Archive for 2010

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Jake

By
Xnuiem
– December 13, 2010Posted in: missy moo, thoughts

Well, for those of that dont know, Jake, our horse, passed away back in September.  We had to put him down after he had been very ill for about six weeks.  We took him to a vet to try and figure out why he wouldnt eat, and it ended up being stomach cancer.

Cancer is unheard of in a 9 year old quarter horse.  He just wasnt old, he was just getting into life.  We had him for just under a year, but were and still are very attached.

He was a great horse.  He would go out in the pasture and run and run with me, come back and be calm enough for Illianna to ride by herself without even a lead.  He loved the girls, would protect Jessica, and tried to get in my lap once when I sat down out in the pasture.  He was very convinced he was was a 1500 lbs puppy dog.  He would always come up to you in the pasture, and give all he had when you had him under saddle.  He was the type of horse that would make anyone think they were amazing with horses since he just knew it all, with very little teaching.  He wanted to please which made it so easy and wonderful to be around him.

We have put up all the pictures we have of him at his picture gallery.  If you look at the one picture of him being led by Illianna, you can see how much weight he lost.  That was taken the day before we found out about his cancer and put him down.  He was our first horse, won’t be our last, and taught us that even though he didn’t live with us, he was a huge part of our life and has changed our family forever.  Jake, you are remembered, and will always be loved.

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3

HTML Validation is (still) pointless!

By
Xnuiem
– November 23, 2010Posted in: programming, website

Ok, so we all know that we should write “valid”* HTML, and yet, less than 5% of websites validate for one reason or another.  Now this statistic can be a bit misleading as a comment from a user that didn’t use valid markup could invalidate the website, so granted, there is some play with the stats (per the usual), but let’s again assume that number is close.

Why?  Why do we not write perfect HTML?  Surely with the free validator on the authority’s website there is no excuse to write code that wont validate against the standard.

The answer there is simple, if and when all the major browsers (Firefox, Safari, IE, Opera, Chrome) all render a page according to the standard, then I will finally start caring about the validation of my websites.  Until then, I will continue to write code that works across the board, and just not care if it is “valid”.

To be real though, most of the browsers work pretty well, however the 800lb gorilla in the room, IE, does not.  Microsoft continually changes the standards by which they will render a page, like promising CSS 2 support in IE7 then bailing on that promise 6 months before release.  And let us not forget the horribly pathetic Javascript rendering engine, JScript, that the rest of us just ignore because it can’t be trusted to behave reliably.

So, like even on this website, we find ourselves writing “valid” code, and at the same time having to redefine valid to mean “Code that works in all the browsers”, not “Code that the W3C says is valid even though it looks like crap in IE6″.  Just to maintain a semblance of order and sanity, we use the handy IE CSS hacks where IE on Windows will actually arbitrarly execute code depending on the version of the IE browser being used.  Does that sound like an admission of guilt on the part of MS to anyone else?  OK Bill, repeat after me, “I know my browser sucks, so, instead of fixing it which would severely hamper my marketing and legal budgets, I will just allow hacks in order to ensure you nerdy web guys can still make pretty pages”.  There, was that so hard!?

So, someone feel free to run the validate against any of my websites.  Don’t bother sending me the results because I don’t care.  The sites work, the code looks good, documented, and is maintainable, so, what exactly was the complaint?

*valid code is extremely subjective, but let’s assume here I mean W3C “valid” code.
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8

Amateur Web Design

By
Xnuiem
– November 3, 2010Posted in: links, website

There are a lot of amateur web designers out there.  They post on forums, and advertise freakishly cheap prices, like $150 for a website.  The differences between them and those of us that do this professionally are too many to be named.  Obviously the pricing is a huge difference, they charge for an entire website what my hourly rate is.  But then again, I don’t really make just the brochure 4 page websites, we actually write custom applications that do very complex things ranging from e-commerce to mission critical business processes.

Another huge difference is the professionals actually stick to standards and try to keep up with trends and new technology, unlike the 15 year old designers working from mom’s house.  I found out recently about this “company” (LR Web Design).  First, they call HTML “coding” which is a complete misnomer.  And then talked down Dreamweaver, and yet their “code” is at least 10 years out of date.  No CSS, inline font tags, UPPERCASE tags, image maps for menus, and tables for very basic positioning.  Here is another one of their websites: http://knbcolo.webs.com/ .  They don’t even use a true host, but a free website company.  Let me fill you in, none of this is what you want your company to have on its website.  It is unprofessional and doesn’t really put your best foot forward.  But if you want a slow loading website on a free host with no custom anything, by all means go with one of these people.  Otherwise, go with someone with training, experience, and credentials, as well as a portfolio with real clients you have heard of.

Like wine & cars, you get what you pay for with websites.  I wouldn’t want my company looking cheap.

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3

Freelancer.com ? Really?

By
Xnuiem
– October 26, 2010Posted in: thoughts

I have been wandering around some of the freelancer websites looking for some programming/project management gigs to keep me busy, and I ran across this one on Freelancer.com:

“Want to make a website which features a different picture of a babe everyday.

Successful candidate:

  • Must create and design the website
  • Logo creation
  • Provide 3000 original large, high quality photos with my watermarked logo
  • These photos must be legal
  • All copyright will belong to me
  • Photos must automatically change as of 12:00 PM MST
  • Must be able to and will be responsible for setting up the website with advertising program to ensure money is made from visitors”

The poster gave a max budget of $250….

Really!!!???

Let me make sure I understand…You want me to develop the software to power the site (admittedly very simple), design the look and feel of the site, create a logo, and come up with 3000 original photos of “babes” and then sign it all over to you, all for $250?  Then you want me to market it and advertise it?  What the heck do I need you for?  Let’s face it, you cant get 3000 images, even non-original ones for that price, but I have no idea what the photo shoots required would cost…maybe $25000?  For that many images there are going to be a lot of different girls, doing a lot of different things, in a lot of different places.  $25000 may be extremely cheap I don’t know.

I do know the person that posted this is delusional.  He/She wants to pay a paltry sum for someone to do ALL the work.  Usually clients have ideas, content, and know how to market their own stuff, but not in this case.  Maybe this person works in politics and thinks this is how the real work actually operates.

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0

Obama is still a douche

By
Xnuiem
– October 25, 2010Posted in: 300 million morons, thoughts

Obama is out on the campaign trail trying to help the Dems keep Congress blue.  One of the things that appears to be creating a little backlash for the president, is that his reforms are not nearly as popular as he thought they would be.

When asked about that, the president responded, “We had to move so fast, we were in such emergency mode, that it was very difficult for us to spend time a lot doing victory laps and advertising exactly what we were doing because we had to move onto the next thing, …I take some responsibility for that,” said the president.

Obama, you douche, you are the leader of the nation, you get to take ALL responsibility for that.  First rule of leadership, “Everything is YOUR fault.” (source)  Do you honestly think the CEO of BP had anything directly to do with the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico?  No, of course not.  But is he responsible?  YES!

And here we are at the usual problem I have with a lot of the government programs, especially those pandered by the Democrats (but let’s face it, you Republicans are not innocent of this either):  Personal responsibility for your actions and the actions of your subordinates should be a foreign concept.  In a country where school teachers are trying to be parents, even dictate what medications the children should be on, is it really shocking the liberal president tries to dodge some blame?  Don’t worry about  doubling the national debt either, Mr. President, that is someone else’s fault too.

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0

Social Security is deluding themselves

By
Xnuiem
– October 20, 2010Posted in: 300 million morons, thoughts

Social Security is deluding themselvesIf you work in the US, you get these letters every so often from the Social Security Administration to let you know what your benefits will be, or would be, based on wages, taxes paid, etc.  They are just depressing, since in my tax bracket, I actually put more money into SS than I will get back if I die before the age of 132.

Yes, that is right, I will never get back all that I put into SS.  Nevermind the fact I should be paid interest on my contributions.  Why was privatizing such a bad idea?

Anyways, I received one of these letters, and it had a section in it entitled “Will Social Security still be around when I retire?“.  Look to the right, there is a scan of this image.

I love how it says “Yes.” at the very begining and then goes on to try and quantify that answer with the basic assumtion you, the reader, didnt pass 2nd grade math.

So, according to this, the money will be gone in 2037.  I hate to point out the fact I dont reach age rull retirement age (67) until 2044.  Not inspiring a lot of trust with already failing in the numbers department.

Then it goes on to say that if nothing is done, in 2037, they should be able to pay about 76% of the benefits to which I am entitiled.  WHAT?!

So just to clarify, Social Security will run out of money ~7 years before I am at full retirement age, AND will only be able to pay 76% of the benefits scheduled, which already are only about 80% of what I paid in, with no interest.

How was the answer “Yes.” to the question “Will Social Security still be around when I retire?“?  You just said we will run out of money years before I am elegible to retire, and even then I wont recieve all that I should.

What have we learned?  First and foremost, like healthcare, the goverment has great ideas, really, they are good ideas, they just have no fricking clue on how to execute it.  None!

Secondly, the correct answer to the question “Will Social Security still be around when I retire?“, is “No.  Not really.”

If you want, contact your folks in Congress, let them know this is a bunch of crap, and now is the time to start fixing it, not 2037, or 2044, or whenever it is you will retire, or (God forbid), need disability.  And if you think you don’t need to save for retirement, go take a 2×4, hit yourself in the head, and start drawing disability now.  Learning to live on that income is the ONLY way you will not need your own retirement setup.

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1

Stop invading my ears!

By
Xnuiem
– October 18, 2010Posted in: website

To everyone out there that thinks it is “cool” or “neat” to put music on your website, do the rest of us a favor, and don’t.  While I understand the aesthetic nature of some sound,  for the most part it is just annoying.  When online, I usually listen to iTunes, and the last thing I want is some hideously encoded streaming .wav file repeating the same 6 seconds of music over and over again.  Unless I really need to be on your website, I hit back on my mouse and try to immediately start repressing the memory that is your website.

At the end of the day, music requires a lot of bandwidth for those of you hosting the music files, a lot more than even a complex page (assuming your images are optimized, but don’t get me started on that today).  And for every Pro:fx out there, there are a 100 Hampsterdance websites.

If you aren’t an amazing DJ, or awesome Flash/Shockwave/Silverlight developer, do us all a favor, and leave the music off your website.  I like my thousands of MP3‘s, and I don’t force you to listen to them.

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1

Why Drupal Views make so little sense

By
Xnuiem
– October 14, 2010Posted in: programming, thoughts

I recently had a very short contract gig working for a company that creates websites using Drupal.  While that doesn’t sound very interesting or even hard, to make it more so of both, these guys used Views for every

Drupal
Image via Wikipedia

thing.  Which I just don’t get.

If you are a programming, why would you use views?  It is adding a layer of abstraction between the logic and database in an interpreted language with a framework that is already bloated beyond all recognition.  I know when I write plugins for WordPress, I want the plugin to be quick, precise, and add the least amount of overhead possible.  Views just seem to be a way to do all the opposites of those, just for the hell of it.

If you are not very technically inclined, I understand.  Using views is a lot like using MS Access.  You can create fairly complex queries yourself, without having to get someone that actually understands it involved.  And that is the trade off.  You can do it yourself, and eat the extra overhead, or pay/hire/bribe/cajole someone else into doing it for you, specialized, and thus, in theory at least, more efficiently.

These folks claimed to be programmers though, so I just don’t get it.  Why are you depending on someone else’s plugin, that extends functionality that is inefficient and clumsy, can’t do everything, and still requires custom code to be written or even more plugins to be added.  Where exactly does that circular line stop?

The Drupal “framework” and I use that term loosely since it is really a CMS that can just be extended, has enough problems and bloat in it, why exactly are views worth adding more?  Again, assuming you know SQL and PHP on even a basic level.

It just doesnt make any sense.  Query writers and views are one thing if you are working directly with the database, (e.g. phpMyAdmin or TOAD), but adding it as a layer to a “custom” application that you will be supporting when you claim to be capable of actual programming!!??  Please explain that one to me.

To be fair, I dont use Drupal much, I like WP much better.  The OO approach is much more appealing than the very Perl-esque (read: old) way of doing things Drupal does with its modules. But I still don’t get what the big deal is about Views.

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6

For the Love of God, Optimize those Images!

By
Xnuiem
– October 7, 2010Posted in: programming, website

Time for another lesson in web design: Image Optimization!  Yes, as we all know it is really pretty to have a huge header on your website.  Hey, look at this website, I have large images on my front page.  But, you don’t have to make that experience painful for your users, especially those on *gasp* dial-up!

The solution is simple: optimize your images.  I use Fireworks, but Photoshop has it built in these days as well.  It is basically a way of taking the image you want to use, and removes unwanted data, making the image size smaller, and hence, faster to load.  The web is a horrible medium for images, the 72dpi resolution of most monitors is just not that great.  But, it is all we have right now, and that is probably a good thing since anything more and the image just gets bigger and bigger.

By optimizing, your look stays intact, and everyone can enjoy it faster.  And it is cheaper on your wallet since it requires less bandwidth and less CPU to serve a smaller file.  Speaking of cheap, for those of you that do not have the Adobe suite, there is a pretty spiffy free online optimizer here.  Enjoy, and for the love of all things holy, optimize!

If you want to read more on the topic: HTMLSource.

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4

SEO…It really isn't hard

By
Xnuiem
– October 4, 2010Posted in: website

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) really isnt a new concept although the buzzword is fairly new.  It is basically the process of ensuring your site has on it that which search engines (e.g. Google) index, hence making your search engine rankings higher and presumably driving more traffic to your website.  I still remember doing this in the mid-90′s when we had a huge number of search engines ranging from Hotbot to Alta Vista to AOL that mattered and each one needed to be submitted to and then your site massaged in order to get anything resembling a decent ranking.

Times have changed, the index bots are much more sophisticated than 10+ years ago, and are far less likely to be fooled by the tricks (like using keywords hidden in your background by using the same color for both).

I often get asked, “How can I improve my search results?”.  I usually try to resist rolling my eyes for two reasons: 1) the sheer amount of resources out there covering this topic are just overwhelming and 2) it isnt that hard!  So, to those hosting with me and everyone else reading this, here are a few short tips on how to get your site SEOized!

Content, Content, Content
The more content you have, and I dont mean junk, I mean actual meaningful content, the higher your rank.  So sharpen your pencils and start writing.

New Content, New Images, New Stuff
Daily blog posts or news releases will really help you get noticed by the bots.  But again, dont post junk, otherwise your ranking will drop due to noone visiting.

Network
You must network your site.  Join a few groups, post on them, use WordPress or similar software, embrace RSS, use MySpace or Facebook and link to your site.  These will only drive traffic to your site, increase the relevancy of your keywords and get you the rankings you want.

Use decent HTML/CSS
I say decent, since I still think the entire validation thing is a scam (I will post more on that later).  Your page should work in all major browsers, use alt tags in your images, name your pages something relevant, and avoid a lot of Flash or Images (for now) since they still aren’t fully indexed.    Do not use an image for text blocks, it will not index!

See, not hard.  Enjoy adding quality content, dont overuse images or the other spiffy technologies (Silverlight, Flash, etc…) and have fun watching your traffic come to you for a change.

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