Archive for the ‘web stuff’ Category

updating the theme on this thing soon…

Sunday, November 13th, 2011

I think I am going to update the theme on this blog soon. It’s time to say goodbye to Internet Explorer 6, 7, and 8 compatibility and go crazy with CSS 3 and do some cool design stuff here. Recently I have been getting so upset with Internet Explorer compatibility issues. I have made the decision that on any projects I work on IE 6 and 7 will be totally ignored from now on. Those archaic browsers need to go the way of the dodo already.

According to Microsoft’s own IE 6 countdown, IE 6 browser usage is down to 7.9% of the world. I haven’t done the math on this but I think the only reason it is even that high is due to it’s 25% share in China. Since I will not be making any sites in Chinese, for my purposes I think I will go with a much lower guestimate of 1-1.5%. And I bet a large portion of that is us web developers constantly using IE 6 to test compatibility on projects that we have made! So I feel relatively secure in ignoring IE6 users.

IE 7 I am more worried about ignoring. According to W3schools Browser Statistics IE 7 is down to 3.5% share. Now this does not have Microsoft’s stamp on the data but I think it is good enough for my purposes. This amount of people I am more worried about, especially since IE 7 just came out in 2007 with Windows Vista. A truly horrible browser for a truly terrible operating system. So I feel a bit less secure ignoring this section, but the costs far outweigh the benefits in this situation.

In order for me to test IE 7 I have to set up ANOTHER VM in VirtualBox. Granted, Seamless mode makes this kind of cool, but VirtualBox’s sheer awesomeness does not make up for the time that I have to spend checking everything in IE 7 and then re-doing code for a million hours.

So what I am slowly getting to is that it is time Microsoft. I know IE 7 is not as old as IE 6 and didn’t have a 5 year lifespan, but it is time to start an IE 7 countdown so we can all at least start the process of killing off this browser that, while terrible, was an ever so slight improvement over IE 6. In case you care, there is an IE 7 countdown, but it is not from Microsoft. I’ll wait for the Microsoft version…

I think that’s all I wanted to say on that crap. Oh and I think IE 8 sucks too but it was released just 2 years ago so I can’t justify ignoring it. And also, according to W3schools, it is still more popular than IE 9!

Which brings me to IE 9. Finally Microsoft has developed a browser that is not just a highly polished turd! Microsoft spent lots of time achieving economies of scale in the turd polishing process with IE 6 7 and 8 but IE 9 changes all of that. IE 9, finally, supports some cool stuff with standard CSS syntax (there is still a lot that it does not support but improvement, in my opinion, should be noted and encouraged). I’m not saying I am going to jump off of Chrome and Firefox for it, but IE 9 is actually a somewhat ok browser in my experience.

So if you are viewing this on IE 6, 7, or 8 PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, do me, the rest of the web developer population, and the WORLD a small favor, and UPGRADE to IE 9! or even better do us and the world a big favor and start using Chrome or Firefox. Of course, this assumes that you are using one of those super old browsers at home and not on some hardcore locked down corporate network.

Personally I like Chrome, except for the fact that the adobe plugins keep crashing on me, but I never liked flash and shockwave anyways, so yeah. Hopefully Adobe will end Flash on PC’s as it just did on Mobile devices because sheez Flash is annoying. Anyways, that’s a rant for another day I suppose.

Wow this entry turned out much longer than I intended. Peace out!

 

Two Annoyances In My Life

Monday, June 13th, 2011

So as with everyone I have a multitude of annoyances in my life but there are two things, currently, that above everything are really really getting on my nerves. And they both deal with companies not listening to their main customers and income source. Here are they are:

  • Netflix User Interface Change
  • Syfy Channel cancelling Stargate Universe and Caprica

I can’t understand it. Netflix’s old user interface was beautiful. It allowed me to quickly find a movie that I was looking for, while also allowing me to wander around looking for movies that I wanted. The new layout as I mentioned in a previous entry is just a load of crap that looks like it belongs on a mobile device. But that’s neither here nor there.

The cancellation of SGU and Caprica are the REALLY annoying things. Both of these shows were perfect. Every time I watched either of these shows, at the end I spent a moment in silent reflection absorbing what I saw and thinking about what it meant. The shows were visual, psychological, theatrical, and storytelling masterpieces the likes of which we may never see again. OK I’m lying, we will definitely see masterpieces like them every year and then we will also see them cancelled every year. That seems to be the way of the world.

But you know? at least there is still Eureka. Eureka is probably in no danger of getting cancelled because it doesn’t require people to think on a higher level. Basically you watch the Sheriff’s antics for an hour and have lots of fun doing it. These types of shows with low emotional investment always last for years. But then again this is also a show that is in Syfy’s summer lineup.

I am convinced that, had Stargate Universe been a summer show as it was intended it would be starting its third season right now. Also they way that the Syfy channel airs shows is just horribly stupid. Season 1, season 1.5, season 2, season 2.5, with 6 months in between its just stupid! I am a hardcore Science Fiction geek and I couldn’t keep up with all the breaks and schedule changes that Stargate Universe went through. Friday, Monday, Tuesday and every day competing with some highly rated broadcast show. It was just stupid. It seems as though Syfy was out to destroy SGU from the beginning so that they could create an excuse to trash the entire Stargate Franchise.

Why would they want to end the Stargate Franchise you ask? well this brings me to another amazingly annoying fact about the world we live in. EVERYTHING comes down to money. Stargate and space based science fiction shows are expensive to produce. Reality TV and wrestling shows are cheap to produce. So of course Syfy is taking the lower risk option, and decreasing their capital investment in TV shows. So they are almost guaranteed to make a profit. But this means that for me, and others like me (http://www.facebook.com/SaveSGU), there will, in the near future, be no television channels dedicated to the genre that we love, science fiction.

Oh well, at least I can watch them on Netflix. Oh wait!!! arrg the new Netflix User Interface is making me feel nauseous as the titles scroll by at a snails pace. gah, I just can’t catch a break!

hah! at least for now the old layout works with this chrome extension!

 https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ngacmlmclfopgbnmefcffgbcjiafbfpo?hl=en-US#

Thank you Mr. CheeseGoat you are the Man! Now if only someone could make a Chrome extension to save Stargate Universe (http://www.facebook.com/SGUUK). That link is for save SGU UK You should join that one too!

Edit 6/16/2011

May as well turn this thing into three major annoyances. four days ago some hacker hacked the Save Stargate Universe page. so now that’s gone… Now people have started un-liking the page and Facebook has not done anything about it at all. Really makes you wonder, if facebook isn’t quick to fix a group page with 55,000 users then what happens when your single account gets hacked? 

Thank God Someone Made a Hack for Netflix

Sunday, June 12th, 2011

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ngacmlmclfopgbnmefcffgbcjiafbfpo?hl=en-US#

The link at the top goes to a Google Chrome extension that forces Netflix’s old layout. It will work as long as Netflix leaves the old layout accessible. I have used it and it seems to work great for the most part. Once you drill down into sub Genre’s it doesn’t work.  This has been fixed!

Oh and yeah you have to be using Google Chrome to install it.

But whatever it’s better than having to deal with the new Netflix layout. I can’t stand this new layout.

Stupid Netflix, the only reason why I haven’t switched to Hulu Plus is because Flash is much slower than Silverlight (Netflix uses Silverlight for its online streaming). I wonder if Blockbuster uses Silverlight…

Edit 6/12/2011

Last night I left a movie paused and went to sleep. When I came back it said to press refresh to reload the video because my session had timed out. usually I press refresh and pick up where I left off. This plugin stops that feature from working working. upon pressing refresh the page will continually refresh and keep adding “fcld=true” to the end of the URL. Something about the actual movie watching page causes this plugin to enter into an infinite loop of some sort.

But this is a minor annoyance since I shouldn’t be leaving the thing on overnight anyways.