The Toothpick's Blog » Uncategorized

Internet Explorer 8

Kevin — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 19:33:53 +0000

Well, Internet Explorer 8 is here (the beta, at least). And it’s standards compliant (well, it passes Acid2). Which, actually, is something even Firefox can’t say.

Acid2 in IE 8:

Acid2 in Firefox 2.0.0.7:

That means that I no longer need to do conditional stuff for Firefox and Opera, I can do everything once and it’ll look the same (such as the fix for the gap between div tags described here). Of course, I’ll have to account for the fact that, although IE 7 has been out for a year and a half, many people still use IE 6, and will continue to do so when IE 8 is released.

Aside from that, IE 8 has some other new things. “Activities” are selected from a drop-down menu that appears near selected text (this doesn’t seem to work everywhere yet…). “WebSlices” are basically what they sound like – little slices of the web. You define the scope of a WebSlice inside a div tag with an “hslice” class. The browser then adds that to the “Favorites Bar,” and updates itself every once in a while. You can then see that small part of a web page without actually opening it, allowing for things like, say, weather updates (from MSN, obviously…) or status updates from your Facebook friends. The “Favorites Bar” I just mentioned is also new. Think Firefox’s “Bookmarks Toolbar,” and you’ll have a pretty good idea of the Favorites Bar. Button links to web pages (like the old “Links Bar”), and drop down RSS feeds. I could only see a couple differences between the Bookmarks Toolbar and this new IE counterpart. The first is the little “Favorites” dropdown thing that shows Favorites, Feeds, and History in different tabs until you click elsewhere in the window (I think they’re called “Explorer Bars,” and they’re not new – they were in IE 7). The other is that this is where those “WebSlices” are stored, which look like a feed button until you press them, and a box with a part of a web site pops up.

Also, I think someone mentioned somewhere that it was starting to support HTML 5, not that I’ve really been able to try that out…

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

LiveJournal

Kevin — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 05:02:17 +0000

Ok, so LiveJournal falls very far short of WordPress (less usability, no custom hosting, etc.), but it’s way in front of Xanga (Windows Live Writer compatible. that’s all that needs to be said). So, I’ll be using my LiveJournal as well as my WordPress. I’ll mainly use LiveJournal for the kinds of things I used Xanga for (quizzes, bitching, etc.). Yep. Nothing interesting this time… (as if there ever is xP).

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

I’m Sixteen :O

Kevin — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 21:39:45 +0000

People that wished me a happy birthday (excluding people I know personally):

Forums Atari Europe

The Shallow Bay

Tarot.com

Facebook

The emails from Forums Atari Europe and The Shallow Bay were almost identical, so I guess they use the same forum software. Tarot (I think I read my horoscope there once) gave me a “FREE 11-Card Tarot Celtic Cross reading.” Oooooo…

No, I don’t feel any older. Yes, I’m working on drivers ed. Which is both boring and interesting at the same time. Did you know that pedestrians have the right-of-way at corners, whether or not the crosswalks are marked by painted white lines? Well, you do now :D.

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Where the hell did everyone go?

Kevin — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 21:22:49 +0000

Erica is on choir tour. Stephen has homework or whatever. Everyone else – Justine, Thomas, Elaine, Kelton – just kinda dropped off the map. Just disappeared. =/

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Do you feel lucky today?

Kevin — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 17:32:13 +0000

You are a South African bush pilot working for Blue Sky Aviation. You fly in some critical medical supplies, enjoy a quick lunch at the hospital. It’s a stifling 100 degrees in the shade and you’re eager to get back up to the cool, high blue yonder.

On the way back to your plane, you discover that the only bit of shade within 1 mile has become very popular… You start calculating the distance to the plane door and wonder…

“Do I feel lucky today?”

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Bye Bye

Kevin — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 12:01:01 +0000

Getting back next Saturday.

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

New Blog

Kevin — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 02:51:17 +0000

“The first time I was unable to connect to blogger, I thought it was their problem. A few days after that, it was running again, and they mentioned something about upgrading their servers. So, I just assumed that I couldn’t connect because of that. Then it happened again. And again. I asked a couple of my friends, and every one of them could connect. This was before I upgraded to Vista RTM. Now, I still can’t connect. Luckily, RTM has made some diagnostic improvements from RC1.

Â Well, that’s at least more helpful than RC1, which either told me there wasn’t really a problem, or that it couldn’t connect at all. This seems to have nailed the problem, but I… can’t figure out what’s causing it. I’m going to try restarting my computer (that usually fixes it), and if that doesn’t work… well then I’m screwed, because I can’t post this otherwise…”

Well, that didn’t work. I wrote that a little while ago. I realized in that time that maybe Blogger just wasn’t going to work.Â So I took a WordPress test site I had, and started using that. It has a Crosspost plugin available, so no more emailing updates and such. I’m working on creating a skin based on my webpage.

All in all, I actually like WordPress more than Blogger, in part because of the amount of control I have over everything, and also because I host it myself, while actually gaining features, not losing them. And it works better with WLW, too (post properties (including changing the date, adding keywords and such), trackback properties, comment options,Â and categories).

Note: I really hope this is the last time I change my blog for a while. I can’t see any reason why I would, but I didn’t with blogger either, so you never know.

OK. So there are some problems. Namely, when I post stuff via the WordPress admin site,Â the CrosspostÂ works, yet when I postÂ stuffÂ from WLW, it doesn’t.Â I have to go to Manage>Edit Post>Save to get it to appear on Xanga. Which isn’t that bad, I suppose… Just annoying.

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh