BLOG

A lot of people blast Microsoft's Internet Explorer for Windows as being bad and security prone. Naturally, a lot of people bag on Microsoft because they're an easy target. You hear it all the time, especially working in a Mac shop. But, it seems that some people are finally putting action where their words are, in that Explorer isn't getting used as much to browse website these days.       One of the sites that I monitor for my company gets about 25,000 unique visitors a month. That's not gargantuan in the web world, but its pretty sizable and its a pretty good cross section of people, albeit its a sample of people that are mainly in the SF Bay Area, who are in general more wired in and tech savvy than other regions of the US. My statistic software is pretty cool stuff - awstats.sourceforge.net in that it breaks down a tremendous amount of information including the percentage of certain browsers that visit your site. As I've been watching over the last few months, I'm noticed that Explorer has actually gone down in usage considerably. Starting in September 2004, in goes like this:       Sep 2004 - 86.7%       Oct 2004 - 85.8%       Nov 2004 - 85%       Dec 2004 - 84.4%       Jan 2005 - 83%       Feb 2005 - 81%       This total is the percentage of all the browsers that visit the site. Obviously Explorer is still far in the lead and if you're designing a site, you absolutely want to make sure it will work in this browser, but still, it says a lot, since the next highest browser is FireFox - www.getfirefox.com at 7.4%.       Who knows how long this trend will continue and in all fairness to the statistics, they're a little skewed since Microsoft has discontinued Explorer for Mac development and so most people don't use that anymore, thus dumping a decent percentage of usage for anyone who is on OS X. But, still the Remond Warrior is going to have to do some pretty heavy duty things to get back some of the ground they've lost in the new browser battle.

I re-watched Hitchcock's masterpiece the other night and having read the short story that it was based upon, I realized some things I hadn't realized before. One is a clever way they adapted the story and the other is something of a goof that has to rely on movie logic to make it work.       The first is funny because if you've read the short story, then you know how the husband disposes of his wife, in that he buries her in the floor of the apartment above him. Now, in the film version, they change this a bit. It's still the same plot, but the mechanism has changed. The husband doesn't bury his wife, but hacks her up (much more gory and Hitchcockesque of course) but if you had read the book, you would have been intentionally lead astray in the film. At the beginning there is a married couple that comes in to an empty apartment to rent it and the building manager comes over to the window like in the story. Then later, after you're trying to figure out what woman was visciously attacked, you see the husband of the couple come to the window, but you don't see the wife. If you were following the narrative of the book, you might think that the movie's main plot was all a ruse to toss a red herring your way, which would have been great. If all this is a bit dizzying, try reading the short story by Cornell Woolrich and watch the film, you'll see what I mean. It's very smart and I can only guess that it was done intentionally.       The other thing I realized, was that there was a goof when they were looking up the phone number for the couple across the way. I have to make some assumptions to come to this conclusion, so bear with me. They are in the middle of a heat wave in NYC, which I'm guessing is some time in July or August (we get ours in October in SF, but that's a different bit.) They're looking up his name and number ina phone book, which happens to be something that gets published once a year at the beginning of the year. Not a big deal so far, but there is the mention of the lease for the couple by the detective, in that they have used up 5 1/2 months of a 6 month lease. This would mean that they moved in around February or March, thus missing the deadline to get listed in the latest phone book, making that bit of the plot not possible.       I realize I could be wrong. The heat wave could be at a different time of the year, phone books may have been published twice a year then, or they may have carried their number with them from their last place. I think you can argue it either way, but it was one of those funny moments for me where the actions in the movie didn't add up.

Odd thing I've noticed when my grandmother and others of her pre-1940 generation answer a cellphone in that, they hold it kinda strange. Not so much that you'd notice unless you start seeing a ot of people in this age around with cellphones and yes, that's starting to happen more and more. They all use them fine, it's just this way of holding it that's a big into the strangeness.       Let me describe it as best I can by describing how those in my age group hold a mobile. We use only a few fingers typically, holding the phone gingerly with a light touch that befits a fine piece of modern technology. People in the older generations hold them quite the opposite, imagining them to be some form of the old black telephone (which was the most amazing telephone design of all time by the way) and they sem to imbue an idea that there is some kind of ruggedness in this new phone. Naturally, for those of us who have dropped/drowned/slightly burned/molested/sneezed on/Starbuckified or otherwise injured their mobiles in the past, you realize what a weak-assed thing they actually are. It makes wish for something that weighs three times what they do and was welded together, but I think I'm in a pretty small demographic on that.

My loyal silver and blue steed known as Bart - www.bart.gov isn't doing that well these days. It seems to work in correlation to the fact that as I get better, Bart gets worse, since for the last three weeks or so, about 80% of the time, their trains are not running on time. It happens to all public transportation systems at some point, or all the time (as shown by the Tube in London) and I'm fortunate to have the Bart and the fact that it's usually okay. But, you do start to get concerned when fees have been steadily raised and the system doesn't really get all the much better. The SFO Airport extension is pretty cool though.       The causes of the problems are varied from the weather (obviously not their fault), to a bad switch on the new SFO extension line, to a what happened today with the ghost train that was wreaking havoc with the system. I wonder where it all stems from as there seems to be a common cause to these problems.       I wouldn't think it were true, but one day a co-worker was walking by a ticket machine that was rebooting and amazingly, it was rebooting into Windows NT4. Now, this would not be so suprising up through 2001 or 2002, but these machines were installed from the end of 2003 through the beginning of 2004. Why on earth they used such an old system that's pretty terrible is beyond me, except for the fact that I assume the ticketing machines must need to tie in with existing systems - ie switching and other systems. I find it hard to believe that our lives are depending on NT4 to safely guide the trains we ride, but hey, the military uses Windows and they're doing pretty good, right...?

In doing some consulting work lately, I'm finding that I'm having to clean up a lot of problems that this other guy is creating. Supposedly, he is their IT consultant, but in looking over the things that he's done, it's obvious that there are two things at play. A) He's a Windows guy if he's anything. B) He's not a very good IT guy.       It's amazing to see someone, who is probably getting paid around $75-$125 an hour to do what he does cause so many problems. The worst part in all of this is not so much that he keeps causing problems, but more that he is arrogant about the ones that he's caused. Everytime I've tried to talk to him on the phone, he's always eating. You know that scene out of Fight Club where Edward Norton calls up Brad Pitt on the pay phone once his apartment is blown up and Brad is munching chips in to the phone? Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.       What's scary to me is that this guy will try to work on Macs. Despite the ads about how simple these machines are supposed to be, they're actually pretty complex, since you need to get a knack in how to trick the machine in to doing what you want. Whereas Windows on the other hand you can cludge in to doing whatever you want and have a really lousy fix that will plod on for years. But this IT guy is just bad when it comes to the Macs and yet they keep having him come down and then have me come down to fix whatever he's just broken.       This all makes me remember back to my last job where the IT Director (who was let go) would tell people in the Napa office that he was in San Francisco and tell the people in the San Francisco office that he was in Napa, when in reality he was at home eating Cheese Wiz on a Ritz cracker and not doing anything. It's guys like him and this other guy that I'm dealing with who make life hard for the rest of us, since they create immediate contention for the technology people in the world and even if you come in all smiles to a new job, you'll eventually get crushed to complete frowns. It sucks and I don't really know if there is a solution to it, since they people who are hiring us don't know about what we do, since that's why they're hiring us. Ultimately, you get some skunky employees in there at times, like the guy I replaced at my last job who just stopped showing up, after showing up drunk for work for a couple months.       Just watch yourself when hiring us in technology. There are quite a few bad seeds in lot.

Apple, what the hell is your problem? After all this time of blaming Microsoft, the people who brought you Windows and what is thought to be an inferior product, there should be a change of face for Mac people. Yeah, I know, your Mac is golden and pinnacle of computer design and implementation, but let me tell you, after what I've found out about their networking system, it is anything but.       It turns out that even with AppleTalk (or AFP) and Samba (SMB), two completely separate networkign system, they still can't create a stable system for OS X. Sure, you can get on a network server and it will generally work, but try working with that for some time. You'll find out all kinds of fun things, like the fact you can't move or rename files in SMB or files will suddenly disappear in AFP. These fun little things happen with both an OS X server and a Windows Server, so don't say that it's one server system or another, because it ain't. It's the Mac client itself. Why can I say this? Oh, go and download the demo of DAVE from Thursby software www.thursby.com and see the difference. Oh my, does that SMB share suddenly move as quickly as it used to in OS 9? Why yes, I think it does. Does it not crash and hang up when accessing? Once again, yes. Are you limited to a platry 30 characters filenames? Hell no! And lastly, can you rename, delete, and move files/folders. Oh yeah, baby, you can.       This is just stupid. Stupid in that you have to buy a third party application to get something so simple as network file access to work right. Thank god there's the workaround, but bad Apple. Bad, bad, bad. Try thinking the right way instead of different for once!

I have a little bit of a "problem" in naming units of measurement after actual people. They don't really take kindly to this as most people aren't usually in the mood to be objectified or turned in to a noun. Some do like this, but they're a very strange group of people we're not going to talk about today.       At my last job, there was this very annoying guy who just drove me nuts. One day he finally pushed me over the edge and I told him, "James, from this point forward you are a system of measure." Such things followed like, "If you weight 2.5 Jameses and we're 12 Jamses up in the air, how many Jameses in diameter would you cover is fell at a rate of .75 James per second." This all obviously stems from my utter hatred of the word problem as well. It went on for a while and co-workers would joke about it when they drank, so mission accomplished and all that. It was fun.       I happen to have a more serious recommendation for a unit of measurement that I think people should really take under advisement. As I write this, it's been reported that the marriage of Britney Spears and Kevin Federline is on the rocks. Most people had written it off as a joke wedding anyways, but the reasons being reported for the problems all seem to stem from Kevin. He runs off partying without Britney. He doesn't wear his wedding band all the time. He flies to Las Vegas to get lap dances, etc. Suffice to say, this is not a very bright guy.       In the history of kept men, I would think he'd learn something from Oprah's man, Steadman. Here's a guy that has managed to be her dude and get all the benefits of her money for years. Kevin isn't even being asked to put up with a woman that's a bit on the heavy side. Britney is considered by most to attractive and by some to be drop dead gorgeous (I am not part of the sum, let me assure you.) She's got tons of money. She seems to support him to try and do things. But this guy is so dumb that he appears to be blowing all of it.       So I come to my point and my recommendation for a unit of measurement that I believe should be called the "DerLine" in honor of Kevin. What is this unit of measure? Very simple really. A DerLine is the amount of time that passes when, years from now, Kevin has a moment of clarity after nights upon nights of drinking where he looks around and says, "Wow, I wonder at what point my life went wrong?" and it is then following by, "Oh... yeah." That brief nanosecond in time between those two sentences is a DerLine.       Needless to say you probably won't be using this measurement all that much because it is on a par with being faster than the speed of light.

In moving I needed to get a couple of things furniture-wise. I'm a big fan of things that are designed well, but shopping at Design Within Reach www.dwr.com one can find their salary to soon be something that is not within reach. It's great looking stuff, but the prices are just nuts. So, of course, one turns to somewhere that has things that look a lot like DWR but are much less in quality and thusly, price. I'm of course talking about IKEA - www.ikea.com. That Swedish transplant to the USA which has for some reason managed to fool people in to thinking they're getting great stuff at great prices while they're really paying $200 for a plank of particle board. And yes, it's us in the US who are pretty crazed about this place. An article in the Chronicle recently went in to great depth on how caught up we are with this blue and yellow furniture megastore, while Swedes and other Europeans could give a rip.       Curious as to the whole state of IKEA and my pocketbook, we went to the store in Emeryville, which was the first on in the SF Bay Area. Ever since it opened, it's been packed with people. I'm sure that it must make money up the wazoo. Something interesting though is that it used to have a rather normal clientelle at it. There were people that you wouldn't ming associating with who were just looking for something cheap to fill a void or looking for furniture that their kids could destroy while they saved up for something that would be more substantial in the future.       That was all before the store in Aplo Alto opened. Ever since then, it seems that anyone who is middle to upper class goes the Palo Alto store and nothing but the lowest, dirtbagging degenerates who can't get anywhere near to pronouncing the names of the furniture correct, let alone realize that they can't buy a remaindered piece of furniture with food stamps.       Surely I'm exaggerating? Unfortunately not. The scene I saw when I was there looked like something out of the 1st of the month grocery store lines in my hometown. It was refreshing to see that smacking your children in public and screaming at them like they're dogs isn't something that is purely reserved for my hometown. It was alarming however that these people do actually exist in the Bay Area. As to where they live, I have no clue, since rent ain't cheap here.       I think what really got me was that there were people who, despite the fact that IKEA is pretty damned cheap, they were trying to haggle on furniture that had a slight ding to it in roder to get it even cheaper. The joke was on them if they bought it of course, since those of us who are seasoned vetereans of the Big I know that even the slightest disturbance to the assembly matrix that surrounds the 200+ parts in an average installation will cause it to spontaneously combust upon any attempt of construction. In other words, buy slightly broken IKEA and get yourself some very expensive firewood.

It's actually more like they've taken the last couple years off, since some really ugly things have come to rest on the backs of consumers. I'm talking about low riders and pleated skirts.       Let's talk about the skirts first. I have no idea where these things came about because they're not like the old ones that pleated all the way up and looked fine. These things have got a flare to them at just about butt level that makes thing kinda stick out from the hips. I don't know how many women realize this, but that makes you look fat. The amazing thing is that girls with short legs are wearing them and they look short, fat, and like they have very stocky, fat legs. Now, it may be the case that this is your body type anyways and if so, don't wear these things at all costs. Women like to hide what is bad and ladies, I gotta tell you, these skirts ain't doing it. They're making all of you (yes, even the models showing them off) look like hookers with poor taste and that is pretty low down on the fashion food chain. Why is this you may ask? Simple, gay men designing women's clothes don't care how women look in them. They are designing for pre-pubescent boys. Yeah, it's a sick thought, but think about it for a second and it makes sense.       Haven't we seen enough of guys who wear their waistbands around their knees? I never thought something so dumb would actually catch on. And I also thought that once it did, the doofuses wearing it would soon stop. My brother did thankfully, but I get confronted by this rectacarainial-inverted fashion all the time in the Bay Area. Why?!! Here's what I think it says. FIrst off, you can't afford clothing that fits. When I had my growth spurt my mom would always buy stuff that was too big because I would grow in to it and she didn't want to pay to buy my new clothes all the time. This I can understand. Doing this when you're 6'3" and have obviously stopped growing because you're 23, is something that I can't understand. I think these guys think this is some kind of virility, like how in the days of old, they used to tie their belts extra long to show that claimed to have extra length in the groin. I think there something like this in the pants lowering. But, judging by how the gay men are checking out these guys, I think they're taking it as a sign that if the pants are down, the ass is ready. Afterall, they already have a version of this in the latest gay leather wear, called the Assless Chaps.       So, to summarize, put a little thought in to your wardrobe before you wear it. Thank god we're getting a H&M in SF this year...

The time has come to leave the studio! It's just not really big enough for two people, although the girl and I have done well with it for the last 1.5 years. Only one break up to speak of and we're even making it through bad illness together in it, but you just gotta get more space at some point we're finding out.       So, we're doing it. We're moving in to a one bedroom. $400 a month increase in rent be damned! We can afford it! I hope... At least the move is easy, since it's an apartment next door. We'll have plenty of time to kvetch though as we're not moving in until the end of February, so one more month of cheap rent will be ours.       One of the biggest threats to our wallets will be the urge to fill all the available space. This will naturally result in spending more on furniture, but hey, so be it. If I'm slaving away at a job in Walnut Creek, I should get something good out of the deal, right?