Gary’s random musings and clippings
{ Monthly Archives }
The statistics, in more detail than you can possibly need, for my website in the month of December: right here.
Things to note: search terms for this month are skewed heavily toward XXXmas and such; the CinPics and Lianna directories combine to be more than half the bandwidth for December. Go figure.
And, for some reason I’ve got a lot of hits from Saudi Arabia, but they’re all looking at Lianna’s Christmas Archive. Perverts.
OK, there is no way I’m going to make or attempt to keep any resolutions, but here’s the quiz result anyway:
Added a page (now gone) of holiday photos, all taken Christmas morning.
Alex was being very greedy that day, go figure.
Friday -
My older sister has discovered Instant Messenging finally. Of course, her
daughter has been using it for the past year and more, but you know old people
and technology.
This newfound interest in messenging (Or "using MSN Messenger" in
her case) caused me to evaluate the various IM clients. So, here’s a quick-and-dirty
review of the Big Four: AIM, Yahoo, ICQ, and MSN Messenger (or whatever Microsoft
is calling it this week).
When I started the test, I had 65% Resources free total. I’ll let you know
what the usage of each is and how much they let go when they’re done.
AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) v4.3
(62% resources after loading) -
0.9 seconds to load window, 1.2 seconds to populate window
Yahoo v5.0
(62% resources after loading) - 7.6 seconds to load window, 7.65 seconds to populate
window
ICQ 2000b
(59% resources after loading) - 6.5 seconds to load window, 11.1 seconds to populate
window
MSN Messenger 3.1(formerly Microsoft Messenger, soon Windows
Messenger or some darned thing)
(63%) - 4.9 seconds to load window, 4.9 seconds to populate window
Let’s see what we can conclude from all this data…
The global vs. per-user functions are a pet peeve of mine, mainly because I
first started using chat clients when ICQ was the only alternative to IRC-Chat
(you newbies might call it mIRC, after the main client used to access it). Here’s
the deal with the difference: in ICQ, I can decide to be invisible, with the
caveat that some selected people can always see me. None of the other major
clients has that option, without removing people from the buddylist entirely.
The MSN client merges with the operating system in the sounds portion of the
Control Panel and when you access Hotmail via MSIE. There are good and bad things
about that, mostly bad.
The biggest things in my mind are speed and features. ICQ has the features
down, but AOL Instant Messenger is the one with the speed, both of loading and
finding your "buddies" online. MSN is next in speed, and right at
the bottom in features. Considering Microsoft’s well-known problems with privacy
and security, you may want to be careful using that one.
MSN has several unique attributes: it is the only one of the four which did not release its requested resources when exited; it is the only one which insists on keeping a task button on the toolbar, as well as the much less-obtrusive notification tray; it is the only one without groups.
Overall, each of the clients has something unique about it. Unfortunately,
since there is no standard for messenging, if you have lots of online friends
you’ll need two or more of these things to keep in touch with them all.
While the boy napped, I played with my forums.
There are now two skins available to choose from, with more as I find ones that don’t suck. There are also several languages: English, French, Spanish, Swedish, and Dutch (formal or informal options).
Next up - Klingon?
To go along with my new LJ Styles, I’ve also updated my forums with some new software. Feel free to wander over there, and please fill out the poll in the News forum.
OK, once more into the LJ Styles breach…
I’ve revamped all four styles on my Livejournal. The two biggest changes are, of course, “LastN” and “Friends” pages, since they’re seen most. Following a model I discovered on the
I’m assuming this will look funky on Netscape 4.x, but it should be viewable on it at least. The boxes will be out of whack, but you really should upgrade to NS 6.2 anyway. Or Opera.
Cheers.
I guess with the advent of Naked Parts and their ilk, we don’t really need to do another Nekkid XXXmas this year, but I will miss the fun from last year, checking the post every hour or so to see who else got up the nerve…
To my friends in Asia and Australia, Merry Christmas! Those of us in the States just have to wait till tomorrow. 
Some random thoughts for you budding web designers:
Just my pet peeves of the day. I’ve been surfing some “personal” sites today, made by folks who think they’re Picasso with a mouse or something. Ick. Not everyone has DSL…
current_music: Nickelback - Good Times Gone
current_mood: tired
WELL I had another conversation with someone about Microsoft V Linux
I would love to know why I get into some many conversations about it, it much be because I am willing to stand up for companies that many people put down Namely Microsoft.
I wish people would just realize that companies are not out there to give you everything you want on a silver plater.
Um, let’s see how many English errors we can count, and then subtract that from the level of seriousness with which to take the opinions expressed therein.
Again I say - If you want someone to take your opinions seriously, spellcheck, proofread and then re-think the entire posting. After you’ve thought about it and run it through “ispell” or some other such tool, then go ahead and post. Your views might still be stupid, but more people will listen to them anyway.
current_music: The Vandals - Christmas Time for my Penis
I’ve got two online instructors this semester, one in English and one in Economics.
The economics professor is actually a high school teacher who picks up the online course in his spare time. He barely interacts with the class at all, and his midterm included vital terms not defined in this edition of the textbook - way to review the test and book. He signs emails with “Professor Xxxxxxxxx.” The only assignments in this class have been ungraded discussions.
My English professor is in the forums constantly, emails whenever something of import occurs, and is basically a good instructor, considering the limitations of the medium. She also signs her emails with her first name. She has had 4 graded assignments so far.
Check out my wishlist at Amazon, or CDnow. Still time to get presents before Christmas.
OK, seriously, how about voting for my shirt designs? Or, maybe even visit my store and buy a shirt or teddy bear or some such? Those teddy bears are really cute with Origami designs on the front.
[organization] will be enforcing strong passwords to ensure that [network] logon passwords are compliant with current password policy. [network] password policy is based on recommended settings provided by the National Security Administration’s NT Security Technical Implementation Guide.
IMPACT TO CUSTOMERS: Each new password will be evaluated according to current [network] standards for robust passwords as itemized below. A new password that does not conform to these standards will be rejected and followed by a dialog box to explain why the password does not comply.
PASSWORD CRITERIA:
Passwords MUST:
1. Equal exactly 7 characters (no more, no less)
etc.
So, um, a password of a fixed length (rather than the much more common “at least 8 characters”) is strong security? Yeah, ok. Thank you for making it easier for crackers to break in. No reason to check for random length passwords, because they know they’ll all be the same length.
