:: Personal website of a Toronto web designer
Archive, June 2001
Saturday, 30. June 2001
Sunflower
[12:00 am]
We bought a beautiful flower that inspired Europe's greatest artists and continues to be a favorite art form for designers of fashion.
So, do they really follow the sun?
When the plant is in the bud stage, it tends to track the movement of the sun across the horizon. Once the flower opens into the radiance of yellow petals, it faces east. No one knows why. However, it is likely a defensive response because facing to south or west could result in sun-scalding of seeds during very hot days.
OpenSource Mozilla 0.9.2 released. 25 bugs fixed according to the release notes.
Thursday, 28. June 2001
Google translation service
[12:00 am]
Using Google a lot I noticed the translation service that this search engine provides but I have never used it until today. Let's say you search for the word "Kuh" that means "cow" in German. You will get the search results and the small link "Translate this page" that will bring you to the originally German page but translated in English. The translation is still a bit clumsy (totally understandable), but readable and helpful in many cases.
You cannot imagine how happy I was when I saw my web site translated in German, Portuguese, Italian . . . all in just couple of seconds. The title of the page is translated, alt tags, . . . funny stuff! The best part of it, all links go to the translated page as well.
Unfortunately my skins are not working using Google translator, but you get a nice translation of the ASP error. :-)
I wanted to see what's new in the Napster house and got this message on my screen:
To connect to the Napster servers, upgrade your Napster application to version 2.0 beta 10.3 for Windows. All previous versions of Napster have been disabled. We're making this change as part of our ongoing effort to comply with the court's orders. It will take some time for our new filtering technology to accurately identify files; so initially, the number of files available will drop. As more users upgrade to the new versions and more files are identified, more music will become available through Napster. When you download the new application and log on, you're strengthening the Napster Community.
Tuesday, 26. June 2001
Protect your email address from spambots
[12:00 am]
Today I received an email from the company X. As an attachment I got the image taken from my web site which is supposed to be a logo (they missed that one and ended up with the lately.gif). Why they included the image from my web site I have no idea. That way their email looks more personal I guess. Here is an idea how to protect yourself and your clients from the stupid spam bot programs that are doing this. Replace the standard email link with this bit of javascript, edited of course with your or client's email address.
<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">
document.write('<a href="mailto'+':'+'contact'+'@'+'yoursite'+'.'+'com'+'">');
document.write('contact'+'@'+'yoursite'+'.'+'com</a>');
</script>
Sunday, 24. June 2001
Google Image Search
[12:00 am]
Google has released a beta version of its new image search function. Google's Image Search is the most comprehensive on the Web, with more than 150 million images indexed and available for viewing. To use image search, go to the advanced search page and enter a query in the image search box.
Thursday, 21. June 2001
Damn Spam!
[12:00 am]
Do you ever read spam mails? If you ask me, never. Ok, I made an exception today, but tell me, would you move an email with the subject "ADD INCHES To Your PENIS In Just Minutes A Day!" to the trash folder without opening it first?
Guys, no matter what they say, Size DOES Matter!
It only takes 5-10 MINUTES per day to achieve the size you want!
We are not claiming a "Miracle" or "Magical" temporary cure to make your penis grow, these are proven medical techniques which we've been studying and perfecting since 1994, that you can do RIGHT NOW to achieve PERMANENT, safe, and HUGE results! a Thousands of men have tried our methods with great success!
[ Guaranteed Results ]
Women Get This For Your Boyfriend/Husband It REALLY WORKS!
CLICK HERE NOW TO BE AMAZED
Thanks guys, I really appreciate it but, I'm kind of happy with my size ;-)
From the designer's point of view though, I agree, size DOES matter!
I know everybody is talking about this but in case you haven't heard yet there is a huge vulnerability hole which affects every version of Microsoft's Internet Information Services (IIS) Web Server software. If you use IIS as I do make sure to download and apply the patch provided on Microsoft's web site.
Wednesday, 20. June 2001
Play Mini Golf online
[12:00 am]
Smart way how to use Flash, no doubt. Caution, the site is addictive, you'll need lots of spare time!
Checked my logs today. Higher then usual. What? We are added on gouw.nu! Thanks pixelfarmerondope people, I really appreciate it! Make sure to check the other sites there, lots of beautiful stuff . . . except this one :-)
Monday, 18. June 2001
Sitespring
[12:00 am]
Why Aren't More People Online? An interesting research provided by Ipsos-Reid.
Macromedia just announced a brand new product called Sitespring. Honestly I didn't have a chance to look at it deeper, but it seems to be a pretty nice thing.
Friday, 15. June 2001
ALA 114
[12:00 am]
A List Apart #114 is out with 2 great new stories.
I have definitely found myself in the Robbie Sheppard's story "The Client did it".
Thursday, 14. June 2001
Unusual solutions to the planet overheating problem
[12:00 am]
NASA's answer to global warming: nudge the planet farther from Sun!
"Scientists have found an unusual way to prevent our planet overheating: move it to a cooler spot. All you have to do is hurtle a few comets at Earth, and its orbit will be altered. Our world will then be sent spinning into a safer, colder part of the solar system."
Oh man, I hope they just talk rubbish. There are other ways how to solve this problem I guess.
Wednesday, 13. June 2001
10 Years of Photoshop
[12:00 am]
I've just found an interesting and informative article. If you have ever wondered how Photoshop got to the point where it is now, then it is really something you must read.
"The Birth of a Killer Application - Ten Years of Photoshop".
Have fun.
Tuesday, 12. June 2001
Mac critics
[12:00 am]
I have never used Macs in order to judge about them. My negative opinion is only based on an essay written by my friend Adam.
Ever wondered what Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux operating system, would say on the new apple OSX kernel?
"Frankly, I think it's a piece of crap."
Monday, 11. June 2001
Beware of Virus Hoaxes
[12:00 am]
I know my visitors are only smart people, but hey be careful and do not trust all kinds of virus stories. Hoaxes are intended only to frighten or confuse you! AOL virus story made me laugh today.
Two views of hacking - an interesting article on CNN web site. CNN Interactive posed a series of questions via e-mail to two experts in the field, one a computer security expert for IBM, the other, editor of 2600, the Hackers' Quarterly.
Saturday, 09. June 2001
Swordfish
[12:00 am]
Yesterday we decided to go to the movie theater and see "Swordfish". I don't like this kind of movies packed with explosions, killings et cetera but I said OK let's have some "entertainment". And guess what, first we all were in the mood of doing something else, second it was a power cut in the movie theater and nobody knew if the movie would play, third it was too crowded. So we didn't watch the movie, ended up in a nice place drinking beer and eating nacho chips instead.
After reading this article today, I am happy somehow that the evening went this way.
"I'm a cow." by RmT.
Highly amusing flash movie thing. I can't get this song of my head :-)
Wednesday, 06. June 2001
DoS
[12:00 am]
"Nothing more than the whim of a 13-year old hacker is required to knock any user, site, or server right off the Internet."
The Strange Tale of the Denial of Service.
Monday, 04. June 2001
What comes next?
[12:00 am]
After Napster, AfterNapster!
Sunday, 03. June 2001
Scribble update
[12:00 am]
Today I updated "scribble" section (read guestbook) in order to maintain it easier. Before the data was pulled up from the text file, now it comes from the data base.
My next step will be to get the data from the XML file. An XML file is dynamically generated each time you say something nice to Sasha. Why am I doing this? Because I want to separate style and content and because I enjoy code tweaking ;-)
Saturday, 02. June 2001
XHTML
[12:00 am]
It is Saturday morning and I stood up at 6:30, couldn't sleep any longer. I always say to myself during the week, when the weekend comes I'll get some more sleep, but then the same thing happens every time. At least I did something useful this morning and moved the entire site toward valid XHTML.
