February 2000

Ya know, I wasn't on any medication yesterday, and I'm pretty much straight-edge (the old sküle style) so I can't explain this, but I'm almost positive that I saw a show that looked like the 'Family Feud' but it was hosted by Louie Anderson, and had a team of wrestlers versus a team of Playboy centerfolds... please tell me I'm wrong...

The above makes me think I'm overworked a bit. I'm afraid to do any sort of search for more info on this frightening episode... feel free to follow up for me...

I can't wait til this month is over. It's usually over by now, I'm not sure what's taking so long... (note to self: must locate Chad from Indy, Feb. 29th is our day to do the dishes at the Farwell house...)

Every now and then I come up with some goofy possibility for a domain name, most are already taken of course. The other day I wondered about fartbrain.com. fatbrain already owns it ;) It's kind of funny, but now when you get your domain name, you might also want to register the sucks.com version of it too. Since I can't get rasterweb.com maybe I should just settle for rasterwebsucks.com...

Alright, I know the world did not end on Jan. 1, 2000... and it probably won't end today either. If you're running some unix-based system, you've got another 38 years until your world is doomed...

I plan to patent the ability to patent things on the web. That should cover it!

I like linkwatcher, it's cool... I think I may need to be in the 'suspect' category sometimes... there's also a nice search... and the linkwatcher metalog too...

Check out Ten Perl Myths, I think 'Perl looks like line noise' describes my code pretty good... There's also this neat quote about perl - "...maybe you wouldn't write an operating system in it. I know one or two people who are trying, but they're freaks."

I tested this page using Mozilla M13 today... all is good...

Well, this is weird, but I thought I should mention it before anyone else does. I was looking at my design tweaks, and thought to myself "hmmm, not bad" (not great either, but hey, I'm a busy guy) so I had to catch up on some Mac news and hit MacWeek, no big deal right? Well, from there I went to MacKiDo. Augh! Alright... well, there are some similarities in the color palette and design... crud. I swear I haven't visited MacKiDo for about a year or more, so I really don't think it had any influence on me.

Oh, as long as I mentioned Blogger, I should mention I also did an EditThisPage site a while back - raster.editthispage.com... !loooooc

I did a few more minor design tweaks... I'm sure my page views will triple! (meaning three people will see this page now ;)

I know, I'm slow... I'm way behind... but I actually started playing with Blogger today, and... it's... neat! I will say that it's based on the same model I was developing (and really need to finish) where one site maintains the raw data and sends it via ftp to another site. I won't be using it for my updates to this page, *but* I can see that other possiblities exist. Maybe I'll use it to update my config or include files... anyway, a big thumbs-up to the people at Pyra.

Via Bifurcated Rivets comes a link to the Blue Meanies, is this the same Blue Meanies from Normal, IL from back around 1991 or so? I'm guessing it is...

Oh, you might notice some changes to this page, "thinking about boxes" as it were...

I was curious what servers the sites on the http://www.weblogs.com/hotList were running, so I did a little experiment called hotList HEADs...

I'm in the midst of doing design tweaks to this page, man-0-man... whut a pain... my targets are Communicator 4.x and MSIE 4.x under Mac OS and Windows, at least to start with... MSIE 4.5 on the Mac is killing me right now... sigh...

Yes, we still need web standards...

Drool! spy camera type watch from Casio... ;)

I've been playing with polling sites lately...

I'm convinced that some device in the kitchen at werk has either a 'BURN' button, or at least a 'BURN' setting, as it seems to always stink lately... I miss our old building, where I was far away from the kitchen...

I may not be the kungfumaster, but I'm as close as yer gonna get to a "...raster blaster picking up a Shasta..." - I mix metaphors, not drinks...

aw krap... this site might have some kungfoo action, although it doesn't appear to have any right now...

Definition of a Tangent: some thing to go off on...

Excellent! I still remain 'under the radar' of them! They remain unaware of my presence and my evil plot to destro... oops! I've said too much already...

Navel gazing? try "GRAVEL TASTING!" Hyeeeya! Fwoo! Thwack! Thwack! Kayiiieeee! (insert deadly kung foo action here...)

rasterweb: the only website with deadly kung foo™ action!

I'm working on some redesign, what? yes... you heard me, it's really just minor tweaks, to provide some new kontent™, so don't get frightened... I know, we've been using the same basic design since the late 60's - don't worry, we won't mess with a Gud Thing...

My suggestion of a MXMW actually got some response! So far we've got someone from Madison and someone from Cleveland interested... I'd say we're 1/2 way there. Now, for the corporate sponsorship...

The Desktop Metaphor used in today's computer operating systems tends to breakdown for me, in part, because of the lack of space. By this I mean that 10 years ago, having a 640x480, or even 800x600 desktop worked, but today with multigigabyte drives, and multiple applications running at once, there's a lot going on. On my machine at home I have a 17" monitor that I run at 1024x768, which works well, but last year I finally ponied up the dough (approximately $50) to get a video card. So I now have an additional monitor. I run the 17" off of the video card, and the old 14" off of the internal video. I think this makes a world of difference. The Mac OS has supported multiple monitors for a long time, I think more that 10 years, but I'm not totally sure... I deal with a lot of files and a lot of applications at once. Two monitors really let you organize thing better, and see more of what you're working on. I highly recommend it.

Oh, when I first did the dual monitor thing, I tried it with an old IBM VGA monitor, and both screens did a shake and wiggle thing. MrBarrett suggested I put a tin foil lined piece of cardboard thing between them, instead I just used an old Apple 14" color monitor, it looked better and had no wiggling. It always surprises me when people say, "yeah, I can build a cheap PC, I can get a monitor for like $150" because I wonder about the quality. I don't know about you, but if I'm staring at a monitor all day, it better look damn good. Would you say, "yeah, I could get some cheap eyeglasses for like $10" My 14" monitor is about 8 years old and still looks good...

Of course if I was made of money, I'd buy a few 21" color monitors and fill my desk with them ;)

Microsoft Rocks? (ot Microsoft sucks rocks...;)

I was going to email Dan about his comments on Microsoft and Apple, but MrBarrett summed it up so well, I don't know if I should bother.

I will mention a few things. In my experience, many Windows users I've dealt with have never even used a Mac, but feel it's their duty to belittle it. This was more prevalent a few years back, of course. (Compare that to a pro Mac OS/anti Windows OS guy like me who has been using both for a long time, am I more qualified to make a judgement?) Also, I think it helps to separate the Mac OS from Apple and Windows (NT|95|98|etc...) from Microsoft, as well as remember that Microsoft does not manufacture computers... And yes, this is one of those sites that will attack Microsoft based on their actions if need be... (I'll try to do the same for Apple or any other entity that I feel deserves it...)

Yeehaw! I just got a NeXTStation... Now I'm just like Tim Berners-Lee, maybe I'll invent some sort of 'WorldWideWeb' thing... It kinda looks like this... (yeah, it's no cube, but I couldn't pass it up;)

I was careful not to use the world 'childish' below, the reason being, I feel too many people use it in a negative way. I have children, and by default they must be childish. They see the world with wide open eyes, limitless possibilities, they have crazy ideas, they do crazy things. Sometimes they don't make sense, but that's ok, they're learning! Compare this to most adults (do they act adultish?) who have been beaten down by the system and have lost the ability to think creatively or deviate from the norm in any way...

This company I know was looking to hire someone new, and they asked me if the person they were considering was normal. I though 'I hope not' because I tend to think of normal as boring and unimaginative. I'm a freak, what's wrong with freaks? I pointed out that I wasn't normal, and they said that I was weird in a 'good way' - I guess it's a compliment...

Payback time!? Do you really think Microsoft is putting their customers interests first? Or are they just caught up in some silly rivalry where the real victim is you, the end user...

I may not like everything Dave Winer has to say, but his concept of 'win-win' where it's not about competition and beating the other guy, is much needed in the computer industry. How is what Microsoft doing helping it's customers? How is it creating innovation in the industry...

Oh, I also think Ballmer is an ass...

bitlocker looks pretty cool (although I did notice one Mac-unfriendly feature so far, and got a few error messages, but hey, it's new...) I managed to create an online database in about 10 minutes by importing a tab-delimited file...

The Kodak PalmPix puts a camera attachment on your Palm! Cut the price down by half and I'm there ;)

I added a page of photos from werk, so you can see the dismal surrounds I have to suffer with everyday... (just kidding...)

Well, if you're looking for an emo website, I think it've found it, anyone know of any straight-edge websites? (I'm afraid to ask... actually I'm more afraid of the answers!)

Would you wanna use this pointing device?

I made this today... why? hmmm, I'm not totally sure yet...

Now there's two photos of me you can see, the other one is over here...

jack shows some interest in one of my old projects, compressing the internet. The original plan was to make it fit on a floppy disk. But with those new fangled iMac's there is no floppy disk drive. jack has no Zip drive, so that's not an option for him. He does mention a "cd" but really, come on now... those things are *not* going to catch on! jack, I'll arrange to put the internet onto punch cards for you, you should be able to pick up a punch card reader pretty cheap, or just use your old PDP machine... a few years ago a friend of mine was offering the internet on 8 inch floppies, but he only sold a few thousand, so the market for the internet may be dwindling...

It's time for our annual pledge drive! You didn't think you got this kind of valuable content for free now did you? We can only get by with support from readers like you. And now it's even easier, and it can cost you as little as $0.00!

Here's what you do: Click on this here button-

Seriously, PayPay seems cool. Maybe I'll stop getting those annoying "ACCEPT CREDIT CARDS OVER THE INTERNET" spam email messages everyday now, since I can... The wife was asking me how they make money on this, she speculated that they make money on the interest. I told her that may be, and I also mentioned that you could have a full time job just trying to figure out how companies are making money on the internet, since everyone seems to be testing different models nowadays...

What eMatter you!? eMatter is another thing I think is really cool. You list your content on the fatbrain.com site (for $1.00 per month) and you split the money with fatbrain. They get 1/2 and you get 1/2, and you can earn a bit more (additional 20%) by doing the affiliate thing... I'm suggesting this to a 'traditional' (dead-tree) publisher right now...

Speaking of fatbrain and eMatter, there's a free piece of eMatter from their CEO on the naming of fatbrain. Supposedly 50% love the name, 50% hate it. I love it, the wife hates it... I think it's a cool name, much better than 'Computer Literacy'

Try a Google search on "Crispy Hexagons", see! There's great value here!

Speaking of cereal, I can't believe they took the old guy off the King Vitamin box and put a cartoony illustration on there! The old guy reminds me of Chucky from the Rug Rats and his fear of the guy on the oatmeal box...

Cereal-obesssions always remind me of Aaron Elliot Cometbus, and never Jerry Seinfeld...

Another person's Linux adventure... just a quick update on mine, I'm still trying to do the install... ugh!

I hate snow. I have shoveling snow. Why doesn't one of those neighborhood kids come and offer to shovel it for a few bucks? Do you know why? Because, they're all too busy on INTERNET... that's why...

So Barbelith mentions site stats, and challenges others to reveal theirs... well, I'll do it! In the last two months or so this here page has seen about 75 visits per day... some of those might be me, I should probably filter myself out. Previous to that I think it was probably less than 1/2 as many... (Crap! There goes my chance at selling ad banners!)

Charles Shultz is dead. But really, Peanuts sucked...

And then there's Maude!

Maude Flaners is dead... Pretty lame death if you ask me... Does it look like Flanders is in his 60s!? I think last weeks episode (worst episode ever) was better... (as long as you know the real story!)

Was Futurama on last night?! We had a power failure so if it was, I missed it... damn!

Did you really read this far!? Gud gawd people, is this the most I've written in one day!?

Yeah, I'm ambitious today... I redid the silly Javascript thing mentioned earlier, and made it a 'one a day' cron based thing...)

Hmmm, I never really mention the sites I go to alot. I don't have some big link list here like many sites do... so I thought I should mention a few. MrBarrett.com, CamWorld, and Bump are a couple... I identify with these pretty well. There's a lot of 'weblogs' (augh! I still hate that word!) that are probably very good, but I just don't relate...

"Never go back! I wish I could learn to never go back!"

"What can I say!?"

(oh, that's Dagnasty, btw...)

Sorry folks, I won't be attending the SXSW thing, I am planning a MXMW (Mid-by-MidWest) thing... so if you're interested, contact me.

Any site that makes you register should have an *easy* way to recover your password. Pyra doesn't seem to, well, if it does I can't find it, so it's obviously not easy! I've got so many passwords for so many sites now it's ridiculous... I've got the important password encrypted on my desktop and palm computers, but not every single on I need... ugh!

This is interesting. NewMedia has relaunched their site, and they've made quite a definite decision on what you need to use it. on the Mac it's Navigator (4.0 or higher) and Flash (3.0 or higher) and you need JavaScript enabled. In some ways the site is pretty cool, in others it totally sucks. I don't think it's a site I'd visit very often...

I'm toying with some silly little cgi that relies on JavaScript again. If you've got JavaScript enabled, you'll see a link and a description on the left side of this page. The data comes from WebLogs.com's XML based backend. Although my code isn't a true XML app. It's just some hacked up perl... (I think I might change it to a cron based thing anyway... for a 'one a day' thing)

The Flounder has a nice little Palm FAQ ;)

I've been completely obsessed with dynamic content lately. I've been building all the stupid little cgi's to do goofy stuff... hmmm, maybe you should be *thankful* I don't incorporate them all into this page ;)

Bwuhahaha! I like Gulker's World HQ, as mentioned right here... although I don't have quite as many cpus, I do have a "door supported by saw horses" for a second desk...

Oh, Fizzilla! (or, for the boring, "Mozilla for MacOS X")

Two new rambles: hellweek and internetfit

I think it's time for a survey... Do you think it's time for a survey?

Listen people... this here web-Log advertizement doo-dad sez I gots one of the highest clicks and percentages... so, if anyone really *is* reading this... fee free to send me some feedback! It's as easy as leaning your guitar against the amp...

Who wants to be Popular?

Alternately, you can follow the RasterWeb Business Plan, we're not after World Domination mind you, just a county or two...

1. Toil away in obscurity...
2. Toil away in relative obscurity...
3. Repeat...

Oh, if you're *really* lucky, you can get classified as olde skool! (nee old sküle!)

"Those who can't write code, just write plain old words..."

The Google Holiday and Custom logos are kinda neat. I was thinking just recently about making a bunch of custom logos for this site, then just switching in new ones via cron at the appropriate times...

I find the new Petiscan tempting... it reminds me of when we used to use the old handheld grayscale "rolling" scanners, and those were $300 at the time! (which was still cheaper than a flatbed) Now I think I'd have to choose between this one, which would probably be lots of fun, or a cheaper, and more functional flatbed... probably a $50 difference... hmmm... when's my birthday?

Since 1992 I've bought 3 Macs, 2 from Apple, one from PowerComputing. I also got 2 Macs for free, and have one dead Mac...

No time this week! A few notes... what the *hell* was the deal with yesterday's Simpsons!? Did someone delived a large supply of mind-altering drugs to the office of the writers? Sheesh! And Futurama, what's with the early time slot!? Besides that, it was great, and it took me longer than usual to pin down the fact that it was based off of a Star Trek (TOS) episode. I wonder if they'll do one based on The Trouble with Tribbles?

"We could be the new wind!" "Could we be the new wind?" or will we just "Break like the wind!?"

Care to follow me down The Road to Linux?

I'm a freak about T-shirts, and by that I don't mean I'm fanatical, I mean I'm weird. It probably comes from the fact that I printed shirts for so many years... then again, maybe I'm just a freak. I have 3 shirts I wear regularly. Apple, Be, and IBM. (I got the IBM one for free. I got a Microsoft Office shirt for free once, but I sold it) Oh, they're all white. Right now I only wear white T-shirts, or try to at least. I tried to find a new shirt on the web. (Remeber, I'm a nerd too...) I found a neat BBEdit shirt... I found some neat ones at Think Geek, although the ones I really liked didn't come in white :( So I finally settled on a FatBrain shirt, as it was just $7.95, and shipping was quite resonable. If you find any other cheap, cool, XXL, white T-shirts... let me know!

"Sometimes good guys don't wear white..."

"Professional Hosting" ;)

The Mac is back? I found it amusing that this page at TIAC has a drop down menu that says 'MacIntosh' - hmmm, I'm sure they're real familiar with the Mac... even more disturbing is when I see resumes from people that say they are familiar with 'Mackintosh', or the 'IBM PC' and these are people trying to get technically oriented jobs!

I got my new (new meaning old) Pc yesterday, it's a Digital Starion 930. I'll be spending some time determining what's in it, and making sure it's Linux-compatible...

Yeah, I'm on an RSS kick, so here's Using RSS News Feeds via perl...

A slide show on Parsing XML with Perl...

Hmmm, do you also get those nice spam messages, the ones that say 'EARN MONEY IN THE CONFORT OF YOUR OWN HOME'? Well, don't they realize that for some people the office is *much* more comfortable than their own home? I've got a nice comfy chair, a fast computer with a large monitor... ahhh, of course there are the 'users' to deal with...

I like being listed under 'ye olde skool ' at jjg.net ;)

From ZDNET!? Blow Your Boss Away With Linix Firepower... weird...

Ah, I've always enjoyed Michael Moore's antics, and this one is a doozy... [TLIF jack saturn] (wondering what TLIF is? Well, anytime you get a link from another site/person, you just use 'TLIF' which means 'this link is from...', simple, eh?)

A good article on RSS and perl, maybe this time I'll actually think about doing an RSS file for this site...

I never managed to get that BeBox I always dreamed about, but I am on the verge of getting that NeXT station I always wanted...

Ah, the cookie... damned if you accept them, damned if you don't. Here's some good info on internet privacy issues, I personally like to edit my cookie file entries by hand, introducing some random data into the mix ;)

Seems every long-time Mac user has an opinion on Aqua

I think as a public service announcement, I'll provide this link everytime someone forwards or asks me about some virus hoax... CIAC Internet Hoaxes

Nice article on using those old PowerMacs for web serving... They do mention LinuxPPC, but offer no link.

January Updates