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July 29, 2004

Raise Your Hand

Who here gets spam in their inbox? Oh, c'mon, like everyone doesn't get spam. Well, I get spam. Correction, I get a crap-load of spam every day. Over the weekend, when I don't check my work mail, I get around 200 spams

Posted by Seth at 09:36 AM | Comments (0)

July 28, 2004

CSS Grab Bag

More On CSS

For those of you who don't know, I'm a big cheerleader for CSS-based sites. Using CSS eliminates the use of tables in your pages for layout and provides much more flexible coding. At first, making the switch over to CSS is troublesome, as you have to think of building your site differently than you have in the past. Coding in CSS is also a bit cumbersome, too, as you'll run into browser nuisances - which will subside in time as more and more browsers become standards-compliant. In addition, contrary to popular belief, CSS can also give you pixel-perfect sites, it all depends on how detailed you want to get in your coding.

While in Seattle, I had the chance to meet and sit in on two of Douglas Bowman's CSS sessions. Bowman is the man behind the Wired.com and Blogger redesigns into CSS. He's by far one of the biggest names in the CSS world and it was awesome to hear what he had to say. In his second session, he went over what tables are really used for and then did a real-life conversion of a site into CSS

Posted by Seth at 11:44 AM | Comments (0)

July 26, 2004

Cry Baby, Cry!

Well, the Resident Evil 2 poster contest has been narrowed down to the final five contestants (go vote now). Sadly, my entry wasn't one of them. I'm not overly impressed with the choices, but, then again, I wasn't a judge. Now I just sit and wonder, "what if?" Ah well, a good exercise and it was "really exciting!"

Posted by Seth at 08:36 AM | Comments (0)

July 23, 2004

Seattle, Part Four: WiFi = Awesome

For my potential last post while in Seattle (heading to the relatives' house, which may not have internet access), I decided to post while sitting outside, at a fancy bar, drinking a beer, and piggybacking off of an wireless internet provider. From what I understand, nearly all of Seattle has wireless servers, and you can just walk around and hop connections until your laptop battery dies.

The conference was fun, and about 95% informative. I'll definitely attend one again and recommend any ner... uh, person who's interested in the web to attend one also.

Something I noticed while here... no one jaywalks. No one is in a hurry, or the police have really cracked down on it. In either case, it was something I had to adjust to. Something else I adjusted to, drivers stop at the white lines at intersections. WHAT!?! I know, this town ceases to amaze me.

Well, that's probably it from Seattle. I'll have a full breakdown of the reunion once I'm back at home.

Posted by Seth at 07:41 PM | Comments (0)

Seattle, Part Three: Trainspotting

Day three. Today I couldn't focus that well. I was excited that some of my family (Lisa and Chris, my cousin from Denver and her husband, and Garrett, my brother) was coming into town and for the fact that I was going to go see a Mariners game in the evening.

The conference itself was a bit too nerdy today. Yesterday was nerdy enough and I can only take so much of nerdy things... yes, some might argue that I, myself, am a nerd... but c'mon, I'm cool. Today's classes at the conference were focused on Photoshop techniques: how to use the blending features, tips n' tricks, etc. There was some really cool stuff that I learned today, but like the speakers said, "you'll probably only use this once, ever." Hmmm, so why did you spend 15 minutes telling me about it?

Yes, so, I couldn't focus. And then, to make things worse, I get a phone call an hour before the conference lunch break. It was Lisa, they had made it in and were heading downtown. Cool, no big deal. I'll just finish up the afternoon sessions... err, wait... uh... wait. I've got copies of all the conference notes, PLUS all of the sessions are being video taped... long story short, the nerds were without Seth this afternoon.

I met up with the gang (Lisa, Chris, Garrett, Nadine, Karen, and Cathy) at the Space Needle – fyi, the Monorail isn't working right now, there was caught fire in May and they're fixing it. Chris and I came to the conclusion that we need to build something like the space needle... at $13 a pop for people to go up to the observation deck, we'd make a fortune. [Quick Math Problem: If 4,000 people went up the Needle a day, that's $52k]

From there, we hiked down to Pike Place Market to wander around in the United State's longest running city market. Also down in the Pike Place area, we saw the famous flying fish place and the first ever Starbucks store. I know, exciting. We had happy-hour supper at Pike Place Bar & Grill and then I was off to the Mariners game.

Safeco Field is amazing. It took me roughly 15 minutes to walk to the stadium from Pike Place and it was only at the end of the walk when I was out of downtown. The Mariners themselves are in the same boat as the Royals, meaning, not good. So, with the Oakland A's in town, I wasn't expecting too much. [Side Note: Mariners won 4-2]

The game took a quick backseat to another event that happened right out of the stadium. You see, the stadium is built over, literally over, some train tracks (it's just the gigantic retractable roof, but still a part of the stadium). And throughout the game, you can hear trains go through, especially when they lay on the horn.

In the third inning, another train was coming through, but it wouldn't stop blowing its whistle. In fact, it kept getting louder and louder, and everyone where I was sitting were holding their ears (my seat was in deep center field). Keeping an eye on the game, I wasn't about to be distracted by a silly train, until there was no one sitting next to me two minutes later.

I got up to see what all the commotion was about, and on all of the balconies were about 200 fans overlooking the railroad tracks where a train had stopped. The train wasn't moving because a guy had walked out in front of it and was hit. I don't know much more than that... the paramedics, police, and fire department all rushed to the scene and carted the guy off. Still, pretty scary.

So, if you're walking around train tracks, listen for the whistle... or else.

Posted by Seth at 01:04 AM | Comments (1)

July 21, 2004

Seattle, Part Two: RSSevolution

Day two, which was really day one of the web conference that I'm in town for, was more of the same in this great town. I turned in early tonight, to rest up and to safeguard myself from a possible gallbladder-less incident. You see, I had the Fish & Chips tonight from Elephant and Castle – another great pub that has outdoor seating and is nestled in downtown Seattle. The vibe this city projects is just incredible, I can't get enough – it's like Vanilla Coke.

Speaking of coke, or soda, or pop – whichever you call it – visit Pop vs. Soda to see what different parts of the country call the carbonated beverages we enjoy so much.

The conference itself is great. Today I sat in on all of the Web Design sessions and there wasn't one session where I didn't learn something new. In fact, knowing more and more about what the rest of the industry is doing in terms of CSS and browser-support, it confirms my grumblings for the past two years. It's by and far time we ditch table-based layouts and go completely CSS.

In other news, the very technology that runs my web site is quickly becoming a focal point of cutting edge ideas. Blogging is the new "in" thing to do, but it's not just early adopters and techies that are utilizing this technology. Now more and more news sites and even corporations (Microsoft) are using some sort of blogging tool to manage time-sensitive content. On a basic level, blogs are cheap content-management systems, and if utilized correctly, they can power an entire site.

The big thing about blogs is this technology that runs it — RSS is this technology. Basically, every time I enter a new post on my web site, that post is entered into a huge database. That database is then tapped and displays certain posts depending on settings I have for my web site (which are currently to display the six most recent posts and archive the rest). Because all blogs run on RSS, that means every post on the internet is inside a database somewhere.

Now, with programs called RSS Readers, you can automatically load RSS feeds and read all of your favorite news without visiting web sites. RSS Readers function similarly to e-mail programs, they download the posts from the blogs you choose to track and display their information for you.

Big deal right? Well, yes, this can be a big deal, here's why. As it stands right now, someone could go out and create two web sites based on the Tour de France – one web site in regular HTML and one that runs on blog technology. With the ways that blogs are indexed on popular search engines, such as Google, if you updated both sites at the same rate, the blog would severely out-rank the regular web site. This is because blogs lend themselves to indexability more than regular web sites... in addition, search engines love sites that link to and from each other (which is a BIG thing to do in the blog sector).

I used the Tour de France example because someone just did this. Feeling frustrated that there wasn't a great resource for Tour news (that was serviceable through RSS), a blog was created that would centralize most of the major publications and their news. Since its creation, this site averages around 50-60k hits a day and is now making money because of the ads that the site serves. This site took one hour to set up and takes less than an hour a day to post the latest news. Can you see where this is going? I have an idea, and it just may be the next big thing.

Posted by Seth at 11:22 PM | Comments (0)

July 20, 2004

Seattle, Part One: McCoy Who?

Today is the first official leg of my Seattle trip. I'm in town for a giant web conference and also for a family reunion that is happening this weekend. While in town, I expect to take in as many Seattle-specific sites that I can, which in turn will only fuel my fire to eventually abandon Kansas City and venture elsewhere.

The start of the trip wasn't half bad, unless you LIKE riding planes that remind you of the Mamba at Worlds of Fun. There must have been quite a bit of turbulence in the air because my stomach dropped out a few times on our descent. And it's funny how you always fear of sitting next to "that person" on a flight... and rarely does it ever happen. Well, also on the first flight, I sat next to the "that's MY arm rest and holy $hit we're going to die" guy. An unusual flight, but good to get it out of the way.

My second flight starting feeling more and more like my last US Airways flight (where I sat on the plane for over an hour while they fixed stuff). This time it wasn't the brakes that had malfunctioned, it was the air conditioning. You know how upset people can get without proper cooling, imagine a plane-full for about 20 minutes. People need to relax.

Arriving in Seattle and riding downtown to my hotel was an awe-inspiring ride. The land here in Washington is amazing. Trees everywhere, green surrounds you, the ocean on one side, mountains all around... breath-taking. And don't get me started on downtown (what KC will never be).

I got to the hotel and decided to walk my route before tomorrow happened. So I ventured out around the area, went to some shops, admired the tree-lined city streets, blended in with the crowd (yes, Brett, I can do that), and eventually ate dinner at Rock Bottom brewery – imagine John's Upper Deck with Mac N' Cheese that kicks the booty of McCoy's. Also at supper, I sat next to two WNBA players: Ebony Hoffman and Deanna Jackson of the Indiana Fever.

So far the experience has been great, and I only anticipate it to get better. Now, if I could just find a job here... hmmmmm.

Posted by Seth at 11:02 PM | Comments (0)

Not Taking an Umbrella

I'm off to Seattle today. For the remainder of the week, I'll be attending a very cool web conference and during the weekend, I'll be visiting with tons of family at the Fiedler Family Reunion. Stay tuned for on-location updates!!!

Posted by Seth at 07:28 AM | Comments (0)

July 18, 2004

Many, Many Thanks

On Friday, I had my birthday and I turned 27. And on my Birthday, my favorite thing to do is to be with friends. The more there are, the better. I had two fun-filled days on Friday and Saturday (except for being a bit nausiated) and I couldn't have wished for more fun.

Thank you to anyone/everyone who took time out of their day to wish me a happy birthday, it was one of the best ever. Here's to many more!

Posted by Seth at 03:59 PM | Comments (0)

July 13, 2004

Ahhh, Birthdays of Yore...

I was digging through my birthday photos last night in anticipation of my 27th birthday coming up on Friday. I found a lot of good ones, had a lot of laughs, and spent some quality time remembering each of my birthdays throughout the years. Posted below is, by far, my favorite birthday picture from several years ago.

I'm sure each one of you reading this know that you share a birthday with someone famous. If you don't know who, then go check it out now. I happen to share my birthday with former child-star Corey Feldman and Hall of Fame Running Back, Barry Sanders.

But, little did I know that I shared my birthdate with The Granddaddy of Pappycorn, The Kernal King, yes, good ol' Popsalot Inna Bag himself... Orville Redenbacher. And could you imagine the look on my face when he SHOWED UP AT MY BIRTHDAY PARTY!?! Stunned. That's what I was.

"But he died in 1995," you say. "You're wrong," is what I say back. And to prove it, here's a picture from the party... Big Orv (that's what he insists on being called) was cracking everyone up. He was telling jokes, doing impersonations and yes, I dare say, lighting his farts on fire. This picture was taken shortly after he pulled popcorn out of my ear (who knew he was a magician, too). Oh, the memories.

orvillenme.jpg

Posted by Seth at 11:18 PM | Comments (2)

Free Virus Scans

If you don't own a piece of Virus Scan software, don't you worry your little head anymore. I've recently found six online virus scanners for your computer. Just go to any of the following sites (see below), and follow the instructions. These are trusted sites, so to scan your computer, you may have to download some items to your computer. The scan will run and then will tell you if there are problems with your computer – from there, you'll have more options on how to get it all fixed. Good luck and I hope this all helps.

PS - I'm not sure if this works for Macs... but chances are, if you're running a Mac, you don't have a virus.

Posted by Seth at 05:05 PM | Comments (0)

Beating a Dead Horse?

I'm beginning to see more and more stories lately about this whole IE security issue story. I think this is because all of the major publications are picking up on how serious this really is. Apparently, last year everyone's computer had an attempted hacking occur every fifteen minutes. Now, with all of the holes in IE and the Windows platform, that number has increased to fifteen seconds. Think about it.

Trust me when I say this, I'm not the only one who says you should get a different browser... "Recently, the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team, the official group responsible for defending against online security threats, urged users of Microsoft's ubiquitous Internet Explorer browser to find an alternative because it has a flaw that leaves Web surfers open to hacker attacks." — Quote taken from http://www.technewsworld.com/story/35077.html

Find an alternative. Three simple words that could make your computer so much safer. I've helped several people in the past few days download a new browser. It's easy and it's not near as overwhelming as one might make it out to be. Here are some choices on browsers:

Posted by Seth at 12:03 AM | Comments (0)

July 12, 2004

My Momma!

Happy Birthday to You
Happy Birthday to You
Happy Birrrrrrrrrrthday to My Mooooooooooommaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Happy Birthday to You!

Posted by Seth at 08:17 AM | Comments (0)

July 11, 2004

More on the Browser-Switching Front

"Good news everyone," (as the Professor would say on Futurama), IE took a dip last month in how many people use their security-issue-laden browser. According to this report, their share of the market dropped 1% in over the month of June. That sounds insignificant, but Mozilla and Netscape's combined market share rose 26% – with daily downloads doubling since the last news release of IE's suckiness.

This is great news for the little guys that offer better features and are standards-compliant.

I know it's a hassle to change your browser, but believe me, you and your computer will appreciate it. So, export those bookmarks and download a new browser today!

Posted by Seth at 04:30 PM | Comments (0)

July 10, 2004

In Case You Forgot

Last night I went and watched my friend Stephen Milton perform in this year's Shakespeare in the Park. It's a yearly production that is performed for free (donations are very welcome) in Southmoreland Park ̵ just west of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. This year's production was of Julius Caesar, a play that I always hear referenced, but have never seen.

Everything about the show was great. The acting, the sound, the incredible set, nearly everything was perfect. This post isn't a review of the performance, but rather what WASN'T great about the venue which will lead into other things.

The park is a great venue. The seats are set on a hill so there is hardly a bad seat in the house. I suppose at some point during this year's run, the hill became a bit wet and muddy due to all of the rain we've had. So, to try and keep the hill dry, the organizers laid down a layer of hay... which has since become wet, hot, dry and is now decomposing... that has created an awful awful stench. But, if you look at it from a certain perspective, maybe that's what things smelled like back in Shakespeare's day.

No, this post isn't a review of the play, or the venue... but of things that I think people love. Not stereotypes, per se, but purely blanket statements of what people like, don't like, or just general observations.

For example, babies love large, quiet audiences. They're extremely capable, and willing, to be quiet when others are trying to concentrate on something. Babies also love Shakespeare (that was a stereotype, sorry).

People love hearing cars drive by with loud bass and rap music. In fact, the louder, the better!

Another one, it's okay, and often encouraged, to not follow instructions that ask patrons to turn off their cell phones. This is one of the first rules I ever learned... it's okay to not listen to people, especially pilots and/or cops.

A coming-of-age fact: 99% of movie-goers pay $10 to listen to others make fun of a movie, not to see the movie itself. I'll tell you what, I'm NOT going to waste my hard-earned money on Hollywood, give me a good heckler and I'm set.

There's no such thing as double-parking OR a "bad" parking job. C'mon, rules are meant to be broken and so are parking lines.

I'm sure there are many more out there, but I don't have them written down. Do you have any? If so, post 'em below!

Posted by Seth at 03:32 PM | Comments (1)

July 05, 2004

It's time to upgrade

As the days and months go by, more and more reports are released about how Internet Explorer has, yet another, security hole. These holes provide mischievous programmers with openings to create applications that could break into your computer. But you ask, who would do such a thing?

Almost a month ago while at work, I noticed several popup windows launching on my computer throughout the day. This wasn't supposed to be happening since I have the Google Toolbar installed for Internet Explorer. If you use IE and haven't installed that on your machine, you should. It's a nice little program that adds another toolbar into IE – it blocks popup windows and allows you to search google.com without going to Google.

For some reason, the Google Toolbar wasn't blocking certain popups. It turns out that I had adware and spyware on my machine. I didn't intentionally install these programs, but they got on my machine somehow. It took me two weeks to fully clean my computer from these programs, and if you need help doing this to your machine, just let me know.

So, back to the whole Internet Explorer problem. It's a shame that IE has these issues, since over 90% of people use some version of the browser. It's also a shame that Microsoft isn't planning on releasing a new version of the software for the next two years. TWO YEARS? Their browser, aside from these mounting security issues, is falling behind in what it offers users. The only reason I use IE now is because I make web sites, and the sites I make have to work on IE... otherwise I use Safari (for Mac) or Firefox.

These two browsers are great and are light years ahead of IE. Not only do they offer better features: tabbed browsing, built-in popup blocking, google searching, etc... but they're also more standards compliant – which means a great deal to me for my line of work.

I suggest that everyone upgrade their browsers to something that works and doesn't present security issues. Plus, we need to send a message to Microsoft. You're not stuck using that browser that came on your machine. So, go out there, support the little guys, and surf the web better. But, as Levar Burton would say, "you don't have to take my word for it."

Posted by Seth at 11:13 PM | Comments (0)

Me + Fireworks = Disaster

Last year, I spent the Fourth of July weekend in Chicago, catching a Cubs game, relaxing, reading, and hopefully to see a great city's fireworks display. I went to Navy Peir to watch the show, because that's where everyone goes. I got there two hours early, to make sure I got a good seat. Thousands of people showed up to watch the fireworks. Finally, it was time.

The music started and so did the carefully planned and orchestrated fireworks. The show was just starting to settle into a nice groove when the finale hit and it was over. "It couldn't be over," I said to myself. It didn't seem right. The fireworks lasted MAYBE ten minutes. Everyone sat there, waiting for the next round to start up. Nothing. The music was stopped and so were the fireworks.

Everyone got up and started to leave. The show was so unexpectedly short, that a group of people that was seated in front of me had just purchased several baskets of shrimp to eat for dinner. One got up before the show started to get some cocktail sauce and finally returned with some after the show was already over. Someone said, "uhhhh, the show is over." Everyone was in awe.

That was last year. This year, on the other hand... well, forget the other hand and look back at the first one. Kansas City was to celebrate BIG with this year's Fourth of July – it was Lewis and Clark's bicentennial celebration of their expedition for goodness sake. Not only was the airshow in town (great fun, but not free like in years past), but there was also a giant celebration at the new Berkeley Riverfront Park.

Usually Kansas City has several different fireworks displays, with the popular ones at Liberty Memorial and in the River Market. This year, in an attempt to get everyone down to the Lewis and Clark celebration, they moved both shows to the river.

I invited Scoot and Bill over to my roof so that we could get a great glimpse of the show. Standing up on my building and watching thousands upon thousands of people migrating over the Oak Street bridge was extremely cool. The city really is making downtown a destination, and while it will take several years for it to come to fruition, this was very nice to see.

With our chairs set, we took a seat five minutes before it was showtime. Scoot had gone down to the park earlier in the day and scoped out where the fireworks were supposed to be launched from – so we knew where to be looking (as if we would miss it, but better safe than sorry).

Ten o'clock rolled around and a minute later we saw fireworks. It was going real steady and big for about a minute, maybe two, and then... nothing. We were far enough away from the park, so we couldn't hear any music, so we waited. And we waited. Ten minutes later, and still no fireworks, the thousands upon thousands who had traveled over to the park were now coming back. We weren't convinced, we thought those people were going to be mad when the real show started and they weren't in their spot.

The show never started, or rather, it never really finished. Already, there's an article about it in the Kansas City Star, and it talks about there being a "computer glitch" which prevented the fireworks show from concluding. I think they meant to say, from really ever starting. They also report that the display went on for about "ten minutes"... but they meant to type "two." And my favorite quote of all is this, "Burke promised a free fireworks display for Kansas City to make up for the fizzled show." Hmmm, the show was already free... and good luck getting everyone back down there to watch it again.

I really don't want to think it's me that is causing the fireworks to not work properly... but I'm beginning to wonder.

Posted by Seth at 04:21 AM | Comments (0)

July 04, 2004

Ahhh... This is nice.

I've always thought of myself as a minimalist. I always strive to design in simplistic ways. My efforts are usually simple and functional, but not to the extreme. This is my latest effort. I've changed things around on the site for several reasons:

I'm not quite finished with the site. I haven't tested it in many browsers except Mozilla and IE for Mac. I know right now it doesn't work in IE for Mac – sorry about that, it may not work properly ever, but I'll give it a shot. Also, for some reason, the photo stuff isn't working in the Comments and Archive sections. I'll also be checking that out.

So, enjoy the new site. I know I will. Oh yeah, and Happy Fourth of July!!!!

Update... The site now works in IE Mac. Still tinkering with the photo goofiness.

Update #2... The site now looks correct in IE on a PC. Now I'm having issues with the rollover effect on the navigation links. I started to work on a fix, but it wasn't working properly, I'll have to play with it later. Again, still tinkering with the photo goofiness.

Update #3... The flash photos now work on all pages.

Update #4... The nav is now fixed for IE6 on PC. Plus I also fixed a minor header error in Netscape. So, now I just need to fix up the contact page and I'm essentially finished with phase one. Yay!

Posted by Seth at 08:45 PM | Comments (0)

July 03, 2004

Two Weeks and Counting...

That's right Seth-fans, my birthday is now less than two weeks away (July 16). As always, I have a small list of things swimming around in my head, in case you wanted to get me a gift... here they are, in no particular order:

Not a lot of stuff, but those are the things I've been seeing that I desire. Of course, I'm also a big fan of surprise gifts. Now you can't cop out with the excuse of, "I didn't know what to get you." It's a gift, I'm not picky... as long as it's from the above list. ;)

Posted by Seth at 04:57 PM | Comments (0)

July 01, 2004

This Day in 1986

Happy Birthday to You
Happy Birthday to You
Happy Birrrrrrrrrrthday to Garrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeeett
Happy Birthday to You!

You're 18 now, go vote and change the world!

Posted by Seth at 07:56 AM | Comments (1)