Month: February 2003

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It has been a cold, dreary two days. The freezing rain and sleet has made travel hazadous. Our workers cannot come in because of the weather. That means Andi and I have been spending quality time cleaning stalls. Both of us having been suffering from the same quasi-flu that has affected most of the tri-state area. The difference is that we cannot take the day off. The good news is that we are not getting the 12 to 24 inches of snow that my parents in Virginia are looking at. It is hard to believe that the same storm that has pelted us with freezing rain and sleet is dropping so much snow in Virginia. I am grateful.

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Just when you thought browser compatibility was a goal that could be reached in your lifetime…

Foock yuoo tuu Bork Bork Bork. Two weeks ago, Microsoft started intentionally feeding distorted stylesheets to Opera users on MSN.com. Today Opera strikes back. (139 words) [dive into mark]

Yesterday I was putting the finishing touches on one of my templates to make it XHTML compliant. The idea behind XHTML compliance, at least for me, is to avoid web browser problems. Obviously MSN and Opera have plenty of bugs they could be working on but they spent their time being silly. Opera’s response was pretty clever! When you go to MSN using Opera “Bork Edition”, you will see the page transformed into the language of the famous Swedish Chef from the Muppet Show: Bork, Bork, Bork!

Another tool I have been using is textile from www.textism.com. This tools transforms regular text with the help of small set of block and phrase modifiers into XHTML compliant HTML. It is easy to use and cleans up font annoyances. Its features would be nice to have in Topstyle or Radio.

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Changes to Legacy Farm Ltd. website

Yesterday I started my revisions to the Legacy Farm Ltd. website. I have quite a shopping list since I have been very lax in updating it. The three I picked for yesterday were:

  1. Incorporate a print.css
  2. Add Creative Commons License
  3. Change over to XHMTML

The idea for the print.css came from alistapart.com and Eric Meyer. When you want to print a web page you use a different stylesheet. Using a “print.css” you can omit layers and resize others to make it more suitable for printing. To create the css I had to find the names of all my layers and create a new layer for the footer. It was pretty simple task and definitely slick!

The Creative Commons License is something I wanted to do since I heard about it. This license grants the public a practical, general use license without the lawyer mumbo jumbo. Copyright has its place in society but most of us have a very limited interest in it. FUD concerning coyright laws keeps us from sharing photos and content even if they have almost no commercial value.

The change over to XHTML has been long overdue. I tried to go to XHTML last spring but the W3C validator created a long list of problems. I realized that I would have to do more research on XHTML to fix the problems and modify Dreamweaver 4 since it does not support XHTML out of the box. Later in the year Alistapart had a story that outlines changes you can make to Dreamweaver to better support XHTML. This fixed part of the problem. The key to solving the problem ended up with a program I am evaluating called Topstyle. I installed the trial version to see how much help it would be in creating and modifying my stylesheets. Dreamweaver ships with the Lite version and I went to the site to see if a newer Lite version existed. I decided to take advantage of a trial offer on the Pro version. What attracted my attention was the built in support for HTMLTIDY, W3C validator, and Bobby. What I found was a pretty convienent way of converting HTML to XHTML. It pointed out the changes I needed to make and since it is also a HTML editor I was able to make the changes right there. Today I will validate the pages with W3C since the trial version did not include W3C validator. It is in vesion 3.1. To get more info about Topstyle Pro 3.1 or order it click here.

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Lenin. “A lie told often enough becomes the truth.” [Quotes of the Day]

I have noticed where the anti-war sentiment appears to building in some areas. Sean Penn has decided to sue a movie producer because he believes his anti-war stance got him kicked off of the film. Sean has a history of being volatile so the cynical side of me says this is his way to publize his position on the “proposed war”. Letting myself swim a little farther into the cyncism sea I see Madonna and Sean as jealous over the amount of positive coverarge the war is getting. I guess their opinions on world affairs appeal to some but most of the time they are poor advocates for the cause. Too much glitz and not enough substance tend to make me cynical. I try real hard not to be cynical but actors and musicians are pretty low on my credibility scale for opinions on world politics. This gets me back to my original subject, truth and lies. The truth is a lot harder to find. I am uncomfortable calling it a war since use of the word is obviously premature. I think the use of “proposed police action” is a more accurate description of the administration's objective but we have too many syllables for the press and anti-war artists. Let's get real. The proposed military action has a lot more in common with Panama, Barbary Coast, Libya, etc. than any of our “real wars”. My anti-war plan is to not call it a war. If we call it a war often enough, someone is going to believe you and we are going to have a big problem.

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Last night I told my son that I was having a problem deciding what I should do next year. He told me to stay with the Area56 folks if that's what I enjoy. Then he said he might want to be a leader. Hmm.

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On Saturday I help with the 5th and 6th grade ministry at our church. I am officially called a “coach” since the actual leaders are high school students. It's really a cool arangement, kids telling other kids about Christ. I have really gotten a lot out the leaders, the other “coaches”, the pastors, and of course, the kids. It is kind of hard to describe what I do for them.  I see my job as supporting the ministry develop their leaders. Most of the time it just involves listening and encouraging them to be themselves. God can always find a way to work through them when they are true to themselves. My job is so easy and fun I feel I am getting the better part of the deal.  Lately I have been trying figure what I am going to do next year. My son is in the sixth grade. The seventh and eighth graders have a different celebration time, Sunday morning at 10. I have enjoyed working with all of the people associated with the 5th and 6th grade celebration but there are family pressures. My wife does not share my passion for the students and would prefer I move on next year.  I will pray and hope that God will see fit to clear up the fog.

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SSH

I guess I cannot leave the server alone. Today I installed SSH. You might ask why? I asked myself the same question. My favorite http editor is Dreamweaver and it likes ftp. I could have installed the FTP server but that is too insecure. I have had previous problems with Webdav and Frontpage sever. SSH is what everyone wants to use. They also do not want to pay for it. Openssh is the answer. Actually I installed Cygwin and sshd. I have previously used the openssh version from networksimplicity.com. The nice folks at network simplicity said their project was mute due to improvements in cygwin and that I should check out the instructions at Mike's Technical website, tech.erdelynet.com. I followed his instructions and sshd works. I checked with my favorite free ftp program, filezilla, and putty.  Now to make it work with Dreamweaver.

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It's starting to snow again. Winter is still with us. My son was sick for two days. A lot of schools in the area have closed because of illness. I finally finished my required government surveys. They are late but they are finally done. I am ready for the weekend.