April 2002

They've switch to a very thin single-ply bathroom tissue at the office. You know there had to be a meeting, and it probably went something like this:

Person A: We can save $100.00 per year if we switch to the very thin single-ply bathroom tissue.
Person B: Won't the employee's just use twice as much?
Person A: Please, you give the employees too much credit. They aren't that smart. If they were that smart, they would be management like us.
Person B: I agree!

So is there a Dilbert Goes to the Bathroom book yet...?

Previously on RasterWeb: "...I hit a bird - thunk!" That was yesterday morning. By the time I left the office the birds had taken revenge, and I found a large pile of bird droppings on top of my car. You win this battle birds, but the war ain't over!

I've dug into jEdit a bit more, and there is a lot to like about it. I'm using BBEdit 6.1, so it may now have some of the features I'm lacking, but jEdit allows folding of text (think outlining) syntax coloring for a zillion languages, lot's of very nice plugins, with a plugin manager that is too cool to describe. Ok, I will, it grabs a list of plugins from the jEdit web site, and you click a checkbox for the ones you want, and then click install. Excellent... My only real complaint is the speed. Part of that is due to the machine I use at work being a bit pokey and lacking enough ram. It seems snappier on my 733mhz G4 at home, and I don't really see any speed problems with it under Win2k. (Then again I don't use it that much there.) Besides that a little tighter integration with Mac OS X would be nice, but what do you want for free...? Oh, another nice thing... Once you configure it as you like, just copy your .jext directory to another machine and whammo, machine #2 now has all of your favorite settings as well. Wasn't this one of the goals of Java long ago? Run anywhere? Hat's off to the jEdit team... (Oh, there's good documentation as well.)

Over the weekend I ended up trying to use Jext for a while. It worked pretty well. It's major problem is a lack of tight integration with Mac OS X (which I happen to be running it on) but this is probably a result of it being a Java app. Anyway, as I continue to try things out, I installed jEdit onto the Win2k machine, and started to take a deeper look at in on Mac OS X as well. jEdit is definitely something I'd recommend, especially if you are one of those multi-platform people who like the same app on each platform. I'll probably try to make it my mail text editor on Windows, and of course on the Mac I'll try to give it some equal time, but with BBEdit, it'll be tough.

I noticed on my Mac at home that the "initializing Network" taking forever problem doesn't seem to happen anymore since the 10.1.4 update (though I may jinx myself by saying that.) I still have problems shutting down sometimes, but I'm starting to think it's my USB accessories, as I have no such problem at work.

School was never this much fun!

Today while driving to work I hit a bird - thunk! I looked back and saw it flailing on the road. If I hadn't been going 55 I might have backed up and finished the job, to end it's misery. Alas, I did not... and I hate birds... I'm just not the cold-blooded killer people make me out to be.

I'm just about to run out of Easter candy at work... Hopefully I can finish it all before the expiration dates are reached...

So it's come to this... Is this serious? Do we need The Weblog Handbook? "Rebecca Blood draws on her experience as an early participant in the weblog community to share what she has learned in three years..." Um, early participant? Three years? I'll shut up now... you don't want to get me started on this one...

Do you ever look around the office where you work (assuming you're a poor slob like me who works in an office) and just wonder what some people do? Do you think that if you randomly picked someone and said 'Hey, what do you do here?' They might stammer and sweat, and try to justify their existence? Do you ever think someone will stop by someday and ask you that question? Hmmm...

HTML::Template is making my life a better place to be. Thank you perl...

Someone was talking about the logic used in programming and the developer we have here said that in all his years of programming, he's never seen any logic used when people write code... I find that both amusing and ridiculous at the same time...

My spell check has now learned words such as 'gonna', 'wanna', 'yer', 'argh' and many other colourful frazes...

Via Scripting News... (originally from the AP): "Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said Wednesday the company has not tried to figure out how to remove elements of its Windows operating system, because the task would be impossible." Ok, is this a flat out lie? I can remove elements. Give it a try! It's not impossible? I don't care for Gates, but for an 'innovator' to say something is 'impossible' it's just plain goofy. I think he's gotten too old... maybe even senile? Would the linux hacker say "We can't do X with our OS, it's IMPOSSIBLE!" I doubt it... (hell, those guys try to do eveything) because, in my mind, trying to do the impossible is what software/computers/the internet is about! What if Tim Berners-Lee thought it would be impossible to create the world wide web on his NeXT box, where would we be then? Gates you silly fool... we're not falling for it!

From the AP comes this nugget: "A Microsoft executive said antitrust penalties sought by nine states would confuse users of the Windows operating system..." If I was one of those Mac users who hated Windows, I'd probably say that shiny objects and bright lights 'confuse users of the Windows operating system' but I won't say that, I'll just think it...

I threw yasis on my old linux box today...

Head on over to the Bad Girl's Heart entry for Thursday, April 18th, 2002 and you'll see an amusing story about me. The funny thing is, I don't fully remember it happening, but reading about it, I have little doubt that it's pretty accurate. Naomi (aka 'homeless clown') once said that it was 'fun' to see how much noise she could make when trodding up the stairs to her straw mat on the floor of the attic. As someone who lived downstairs, I had a different opinion on that... Anyway, I actually met Namoi's mom and little brother, and even went to their house. Once Naomi said that it was rad... well, actually she said something was rad every 15 minutes, but anyway... she said her mom was going to dress up as a bag lady for halloween (insert yer own joke here) and Naomi thought the costume wasn't realistic enough, as she was an expert on such things. Naomi actually had a friend named 'Trashy' rad, huh?

And as for selling plasma, it was nuthin but easy money for me, and I wish I could do it full time, cuz working is for chumps ya see...

You can't mention plasma without mentioning Ken Wisconsin - the king of plasma sales in the entire state of Wisconsin, his legend is well known across the U.S.

Wilfredo is a good guy... I asked a question about DropScript, and he managed to modify it, and get it uploaded for me to download in the same day... So if you need DropScript here it is. Previously, DropScript would run the script once for each file dropped on it. Now it takes all of the files dropped on it, and passes the list to DropScript, which is the way MacPerl droplets do it, or the way the command line does it... it's all in @ARGV baby...

I'm behind on my mail, so I'm not sure who to give credit to, but someone suggested I check out Jext. Like jEdit it's a text editor written in Java. I liked using Jext more than jEdit, and Jext seems to have some nice plugins. I might keep Jext around for occasional use due to some of it's syntax coloring features. But again, as a must-have-or-die text editor, I'll be sticking with BBEdit. jEdit and Jext are pretty good text editors for Mac OS X, only hampered by their Java base. Java developers probably really like these tools. As a perl guy on OS X though, BBEdit is where it's at.

Oh yeah... happy birthday Milt!

Yay, Mozilla 1.0 Release Candidate 1 is out... with the view source bug fix in... thank goodness said the web developer...

More somewhat-Mozilla-related fun, see these sites mpt, Confessions of a Mozillian, Cogworks, joke of the day, Scott Collins Journal, Mozilla Journals, and most of all Shake 'n Blake.

I missed this one: MozillaQuest Magazine and of course there's always MozillaZine...

On the outliner track, Morbus recommended OmniOutliner for Mac OS X. I've tried it, and it is very nice. Clean, simple, fast - it just works - which is a good thing for software. And it's cheap, under $25 US Dollars. Still, now that I've been using JOE I'm starting to like it. (I'm using it on Windows and Mac OS X.) Here's what I like about JOE. It's open source, runs on multiple platforms, and works with OPML and plain text files... If you only use OS X and want a nice outliner for a good price though, OmniOutliner might fit the bill, you can get a demo as well...

Yesterday I learned a whole bunch of useful (or useless) information about mounting SMB shares under Mac OS X. I should write up my notes... they could be useful to, well, someone...

I added some Google-madness to this page...

I've been trying to use JOE - Java Outline Editor on Mac OS X. There are a lot of things I really like about it. As I mentioned recently, I need an outliner. This is close. (I'm using v1.8.6, but I believe 1.8.7 is right aroud the corner.) The features of JOE are nice, and for casual use, and as an OPML tool, it'll do the job. It's not quite up to the level I'd like yet, but that's ok... I think it will be in the future.

The other apps I've tried recently is jEdit, described as "jEdit - Open Source programmer's text editor" and I suppose that could be true. jEdit could be a nice app. It really could. It seems to have some good features, and if performance was at the level it should be, it could be a good alternative to BBEdit.

Both of these apps are written in Java, a language I never really cared for. It would appear that Java still has some performance issues, at least with these apps under Mac OS X. They both feel a little like you're working with gloves on, not mittens, like some slloooowww apps, but gloves at least. Since I spend hours and hours using BBEdit everyday. I Can't see using jEdit for an lengthy period of time right now. JOE I think I'll give a chance, like I said, it's got some nice features.

In some ways I think they are both like Mozilla about 2 years ago. Mozilla's improvement has been impressive. It's my browser of choice, and I'm using it under Mac OS X daily, and Win32 almost daily. And of course Mozilla is not quite at version 1.0. I think so far Mozilla - and all of it's related projects and spin-offs, has been a great success.

What do these apps have in common? They are all open source (to some degree) and they all run on multiple platforms. Very imortant things. I think I'll give JOE and perhaps jEdit a try under Win32 and see how performance is there. What do you think?

Mark of diveintomark r00ls... I'd list the things he says that I agree with, but I could make a shorter list by listing what he says that I don't agree with. So while you're waiting for OPML to become real XML, head over to diveintomark, or maybe you want to Dive Into OS X instead... now, if only he Dove Into Perl...

That's ok, we've got Aaron to dive into perl. You can create a 'Google Box' in perl using Net::Google pretty easily... if that's something you really want to do...

My CMS is currently BBEdit and perl, if anyone is interested in that stuff...

Hey, Tim Burton (not that one, the other one, from Madison!) tells me that The Promise Ring will be appearing on Late Night with Conan O'Brian on Friday 24 May (See tpr-online for details.) This is truly some kind of 'worlds collide' sort of event. Fire up those Tivo's and VCR's folks!

[Note to Davey: I still haven't received my invitation...]

I swear someday I'll convert the 10 Boy Summer recordings into MP3's and upload them for all to, uh... enjoy...

Speaking of which, I have the Buried MP3's ready to upload, I just need to get around to doing it... make your time!

d00d... from MacInTouch: The Apple Retail Stores report discusses...the possibility of a store coming to Milwaukee."yee-haw!

We did a major upgrade of system I rule over here at work... it's always a nightmare, and takes twice as long as expected. Maybe that's why we did the November upgrade in January and the December upgrade in April... and so it goes... Next upgrade should happen in July, right?

Hot Java Revives Mac Programming: I'm no fan of Java, I'm more of a perl guy... but some good points are brought up. I (not to sound old or anything) remember when you turned on a computer, even one made by Apple, and just got a prompt, where it waited for you to do something. And if you didn't write your own programs, well, life was pretty boring. When I first used Macs, I liked what I saw, but said things like 'Where's BASIC?' and so on... Today I'm sitting in front of a Mac OS X computer capable of compiling and running zillions of applications. Project Builder (and Interface Builder) are incredible tools... You can now write full fledged Mac OS X applications in AppleScript even! Sheesh... I'm still awaiting further progress on CamelBones, but we might soon be able to write full on applications with a nice Aqua front end, with perl on the back end... drooool...

Ah, one more Mac OS X and Java related note...

I'm getting tempted to purchase Radio. Not because of it's some whiz-bang weblog tool/news aggregator/XML-RCS/SOAP server... but because I need a good outliner... I've been using Frontier/Aretha/Radio/Clay Basket for the last 8 years or so... I'm somewhat addicted...

Note to self: Keep an eye on Brent. He's doing some interesting stuff...

Well, it's been a while, I made the upgrade at the office to Mac OS X, so no more Mac OS 9, except for those annoying Classic apps they force you to use...

So things are in disarray right now, don't worry, they'll get back in array, or maybe even hash or subroutine sometime in the near future...

I'm typing this in BBEdit. I'm comtemplating installing Movable Type and moving all of the content into it. I started cleaning up the entries here. I'm almost done with 1997. Do you know how easy you kids have it? If you move from one CMS to another, you might have to import a few months of entries, try 5 years! Along the way I'm trying to clean up old, crappy, invalid html... oh that's a joy too... I think I'll need perl's help with that one...

What the hell does a vegan eat anyway? Good question... since the female is now dealing with a gluten allergy, we've radically altered our diet, including things like (I can barely say it) meat... I don't know how to cook meat, and it still grosses me out sometimes, but we're giving it a shot. We had turkey yesterday. I hate turkey, it's so dry. But I can eat almost anything if you throw it on a bun with some cheese, Nayonayse, barbeque sauce, etc...

Do you use Matt's scripts? Maybe you should switch to nms...

March Updates