I need to host this blog, another WordPress powered site, a MediaWiki powered site, some basic PHP pages and some static pages across 4 domains.
I need to host this blog, another WordPress powered site, a MediaWiki powered site, some basic PHP pages and some static pages across 4 domains.
The most comment "it doesn't work" message I get from users is caused when the application displays this message:
Unspecified error invoking method or accessing property "showWindow"
The pop-up blocker built into Internet Explorer seems not to like Java applets trying to launch new browser windows. It blocks these by default even though they are "requested" by the user via a click and not launched automatically by a sneaky script. I guess IE can't or won't work out what's happened inside the applet before it calls out to create a new window.
Not once have the users noticed the yellow bar at the top of their browser window informing them that a pop-up has been blocked.
I can see the problem for browser producers - if you make the notification too prominent it becomes as annoying as the pop-up would have been; if you make it too subtle it goes unnoticed when the pop-up needs to be noticed.
Compounding the issue is that Internet Explorer seems to maintain three separate lists of trusted/permitted sites for privacy (i.e. cookies), security, and pop-ups. Would a master list of trusted sites with the ability to fine tune options on a site-by-site basis as an advanced option be easier to use? Or is the interface just leading me to the wrong conclusion? Oh well, maybe IE9 will streamline things.
Oh, and don't get me started on the Google Toolbar's pop-up blocker...
<c:if test="${criteria.startDate eq date and criteria.startDate eq null}">
criteria.startDate is a date object, however date is a calendar object representing the current date and should never be null. Hence, it's impossible for the above test to return true.
The code is total garbage and I wrote it. :-( I wish I had an excuse - I was still learning JSP, we were in a rush, it didn't crash anything, but frankly I should have spotted the dumbness of it before now. Oh well, on with the fixing.
So at the risk of turning into an old NewsBiscuit story I've been sorting out the box, and the carrier bag next to the box, full of "computer bits". I think there may be some more elsewhere in the flat as well.
( Time Team do VTT's flat )So one trip to PC World and many hours spent watching progress bars later... I have an odd situation.
I used to have a C: drive with Windows on it (part of the original configuration of the PC) and an X: drive with all my data (which I had added later). When I inserted the brand new drive in the first bay and started the Windows install it recognised that the drive in the first position was unformatted and the one in the second was formatted. Good stuff, so I told it to format and install on the first drive.
Except now it sees the first drive (the new one with Windows on it) as D: and correctly sees it as the Boot drive, and the second (i.e. the old X: drive with may data on it) as C: and sees it as a System drive.
So far only one program has been stupid enough to install itself to C:\Program Files\ rather than D:\Program Files. And googling the subject brings back lots of advice saying "if Windows installed itself with these drive letters, don't try to change them".
I'm not too fussed about C: and D: being the "wrong" way round, but why is D: being seen as a System drive? And what are the possible conseqences?
I've been using Opera as my primary browser for a long time, since version 3 in early 1998. Back then it was like a breathe of fresh air compared to Netscape and Internet Explorer - so much faster, so more more secure, so many customisations possible. Subsequent releases added features that have gone on to be adopted by almost every other browser.
But in the last year or so, something has gone a bit wrong. I now find myself using Firefox to read Gmail at home (but, oddly, not at work) because neither of the two ajax powered interfaces work reliably in Opera. Likewise I post to this blog using Firefox because the plugin I use for crossposting to Live Journal breaks the 'write post' page interface in Opera. If I'm trying to geocode a batch of photos in Flickr then Opera will often hang or refuse to display the maps.
The problems are not consistent (as I said, I can use Gmail at work but not at home) and can't really be pinned down to a fault with either the browser itself, the coding on the sites or my set up. It's just a combination of all three which is making Opera increasingly unreliable when it comes to Rich Internet Applications (RIAs).
Look at the release notes for recent versions of every major and you'll see that performance, especially RIA performance, is a major goal at the moment. Opera is rightly famed for its overall performance and speed on normal web pages but it seems to me that the performance with ajax requests is lagging behind other browsers.
Will I switch to Firefox anytime soon? I doubt it. I have ten years worth of experience with Opera - I know its quirks and secrets and it has so much that I need available straight out of the box - how many Firefox addons would I need to do the same? Is there even an addon that replicates something as simple as Opera's "paste and go" function?
The fat lady isn't singing yet; but she is warming up, just in case.
This laptop came with a system recovery disk but not a Win XP install disk.
The laptop didn't see the system recovery disk as bootable. So no chance of repairing or reinstalling it from that.
I stuck in the Win XP disk from my desktop and went into Repair mode. This couldn't detect any installations of Windows on the laptop. So no chance of repairing it that way either.
I installed Windows from the desktop's disk and then stuck the laptop's system disk in to install drivers, etc. This worked and I now have a working Windows system; but, of course, I can't activate it as the laptop's product code doesn't match the desktop's install disk. And there's no wireless at all despite isntalling the correct drivers, and no LAN either - it always says the cable is unplugged.
Any ideas of where to go from here?
Install linux instead? How much pain will it be to find wireless drivers that work?
[Update] - Got the wireless working, and the LAN works sometimes, but the DVD drive has packed up. How useful will it be to phone MS and explain that I have two legitimate copies of XP but only one working install disk?
select = "xhtml:*". However, sometimes empty a elements creep into the original XHTML and get copied across to the output. These can play havoc with the CSS and JavaScript used on the final web page so I'd like to supress them.How do I modify the select statement above to select all XHTML elements except for
a elements that have either no text node children or have text node children composed solely of white space?In other words if the input contains
<a></a> or <a /> or <a> </a> then it should be skipped (assume for now that any attributes are irrelevant and that we'll deal with the case where it contains another element node but no text nodes later).I tried
select = "xhtml:*[not(self::a[not(text())])][not(s elf::a[not(text() = ' ')])]" as a first stab but as well as being very ugly it doesn't seem to be working. Any ideas?Heavy rain and other extreme weather conditions can affect the speed of your broadband connection. In some cases this may also cause connection problems. You should bear this in mind before reporting a broadband fault.
Your programmer personality type is: DLSB
You're a Doer.
You are very quick at getting tasks done. You believe the outcome is the most important part of a task and the faster you can reach that outcome the better. After all, time is money.
You like coding at a Low level.
You're from the old school of programming and believe that you should have an intimate relationship with the computer. You don't mind juggling registers around and spending hours getting a 5% performance increase in an algorithm.
You work best in a Solo situation.
The best way to program is by yourself. There's no communication problems, you know every part of the code allowing you to write the best programs possible.
You are a liBeral programmer.
Programming is a complex task and you should use white space and comments as freely as possible to help simplify the task. We're not writing on paper anymore so we can take up as much room as we need.
Bearing in mind that I'm not actually a programmer (XSLT so doesn't count. My PHP is mere dabbling. So the closest I come is JavaScript which forces so many atypical habits on you that it distorts the results) that's not a bad assessment. If was to program full time I'd probably tend more towards High level but otherwise my habits would be as described.
I'm now scared to think what some people I know will come out as.
However, my good mood was ruined by the discovery upon getting home that my desktop computer is kaput (I'm writing this on the laptop), either Windows or the hard drive or both are refusing to work properly. In fact for once I think it genuinely is a hardware fault and Windows is just an innocent victim.
I want to spend my weekend adding cool new stuff to my web site, not staring at a Windows Recovery Console.
Pros: gives it that nice shiny look.
Cons: too many to mention really.
Sigh. Not a bad weekend really. Lovely weather, which I saw out the window as I was working. Got some nice JavaScript written and identified a few more IE CSS bugs that will need to be worked around. And a cracking episode of Doctor Who yesterday.
First thing I installed was anti-virus (that's a lie, first thing was Opera to make downloading all the other things less of a pain). But so far I haven't installed a firewall, so I'm running with AVG Anti-Virus and Windows Firewall. I'd like a better firewall but I don't know what to pick.
On my old laptop I've been using Kaspersky Anti-Hacker which is a bit old but reliable. This came as part of System Mechanic which I've found to be very handy. But, Iolo have produced a new version of System Mechanic and I get a spam pop up everytime I start it. I e-mailed them asking where I could a change log for the new version and they haven't replied, but from the web site it looks like Kaspersky is no longer part of the package. I'm not sure whether to buy the latest Kaspersky product, or the latest version of System Mechanic, or both, or something else entirely. Any advice for a free or cheap firewall for a Windows XP machine?
I also have installed a BitTorrent client yet. The one built into Opera downloads much slower than the standalone ones I've used before. Which have mainly been Azureus, but that seems to have a memory leak in it somewhere 'cos even when I shut it down completely the system is still clogged up until I reboot (or use System Mechanic to reclaim the RAM). I keep on hearing about μTorrent, is that any good? What's your BitTorrent client of choice?
Finally, is there a site out there that could be described as LibraryThing for DVDs? I've found DVD Spot but it's not really tickling my web 2.0 fabcy in the way that LT does. I could use Squirl, indeed I could use Squirl for just about any collection, but I'd like to see if there's anything a bit more specialised first.
Got a short e-mail today about my StarDate Converter:
Have you considered making the current stardate available via RSS?
Hmm, interesting. First of all I'd have to translate the calculator to PHP or whatever to do the calculations on the server, but after that making the output available via RSS would be easy enough.
But would it be practical: the second decimal place represents a period of little over five minutes, so if someone wanted this to create a stardate 'clock' they'd be hitting my server at least that often. Not a disaster on its own but something that would need keeping an eye on if it proved popular.
Maybe I should test it out with the French Revolutionary Calendar first (I really need to convert that to PHP anyway so that the dates on this blog aren't reliant on JavaScript). Hmmm, let's see where this leads.
My iPod's dead. And guess what? It's about fourteen months old and so just out of warranty. Fucking typical.
[Update] - For the curious, here's what's wrong.
- The screen faintly displays the diagnostic tests menu but the backlight is off
- It doesn't respond to any of the controls
- When connecting it to the computer, it isn't detected by either iTunes or even Windows. So I can't try a reinstall.
- When plugging it into the wall charger the display doesn't change to indicate that any charging is taking place
I didn't have time before work this morning to do any further tests, but it doesn't look good.
Done. 66 items found in 666 documents.
Do you think I should exorcise my computer?
The US Department of Homeland security has issued a warning about a flaw found in Microsoft's Windows.
Right, they can't find Osama but they know where Bill lives. Picking on the easy targets.
This morning I got on the wrong train. I have never done that on the way to work before, and I've only done it twice on the way home (and drink was definitely involved in one of those cases). So I was heading towards Victoria rather than London Bridge, and having a plain return season ticket rather than a travelcard I couldn't jump off at Balham and hop on the Northern Line. So I jumped off at Balham and waited for the next train to London Bridge, which was late and even if it hadn't been late would have gone back through West Norwood half an hour after I left.
My web server has been up and down, but mostly down, all day. I think that one of this weekend's jobs will include taking a complete backup of everything.
For some reason I bought another issue of .net magazine. This one comes with a free CSS reference poster. The credits for which read:
Reprinted courtesy of the W3C
www.w3schools.com
The poster is indeed a version of the w3schools CSS chart which explains why it's not very good, 'cos w3schools aren't very good. w3schools are also nothing whatsoever to do with the W3C. Whoops.