Users get lost inside PDF files, which are typically big, linear text blobs that are optimized for print and unpleasant to read and navigate online. PDF is good for printing, but that's it. Don't use it for online presentation.

Two points to remember:

1. All big linear text blobs are unpleasant to read and navigate online. PDF's allow you to print them and read them offline where they are more bearable.
2. For some reason when people say online presentation I think of Powerpoint or Flash. I have never seen Acrobat used for an online presentation. If this is a widespread problem I have somehow missed it.

The politics of open-source software. CNET News.com's Declan McCullagh discusses why the Initiative for Software Choice is lobbying hard to make sure government agencies here and abroad don't unduly favor open source. [CNET News.com]

This is an interesting article that expresses a concern that Microsoft will feel obligated to protect their turf from Open Source software. Licensing costs and complexity are at the crux of the problem since the open source software quality has gotten quite good and useful.

Dave Barry. “Skiing combines outdoor fun with knocking down trees with your face.” [Quotes of the Day]

Samuel Johnson. “What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.” [Quotes of the Day]

Katharine Whitehorn. “The easiest way for your children to learn about money is for you not to have any.” [Quotes of the Day]

Joe Ancis. “The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well.” [Quotes of the Day]

Here are four quotes that appeared on the same day. The first one appeals to my sense of danger in one of my favorite sports. The second quote aptly describes my dilema in writing. Writing is hard work if you want it to be read. The third quote highlights an important fact about how children learn about money. Children without money seem to learn their “life lessons” so much easier. Most kids with money just don't get it until life kicks them in the butt with a bitter life lesson. Some kids grow up and never get it despite a multitude of “life lessons” heaped on them. To me the last quote speaks about the problem we face in talking about our dysfunctional families. We are hurt by our family strangeness. It makes some family members very embarassed and lonely. The solution is to share these problems with a close friend. There lies the problem. You need a friend who won't run away screaming as you describe your family problems. My slightly abridged version of the quote is, “The only normal families are the ones you don't know very well.”

There are a lot of ways a person can make a musical photo slideshow. My choice of bundling the photos into a media file with the music is primarily the result of the success of Microsoft and Real to encode the data into a file size I consider to be reasonable for today's users. I consider both Microsoft and Real versions to be equivalent in quality so the overall winner is Microsoft based on the smaller file size. I was kind of surprised to find out that Pinnacle Studio was the best way for me to create the file. I will not tell you how much I surfed the web trying to find a solution that Pinnacle already could do. I am running version 7 so I was surprised when I looked at the file and found that it had encoded with the Microsoft's version 9 encoder and Real version 8 encoder.

Is DHTML Dead?. Cross-browser incompatibilities, insufficient power, and the march of technology have relegated DHTML to a small—and shrinking—niche. By [email protected] (A. Russell Jones). [DevX: Latest Published Articles]

Browser Navigation is a pain in the butt! You probably should not use DHTML because of browser captibilities. Some people turn off javascript. This forces you back to the navigation scheme we use for blind people. I am trying get myself up to fixing our website for Netscape 4. It used to work but I think I should of paid more attention to how I used css.

I spent a couple of hours reading various Habitat for Humanity documents from their partnernet site and composing emails. I am somewhat involved in purchasing and I found some updated order forms for national partnership contributions. I am also somewhat involved in a project to convert from Peachtree to Quickbooks. I have a particular interest in Quickbooks for Non-Profits. The customized version has custom reports and highly encourages you to use their account codes since they feed directly into the annual tax report, Form 990.  Since we probably want to load some historical data it would be best if we matched up the existing chart of accounts to the version used in Quickbooks for Non-Profits. So I ordered a trial copy of the Non-Profit version. This should be interesting.

Today I created scripts to backup the SBS server. This task is a relatively low priority for me because the lack of backups affect only one person, me! Tape drives and tapes are relatively expensive. IMHO I think tape backups will soon be obsolete. Since the announcements that SBS2003 would automatically setup backup for new server installs I decided to get myself familar with NTBACKUP. I looked at several alternatives but decided to use the procedure described by Mariëtte Knap in her article, How to backup your SBS 2000 server. I had two problems, the parameters for the Ntbackup and the smtp pickup location used by Exchange. The parameters in the downloaded file were for tape backups and I was performing disk backups. The vbs I downloaded had the correct pickup directory for smtp mail but the comments implied I needed to change it. I expect my mirrored disks will save me from disk failures. I expect the daily backup will used as the last resort  to save me from my installation errors.