August 31, 2000

I was just reading Wired News. A new alert is in the technology section entitled Word Docs With Ears? In the article, it states "A privacy group warned Wednesday that so-called "Web bugs" could track Microsoft Word documents as they are distributed among Internet users." The article goes on to talk about how one could embed a URL request for a graphic or a cookie submission into a document, and because MS Word is HTML enabled, this request could fire without the knowledge of the document reader. Also, not mentioned in the article, but obvious to the technologically inclined, you will note that this does not constitute macro code. I wonder whether or not it would be possible to implant viral code that would fire in MS Word into that URL-retrieved object. Utilizing an ActiveX object, you could embed code into the document, and if the user does not have ActiveX turned off in their Internet Explorer options (insert thousands of people yelling about IE/OS integration here) the ActiveX applet could fire and run.
Yet another development that will fire off the next salvo of virus/fix cycles.
Ok, if the sound starts to bug you, just click on Knock It Off in the header.

August 30, 2000

It looks like TheCounter isn't as accurate as I would like. Consistently, I have found the counter not loading on the page, and I believe the count is way off due to this. If anyone knows of a better webcounter service, please let me know.
A new set of words I've heard bantied about is 'viral marketing'. I believe that it implies a product that has the tools necessary for recommending itself built right into the product. So that users of the product can easily forward it on to friends and family without having to go outside of the product to do so. I think it's just another 'hype term' myself, and think that marketing folks should just concentrate on the basics instead of trying to find the 'Holy Grail' of marketing. Word of mouth advertising has always been a valuable tool, and viral marketing doesn't seem to be much different than 'word-of-mouth' except that its fast becoming an annoying phrase. It bugs me about as much as the word 'switch', when the darn thing is just a 'multi-port bridge'. And 'level 3 switch', when the old term was 'brouter'. Inventing new words is just a way for someone to sell you something you already know about it, and the Internet is just great for repackaging and selling old product. Just look at the rebirth of so many scams on the Internet. Scams you wouldn't fall for over the phone or in person. But that's another topic. I guess I'm just sick of buzzwords.
Another thought hit me tonight. I have a lot of technical capability and I often wonder if I might be able to apply it to doing some good for the world. It might be nice to start up a non-profit organization to do some good, while still being able to support myself. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know what you think. I'd love to hear input either about ideas or pitfalls.
By the way, you may have noticed a few things changing in the out of band section. One, I added a link to SpyOnIt, with a bot that can automatically notify you when this page changes, and the other link is to a free webcounter provided by The Counter. This one uses JavaScript to look at your current screen size, color depth and OS, and keep track of them for me. The # in the counter is all hits that are NOT me, and that successfully contact TheCounter when it loads.
Oh boy. Busy week indeed. I've called three moving companies in my local area to come out and give me moving quotes (suggested by The HomeStore website). I used their website to locate the movers too. It was helpful, so thanks Jon!
Let's see, I've set up a birthday party for my son and have to send out invites this week....laser tag at the nearest LaserQuest center. Two 20 minute games should wear the brats out enough....or enough to wear me out. Fun game, LaserQuest.
At work, I have servers to order, people to interview, stuff to make sure is happening right. Someone else is going on vacation and I'm going to be doing some of his duties as well for the next 2 weeks...and I still have all this moving stuff to think about. I'm going to need a few weeks vacation myself just to relax. Too bad I don't have that much left....ARRRRGH!
We watched a movie last night....Brazil, a Terry Gilliam movie. A few problems with this one. First off, we received Disk 3 of the set (which has a cut down version of the movie on it.) This is a problem of renting from Netflix. Their shipping methods only allow them to ship you one DVD. When a release is multiple disks, you only get the one they've picked out. And without understanding Terry Gilliam, they've chosen the wrong bloody DVD. I'll complain about it, but Netflix is still a good deal. I think we've seen 10 movies this month, and for $16.00, that's $1.60 per rental, which inludes shipping both ways. Well, anyways...the sound on this cut was terrible. I couldn't hear the dialogue well enough, and the oddity of the movie made it even harder to watch. So, don't waste your time.
We've seen some really good flicks this past week, though, including The Green Mile and The Negotiator. The Green Mile was a fantastic drama, and a superb performance by everyone involved. Tom Hanks shone as the star, and the supporting actors were all fantastic. The Negotiator was a good action flick, with a semi-surprise ending. Everyone we thought 'did it' ended up not being who actually 'did it'. The action, plot and story flow were good, and it's well worth seeing. Another movie, The Rock , was a good movie except for one thing...too much cursing. While I can understand the type of language that people use under stress, this may have been just a tad overdone. The rest of the movie was good though, and well worth watching.
Well, that's it for now. I've got paperwork to do, and a server to research.

August 28, 2000

Well, I haven't posted all weekend. I have house guests and I haven't been on the computer all weekend except to pick up the odd mail message. I've also been busy getting ready to move into the new house. We've got a closing date at the end of September and I'm ready to rock and roll. Except that there is about a million things to do before we're done moving in. One of them (giving notice) has already been done, and I've called my insurance company to get a homeowner policy already. Combination rates are great... when you have home and auto insurance both through the same company. I still have to coordinate a heap of things, like movers, utilities, paperwork, money, etc..whew! Now if I could just win $1,000,000 or so, I'd be all set.
Sorry I don't have much 'thinking-man' content today...been too busy.

August 24, 2000

I admit it.....I watched the last hour of Survivor. I didn't see ANY of the episodes before this one, and I did only watch the last hour. I tuned in because I had heard there would be some fighting in the final comments and I wanted to watch the catfight. In that, I was only mildly dissapointed. It didn't turn into some Springer-esque brawl, but that one girl had plenty to say. I was dissapointed that the final guy to cast his vote not only broke a tie, but his only final comments were to ask each of them to pick a number between one and ten. I couldn't help but think that it's kind of difficult to put $900,000 on a stupid bet like that. I would have liked him to give his reason for who he was going to vote for, and then vote. But they didn't show any comments from him at the end...and it really cheapened it for me.
Stupid numerical analysis follows here
I was also surprised that Rich didn't pick 5 or 6. He got first pick of the number set and cornered himself into the high end from the get-go by picking 7. And then Kelly didn't pick 6 to counter him! She picked three!, evening the odds on Rich by giving him the number 6 and tie-ing on 5. I'll bet she'll feel stupid about that if she thinks about it. With a pick of 6, she gets 60% of the range. With her pick, she gets 1-2-3-4 and half of 5, giving Rich 55% of the number set. You know, after 39 days maybe your brain just isn't as sharp, but this is a gimme problem from grade school. Given the chance to pick first, you should pick 5 or 6 when two people are picking. Picking 5 gives you 1-5, and 6 gives you 6-10. If the other player wants a piece of the lower number set after you pick 5, it costs him 10% of the range to pick 4. Otherwise he should be happy with the high range at 6. If (s)he doesn't understand the odds, you get free numbers when (s)he picks something besides 6.
end of numerical analysis
Of course, that just looks at the numerics. Jim (a friend) just told me that 7 is the most picked number by people when asked. Perhaps that factored into Rich's decision. Perhaps he was just 'going with his gut'. We'd have to ask him to know for sure.
Then there's the question of what rules he was imposing in his own mind, whether the loser became the contest winner, etc..the psychological analysis can get pretty deep.
Well, enough ranting about that for now...more interesting stuff later on.

August 23, 2000

I walked through my new house yesterday in a pre-drywall walkthrough. Basically making sure they put in cable, telephone and ceiling lights that I had ordered extra. I spoke with the construction supervisor about putting in Ethernet connections, and he said if I put them in that he wouldn't go ripping them out. So last night, Rich's Midnight Wiring Service went in and put 3 Ethernet drops in all running to a 4th block downstairs. I put one in the master bedroom, one in the kid's bedroom, one in the sunroom off the kitchen, and the 4th block in the extra space off the den downstairs. I wanted to do more, but it got dark and the first drop took us longer than I expected. Considering that their wiring people wanted a few thousand just to do 4 drops, I figure I got a deal doing it myself.
I get two answers from the people as far as move dates, so I'm trying to nail them down to giving me a more firm date. If you've got any advice, let me know..I could use it.

August 21, 2000

I tried this morning to update the management software in the 3Com switch. Not only didn't it take, but it fragmented the bloody network on me. All hell broke loose for about 3 minutes while I fixed it. Now the POST light is blinking, and the switch works, but I can't telnet into it. And one of the laptops is giving me fits when I try to connect it up. I hate working nights...but I'll have to turn this puppy off to reset it to its factory settings.
Then, I went back to my office and noticed this article in Government Computer News. The article is entitled "Agencies see signs that IPv4 is running out of room". That's right! Someone in DoD went to get a block of addresses, and the cookie jar was empty. Never mind that the network admins have been crying wolf for years...Now they're deciding to set up a test IPv6 pilot network of about 5 sites, according the article, BY YEARS END! Oh my...
One of the things that disturbs me so much is not that they're going to do be doing this, but the manpower required for ensuring that all the current Internet equipment eventually gets transitioned over. And the expense, and the time...and the fact that I think these switches I just put in aren't IPv6 compatible, at least in the management software. Of course, they'll have to run IPv6 networks and IPv4 side by side for QUITE a while...but it's still going to be a hassle. If you work with computer networks, I wish you luck.
As for me, I think I'm going to go back to work at McDonald's. They give their employees money towards education, I hear, and without making them sign commitment letters either. Tech companies now are ensuring that their employees don't take advantage of training opportunities by dissuading them with letters of commitment. And they're implementing it quite poorly, with no distinction between 'required' and 'non-applicable' training. So, using my education benefits to get a degree in basket-weaving or to go to a training class on Windows 2000 holds the same commitment of 1 year. And with employers holding on to that last paycheck to make sure they get paid back, the employee will have to spend the money to sue if they feel it isn't right. AIEEE! Help, I'm being repressed!

August 20, 2000

On Saturday, we made it to the monument. They have fixed things up, and the observation desk offers a nicer view now. Then we went to the American History museum. We saw fairly new exhibits about time and electricity and an extensive reworking of the transportation exhibit.....as usual with this museum, I found it all fascinating.
Saturday Night Live again did NOT have the Computer Guy sketch...what a ripoff. The show was ok...fairly funny...but I really wanted to see the computer guy sketch.
From Netflix this weekend, we received and watched a variety of DVDs..the best being The Music Man. A long movie, but well worth it. They just don't make movies like this anymore! Music and color all over the place. Who needs all that electronic whizbang special effects when you have good music, raw talent, fantastic dancing and choreography (sp?!) and a fantastic screenplay? Maybe I still harbor something for Shirley Jones? After all, Mrs. Partridge is not easily forgettable!
Wow, what a day on Sunday. I went shopping for four simple things this morning, and ended up with a WHOLE lot more. For example, they had Cherry Coke 12-packs on sale for $2.00 each. I bought 10 of the diet version. And then, Land-O-Lakes has come out with a new mac and cheese that has 50% of your daily vitamin requirements in Vit A, D, E, B6, B12, and a few more. Most mac and cheese is pretty vitamin-free, so I wanted to scarf these up at $0.45 a box. Considering I pay $0.33 for the store brand, I think its a bargain if I can get some real value out of eating that junk. I mean, as long as I'm overweight, I may as well make sure I don't die from vitamin deficiencies.
Then, we went to a birthday party for one of my son's friends. And after that, back to said friends house for a pinata. It was interesting, because the pinata was of Pikachu. I commented that perhaps the parent might want to take a whack or two themselves at that particular icon. Amazingly noone found this as funny as I did.
Then we went out to eat. It's my sister-in-law's last day before she returns to South Korea. After that, I stopped by Blockbuster, and obtained some pre-played video games for $7 a pop. I couldn't resist, considering they'd cost $20 each new and with Nintendo games, there isn't much wear and tear that will break the cartridges. I got Pokemon Snap, Zelda and one other where the name escapes me. It was another adventure game like Zelda, and ends in 64. They were all rated E.
Well, chat at ya later. Bye for now.

August 19, 2000

Forgot to call TicketMaster to reserve tickets for the Washington Monument on Saturday....so I'll have to go wait in line for tickets early in the AM. They've reopened it, you know. I hear they've replaced the observation deck glass and it's much better view now. The outside looks like they did a lot of work on it. We put in a new switch at work tonight...Everything went well, but I have to update the mgmt software next week using a TFTP daemon...yuchola. You would think that they wouldn't use such historical techniques in today's equipment...and this from 3COM no less.

August 18, 2000

If you haven't visited WonderClick.Com yet, I would suggest hopping on over to there...and you too could win a NEW CAR, as Bob Barker's announcer might say. With nothing to risk, load or fear, it's a great way to start off my browsing day (or end it..). With all sorts of sweepstakes offerings, and simple entry and re-entry each day, I think it's a wonderful opportunity to enter into a raffle without paying for the tickets.
Just in case I haven't mentioned it before...win prizes for free at http://www.wonderclick.com. I don't get anything out of it...but I want to recommend it for those of your interested in winning a NEW CAR (as Bob's announcer would say). With free chances every day to win stuff from household furniture to elecrtonics, and NEW CARS, I think it's a great way to sign on every day.

August 17, 2000

Well, I gave our briefing at NMIMC this morning. Things seem to have gone well. The only difficulties were that I spoke too fast (20 minutes instead of 30), and I stumbled through the last part of the last slide because I forgot what I was going to say.
I found that I wasn't nervous once I got up and began speaking, and I believe that I kept most of the people's interest through the briefing. They asked some good questions at the end, which I had ready answers to, being technically knowledgeable, and knowledgeable about our business areas. I think that we may be rated rather well and may end up bidding on proposed work coming down the pike.
Well, we were invited to give our oral presentation to NMIMC today. I am not sure what I am going to say. I wish I had more time to prepare the slide presentation that we handed in to them, because I can see some problems with it right now. Nowhere do we talk about who DRC really is, and there's no good ending on the presentation. Wish me luck. If we get good marks on our presentation, we'll be invited back to do proposals on work for them.

August 16, 2000

Here's an irritating thing I've seen... On the east coast, there's a chain of barbershops called The Hair Cuttery. They had these advertising posters all over the metro train stations and local advertising boards, that said "A good haircut is still just $10." Shortly after, they had changed all the signs to say "still just $11". Am I the only one that strikes as odd? I've noticed that this particular ad campaign is now no longer running, and I just had my hair cut there today. Guess how much it was? 'still just $12'
There are some VERY interesting things going on in science these days, like this news article from the BBC News: Scientists claim world cloning first. Apparently, a team in Australia has cloned a mouse and harvested embryonic stem cells from the mouse and transplanted them back to the original in order to prove that it could be done. The interesting bit of this is that recent studies have shown the possibility of creating specific cells, such as nerve cells from stem cells. As this article points out, these two techniques together may mean treatments for Alzheimers disease in the future. And at the rate that biotechnology is ramping up, I think that it will be a very few years before this type of application becomes a reality. As I grow older and have more problems, I appreciate more and more the solutions that people like this are working on.

August 15, 2000

One of my favorite things to read is the daily briefs from Wired News. For example, here is an article entitled Spy Game Intrigues Techies. Now, this sounds like a BLAST. I think it would be great to be on one of these teams, and I think the participants would have LOTS of fun. This is a life experience type of thing. Then, there's scary stuff like this: Hacker Hoax at Safeway with the included scary line of "Up to 1,000 customers telephoned to complain Saturday after a hacker appeared to have accessed a Safeway database containing details on 25,000 shoppers, the Sunday Times reported." Privacy advocates have been scared of this event for some time. It looks like they had every reason to worry..
I just loaded up IE 5.5 and was trying to access Blogger to show to someone. In case you didn't know, Blogger technology is what makes this website so easy to update. Just type in your thoughts and hit publish, and it just slips right into that cell on the ole web site. Well, I couldn't log into Blogger, and what it turns out happened was that the Blogger cookie was now no longer valid. So I went into my cookie directory, and deleted all my cookies....All 385 of them!!!! WOW! I mean, I knew that cookies were in use all over the net, but it was kind of eye-opening to know that I myself had 385 tracking tags attached to me. I've put them into a temporary directory, and intend to see how much information I can glean about myself from looking at them.

August 14, 2000

I don't know how many of you readers have access to Usenet news. But if you do, some of the best stuff pops up on alt.humor.best-of-usenet. This group is filled with submissions from other newsgroups and posted when the moderator thinks they're funny. I think to qualify, they're judged on a sarcasm-meter. Occasionally, one will make me laugh so hard I have to go find the Tums to quiet down that acid reflux o' mine.
Well, we got that white paper out today to NMIMC. I hope they are really serious about looking for companies to do web work for them. DRC is just PERFECT for the work they're doing, and it would be nice to have an even broader range of customers where we could strut our stuff. I hope the paper I put together shows them how qualified we are.
I rented a game from Blockbuster yesterday, a Playstation game. I got it home and even though the disk seemed to load fine, I couldn't start a new game due to scratches on the disk. The game freezes up during the opening sequence, and there's no bypass capability. Blockbuster is sure to refund my rental fee, but I'm pretty angry at the programmer for not coding enough error detection into the game. After all, the error is just during the display of a cinematic sequence that I could do without. The wonderful thing about analog media is the forgiving nature of the media, whereas in digital media, improper error detection can cause these glitches to stop a whole process. There's something to be said for imperfection, after all...
Good night....don't let the bed bugs bite....I'm going to go read my Premium This Is True.
I had read about Apps.com in a recent LockerGnome. It's a neat little web site that offers free applications that run in a browser. Some examples? Calendars, Virus Scan, Loan computers, Maps, Games, English and Math learning, Hobby (Amateur Radio RF Safety Calculator, for instance). There's so many applications that I couldn't possibly name them all. The nice part is that the Internet really makes this possible. Forget all this download and install and uninstall hassle. Forget having to check for updates. You're assured that when you go to the app, you're running the latest version..this is just plain neat!

OK, I admit it, I get hooked. Hooked on Bingo, Lotto and other games of chance. On the Internet, gambling with real money seems kind of pointless to me. When there are so many places to go to win money without any stake. Well, ok, no monetary stake. All they want is your time and eyes, so they can burn brands into your brain. I figure that if I'm going to watch TV and have brands pushed at me anyway, I may as well play Bingo at the same time. The odds are unbelievably against you in Bingo and Lotto, but people do win. With the way I play Blackjack, I wouldn't want to put my money on the table anyway. This way, if I do get too involved playing Blackjack, I don't lose anything but the time I spent playing it. And if you're going to play, there's no way around that unless you hire a robot to play for ya! With the myriad of Lotto games on the 'net', you could just pick the same numbers in all of them every day and just wait till you win 1,5 or 10 million bucks. Don't hold your breath, though..

August 13, 2000

Do you remember what Kurt Vonnegut supposedly told graduates at MIT in 1997? (He didn't really). But the point made in the speech/article still goes. Wear sunscreen. Today my very angry shoulders and neck are screaming at me. Of course, I remembered the sunscreen, but someone else 'thought' it was in the car. (It wasn't.) Ouch!
I watched Saturday Night Live last night, now in its 25th season. There's a new sketch they've been doing, which people are raving about and I've caught once. The computer help-desk sketch. The help desk technician makes fun of the other employees, berating and belittling them for not knowing anything about computers. The sketch wasn't on last night, darn it! The terrible thing about good satire is how true to life it can seem. I try to teach our junior personnel that the customer should be their focus, not the technology. I hope I get that across enough. I've had my share of temporarily brain-dead users. But no matter how much someone lacks the ability to apply common sense when sitting in front of the keyboard, I don't think that it's right to treat them with discourtesy. Especially not in our business.

August 12, 2000

Home from Kings Dominion. We spent about 5 hours there, most of it in the water park. Getting old does something to your enjoyment of a place like that. I used to 'have' to ride every thrill ride, and I wouldn't mind spending an hour in a line to do so. But I just don't feel that way any more. Speaking of monopolies, though (I know I wasn't..but now I am..), they charge $2.50 for a 20-oz soda in the park, and $2.75 for a 20-oz bottle of chilled spring water. I'm glad we didn't eat in the park as well! I couldn't help but mutter 'thief' under my breath when the vendor said "Thank you very much" as I paid him for the bottled water and soda. As I searched the Internet this morning for restaurants near the theme park, I noted only one within 6 miles range. It's unbelievable how they get you! If you do decide to leave for mid-visit meal, they make sure you have to drive 12 miles round-trip unless you eat at the Burger King just outside the gate! At today's gas prices, that's $1.50 in gas alone! Plus the hassle of riding the Interstate to Ashland and back to the park. It makes me wonder how much that Burger King owner had to pay for the priviledge of opening up his restaurant right off Theme Park Way.
I'm looking for a counter for this page, and I might even put a cookie (this link is DECIDEDLY on the paranoid side but it's VERY good informative stuff about cookies) on the page to identify unique visitors...if you see a cookie in the near future (if you even watch for them), the cookie won't be dangerous or unique...it'll just identify you as having been here, I promise...If I ever do collect any info on your browsing habits, I'd let you know and give the chance to decline.
Rich...over and out.
I picked up a new magazine tonight on my way home from work. It's called Time digital. The publication peaked my interest because of an article on Virus Hunters. The article was an interesting discussion about updates on virus protection technology and where virus protection folks are trying to take us in the future. A lot of the articles in the magazine were geared toward people with technical know-how, which is just perfect for me. I've noticed that most news outlets are geared toward the computer novice, and I rarely find value in reading beyond the headlines in most newspapers and magazines. The articles in this magazine seem to be written toward techies, but not as in-depth as what you might see in Wired magazine, which is another favorite read of mine. For those of you out there with any PC knowledge at all, it's a nice read. Although if you want to be truly on the edge, I still have to recommend Wired. Still, there's no reason you can't read them both.
Anyway, it's late..I'm off to bed...talk later.

August 11, 2000

I just added a link in the out of band portion of this web site. It's for subscribing to LockerGnome. LockerGnome is an ad-supported newsletter that had humble beginnings. With all the stuff that comes out on the web every day, it is next to impossible to keep up with what the latest and greatest is, in many arenas. Chris Pirillo puts out a daily and weekly summary of the newest free/cheapware, system updates, system candy, favorite link, desktop enhancement and tips. That is...you get one of each a day, or a bunch for the week. Rather than surf around and spend all your time browsing for the best, rely on the work that Chris does. He really gets to the 'root' of the web....really!
I started thinking about the delivery mechanism of the web, and what it can and cannot do. Stemming from the discussion I just had with Terry about what a journal is, I started thinking about how this web site could expand. Don't ask me how I got there from here, but lets say that each of the subjects I talk about is considered a single 'thread' of conversation. On Usenet, threaded discussions are the norm. In a newsgroup, each participant can start a thread on a particular item, and each person's thoughts can be read by reading all the messages in a thread.. (Click on Usenet link to learn more about it). On the web, given enough resources, I could provide threaded discussions for all sorts of things, like King's Dominion, and stupid weathermen (just kidding, see last post). But that's not what the web is about. The web is about linking information, and the information delivery was meant to be uni-directional.
OK, let's organize those thoughts. Usenet is used for threaded discussion between groups of people. The Web was meant for delivery of information with hyperlinks to follow "information trains" (poetic license, me). Then that takes me off the hook for providing two-way communication in this forum...if I want to do that, I'd create alt.people.rich.gautier or some such and ask you all to participate in a discussion of my life. Of course, if I did that, either noone would participate, or I'd be too busy discussing the intracacies of my life to actually LIVE it. OK, what about the 'information trains' I mentioned? Should I include websites devoted to Information Security, King's Dominion (or outings in general), books I've read, or people who can't read a satellite image correctly?
This web site is decidedly shallow. If I spent my life creating all of those web pages, my wife would leave me and I'd probably lose my job. Instead, what I offer is simply a shallow opinion, with hyperlinks to web pages I feel can give you better specific information. And the web is great for providing expert sites on all sorts of information. My links will decidedly sway the way you see things. For example, for Usenet, I chose to link to DEJA.COM because it's a free service and provides beginner info. I could have linked to www.usenet.com. Don't go there...they're trying to sell you something. So you see, there is some inherent value in my weblog.
Then, there is another side of the coin. Writing to my audience. If I just go on about my life, I'll bore you. If you're bored, you won't come back. Not that that's any loss to me, but I do actually have something to offer; my opinion. He had a point. As this site evolves, and I understand my writing style more and more, I'll offer more specific opinions on topics of interest in order to keep YOU interested. It may also help me to ensure I have cohesive opinions instead of just jumbled thoughts.
I'll write later, maybe about how I felt about the roller coasters at King's Dominion, or about my new favorite acid reduction medicine which I'm sure I'll need. And when I finish that book, I'll be sure to let you know how it ends. :-)
Terry Moore asked if I keep a journal. I believe this is a journal. Or at least the beginnings of one. I hope to share thoughts on what's going on in the world around me, and in the memes that I happen to have my brain dipped in at the moment. Everyone experiences the world in a vastly different way, and it is interesting to watch someone else's life go by. It may give you a perspective on things that you didn't see before. Of course, it will also end up slanting your own universal experience.
We're planning on going to King's Dominion this wekend. We had planned to go last week on Sunday, and it ended up raining. I caught hell from the wife because I depended on the weather channel and told her Sunday would be nicer than Saturday. Well, they were wrong, and I was in the doghouse for a day.
Fantastic! I just got rid of the IFRAME on this site to make it Netscape compatible! The information I ended up needing was in Table 1 of THIS ARTICLE from WebTechniques. One great thing about this is that I don't have to put frame references in my links any more. I am using Blogger to continually update my site and while it's easy to creat hyperlinks, I kept having to edit them and add target="_parent" tag properties in all of them so that it would break out of the frame when going to the link. Now, I'm using a defined cell size to format my web page, and using a server-side inclusion of the blogger html file. The other advantage is that IFRAME was requiring a HEIGHT property, which would either be too big (giving lots of whitespace to the bottom of my web page) or too small, necessitating a scroll bar in the cell (very ugly, I assure you).
Well, enough about programming..back to the salt mines.
OK. Well, I'm pushing myself today by submitting my site to Yahoo. This is going to force me to do a few things. The first will be to get rid of that IFRAME to be more Netscape compatible, and the second will be to start updating my site more often. I read in WebTechniques last night about server side includes. I wonder if Tripod includes this capability? I also read some stuff in there about XHTML and I think I'm going to start trying to keep my code XHTML compliant. That means two or three changes for me...like keeping my tags all lower case and ensuring tag properties are in quotes.

August 10, 2000

Wow...who wrote that last log entry? Was that me? It's full of spelling and grammar errors. I wonder what I was on that day? Probably too much caffeine. That seems to have taken the place of a good night's rest in my life. In any case, I thought I'd start a mailing list that would let you know when this page changes. That way, I don't bother people who don't care, and those of you who do will know when there's updates. So, if you care, write me at gautier@sprynet.com and let me know.
I'm writing a white paper on DRC's capabilities re: web development and maintenance and it is taking up all my spare time. That, and we have house guests (my niece and sister-in-law from Korea). I'd like to say that I've never been busier, but of course, I have been.
Last night we watched Air Force One on DVD. If you haven't seen this movie....go out and rent it, or buy it. That is, if you like action, edge-of-your-seat suspense and Harrison Ford. If you don't like any of those, forget the movie. We were all excited watching it. I ate a whole lot of snack food during the tense parts.
The other night we watched another suspense movie that was very entertaining. The Long Kiss Goodnight on DVD. There's a bit more bad language in this one, along with some adult situations. If you're conservative, I'd rule out watching this movie. But apart from that, it was very entertaining. The humor in the movie was very adult in nature, but it was also very funny. It certainly was not immature humour or a teenager movie. The movie was extremely tense as well, and very action packed. It was also an interesting premise that I personally had never seen before.
Well, I'll write later...talk later...
Rich

August 04, 2000

Well, let's see. It's Friday and I am tossed about as ever. There never seems to be time enough to do everything. I've picked up my books on learning Visual C++ again and started reworking through the first couple of chapters. And I've been downloading fonts like nuts. There are so many dingbats out there! Dingbat fonts, of course. There are website just devoted to them. There's lightning fonts, people fonts, weather fonts, alien fonts, snowflake fonts. You name it, you can probably find it in a font.
I'm reading Cybershock by Winn Schwartau . He's fairly famous in the Information Warfare arena for providing balanced commentary on the state of information security. He dips his feat in both waters, so to speak. It's a good book, and a must read for anyone who cares about the state of Information Security today.
Well, more later when I have more to say...C ya