i was able to make some changes today to the site. i was running into several problems trying to install the mtrecentimages plugin, but discovered that the plugin wasn’t looking for my perl modules in the right place. now onto problem 2 with the plugin. i am now having problems getting the thing to develop proper thumbnails, but i will get it to work. now if i can find something to do some kind of filtering to the images before putting them in my column to the left. we’ll see.

in the meantime, look below for some of the sites i was referring to in an earlier post:

oh the headache i now have. i have accomplished nothing that i had hoped for on the site tonight. i ran into some heavy computer complications where i was not able to connect to my own site for about 3 hours. not too sure what happened, but after starting and stopping and starting and stopping apache time and time again, nothing came from it. i upgraded the firmware in my router, nothing. then just out of the blue, i was able to connect again. you’ve got me. oh well, i am back up again, but will not be able to play with the site until tomorrow.

i briefly tried playing with mtrecentimages.pl tonight with no success due to not being able to get it to recognize the html::parser perl module. oh well i will figure it out tomorrow.

good night to all…

i will be putting some updates to the site tonight. i do not know fully what i will be doing, but i am going to try my best to get some images going to the left column. i am going to be experimenting with some mt plugins to do this (possibly most recent entry images or something). i will also be putting up a disclaimer in the top right that will bring it to everyone’s attention about my desire to purposely not allow internet explorer to view the site properly due to stupid inabilities of the browser.

i also may play with my colors a little bit. maybe make them a little brighter. on a mac everything looks fine, as a mac screen is typically brighter and more vibrant than that of a pc. i guess i will help out in that one area of the pc since i have to use one here at work and may do some posting here from time to time (albeit with mozilla, not ie).

wish me luck to follow through.

ok….now that we are up, it is time to let people know that we are out there. does that mean that we need to let all the blog sites know? no, but i will steadily let the communities i am involved with know about the site, so that some proper conversations can pursue. whether the topic is music, software, hardware, hacks, or whatever, it is certainly welcome.

to begin, there are 3 authors. will this number increase? only a simple maybe will have to suffice for now. this is testing grounds to be honest with you. the authors are toilet johnnies, sal magicpants, and of course myself…icedtrip. both of the above are from my kdx server. they are the 2 admins. anyone is welcome to drop by anytime, but instead of dropping the address and port on the page, i will suggest using “joshuamac.homeip.net” tracker to find me under the macintosh heading.

lastly, before i hit the sack, the column to the left will be used. i am aware of the title with nothing underneath, but it will eventually serve a purpose. ok….i’m out.

ok, work can sometimes get to you. i am ready to go home, but can’t, so i decided to take to writing on the blog that has been so severely neglected. not that it really matters, as no one looks at the site anyway, but nonetheless, i write.

i had been browsing through a few sites the other day and realized that tasteful design has gone away. whether this is through the fact of no actual talent, or simply that most people do not have taste for what they are creating. regardless, something needs to happen. some of the sites i visited included the cult of the dead cow, mac underground, and the new dive site that has been set up by shoe (where dawn’s dive went? i don’t know).

now, one thing that i have come to love in website development is simplistic design. there is no need to have 100 bright colors on a single page, nor is there any reason to have a page that is so busy it takes the reader’s mind off the main topic of the site. now i will give it to cdc and will not pick on them too much as their abilities could make me suffer from what i say, but their site needs a minor face lift. their site is set up as many sites are today (such as this one), in a blog format, but the site itself is simply too busy for words. i do understand that they have been around since ‘84 (recently having celebrated their 20th anniversary at defcon) and that they have just a multitude of t-files and loads of information that has been gathered over the last 20 years, but the site needs help in the area of organization and contrasting colors. sure they have a menu in the top left for navigation, but after visiting their first page, it took me too long to figure out how to navigate. now, shoe’s new site (the gran dive) is one that i like. simple and informative with good design principles. the site is in its infancy, and will develop even more over the next few months, but shoe knows his design.

now i am not saying that i am the design king, as i have far to go, but one thing that i do know is that if a site is kept simple and well organized, without much flash (not flash vs. html, but pizzazz), then it will catch my attention. having said that, i do not like looking at a site that is so simplistic that a 10 year old could have designed it with a set of crayons, but simple does not mean bland. good color contrasts, good use of ‘white’ space, moderate use of page real estate. many of these concepts could be followed to make a pleasant looking website.

to be continued at a later time…gotta go…

thus begins the rant:

i do not, and will not, support internet explorer on windows for many reasons, but most importantly due to the fact that i find it to be a very mediocre browser. the only thing it has going for it is being the most used browser on the market due to the most used os on the market. for that, i have to give it to bill. the man knows business and knows how to deliver and sell mediocre products. hey the man makes money, no one can argue.

back to the topic at hand. as you may see (especially if you are viewing this in ie), i am very blatantly not supporting ie in a way that should not effect any browser during this point in technological history. simply put, the inability to portray my image format of choice, the png.

Continue reading “the rant: part 1”

i was going to spend a little time this evening to do a little rambling about the specifics of why i will not support internet explorer with the site, however, after a long day at work and playing pool tonight in a smoke filled pool hall, i need my sleep. not that a single soul really cares, but i will hum a few bars on it later.

one of these days, i swear i am going to post something before 11pm.