The Web Tries To Kill MSIE6, But Some Of Us Are Stuck With It

There’s a pretty good movement about of people that want to kill Internet Explorer 6, which I have absolutely no problem with for the most part. My problem? I run an old Citrix Metaframe 1.8 client/server network running Windows 2000 (I inherited it, I didn’t design it). Some of the Web apps my company uses or potentially might use only work in MSIE (I’m looking at you Escapia and Navis). While I can install Firefox, it doesn’t work well on our under-powered twinky terminal clients. And Microsoft has no intention of releasing IE7 or higher for Windows 2000. So my co-workers are stuck with a crappy browser.

And in this economy, as much as I’d like to, we’re not going to be able to upgrade our clients into full blown useful desktops anytime soon. So while this campaign to kill IE6 is fine and all, it sucks for me as I get folks at work who keep asking me why they’re seeing this message. And I get to tell them that there’s nothing I can do about it.

(Granted, most of the site’s that are posting that IE6 No More code are sites that my co-workers shouldn’t be visiting during office hours, but that’s another problem for another time.)

August 9, 2009

There Are Some Weird People Out There

Like folks who have an unhealthy obsession with Sonic The Hedgehog (some of the text is not-safe-for-work).

August 9, 2009

I’ve Said It Once, and I’ll Say It Again…

…I do not control the entire Internet. Contrary to the popular belief of some of the folks I deal with on a daily basis (but don’t actually work for), if the Web site you’re trying to visit is down, and you haven’t tried visiting other Web sites, don’t blame me until you actually try some other Web sites. If you can’t get to any sites, then you can bug me. If I can get online, so can you. If I say the Web’s working fine, don’t sit there and waste more of my time (and my boss’ money) telling me it’s not.

</rant>

(Yes, I know I’ve made a similar rant before, but it doesn’t hurt to reiterate it.)

August 9, 2009

Big Ol’ Multi-Family Garage Sale Tomorrow

I’m working with my bro/sis-in-law to clean both of our houses of all of our old (but still in great shape) kid stuff. We have a ton of stuff that our kids all gently used, but have long since out-grown or quit playing with. Joggers, bike trailers, bikes, strollers, toys, clothes, pet supplies, and a whole ton of other stuff.

The sale’s in Elkhorn Estates here in Bend. E-mail or comment below and I’ll e-mail you the address. Sale starts at 8 on Saturday, 8/8, will last until whenever we feel like quitting.

Update after sale: Sold off quite a few things and walked off with a couple hundred bucks to pay bills with. Still have the baby stroller/trailer (it’s one of these) as the person who said they were going to come back and pay for it never did. We’d like $80 for it, if anybody’s interested (it’s in impeccable shape, has all the parts and instructions). We also have a guinea pig cage (basically new — will probably go to the Humane Society if nobody wants it), Ikea leaf canopy, a bunch of kids stuff left (lots of Playdoh stuff), and a bunch of other great shape toys that will probably go on craiglist here sometime (unless somebody here wants anything). We pretty much gave away all the clothes by the end of the sale, so there’s none of that left.

August 7, 2009

Taco Bell Goes Green

They’re going so green, they’re making no impact on nature at all.

August 6, 2009

Couple Time Killers For The Evening

Greg Can Jump is a very simple, but fast-paced game that gets really hard as you go on. Which is why I prefer DropSum as it’s like Tetris and basic math rolled into one — and it won’t cause you to get too angry.

August 6, 2009

Mario Bros. Played By Software

I can’t wait to see the results of the Mario AI Competition:

This competition is about learning, or otherwise developing, the best controller (agent) for a version of Super Mario Bros.

The controller’s job is to win as many levels (of increasing difficulty) as possible. Each time step (24 per second in simualated time) the controller has to decide what action to take (left, right, jump etc) in response to the environment around Mario.

Update: Looks like somebody’s been working on this, with fairly impressive results:

August 4, 2009

Why The Public Option Sucks

August 4, 2009

Monitor Your Servers With Your Phone

Does anybody know if somebody’s made an app like Pigs Can Fly Site Monitor for Windows Mobile? I can see that being stupidly handy to have on my phone. I’ll have to dig through the XDA-Dev forum, as I’m sure there’s something that some hacker has created — it just made be a pain to find.

August 4, 2009

Abstinence Education

How would you illustrate the various stages and pressures of abstaining from the dirty deed? Probably something like this.

August 4, 2009