; I bet the average woman spends double that in the bathroom each day. Ladies? Am I right?)

    Too bad that the thing looks so… er… big and white and plasticky. I don’t mind the control pad at the top, which is reminiscent of the iPod design. But if only they’d made the rest out of sleek aluminum or something equally elegant and subtle. This looks like a giant iPod, that had a baby iPod, hot-glued onto the top of something you’d get at a dollar store.

    And then, there is this:

    HP’s new in-camera weight loss program. Because, you know, the chick in the example image above REALLY needs slimming. It’s not so much the existence of the special effect mode that irritates me; it’s that all the models in their advertisements are rail-thin to begin with. Apparently, thin just isn’t thin enough.

    Category Apple, Geek, Technology | Tags: | 2 Comments

  10. electronics that i don’t need anymore

    September 4, 2006 :: 9:54 pm

    This might be an unusual offer, but we have some stuff sitting around our house that we don’t need anymore, that I want to sell, trade, or possibly just give away. Please e-mail me if you are interested in any of the following, all of which are in good working order:

    • Two 19″ computer monitors, with black cases
    • An Epson Stylus 3000 printer (large-format), with tons of paper and extra ink cartridges
    • An Epson Stylus Photo 1200 printer, makes beautiful prints
    • A Pioneer 300-disc CD changer

    Category Technology | Tags: | No Comments

  11. i need a new name

    September 1, 2006 :: 3:34 pm

    OK, people, help me out here. I’m anonymizing (is that a word?) this blog, and as such, I am going to remove my name from anywhere it’s mentioned. But I need to call myself something. Should I just use my first name? Is there something else you can think of that would work? Should it tie in to the name of the blog? (Something Shiny Disorder)?

    I know that there is no shortage of opinions amongst my readers, so chime in!

    Category Blog | Tags: | 2 Comments

  12. something shiny disorder

    :: 3:22 pm

    This weekend I am making A Big Switch. No, not the kind where a PC user sees the light and switches to a Mac. I got my first Mac in 1995 and never looked back, except fondly on my previous Apple experiences which included my dad’s Apple ][ and Apple ][e in the 1980s; PCN's Mac Classic – or was it a Plus? – in college on which I played many a game of Risk and typed many a paper; and the Mac LCII (with a COLOR SCREEN and blindingly fast 16Mhz processor!) that I got to use at my job in college.

    But I digress.

    For a number of reasons, not the least of which is that I'm beginning to really need a professional site promoting my growing freelance art and design business, I plan to break off this blog and my personal pages from the rest of this website and put them at a completely new URL: somethingshinydisorder.com!

    The two sites won't be tied together anymore, mainly because I don't necessarily want my professional clients to have a direct link to my personal rantings and ravings. Also, I think that I'm going to go anonymous with somethingshinydisorder.com. I'm not sure if I will go back and edit previous posts that refer to myself or my friends and family by name. That would be a lot of work. I might just take out last names, although I'm not sure if I've even used those anywhere.

    So if you have my "old" site bookmarked, my blog won't be there anymore. Please bookmark www.somethingshinydisorder.com!

    Category Apple, Blog, Design, Technology | Tags: | No Comments

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