D'you hear that sound? It's IE's browser share falling...

...like a rock. After reading about new updates being available via Microsoft Update, I went ahead an updated all my Windoze machines, including the cover-yer-ass-patch MS is using to, "shield itself from...Eolas Technologies." IF YOU USE IE, DON'T INSTALL THIS UPDATE (assuming you have a choice)! What a pain in the arse. You wouldn't think one extra click would be so bad, but when you need to click once to activate a Flash menu and then click again to actually select a menu item, it's REALLY annoying. Nearly every site I've been to since I installed the update (nhl.com, the raptors' site, even Microsoft's own gaming zone) has displayed the, "click to activate and use this control," message at some point.

Sheesh...the abbreviation's not M$ for nothing...you'd think they could have come up with something better than this crap as a work-around. Excuse me while I go download Firefox....

What was your first computer?

This week's the anniversary of the ENIAC unveiling. This CNET New.com article has the answers of some industry big-wigs. Heh...most of them are too old for me to know what they're talking about, but here's my list:

• First computer I used (also first one I programmed!): Apple ][e
  I remember doing the standard, "blinking, hello world," program and a 10-question trivia quiz in Apple Basic. Fond memories of playing Hart-hat Mac, Spy Hunter, and a few other games in the library after school....(ahem...in grade 4).
• Honourable mention goes to the Apple //gs. I spent weeks, an hour or two at a time, in the computer lab after school, writing a number-guessing game with a story-line and graphics: Guess the number before the nuclear missile reaches Earth and destroys it! Building those images one pixel at a time took a lot of statements in Basic....and man, did I use a lot of graph paper!
• First computer my family bought: Tandy 1000 RLX
  Ah, DeskMate.....I upgraded my skills to GW-BASIC for this computer.
• First computer that was, 'all mine': IBM PS/2 Note N51/SX (no luck finding a picture of this one, but now I know where to get batteries!)
  This puppy, along with my 1200bps modem, allowed me access to the Computer Science Unix mainframe. Spent lots and lots of hours reading and sending e-mail in elm, doing my CS assignments in C and surfing a building web pages with Lynx and vi...oh yeah...and playing Nethack.

To think of the progress just in my own computing history of 20 years is staggering (my latest purchase is a Dell XPS M170). I can't wait to see where we go in the next 20....

Advanced Templates in TypePad

The blog you're currently viewing is a TypePad blog, employing advanced templates. This is my third TypePad blog, and the fact that I wanted it to closely resemble my business web site, drove me to finally try it out. After all, the availability of advanced features was the biggest reason I chose TypePad and also chose to pay the $$ for a pro account.

Advanced templates are NOT something I would recommend for the non-geek, but if you're experienced with HTML, CSS and the concept of SSIs (Server-Side-Includes), the advanced template framework really isn't all that complicated, and TypePad provides a great help section with all the ins and outs. Oh yeah, and when I say, "experienced with HTML, CSS, etc.," I DON'T mean Word, FrontPage, DreamWeaver, or any other WYSIWYG editor. All template editing is done in <textarea /> HTML form elements, so the only tools at your disposal are your brain, your mouse, and CTRL-C/X/V....TAB doesn't even work, so if you're hoping to make your templates readable (and, hence, more easily modifiable in the future), be prepared to wear out your SPACEBAR.

The most time-consuming part of trying to implement a specific design is, of course, the CSS, and getting it to work the way you want....on more than one browser. After a couple of hours of hacking away at the styles for this site, I finally had to swallow my pride and go the simpler route. I'm sure it's quite possible to get the blog menu to look and function more like the roll-overs on the main site's menu, but I'm certainly not a CSS expert (yet!), and the 5 steps to view a style change (click 'save', click 'publish', click 'publish', click 'close', click 'refresh' button) was driving me nuts. If I can make one recommendation when tweaking the styles on your advanced templates: Save the HTML and CSS output of whatever template you're working on to your desktop, tweak the CSS using your favourite tool(s), and then copy/paste the results back into TypePad's text-box. Your sanity will thank me.

Just a couple gripes:

1. The comment preview isn't fully customizable. When you click the 'Preview' button, you're taken to http://www.typepad.com/t/comments, instead of some template in your design set. Dunno why this the case, but the wholly unsatisfactory work-around is to set display:none; in the button's style (yes, disable the preview entirely).
   (Just thought of a possible solution to this problem, but it'll take some work. You might be able to create a custom comment form module and a custom preview template, and then throw in some JavaScript to hook everything together. Not sure it's worth the effort, but if I try it, I'll certainly keep you posted on how it works out.)
2. There's no (easy) way to modify date header, post title nor post footer settings (the top 3 items on the Content Selections page) once you've migrated to advanced templates. I did, however, figure out the URL to use to access these settings:
   https://www.typepad.com/t/app/weblog/design?__mode=content&set_id={yourSetID}&blog_id={yourBlogID}&direct=1
   You can get your specific set_id and blog_id by looking at the URL of your advanced template on the 'Manage Your Designs' page.

Final verdict? Time consuming, but worth the extra effort (and the extra cash) to get your blog to look the way you want, instead of relying on (cookie-cutter) templates. Now, if only TypePad had an API so that I could integrate my blog posts with my existing site.... ;)