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Tornado Watch in effect until 5 PM... rain like you can't believe (unless you've lived in Florida for awhile). Wow.
We're taking advantage of the "nice weather" to baby proof the living room, reinstall Win2k on the desktop machine, and hopefully get the video off the camera (since we've got video from Christmas that we haven't downloaded yet because I hadn't installed the Firewire card).
Off to reboot the other machine, again. Stay dry folks.
Ok, so while the northeat is digging out from a blizzard and is preparing for more snow this weekend, this is what I came home to:
![[Current temperature in Gainesville is 77 degrees farenheit]](/notes/images/gnvheat-144x108.gif)
So I turned on the air conditioning at least to get the humidity out of the air until the sun goes down. Crazy.
Nick Bradbury (author of TopStyle) writes that he
switched to Opera 7 and has been impressed with it.
Nick wrote: Opera 7 is very fast and renders well, and the mouse gestures are great once you get the hang of them. As a web author, I also like the "user mode" which enables you to do things like view structural elements on a page or toggle an "accessibility layout" mode. Plus, I find the HotList panels easier to use than Mozilla's SideBar.
Enter your age and see some interesting statistics.
New sermon posted: Willingness which talks about what we can accomplish if we work together.
[p.s.: I have received reports that the comment function isn't working. Will check into it when I get a moment.]
Go to the MSN download page with Opera and there is no Download link.
Here is how it looks in Opera:
![[MSN screenshot in Opera, no download link]](/opera/beyond30/images/msn-in-opera-x386x262.png "How the site appears in Opera")
Compare how it looks in Internet Explorer:
![[MSN screenshot in IE, with download link]](/opera/beyond30/images/msn-in-ie-359x336.png "How the site appears in Internet Explorer")
So apparently they don’t even want Opera folks using their Internet service.
Scale: 7 out of a possible 10
Should you see it? YES
How's the writing? Fair
Any gaping holes in the plot? NO
What stands out? Plenty of action, if a little light on plot and writing
Daredevil was one of my favorite comics growing up, so I was really looking forward to this movie.
Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner ("Alias") were very well cast, as was Michael Clarke Duncan (who played John Coffey in The Green Mile).
The writing was not great. There were a few lines that we really lame. The plot was just barely present. But the action was clear and present. Personally, I would have liked to have seen more extended action/fight scenes.
Still, it was a good night out at the movies.
Scale: 8 out of a possible 10
Should you see it? YES
How's the writing? GOOD
Any gaping holes in the plot? NO (not that you'd really care)
What stands out? Light and fun
Comedies are the hardest types of movies to make. It's easier (I think) to make a drama or an action movie.
There's no amazing twists and turns here, it's nothing if not formulaic, but it was worth a few laughs.
JoinWOW published a little article I wrote a few weeks ago entitled Testing Multiple Versions of Internet Explorer. I haven't had time to keep up with a lot of the discussions, but this was one topic that seemed to come around every once in awhile, so I figured I'd try to write up a little FAQ about it.
Since I have complained about MemTurbo's treatment of customers it would only be fair to comment about how much I appreciated LinkSys.
I purchased two wireless Ethernet cards from Best Buy. (Why BestBuy? Because they make it easy to find receipts that I have since lost.) They both got heavy use, and then stopped working. Eek! Well, I have talked with plenty of folks who simply love their Linksys cards and haven't had any problems with them at all, so I guess they are allowed a few dud units.
I called their tech support (usually very helpful) and did all the things they suggested. Finally there was no choice, I had to file an RMA. I hate going through this process, it almost never works well. It's like refunds, there is always something that seems to gum up the works and generally ends up being more hassle than its worth.
Except that these cards aren't cheap, so I couldn't just forget it.
I applied for the RMA awhile ago. They have a nice little form on their site. Problem was that I couldn't even read the Serial Number off the cards (it had worn off from being taken in and out of the machine so often). I did the best I could.
The RMA sat there for months.
Finally I figured I might as well send it off, and if it didn't work then I was no worse off than I was with two non-functioning cards.
I packed it all up, put the number on the box, and sent it off.
I was sure there was going to be trouble.
I was even more sure after I realized that I had only put one of the two RMA numbers on the box.
But today (9 days after I mailed it to them), I received a package with two refurbished cards.
YAY!
Big John has published a great article Toward a more standards compliant Internet Explorer. I'd hope that the next Internet Explorer would be much more standards compliant, but I don't hold out much hope for that, given the basic flaws each version thus far has had.
Still, he raises some good issues.
Microsoft is again deliberately sabotaging Opera.
Just when you think they might have learned something from being sued over how they run their business, MSN has been purposefully sending a bogus stylesheet and a page with reduced content to people who use Opera.
Think it’s sour grapes? Over exaggerated? Blown out of proportion? Well, before you decide, read the evidence: Opera report on the problem as they investigated it.
Then read the reports from C|Net (Opera cries foul against MSN--again) and The Register (MSN deliberately breaks Opera's browser, claims company).
Does this all sound familiar? Yeah, we’ve been here before. On October 25, 2001, C|Net reported MSN.com shuts out non-Microsoft browsers.
Microsoft thinks open source could harm them!
Oh no! Whatever shall we do! Microsoft, long the schoolyard bully, able to charge what it wanted because it was the only game in town, is now afraid that competition from open source (and generally free) might threaten its bottom line!
This is rich with irony. Microsoft has bought out or stomped out most of its competitors in the past. Most often they killed off their competition by offering free versions of whatever software was winning marketshare. They "bundled" these together, so they were installed by default. You might recall an anti-trust verdict about this practice.
But out of one small corner of the Internet came Linux. First they tried to ignore it, then they tried to undermine it, and now they say it will hurt their bottom line. The reality? They can't buy open souce, because it's free. They can't undercut open source, because it's free.
So Microsoft, which has put many businesses out of business by offering free alternatives to their software, is now saying that a competitor offering a free alternative to their software/operating system might hurt them financially! WOW! What insight they possess!
Greymagic uncovered a few security bugs in Opera 7.0. Opera 7.01 was released to address these bugs.
GreyMagic commented: Opera once again lived up to its excellent response record and released version 7.01, only 5 days after initial notification. The new version appears to fix all of the reported issues. Upgrade as soon as possible.
Please note: There are no new features in 7.01. Waiting for those would have slowed the release of a security update. So do not whine when you see that your pet bugs were not fixed. Opera has their priorities straight and got the fixes out the door as soon as practical.
my.opera.com has shed its previously garish look for something much better, and much more in line with the new design of opera.com not too long ago.
Go see.
The site redesign is on hold... basically because it was taking too much of what little free time I have on any given day.... and hey, it works like it is, right? So I'm leaving it for now.
The Daily Dose of Ethan (DDOE) now features a daily "Bring Your Own Caption".
If you have a caption to submit, just fill in a few blanks and click SUBMIT.
Easy as pie.