Basic cable in most areas provides about 50 channels or so — 30 of which are crap or unwanted. Cable companies don’t really care and and actually defend the practice.
Month: March 2004
The World’s Greatest Safe
I don’t care how much money’s in it, I have a feeling no crook is going to get near these.
What if there was nothing but good news?
Would Google News look something like this?
Dated Web Design Clichés
If you designed Web pages at all in the 90s, you’ll remember these atrocities, and probably pulled a few yourself. Hell, I know if you look around at old sites I did a LONG time ago (which I’m certainly not going to link to here — if you want to make fun of me, do the legwork yourself ;-]), I’m just as guilty as anybody. Thankfully I’ve come to my senses and while I may not be the best designer on the planet, I don’t do anything too stupid.
Sports Illustrated’s digital photo workflow
Want to know how a major magazine does their photographic work on deadline and how they decide what gets printed and what doesn’t? They look at a crap load of photos in a short amount of time. A fascinating read. Via J-Walk Blog (second hand via Waxy’s Links).
Pricewatch’s $10,000 T-Shirt Entries
This just goes to show that bargain-hunting geeks should never be designers, as Pricewatch’s T-Shirt contest has, with a few exceptions, produced some pretty ugly/cheesy entries. You’d think for $10,000 you’d get some kick-ass designers on board, but, mostly (and I certainly haven’t dug through all the entries) I see a lot of clichéd design ideas.
What if you stick the apple up your nose?
You’ve always heard that an apple a day keeps the doctor away, but what do you do when the doctor recommends nose-picking to stay healthy? Thanks to Cheesehead Craig for the link.
New Google Design Goes Live
Threw me a curveball when I plugged a search into my Google bar this morning and things looked differently. Here’s a round-up of all the changes via Waxy.
Cleaning PHP code is Fun
Really. I’m serious. At least in this case, it was fun, because I know now that it’s done, my life will be a lot easier.
My work site is powered by PHP. The off-the-shelf script I used to power the home manager is called Free Realty. I’m using an older version of it where the code isn’t as clean (and even the new version isn’t as clean as it probably could be, but it’s fairly plug and play). But the version I have used a TON of echo statements to create its various pages. Now, echo statements are fine if you’re processing variables inside those echoes, but there were just large echo statements full of HTML, and it was just annoying to look at, especially so since HomeSite doesn’t color code the HTML inside PHP tags — meaning it’s really hard to read. So today I got rid of a bunch of echo tags, did a lot more in-line PHP if/else stuff, replaced the longer echo blocks with short-tag versions of echo in-line with the HTML, reduced the amount of overall if/else statements and the code is a lot cleaner and easier on the eyes. It will make a future project I’m working on a hell of a lot easier, too (as I plan on reusing a lot of this same code).
I’m starting to pretend pretty well that I know what I’m doing with this stuff 😉 Prior to this job, I didn’t know a damn thing about PHP, other than knowing a coworker or two were studs at it. But working here was the first real shot I’ve had at it, and it’s a blast. Beats working on the piece of crap ASP server I have upstairs any day of the week.
When I start running again….
…I’m going to enter this race, as well as any other Hash race I can find. While I don’t drink now, I have a feeling having two teenage daughters might make me start. It’s 10 years away, but it’s still too soon.