September 2005 – Kasperian Moving Parts

Things That Really Piss Me Off, or CNN

Thursday September 29, 2005

Please explain to me why, in… what year is this again… 2005… people… nay, COMPANIES… insist on using stupid, dumb, ridiculous, unnecessary, proprietary, exclusionary, browser-sniffing, One-Platform-ONLY “solutions”???? CNN, please explain to me how you can legitimately not care whatsoever about the growing population of Internet users who might like to use your site who CANNOT or CHOSE NOT TO run Internet Explorer, Windows, or Windows Media Player??? Just because I choose not to (or maybe can’t afford to??) use Windows, you think I’m unworthy of seeing the videos that make up the user experience on your site??? How about doing something sensible like providing a link to the media file regardless of what OS your visitor might be using, and Read more…

Usability

Some Inmates and an Asylum

VERY nice post on usability over on icefox’s blog. It’s always good to keep these things at the forefront of our collective geeky brains, since as is stated yonder, “users will suffer until good design comes along.” This is precisely the point that so many people miss–good design is not an option or an afterthought. It is a must and it must come early in the process. Most of the time, this (intelligent, well-thought-out design) is overlooked until it’s painfully obvious that it’s broken–and this is also (not conincidentally) the most inopportune time to be thinking about it, since in most cases what is required to fix the problem is deeper than cosmetic changes, going down into deep architectural problems Read more…

Apples, Life in General

Brother, can you spare me an iBook

I’ve been drooling over the thought of getting either an iBook or a Powerbook for a good couple of years now. I’ve just found reason #39921 to drool over them more. Apparently, it’s entirely possible to run KDE applications inside OS X. Fantastic!! Now all I need is… money. =:/

Life in General

How to be a better sheep

I just ran across this page today and it’s very, very apropos for where I am in my life right now and with all that I’m going through…. Some of it below… Psalm 23 says the Lord is your shepherd. What does that mean? He’s not your chauffeur, taking you wherever you tell Him you want to go. He’s not your butler, making sure you’re comfortable every moment. He’s not your tour guide, telling you in advance where you’ll be going and what you’ll be doing. He’s your shepherd, leading you where you need to go to be fed and protected. He knows what’s best for you. Sheep don’t have a very high anxiety level. They’re content to let the Read more…

Life in General

Fix this door, step 2

Wednesday September 28, 2005

Lots of work to do still, but the hardest part should be behind me now. The new door jam is up, the hinges are in, the wood has been chiseled, the cons have been tapped (Tapcons are amazing!), and the door closes even better than it did before this whole operation! (psst! Fix this door, step 2 was uploadd by: vanRijn).

Open Source

Microsoft, or How to lie and still smell terrific

I came across ruurd’s post the other day (probably found it on planet KDE originally). It’s all good, and it’s really hard not to just copy and paste the whole thing here, but I’ll try…. The following quote from this NewsForge article about Microsoft’s shady dealings with the state of Massachusetts is very well-worded and very accurate, from my experience in IT: Alan Yates’ letter reveals the worst of Microsoft’s behavior and signals their limited recourse when competition is enabled. The letter betrays many of the company’s flaws of character, its propensity to lie, and its petulant entitlement to customer fealty. And, as ruurd pointed out, the following excerpt from a letter from Microsoft gives a nice example of just Read more…

Life in General

CNN’s stupidity (or how to alienate people)

Saturday September 24, 2005

Out of curiosity, I wanted to look at the latest, breaking news on CNN for Hurricane Rita, but CNN has apparently decided (not without precedence or companionship in this kind of decision) that it will only cater to Windows users for its streaming videos. Hm. Yeah, that’s a really nice decision. Reminds me of FEMA’s also-really-stupid decision to be lazy, slovenly, and stupid in the same way. Good job guys! Welcome to the 20th century! Hope you don’t get any reality spilt on ya….

Desktop, Life in General, Open Source, Work Stuff

Total Lack of Passion or Momentum

I found this blog entry from Dave Neary the other day and share his sentiments. Namely, I’m not particularly enamored with what I do for a living (Retail Pharmacy–it’s not painful to the point of death, but it’s not something that I’m passionate about, to be sure), and would absolutely LOVE to work with a company that not only embraces the Open Source desktops (GNOME, KDE, etc., etc.), but also actively participates in their development. From what I’ve seen, Redhat and Novell do this, but I’ve not been successful in getting anyone’s attention with my resume-submissions. =:/ But that’s my passion, to be sure, and I would love the opportunity to work on something during my day job that I Read more…

Life in General

GMail and IMAP

Friday September 23, 2005

Hah, made you look. I would pay a good $20 to see the Google boys and girls (of whom I’m simultaneously jealous and irate with, since my application/resume submission has been returned with a “thanks for applying, but there’s nothing you can do for us” e-mail) would allow GMail to be accessed via the IMAP protocol. Why? Well, that’s the whole point of GMail, right? You get TONS of storage space for your e-mails. You never have to delete them. You never run out of room. You can easily search them. What you can’t do is access it from another e-mail client when you want to and have all of your e-mail there for you. Sure, you can POP it Read more…

Life in General

Fix this door

This, the newest home improvement project that I’ve been forced into, shall likely be just as non-fun as all the others. =:/ Some water damage (caused by the extremely old and rusted-out previous cellar door) has gotten into the door jam and drywall in the bottom, left section of my inside basement door. I’ve ripped off the corner edging and my next job will be trying to find a matching door jam thingey (the entire left side of the door frame) at the local Home Depot. Yay!! Is this why people still rent? =:) (psst! Fix this door was uploadd by: vanRijn).