Via J : Da Blog I found a nifty little toy that provides a real-time listing of referrer information about visitors to this journal. (I will probably expand this feature to the rest of the site… eventually.)
And no, before you ask, I don’t have too much time on my hands.
The rainy season has arrived, better late than never. And so one of Portland’s annual traditions is revived. No, I’m not talking about the Xmas light show at PIR. I’m talking about thousands of drivers remembering how to get around on wet pavement.
Case in point: Schmuck in a white Ford Taurus wagon decides at the very last instant that the exit they’re passing is the one they absolutely must take, and so they swerve in front of a Volvo sedan. The sedan’s driver honks and hits the brakes all at once. The Taurus’ driver is in the midst of correcting from the swerve, panicks at the sound of the horn and overcorrects. Tires squeal as the wagon does a sliding 180 down forty feet of offramp and ends up facing the wrong way partway up the embankment.
Thankfully, nobody was hurt, and traffic resumed its regular 9am pace within a couple of minutes. All of this took place along that stretch of I-5 northbound that crosses under the Ross Island bridge just as I was about to hike down to Moody on my way to work.
C’mon, folks. This happens every year. Cutting people off because you’re missing your exit is one thing, but when it’s raining you simply must be more careful. Try keeping the phrase “screaming death at sixty miles per hour” firmly in your mind as you make your way around the city. Thank you.
This website has always “kind of” worked for small displays, but not really. Upon firing up one of the Compaq WinXP machines and browsing to greyduck.net, I was appalled at the overlapping text and general cruddiness. Time to take action, it was.
An hour, several false starts and some Googling later, we now have a fully functional new layout engine. What’s that? You say it looks almost exactly the same? Good. That means you don’t notice anything broken, and that’s the best news I could get.
The bulk of what works about the new stylesheet rig comes from saila.com’s CSS Layouts page. If you dabble in CSS at all, I recommend taking a peek.
Oh, and hey:
CSS Layouts – saila.com
It’s three, three, three galleries in one! Take a look at The Working Life, a collection of images from around Entercom Portland.
It never ceases to amaze me that I can be so often amazed at what I see on the television when I go into the lunch room. Last time it was that steaming pile of excrement known as “Passions.” Today… something almost scarier.
The pitch must have gone something like this: “I have a great idea! Let’s take a semi-famous prop-comic from the 80’s and build a really crappy spot around his most famous bit of schtick! It can’t fail!”
So here’s Gallagher, yes that Gallagher, the center of a television commercial for Northwest Title Loans. He smashes words with his sledgehammer! How droll. Oh, but wait, he’s also digitally composited into a watermelon-shaped cartoon car!
Okay, so I’m not in sales, marketing or programming. Even I know that this is a hideous assault on all that is decent and holy. More to the point, I can’t see it working to create a positive impression of the business in question in the minds of the viewers.
Oh, crap. I’ve been in radio too long. I’m starting to think like them. Heaven help me.
First came the word that twenty Compaqs were due, all loaded (down) with Windows XP. Then came the knowledge that our anti-virus system required an upgrade in order to support Windows XP.
And now… I have to engage in a comprehensive upgrade of the IBM Client Access software, both on the AS/400 itself and on the majority of our hundred-or-so desktop PCs.
According to IBM, one must run Client Access V5R1 with a service pack or (preferably) V5R2 in order to support Windows XP clients. We’re running V4R4. I now have a support request in to get the appropriate media to upgrade Client Access. Even if it shows up tomorrow, it’s still going to be the middle of next week before I can even start rolling out these Compaqs. And I don’t expect it to show up tomorrow, since Encoda Systems hasn’t bothered to respond to my support request yet.
Did I mention that nine more of the streaming servers will be arriving next week for me to prep? And that the top brass want those machines prepped and shipped off, oh, about yesterday-ish?
The XP rollout just went from annoying to infuriating, and there’s not a damned thing I can do about it today but wait for other people to give me what I need. (Like, say, a cot in the next room, all the cocoa I can drink, copious amounts of chinese food, big stacks of music, and new versions of Norton Anti-Virus and IBM Client Access.)
Smart money says I’m working right through Christmas. I’m still taking Wednesday off to see Two Towers, though. Especially the way things are going lately.
Don’t mind the maniacal laughter, folks. It’s just Karel, trying to gather up the shreds of his sanity. (“You can’na fool me, there ain’t no sanity clause!” – Chico Marx, from some Marx Brothers movie. Possibly ‘Night At The Opera,’ but I’m not sure about that right now.)
