http://www.osxsux.net the perpetual newbie en-us Tue, 17 Jul 2007 03:36:46 GMT Tue, 17 Jul 2007 03:36:46 GMT MyHomeGrownBlogTool v1.0 Copyright 2005, osxsux bryan@osxsux.net http://www.osxsux.net/images/osxsux88x31.gif http://www.osxsux.net http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php Having a fun, snappy little Mac at home like my Macbook has lead me to a rediscovery of the Macintosh experience. I work with Macs all day in a pre-press environment, and I am seeing that my narrow focus there has made me a bit myopic about some things Today I was looking for a security product somewhat like Windows equivalents that I know of. I wanted a secure place to store certain items to keep them from casual snoops. It's not that people intend to snoop. but a Macbook is like a cute puppy dog, and people just want to touch it. On Windows, DriveCrypt and Steganos Safe provide strongly encrypted, password protected containers for your sensistive material. I wondered if there were similar products for the Mac. Then it clicked - you already have that functionality. No, not FileVault, that's a bit overblown, not quite what I need, and it's a problem if your drive is frying to recover anything from a FileVault. It's much simpler than that. Use Disk Utility to create a sparse disk image, encrypted, and tell it to NOT remember your password (otherwise anyone can mount the image if you happen to be logged in but away from your desk). Voila, a safe place for your unmentionables. Then, I was a little miffed while web surfing that when you find an image you want to save to disk the context menu only gives you the options of saving to Downloads or to your iPhoto Library. What if I want to save it to my aforementioned secure disk image? Well, this is so simple, I'm sure a 12 year old would have just assumed this, but you just drag it from the web page into your disk or folder. Macs just do it the way it should be done. Simple. Tue, 17 Jul 2007 03:33:16 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php After a lengthy hiatus after my first video, I've produced another demonstrating an odd trapping anomaly that occurs by default in QuarkXpress up to and including versions 6.5. Maybe you could put this effect to some creative use, but to prepress people it's just another pain in the ass to watch out for. Go see it now here: Quark Trapping Gotcha Sun, 08 Jul 2007 03:58:26 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php Microsoft was having this 'Wow' ad campaign about Vista, and I have vista, and have yet to say wow. Instead I curse that infuriating UAC, and am continuosly disappointed by software incompatibilities and other such annoyances. Vista insn't ready for prime time. I bought a Macbook a few days ago, with some trepidation - I have been following them for a long time, reading reports of optical drive problems, heat, defective batteries, and a few others. It would so disappointing to bring home an expensive toy like this (two thousand and change CDN), and find any of these issues. I didn't. I was hopefully that this third generation model would have the kinks ironed out, and so far I haven't been disappointed. The MacBook defines cool in a laptop. Sure, it aint a pro model, but then again, it ends about about a thousand less in price, and its still cool. It works like the Apple ads say - it just works. Plug it in, turn it on, it finds my wireless (and a few neighbours) no problem. Of we go, surfing and mailing, installing software from CD and DVD no issue. No heat issues at all. Battery life good (I seem to get about 4 hours). The keyboard is, well, fun. The trackpad is pretty neat, like most people I prefer a mouse, but if you need the trackpad its very useable The display is very sharp (I have the gloss screen). I was a little concerned about the 13 inche size, but it seems very comfortable. No doubt soon I will try it in a dual monitor configuration, but I feel no compelling need for it so far. It's fast. Very fast. I have a G4 at home, it got dusty quite some time ago, it really was too slow to be fun anymore. I have G5's at work, a few years old now, that I don't think will keep up with this sexy little puppy. Everybody should get one. Its sooo cool. If you have one, it will make you cool too. Wed, 04 Jul 2007 04:29:50 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php I think I should look into it. The worlds going to hell, and I dont want to be on that ride. I found this picture of what pretty much everything will look like soon... Wed, 11 Apr 2007 01:23:30 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php I bought a new laptop, a Toshiba Satellite, it's OK, comes with Vista Home Premium. Contrary to Microsoft's current ad campaign, I didn't say 'Wow' once. 'Kinda cool' might be a more accurate slogan. Tue, 13 Feb 2007 05:41:12 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php I 've uploaded a PDF verison of the Netscape Core Javascript Guide that you can download from my Projects area. I don't think there is a PDF version officially available, but I finally found an HTML version that I converted in Acrobat using 'Create PDF form web page...'. The formatting isn't perfect, but it's is organized, bookmarks work, and of course, it's easily searchable. Have fun. Fri, 08 Dec 2006 05:39:23 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php So I've been trying out Acrobat Professional 8. I'm especially interested in the new ability to give Reader users the ability to save filled-out forms. "Woo hoo", I thought, "We don't have to give formrouter.com $150 per form for something so friggin basic!". So I eagerly went to "Enable Usage Rights in Adobe Reader...", saved it, uploaded it, and to my horror, on another machine with only Reader 7 (where it should work), I get this cryptic message:"This document contained certain rights to enable special features in Adobe Reader. The document has been changed since it was created and the rights are no longer valid. Please contact the author for the original version of this document."Hmmm. I didn't change anything. Maybe I'll read the Help. Not very helpful. Try again. And again. What could it be? Not only were the save rights gone, but the rights to do anything were gone - fields were no longer fillable. My form was without form. So I watched the Simpsons.Then something occured to me. The clock on the machine I was testing on has always been flaky (useful if you don't want to activate your copy of Windows, your machine starts up in 1904, so you always have '30 days left to activate...'). Indeed the time was earlier than the time the PDF had been created. Sooo, I fixed the time, and all is well. It works. Woo Hoo. I've been wondering what the catch is, will my PDF self-destruct after 500 uses, as per the EULA? I dunno. We'll see.If you want to see my wonderful form, click on 'Contact'. It has cool buttons and javscripty stuff in it. Mon, 04 Dec 2006 01:52:33 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php I haven't had too much to say lately, so here's an entry just for the blog of it.So, I'm working on this PDF forms project, and there's stuff that I know, but didn't know it would smack me in the face. The client needs to be able to save the filled out form, regardless of the Acrobat version used. Sounds simple, eh? If somebody goes to all the trouble of filling out a form, of course they should be able to save it.Well, no. Adobe says you can't if you use the free Acrobat Reader. And I sort of see their point. It's 'reader', not a writer, therefore you shouldn't be able to save filled out forms. Thing is, PDF forms have become so ubiquitous, that I think Adobe should give a little, and let the Reader version save the filled out form (without hassles - there are workarounds, but nobody likes to think too hard about things anymore).So, after exploring my options and learning about Acrobat Reader Extensions, and how much it would cost to enable this seemingly necessary functionality, I got to thinking that this is like Adobe opening up a public washroom, but asking us to pay for the toilet paper.I hear Microsoft has a PDF killer app around the corner, maybe Bill will let me save filled out forms? Tue, 21 Nov 2006 15:25:46 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php My father passed away today at the age of 88. In his later years, there wasn't a lot left to say. The last time I saw him, he was healthy and still the 'adventerous character' that I would like to remember him as, and from all accounts, he was still a charmer till near the end of his journey here. This photo was taken in 1944. I know he was proud of his contribution, however small, to the world we know today. Once upon a time, wars were about right and wrong. He's off now to his next adventure, and some day, I'll catch up with him on the other side. I'm sure he'll have some stories. Wed, 04 Oct 2006 11:33:55 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php Hear me speak! See me do stuff! I have just posted my first of many video tutorials in the series I have titled 'Prepress for Designers'. In my first video, I discuss the differences between RGB and CMYK color, and show why RGB is not desirable in pieces designed for print. It's totally FREE and it will amaze you! Check it out in my Projects - Prepress area... Wed, 30 Aug 2006 06:44:41 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php I'm on vacation this week and have too much time on my hands. I was reading about Apples's increased, perhaps over zealous, vigilance in protecting the iPod trademark, so I whipped this up. As I would later learn, there is a pPod, my pPod is a little less functionally related than the iPod, although the iPod and pPod are complimentary, if you think about it (kinda like talking on the phone while your taking a dump).You can see the full page add at www.bryancentral.com Wed, 16 Aug 2006 18:23:53 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php All three of those words violate the 'i before e except after c' rule. Sun, 13 Aug 2006 01:51:26 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php It's been a while since I've updated this site, so here I am, back again. I've added a new section ,under projects, called 'prepress'. Should you be so inclined, you might find some useful inforamtion there. I authored a PDF file that I have titled File Submission Guidelines for Prepress. Originaly an exercise for an Adobe certification exam, it turned to be fairly useful and informative. so check it out if you have trouble getting to sleep. Sun, 30 Jul 2006 15:39:04 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php I strained my back, again, yesterday, and as long as I don't move, it doesn't hurt a bit. The wonder of intense, acute pain, it is that helps you forget all the other trivial little things that I perceive as problems...with pain, there is nothing else that matters. Oh joy... Sat, 17 Jun 2006 16:02:54 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php So here I am killing the better part of a Saturday, playing around with ajax, trying to slap together a little web app with an autosuggest drop down, all the rage these days. There's plenty of resources out there, not so hard to do, but I really need this to work in Safari. Most of these techniques use a div or a ul and I just can't seem to get this looking and working right in Safari. Life is too short...Then inspiration strikes! So simple...don't use Safari. Firefox to the rescue. See ya Safari, don't need you anymore. Never did like those un-stylable input buttons anyway.Did stumble across some pretty good tutorials on autosuggest, try www.nczonline.net or www.dynamicajax.com. capxous.com has a nifty widget (also doesn't work in Safari), and of course there's Yahoo's develper site developer.yahoo.com (haven't tested this in Safari yet) Sun, 21 May 2006 00:59:31 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php I haven't really had much to say lately so I thought I would put up a picture of my cat and dog, both now dearly departed. It also helps add some keyword variety to my blog, possible attracting more traffic, and increasing my ad impressions, helping me reach the elusive 2 cent level with AdSense. Yep, after two months, I'm just a couple hundred impressions away from reaching 2 cents in Adsense revenue. So words like cat, dog, kitty, doggy, etc can't hurt. Fri, 12 May 2006 04:10:55 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php So I put these google ads on my site, expecting an avalanche of money to come in. After about a month, I finally made my first penny. Yep, a penny. One cent. That's US currency, so in Canadian pennies, thats worth about 1.2 cents. To celebrate, I did this spiffy little photo of a penny. Took me about an hour, including the PhotoShop time. So, I'm working for about a penny an hour. Woo Hoo!I couldn't help notice that nobody has clicked the 'Make A Donation' button. It's at the left, hard to miss. Click it, whip out a credit card, and contribute according to your means. It will give you a warm fuzzy feeling knowing you did the right thing. Wed, 26 Apr 2006 15:38:30 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php Now that I can include pictures in my blog posts, y'all get to see a picture of me. So here I am, click on me to see me in all my full size glory. This actually started a few days ago when I had a burning desire to post to my blog from my cell phone, with an image taken with my cell phone camera. Didn't think it would be a big deal, until I learned more about micro browsers and what they can and can't do. The concept was simple, a little web page that I could browse to on my phone, select an image with a standard type="file" input element on a form, type in some text, submit to a form processor on my server to stick it in the blog. It would actually be doable if I had a Nokia phone, most of them have a browser that supports the type="file" input element, but such is not the case with Motorola phones (I have a v635), so there's no apparent way to browse the cell phones file system to select an image. I explored the option of somehow emailing the image from my phone, but my lame ass provider insists that emailed images go their own lame-ass 'MyPictures' web server and will only email a link to the page to the recipient. So here I am back at plan B, which requires a good old desktop browser. If somebody knows how I can make a Motorola phone upload to a web server, I'd love to hear about it. At least I can post pics, now I have to get creative about it... Sun, 23 Apr 2006 23:40:29 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php I've been killing an entire Sunday getting my blog to have pictures. It took a long time. If I was a professional php scripter charging by the hour, I would make a lot of money, because I'm really, really slow at it. Now I have to figure out why this image isn't displaying in Firefox, and fix the full size pop-up, that should kill the rest of my SUnday. It's raining so I don't care. (later)So the pop-up works now and Firefox is OK, now does this wrap under the image? Or is some friggin css thing needing more research? No, that seems to work OK too.I can't remember what happens when I put a br tag in here...Oh yeah, I get a line break. Funny. Sun, 23 Apr 2006 20:11:57 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php Mad cow disease is a growing problem, and that is all that you and I can do to help. Wed, 19 Apr 2006 13:05:50 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php I'm wondering about the depraved mind that designed the monitor cable. I'll admit it serves it's intended purpose, but it's so good at snagging every other cable behind my desk, wreaking mayhem and havoc, that I'm sure there was some evil intent in it's design. Wed, 05 Apr 2006 16:18:14 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php Companies like Extensis would have us believe that you absolutely have to have font management software. Suitcase has never worked very well with OS X, unless you download the seemingly weekly Suitcase updates. OS X has a remarkably effective and totally free solution - it's called the Fonts folder. Organize a folder full of the the fonts for a particular project, slip it into /Username/Library/Fonts, and voila, for apps like Quark and Indesign, they are active immediately. Illustrator will need to be relaunched. In a pre-press environment, I use this method to handle 15-20 jobs a day.I stopped using Suitcase about 6 months ago, and my life has improved dramatically. I think my hair is growing back. Wed, 29 Mar 2006 18:35:33 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php We've all seen the term 'SKU' around, but who knows what it means? I do now, it means 'Stocking Keeping Unit'. I learned something today. woo hoo. So, if YOU didn't know that already, that's probably five bucks worth of info, so click the 'Make a donation' button. It's worth it. Trust me. Sun, 19 Mar 2006 19:30:19 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php Some people talk about doing things but don't do anything, and some people do things but don't talk about it. I think we need a little of both. Fri, 17 Mar 2006 06:21:28 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php The best way to make the phone ring when you're expecting a call is to sit on the toilet and get ready for a good dump. But it's considered rude to take a call while thusly pre-disposed. What would you do? Wed, 08 Mar 2006 15:44:01 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php This being a blog and all, I should say something periodically. It's fucking cold out and I've had enough of winter. I'm getting a new car soon, a Honda Civic, can you smell the new car smell? BFD, it's just another monthly expense for a thing that has no intrinsic spiritual value, another debt dragging me down, ensuring poverty in my golden years. I'm studying JavaScript in an obsessed way lately. Acrobat is boring. That's about all for now. Send me money. Wed, 01 Mar 2006 05:55:00 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php Passed another exam Friday. Send me money and I'll answer all your questions :-) Really, the more I get to know Adobe apps, the more I realize how little I know. Sat, 18 Feb 2006 23:48:03 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php I think Quark is done. I also have worked with Quark since 1990, in a prepress context. While I will necessarily continue to use Quark in that context, InDesign has become my fave, and I see customers moving over every day, once they find that those certain quirks in Quark that they've been working around for years simply are not an issue in CS. I have tried out the 7 beta, it's too little too late. The performance of 7 beta absolutely blows, and I have too little time to wait for a simple dialog to open, so I haven't spent alot of time with it. The interface looks like a crude rip-off of the InDesign palette system. The collaboration functionality is useless to people like me. And, after all these years, they still can't include a simple pre-flight functionality. It's probably a safe bet that the software won't be fully useable until v7.5. Sometimes we have to let an errant friend go... Wed, 08 Feb 2006 15:14:19 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php It's mucked up my blog :- ( Wed, 01 Feb 2006 16:05:37 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php The problem with the election process is that it is based on a majority vote, and the truth is that the majority of people are stupid. The best way to elect a leader would be to simply ask me. Fri, 20 Jan 2006 04:24:39 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php Is that what this is becoming? Could be, but if nobody is reading this it's like talking to myself anyway. So, to catch up, I've caught and relocated (gently) 4 squirrels and one bastard is stil in my attic, so I've called in the pros, I'm actively studying for my Illustrator certification, shooting for February, I got kind of side tracked with JavaScripting Adobe apps, thats kinda cool, and also along the way with SVG, maybe you can view this site on your cell phone soon, and this is a run on sentence so I'm stopping now. Thu, 12 Jan 2006 04:27:22 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php Amongst my many thousands of received spam emails, a recent one for male sexual enhancement has my head spinning - "An erection is like the Theory of Relativity, the more you think about, it, the harder it gets." - I'd like to stop thinking about that one, I think... Sat, 31 Dec 2005 15:54:51 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php So, the dot above an 'i' is called a tittle. Everything I know I learned on the Tony Danza Show. Thu, 22 Dec 2005 05:14:56 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php As I write this, there is a squirrel above my head, a half inch of drywall is all that separates him from me. Tommorrow my mission is to find the least humane way of trapping and killing that son of a bitch. Check my links page for more information on why the scourge of squirrels must end. Sun, 04 Dec 2005 00:39:03 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php I passed my first exam as a Adobe Certified Expert for InDesign CS2 yesterday. That was interesting, haven't embarked on anything like that for a few years. I've worked with CS for quite a while in a pre-press environment, but to a large extent we just press Control-P in that setting. I think with CS2, Adobe has finally got everything closer to 'right' than it ever has, and I felt it was worthwhile getting a more rounded out training on the produt. Over the next few months I plan to attain status as an Adobe Certified Print Specialist. And hopefully sometime in between get back in gear with PHP. And I need more javascript too... so many things in such a small brain... Sat, 03 Dec 2005 05:26:22 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php The leaves are finally falling here, and there's a very strong wind blowing them all into my neighbours yard. Sometimes things just work out... Sun, 06 Nov 2005 21:42:58 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php Racoons are another species the urban jungle could do without. I have one if these mutant-bears terrorizing my roof top - despite my best efforts, he still finds a way to get up there, and he's doing his best to get into my attic. I keep a super-soaker type water gun handy, when I hear him up there, usually around 2am, I fill it with a solution of ammonia and water, and spray it up on the roof. Seems to piss him off at least for that night, and he runs off. I'm hoping to see him as an asphalt stain some day soon. Sat, 05 Nov 2005 15:56:23 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php "It's possible that my semen carries life-threatening viruses, so hold on while I encase my erect penis with this latex prophylactic prior to inserting it in one of your body orifices" Sat, 29 Oct 2005 18:33:43 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php UPS knoes how to kill on online shopping experience. When we make that order for a shiny new toy, we hope and expect to receive it in a timely fashion. Starting Thursday, a week after my order, I finally get a 'first attempt' notice. I dutifully filled out the 'leave without signature' authorization and stuck it back on the door where it says I should. I arrive home Friday, no package, noone had looked at the form apparently. but their online tracking claims a second attempt was made. I'd bet some fat ass driver never even got out of the truck, else he(she) would have found the note. Finding the location of a pickup location seems to be out the question, they seem to go out of their way to not disclose those locations. After a phone call inviting me to 'stay on the line for assistance' their system hung up me. Tommorrow is Saturday, wonder if they work at all Saturday. Then there's Sunday, forget it, and I won't be home Monday either, and that's Halloween so I won't be asking anyone to leave something between the doors. So what to do? Had I know the sender was using UPS, I wouldn't have placed the order at all. Just did a google on 'UPS sucks', apparently a lot of people agree. Sat, 29 Oct 2005 03:37:54 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php Squirrels. I hate them. They're cute when they're chewing on somebody elses roof, or when they've been flattened by a car tire. Nobody needs them. Disease ridden flea bitten vermin. Squirrels suck. Sun, 23 Oct 2005 16:47:50 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php I don't have, have never had, an ipod. I was talking to someone recently who is on their third (or fourth, he can't remember) ipod variant. Am I missing out on something? I don't think so. I'm being a naughty consumer. I'm not supporting the disposable personal electroincs fad. I don't have a laptop either, but really have no need given that I have computers in front of me everywhere I go. My cellphone battery died a few months ago and I haven't fixed it, and can't be bothered to given that the telemarketers got hold of my cell number. I am a deviant technocrat. Wed, 19 Oct 2005 13:00:32 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php What disappoints me about apple these days is all the hoopla about the 'worlds most advanced operating sytem' when really, all it is, is more bloatware, more headaches. Here I am trying to use indesign cs2 on a new G5 with 10.4.2 on our network, which happens to be running samba off a win2k server. Well, you can't open a file under these conditions. ID crashes with an ominous 'serious error' message. Adobe knows about it, Apple knows about it, and 'are working to find a solution as quickly as possible'. Can't be soon enough. This is just one of the many gotchas we have to endure as OSX users. It pisses me off. The 'worlds most advanced operating system' should just work. Fri, 14 Oct 2005 01:49:12 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php Everything is as it is. It has no name other than the name we give it. It is we who call it something; we give it a value. We say this thing is good or it's bad, but in itself, the thing is only as it is. It's not absolute; it's just as it is. People are just as they are. -Ajahn Sumedho, "The Mind and the Way" Mon, 10 Oct 2005 15:10:28 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php I'm watching this 80's movie where the themes are time travel and telportation. Many dream of such things and believe they are possible. I think we're missing the boat on these topics. We are trapped the presumption that instantaneous transport from one location or time to another must be accompanied by the the lumps of organized matter that we call 'us and our stuff'. If we could free ourselves from the physical, we could go anywhere, anytime, we want. Then again, further to the subject of time - the 'past' is simply what was, and is immutable. The 'future' is that instant of time that follows this one. It's only the feebleness of the human mind that needs a 'past' and a 'future' to put 'now' in context. 'Now' is all there really is. Once you know 'now' you don't need to travel anywhere, because you will already be 'there'. Sun, 25 Sep 2005 19:20:09 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php By amending our mistakes, we get wisdom. By defending our faults, we betray an unsound mind. Fri, 23 Sep 2005 15:52:51 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php I'm just reading in Scientific American that scientists have detected an explosion 12.6 billion light years away, ie, it occured 12.6 billion years ago. Given that it happened so long ago, does it really matter? If a tree falls in the forest, does anybody know when? I can't remember what I had for lunch yesterday. Wed, 14 Sep 2005 15:20:57 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php I just happen to be on an OS 9 mac running IE 5.0 - this looks like hell. Know what? I don't care! Sat, 10 Sep 2005 05:08:14 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php I regularly visit macintouch.com to follow apple developments, maybe find solutions to some of the many, many things that bug me about OS X. It is interesting that mac users seem so complacent about losing all their emails, about having their firewire drives trashed, about no longer be able to log into their account, etc, etc, etc. Just read any of the threads. If any of these issues were affecting a micro$oft product, there would be lots of no-holds-barred screaming about it. People love to find fault with Bill's software, as inconsequential as many of those issues may be (personally, I admire Bill - if I could make myself worth 40+ billion, I really wouldn't care what people said about me). So, I'm just pondering what this says about mac versus windows users (I go both ways, and since OS X, depend more heavily on Windows when productivity is a concern, and I don't own an ipod) - food for further thought here... Wed, 07 Sep 2005 16:50:04 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php So I spent my Saturday night and most of Sunday working on input validation. What a loser eh? Anyway, new operators I learned this weekend include explode, strtolower, curl, and I still try really hard to get my head around regex. In fact, after a bunch of hours I found a way to do what I wanted without regex, exploding a string, comparing to a list of words that I wanted to check to (a guestbook spam filter sort of). You can check it out in my code library. And I have new link section, where most of this input validation work has been going on. Go on, try to put up a link for viagra, see what happens. Or put up a legitimate, interesting, useful link, that was the real goal. While we're at it, I'm also wondering why most tutorials have us setting up database connections with variables, when, really, don't you think constants make more sense? I've never written a script where my DB connection stuff changes. And I changed my comments table so you can make reallllly long comments now. Mon, 05 Sep 2005 06:09:03 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php Here I go again. I've just spent probably about 6 hours trying to find a way to avoid spending 10 minutes of typing. My hope was to find some clever way to come up with a 'smart' form - the concept is to have form fields that will know whether they are being used to accept new data, or display existing data for modification. I think I just got confused by reading too much about it - there are lots of clever ways to achieve this - but my lazy fat ass sez there must be an easier way - but my brain cells aren't talking to one another today, so it ain't clickin' yet. Or maybe I should just do the good old $something = $_POST['something'] and be done with it. Sat, 03 Sep 2005 19:25:29 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php I'm still trying to get my head around object oriented programming in php. I think I see it, I think I need it, but, it's, well, it's like dislocating your shoulder, and until you go through that really painful 'click', it just isn't in the right place. But once you do it, it should feel better. Thu, 01 Sep 2005 14:12:24 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php While it's on your mind, you should take the time to mark out the stud locations around your house. Then, if ever you're in a fit of rage and feel the need to punch a wall, aim in between the studs - you might spare yourself a fractured metacarpal. Been there, circa 1996. I'm better now. Speaking of planning ahead, I setup an ftp server 2 years ago, based on pure-ftpd, using a custom built mysql authentication. I didn't document anything, and it has occured to me that I'd have some trouble if the server blows up and I have to recreate it. So I traced it back and wrote it all down, it turned into 3 pages in my project area. Check it out if you care. Wed, 31 Aug 2005 05:11:17 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php It had to happen - I was working on my little Code Library page, adding a function to edit the listings, which naturally uses a UPDATE statement, but I forgot to include the 'WHERE' clause, so it dutifully updated every listing to exactly the same thing. Cool? Not. Sheeet. UPDATE without WHERE is bad. On a related note, I was getting lazy about including a error handling routine in my sql queries, was cursing for an hour when things weren't working, when I realized I simply wasn't connected to the database. Duh. Maybe I'm too stupid for this stuff. So I'll keep doing it anyway. Then I don't have to walk the dog... Sun, 28 Aug 2005 02:09:48 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php Always keep your words soft and sweet, just in case you have to eat them. Fri, 26 Aug 2005 13:59:23 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php The second mouse gets the cheese... Thu, 25 Aug 2005 05:39:21 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php I'm wondering when perseverance crosses the line to obsession. I've spent alot of time on my little website lately, learning lots of stuff, but often I get hung up on something that isn't quite working right, and I just gotta fix it. And I'll spend hours on it. And it will bug me until I fix it. Chain smoking all the way. Have another coffee. At least I don't drink anymore. I should go for a walk... Tue, 23 Aug 2005 16:50:28 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php Yes, it does. To explain - I have been a Mac user since 1990. I use macs all day, every day. I use them professionally in a prepress environment, where time truly is money. The problem with OS X is that it hasn't helped anybody make more money. Quite the opposite. It wastes my time, and only helps me get less done, and after 10-12 hours of high pressure prepress it makes my brain bleed. It's a cash cow, demanding hardware upgrades just to run the pig. Every update seems to break or obsolete some component of my systems. If you had a friend who wasted your time, took your money, and gave nothing in return, would that person be your friend for long? OS X and it's underlying technologies, I'm sure, have set the foundation of a next-generation operating system. But when will the hurting end? Tue, 23 Aug 2005 04:48:31 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php So after a few hours of screwing around with CSS, I came up with this little sub-menu thing on the 'project' page. It won't validate to anything and I'm losing sleep over it. Fuck CSS. Fuck validation. (specifically, I have a div inside a ul, and you can't have a block level element inside an inline element, apparently. Pity the poor souls who are trying to view my site on their cell phone...) Fri, 19 Aug 2005 16:37:12 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php Have you ever wanted to do so many things at once that you just didn't do anything?Just do something! Tue, 16 Aug 2005 16:07:56 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php I had nothing good to say about web standards compliance. I liked my frames and inline tagging. Now here I am, spending an entire evening validating, fixing, revalidating, and making a list of stuff I have to address to be compliant. I wasn't sold on the concept until I finally came across a Good Reason; given that there will be a growing amount of information that will never make it to print form, how are we going to find this information? Buried away amongst html tags isn't going to work for much longer.I think some people are a little too uptight about the whole business, it really isn't urgent - the standards currently being developed are intended to set the stage for the next hundred years. They are a foundation.So, I don't have to do this all tonight, but I do need to do it... Mon, 15 Aug 2005 02:47:44 GMT http://www.osxsux.net/blog.php 'Octothorpe' - that what the # sign is named. I learn something new everyday...at least I hope I do... (I found this apparently credible explanation of the origin of the term octothorpe here. Turns out it has many names. I want to start a word...) Mon, 15 Aug 2005 00:29:57 GMT