Month: July 2004 blog archive
megaman in flash - 31 Jul 2004

I used to love playing MegaMan II on my 8-bit Nintendo game system, and now you can now play MegaMan Ghosts N’ Goblins in flash. What will they think of next? To play, follow link that says, “click here to view this title.” Controls for the game are as follows: Arrow keys to move ‘z’ […]

Categories: Games
the speed you read - 30 Jul 2004

How fast do you read? I took both tests and got 400-450 on the first one and 450-500 on the second. (via waxy links via reBlog via del.icio.us)

Categories: Productivity
a patchy web server - 29 Jul 2004

I had always been under the impression that Apache (the web server) got its name because they patched the NCSA web server and affectionately called it “A PAtCHy” server. I recently told some friends about the etymology and they didn’t believe me, so I went to the FAQ to show them and was surprised to […]

Categories: Technology
bloglines backlinks - 28 Jul 2004

I didn’t know this until yesterday, but you can see who is linking to your blog using Bloglines. Use the following URL (replacing example.com with your blog’s URL): http://www.bloglines.com/citations?url=www.example.com (via outer court)

Categories: Blogging
australian tourism - 28 Jul 2004

These questions about Australia were posted on an Australian Tourism Website and obviously the answers came from a fellow Aussie. (between brackets the country where the question was coming from) 1. Q: Does it ever get windy in Australia? I have never seen it rain on TV, so how do the plants grow (UK). A: […]

Categories: Humor
forgotten technology - 27 Jul 2004

I’ve heard that as a society we don’t fully understand how the Egyptian Pyramids were built and that even with our modern construction equipment it would be a herculean task. I don’t know how true that is, but Wallace T. Wallington (odd name now that I write it) claims that using the methods he has […]

Categories: Technology
pagerank 10 and stat counter - 26 Jul 2004

If you’re familiar with Google’s PageRank, you know that a PageRank of 10 is the ultimate accomplishment for a web site. Here is a list of sites with a Pagerank of 10 to fuel your aspirations. Incidentally, I saw StatCounter in the list and looked at their service to see why it was so popular. […]

Categories: Web stats
effective link text - 24 Jul 2004

How to write effective link text on evolt made several good points, but after reading #2 and #4 I realized that my site could be hard to navigate if someone were color blind or had poor vision. In an effort to make my sites easier to use I’ve added underlines on all links outside of […]

Categories: Web design
this land is your land - 23 Jul 2004

I don’t often write about political issues but this little ditty (flash movie) was so funny I just had to share it. Plus, it’s bipartisan. (Although be warned that there is a little profanity).

Categories: Entertaining
a few interesting links - 22 Jul 2004

I’ve been accumulating links that I didn’t want to put in their own blog entry but were interesting enough to keep around. I should probably create a link blog, but until I do, here they are. Color in Motion (flash) – A guide to the colors, what they represent with movies for each color. Programming […]

Categories: Links
rock, paper, saddam! - 21 Jul 2004

Who knew that Saddam would be playing Rock, Paper, Scissors in court? That crazy tiger hand. Hah! (Thanks to Greg for the link)

Categories: Humor
avoiding empty submissions - 20 Jul 2004

I use Atomz search to allow users to search my site and the weekly report always has the same top query. It is (drum roll please): blank query I have no idea why someone would search for nothing, because you get just that as a result, but search for nothing they did. I decided to […]

Categories: Web design
that is one huge burger - 19 Jul 2004

At Denny’s Beer Barrel pub in the UK Pennsylvania they’ll give you a free burger, with one condition: you have to eat it in three hours. It’s not as easy as it sounds. The burger is enormous! It consists of 6 pounds of beef, one large onion, two whole tomatoes, a half head of lettuce, […]

Categories: Entertaining
call forwarding scam - 19 Jul 2004

If you ever get a call from a prison and they say it’s a wrong number, hang up. They’re trying to get you to fall for their call forwarding scam which can cost you oodles of money.

Categories: Useful
how to start a blog - 16 Jul 2004

I agree with most of Phil Windley’s ideas on how to start a blog. With this blog I don’t follow #4 very well, but that kind of conflicts with #6. There are so many things I’m interested in it’s hard to just pick one subject area and stick to it.

Categories: Blogging
scamming the scammer - 15 Jul 2004

A Nigerian 419 scammer was scammed out of $80 and tricked into painting a red mark on his chest. That’s pure comedy gold. (via kottke)

Categories: Entertaining
utah driving records online - 14 Jul 2004

For $7.25 Utah drivers can access their driving record online. Phil tried signing up but it gave him an error, so if you’re concerned about losing $7.25 you may want to give it a few days. (via Phil Windley)

Categories: News
game, stereogram and game - 14 Jul 2004

I found the agitator’s post on June 23rd chock full of entertainment. First, I tried to keep the drunk guy from falling over. I managed to get him 64 meters before he collapsed. Then I was amazed by a pure text stereogram (definition). I didn’t realize they could be made from text. I thought there […]

Categories: Entertaining,Games
time’s 50 best web sites - 13 Jul 2004

Time Magazine has assembled a list of the 50 best web sites of 2004. It’s not a list of the best web sites of all time, but a list of the top sites that piqued their interest over the past year. Here’s the complete list of 50. I especially liked fedstats.gov, freetranslation.com, mojam.com, metacritic.com, photos.yahoo.com, […]

Categories: News
voice mail tip - 12 Jul 2004

I don’t remember this being the case with other voice mail systems I’ve used, but AT&T doesn’t give you the option to skip to the end of the message which can be frustrating with those long messages you’ve already heard and now want to delete. While listening to a particularly long message I hit ‘7’ […]

Categories: Useful
Opera 7.52 available - 11 Jul 2004

I don’t know how I’m supposed to find out about new releases, but I just happened to check opera.com and saw that version 7.52 is available. I thought I was already subscribed to the Opera newsletter but I haven’t gotten any e-mails in a while, so I’ve resubscribed. That should at least keep me up […]

Categories: Web browsers
alien, re-enacted by bunnies - 09 Jul 2004

Maybe it’s because I don’t remember the movie Alien very well, but I didn’t find the next installment of the 30 seconds series very entertaining. In any case, here is Alien, re-enacted by bunnies (of course).

Categories: Entertaining
bloglines improvements - 08 Jul 2004

Bloglines has improved upon what was already an impressive and powerful RSS aggregator. In addition to the layout changes and the ability to automatically sort feeds, there are some cool new features, as well as some other features that I didn’t know about before. Here are what I consider to be the highlights. Blogroll management […]

Categories: Blogging
refreshing error pages - 06 Jul 2004

Gmail used a novel way to deal with an error situation that I’d like to point out. It won’t work in all situations, but in their case, when a heavy load on the server was the cause of the error, it was very useful. They made the error page refresh (every 30 seconds I believe), […]

Categories: Web design
disabling e-mail in opera - 03 Jul 2004

I don’t know if anyone else has this problem, but whenever I click on a mailto link for an e-mail address Opera pops up a window asking me to configure the mail client. Also, It was a mild annoyance so I didn’t bother doing anything about it, but I recently discovered that you can disable […]

Categories: Web browsers
SUV goes for a swim - 02 Jul 2004

An SUV went for a dip in Hawaii after the driver, Mimi Campanella overcompensated for an oncoming car (by stomping on the gas I’m assuming) during the driving lesson being given by her husband. No one was hurt. (via kottke’s links)

Categories: Entertaining
raising windows on amazon - 02 Jul 2004

Amazon’s use of Javascript to raise the window when it loads has really ticked me off because it completely disrupts my browsing experience. While reading a site I’ll pop off a few background tabs to load while I continue reading, and then all of a sudden, WHAM, I’m on the Amazon tab. It’s like a […]

Categories: Web design
a banking rant - 01 Jul 2004

I have opened a new account with a bank I stopped doing business with several years ago. The reason I left was this: when I changed my address with them, they changed it with all but one of my accounts. They continued sending the credit card statement (for a little over $100) to my old […]

Categories: My Thoughts