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It's Just this Little Chromium Switch Here

Weblogging and commentary by Chip Rosenthal

Reasons why Microsoft Internet Explorer Sucks (number 46,841)

Submitted by chip on Mon, 24-Mar-2003 - 3:40 pm
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If you are using Microsoft Internet Explorer as your web browser and were encountering problems with this web site earlier, I want you to know we were not experiencing technical difficulties. The problem is in your bloody set.

Over the weekend I converted this web page from HTML version 4.01 to XHTML version 1.0. The W3C validator says the site is a-ok. The standards compliant browsers, such as Mozilla and Opera, are delighted with the change. Microsoft Internet Explorer, however, started crapping bricks.

The first problem is that people were reporting they were seeing the RSS feed and not the normal web site. It turns out this was triggered by the addition of the XML declaration: 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1" ?>

I downgraded the page by removing the declaration. Then IE started botching the page styles. The font styles weren't rendered correctly.

In the end, I decided I'd have to appease the 20-ton monopolistic gorilla, and fall back to the old HTML 4.01 standard. It's a shame so many people--and the net as a whole--are held victim to Microsoft's inferior products.

A Visit to the Journalers

Submitted by chip on Sat, 22-Mar-2003 - 3:25 pm
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Last night, I followed David's brave example and dropped in on the Austin Journal Writers' happy hour. It appears I have emerged unscathed, with minimal damage. Hopefully the same can be said for the journal writers I met.

Talking 'bout Meta-Blog

Submitted by chip on Sat, 15-Mar-2003 - 1:18 pm
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Several folks around town have been blogging about the meta-blog technology that powers the Austin Bloggers web site.

David Nunez wrote up an article on the presentation I did during SXSW Interactive. He included a photo of the session showing me and the backs of some A-Listers heads.

Adina Levin, who is the original architect of the meta-blog, wrote an article about another site that is using the technology we developed. That project is using a previous version, which lacks the scalability and features of the current release, but is simpler to manage. One challenge I've got is that once the feature set stabilizes, I need to package up a release that makes this version easy to setup and manage.

New Spam Meme

Submitted by chip on Thu, 13-Mar-2003 - 9:10 pm
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Link: Spam's Cost To Business Escalates. (Washington Post)

Oh golly, is it that time again? Seems every 2-3 months, the conventional thinking on email spam changes. The most recent meme was, "Spam filtering will save us all." Which, of course, it won't, so I'm pleased to see the clock has run out on that one. The new spam meme appears to be, "Spam has grown to be nearly half of all email."

This was reported recently on MSNBC. The Washington Post article linked at the top of this entry furthers that. The article quotes me, but somewhat surprisingly on the topic of managing spamtraps, for which my contribution is miniscule. I am pleased, however, to see the focus return to the burdensome costs of spam.

Wi-Fi for Austin

Submitted by chip on Thu, 13-Mar-2003 - 3:14 pm
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Link: Wi-Fi is Right for Austin.

I got a few minutes at last night's City of Austin Telecommunications Commission meeting to advocate for Wi-Fi wireless networks deployment. I feel like we are so behind the curve on this important technology.

SXSW Debriefing

Submitted by chip on Tue, 11-Mar-2003 - 8:08 pm
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SXSW Interactive is nearly over. Officially it's done, but it really doesn't end until the fat lady is singing on Bruce Sterling's front doorstep. Before I crawl into the corner to collapse and vegetate, I want to list some of my very favorite moments of the conference.

Public Service Announcement

Submitted by chip on Sat, 08-Mar-2003 - 4:19 pm
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We interrupt this weblog for a very important public service announcement:

Do not, under any circumstances, order the BBQ Sandwich at the convention center concession stand.

Thank you, we now return you to our regular programming.

Geek Austin Censorship

Submitted by chip on Wed, 05-Mar-2003 - 11:45 am
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EFF-Austin is sponsoring a party on March 10, during SXSW week. This news certainly would be of interest to Austin geeks, so it seemed natural to post it to the Geek Austin web site.

Unfortunately, the editor of that web site is sponsoring another party at the same time, so he killed our announcement (without explanation or notice) and published his own announcement.

Geek Austin is a private web site and the editor certainly has the right to run it in whatever fashion he wants. People should be aware, however, it is a censored forum, which raises significant concerns of credibility and fairness.

Blue Haze of Doom

Submitted by chip on Tue, 04-Mar-2003 - 1:01 am
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It should have been a very good night. But it wasn't. Thanks to the management at Antone's, I ended up sick and convinced that Austin really does need to expand its no-smoking ordinance.

I Want My HBO

Submitted by chip on Wed, 26-Feb-2003 - 8:36 pm
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Last fall, Time-Warner announced that premium channels such as HBO would move off their analog network. The local monopoly daily newspaper (which is too lame to put their archives online) published an article about this on November 23. A lot of people, particularly in the local newsgroups, were upset by the announcement. I promised to investigate.