Inert Ramblings

Blog

  • An open letter to some random kid…

    Dear some random kid,

    Thank you for not only taking the time to fill out our information request form, but also using such eloquent prose to inform me that I suck dick. Fortunately for me, and unfortunately for you, all requests are logged by IP address and it was rather trivial for me to track down and contact your music and computer teachers. Now, how could I possibly know to contact your music teacher? Simple; you hit our Web server on a direct request with no referrer, so you were more than likely trying to find JW Pepper and Sons in search of sheet music. We field a few requests per week from students whose teachers give them the wrong URL.

    Hopefully, you were still sitting at your workstation when your faculty received my e-mail. Hopefully, you are still sitting at your workstation now. Hopefully, you will learn that your are not anonymous on the Internet. Unfortunately, you will probably never read this, and I will never have the satisfaction of knowing one way or another whether or not you got owned.

    I’m not usually such an ass. Believe it or not, I used to be a kid too and I pulled my share of pranks. I was just never stupid enough to get caught. Oh, and it wasn’t even your incredibly poor attempt at an insult that set me off; it was the fact that you used Niggaville as your city. No attempt at wit was made whatsoever. Bad monkey, no biscuit.

    Hugs,

    /Sean/

  • SUPER SIZE ME!

    fat_ron.gifNews about the SUPER SIZE ME documentary has already made its rounds, so I won’t go into any verbose details. A movie trailer isn’t available yet, but quite a few promotional downloads are now available, including the Super Size Me “Full Length” and Super Size Me “Radio Edit” MP3s.

    Incidentally, McDonald’s claims that the negative publicity caused by the film did not influence their decision to start their Eat Smart campaign or to discontinue the SuperSize menu.

  • Microsoft backpedals…

    I guess enough people pointed out the Powerbook on Microsoft’s Web site that they decided to Photoshop it. No worries. The original is still on Microsoft’s intro page.

  • My Powerbook AC adapter blew up in my hand…

    Fried_Brick-Thumbnail-DWC150.jpgMy Powerbook G4 AC adapter blew up in my hand today. We’re not just talking poof, here. We’re talking about sparks flying, fuse blowing, toasted flesh smelling, heart attack inducing, nerve numbing goodness! I’m just glad that the arc grounded out through a piece of furniture and not me. Luckily, my hand was just collateral damage and was not subject to the brunt of the attack.
    (more…)

  • Sunny Florida!

    Kelly and I are taking a mini-vacation this week and will be flying down to Sunny Florida for a few days to visit Dad and Gram. It figures…we’ll be leaving on an unusually warm day. It was 50 today, so who knows how warm it will be tomorrow when we leave.

    Once we get to Florida, we’ll be doing the tourist thing, playing with my Dad’s Segway, seeing the sights, then driving home in a free Subaru Legacy that fell out of the sky. Well, not really. Gram sidegraded to a Ford Escort, so I get the Legacy to replace the rally car as my daily driver. On the way home, we’ll be stopping off at Picky Hedgies so Kelly can look at hedgehogs.

    So, once we get home, the rally car goes up on jackstands for major surgery. Fun stuff.

  • Andrew is a bastard…

    Thanks to Andrew, I can’t get Freezepop out of my head.

  • Photoshop – IPTC and JPEG Files

    When batch modifying XMP and IPTC header codes on JPEG files using the Adobe Photoshop File Browser, a new file is created with a new creation date and the original JPEG is deleted. Since Photoshop does not yet offer lossless JPEG rotation, I was worried that the new JPEG files with attached IPTC header codes may have been recompressed and undergone one step of JPEG degradation.

    Luckily, my worries were unfounded, for a quick call to Adobe technical support revealed that IPTC header codes are appended to the file and no image data is changed. The fact that the original file gets deleted and a new file with a new creation date gets created is a known bug that has been logged and Adobe is looking into the problem.

  • Looking for devices matching vendor ID=1193

    If you disconnect your Canon CanonScan LiDE 80, 50, or 30 scanner, be prepared for thousands of logfile entries while the scanner driver searches the USB bus for the scanner.

    Looking for devices matching vendor ID=1193 and product ID=8717
    Looking for devices matching vendor ID=1193 and product ID=8718

    Wonderful. Since I permanently deinstalled the scanner to replace it with an EPSON Perfection 2400, I ended up running the driver delete utility to nuke it from my system.

    No more errors. Joy.

    Update: Jon Rentzsch seems to agree that the LiDE sucks.

  • Introducing the Microsoft Powerbook!

    microsoftpowerbook.jpgI guess Microsoft loves the Powerbook enough to use it in their advertising. Sure, there’s Office for Mac OS X, but using a Powerbook to promote Microsoft security doesn’t exactly give me the warm fuzzies. I guess Microsoft just really wants to be like Apple.

    I’m sure they had a good reason for the faux pas. A lazy art directory who grabbed the first cool photo they could find from a stock photo house, perhaps? Who knows. It is amusing, although not as funny as the Gateway 2000 ad that featured the Powerbook!

  • A Fistful of CSS Quickies

    Not only have I been converted over to the anti-tables camp, but I’m finally starting to learn advanced CSS layout techniques.

    If you still need proof that CSS is the fast track to more organized Web development, check out the CSS Zen Garden project. Once you admire the designs, you’ll definitely want to conform to XHTML and CSS Web standards.

    Update: A List Apart lists various markup resources, and the New York Public Library has standardized on XHTML and CSS for document presentation. Sure, it’s important to look good, but organization is key!