Tech Talk
Early Reviews of Longhorn from the Dead Language Department…
Monday, July 25th, 2005Apparently, those who speak ancient Sanskrit think the new version of Windows is, well, er….crap.
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Googling at the moon…
Wednesday, July 20th, 2005Google has created a site based on their mapping tool in honor of the anniversary of the first moon landing (July 20, 1969).
If you zoom all the way in, you’ll see some views of the moon’s surface that have never been seen before…
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Someone build me one of these, please…
Tuesday, July 19th, 2005It just occurred to me that someone has to make a scanner that’s built right into a monitor. The user would put the paper he/she was scanning right up on the screen, push a button on the monitor frame, and Whammo – the image appears on the screen. It’d be like high tech iron-on’s.
Any engineers out there have some time on their hands? Get on it!
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Firefox To Get Its Own Google Toolbar
Sunday, July 10th, 2005For my Firefox friends, might I highly recommend The Google Toolbar, coming to your desktop soon!
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A Laser Printer for $45
Saturday, July 9th, 2005OK, call me old. Call me very, very old. But I remember the day when laser printers were only for offices, because they were too expensive.
Here’s one for $45.
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Help for the Tech Support Generation
Saturday, July 9th, 2005Fog Creek CoPilot is software that’s supposed to help resolve this problem:
“Click START”
“What?”
“Start. Click Start. It’s in the bottom left.”
“I have C – T – R – L in the bottom left.”
“The bottom left of your screen.”
“Oh. OK, I clicked it.”
“OK, now click RUN.”
“What?”
“On the menu that came up. Click RUN.”
“It’s not there.”
“What do you mean it’s not there?”
“It’s not there. I don’t have a RUN.”
“What do you see? Read me everything you see”
“Recycle Bin… My Computer… Anna Navratilova J P G…”
“No, on the menu.”
“What menu?”
“The menu that came up when you clicked start.”
“When I what?”
Basically, you and your dad/mom/uncle/aunt each go to their website & download an app, which acts as a kind of traffic cop for tech support. Both computers send information to their server, and it sends it back to the opposite party. That way, you can take control of your technically-challenged relative’s computer and fix the problem while they watch, without requiring a direct connection between the two machines.
Very cool idea. I see one problem with it, which is this:
“OK, you need to go to www.copilot.com”
“I need to go where?”
“Open your web browser”
“Wait – I’m getting my coat on”
“Why?”
“You said I had to go somewhere”
“No – you need to go to a website. Just sit down at the computer and open your web browser”
“Can I take my coat off?”
“Yes. Just open your web browser”
“What’s that?”
“Click on the fancy ‘e’ near the bottom of the screen – next to the ‘Start’ button”
“OK, I see that screen with my news headlines and stock quotes. And a naked picture of Anna Kornikova that says ‘Click here’ to win $1,000”
“Ugh. Close the picture of Anna and type in ‘www.copilot.com’ “
“OK, I did. It’s asking for my credit card number so it can credit me the $1,000”
“I thought I told you to close the picture”
“I thought I did. What does all of this have to do with my problem?”
“Nevermind…”
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Introducing the IBM PC
Monday, July 4th, 2005Jeff Porten has posted a review of the first Macintosh computer. Fascinating reading, in a “look how far we’ve come” sort of way.
Ever being the one to seek balance in the world, here’s the first USENET post to review the IBM PC (according to Wikipedia).
Compare and contrast, folks…
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Google & Blogger – Perfect Together
Saturday, July 2nd, 2005Remember the days when a gadget you had stopped working, and you had to ask everyone you know if they knew how to fix it, or stay on hold for hours with some tech support guy just so he could tell you he had no idea? It’s times like these I realize just what a blessing Google is in our lives. Here’s what happened:
I’m happily going along posting entries to my blog (you know, in case anyone suddenly decides to stop by and read them). All of the sudden, I notice that my posts aren’t indenting anymore (the body of the post is supposed to be indented 10 pixels from the title and the “posted by Brian” line at the bottom – it makes it easier to pick the posts out when scrolling down the screen). Anyway, it was working fine for weeks and had suddenly stopped.
(NOTE: Here’s where it gets all techie, geeky. You’ve been warned)
Into the template I went. The post body is defined by a class called “blogpost_text” which clearly specifies the 10 pixel indent. I have another style defined for quotes (“blogquote”), and I noticed that when I use it and then manually switch back to “blogpost_text”, then indent is there, so it’s not the style sheet that’s the problem.
So I checked View…Source… on the blog page itself. Turns out that Blogger is inserting this line in the HTML at the beginning of each post:
<div clear:both></div>
I couldn’t figure out why (it’s simply not in the template), so I turned to Google. I typed “blogger div clear both” into my Google toolbar, and two clicks later, I was here. It seems the folks at Blogger added the “div” command to take care of another problem they were having with image posting (I haven’t had that problem yet, so it’s either pretty obscure or my image needs are very basic). In any case, the link directs you to a simple 1-click setting to fix the problem.
I made the change and voila! I’m back in business. Total time to fix this daunting problem: 30 seconds.
Bravo, Google. Bravo.
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More on the Mactel front…
Tuesday, June 21st, 2005OK, the combinations are coming in faster than a hyperactive craps table:
Michael Dell says he’d be willing to offer the Mac OS on Dell machines, even though their attempt at selling Linux laptops has already failed. Apple had no official comment, but has said that they won’t allow the Mac OS to run on anything but an Apple Mac (motto: “trying hard not to sell too much software…”)
Apple’s also said they won’t sell or support Windows on Apple hardware (motto: “it used to be we couldn’t run the most popular OS in the world, now we just don’t want to…”)
I agree with Jeff Porten on this one – it’ll be the hackers who get it working first, and the relative success of their hacks that determine whether the company “decides” to support it in the future (motto: “don’t look free beta-testers in the mouth…”)
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MacTel – The Unholy Alliance is Born
Sunday, June 19th, 2005Jeff Porten writes about the Apple/Intel alliance (twice!).
I respond here.
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