BunkBlog

After helping way too many people unscrew their systems due in large part to Microsoft software inviting everyone into their hard drives, I’ve decided to do something drastic.

If you are visiting my webpage with Internet Explorer, it will now nag you to switch browsers. I’ve joined the Explorer Destroyer campaign, boys and girls. Oh, I haven’t gone totally ideologue on you – the site will still work for IE users, but mostly because I know people may not be allowed to use a secure and fast browser at their workplace. At home, though – please do yourself a favor and stop using IE. Not only does it ignore web standards (CSS2, PNG, etc), it’s a virus waiting to happen. I’ve had to use IE to access a couple sites recently – they almost invariably end up leaving some sort of electronic spooge on my system that takes me a half hour or more to remove. And I know what I’m doing. Other folks just say, “my computer is messed up” and eventually they stop using the machine entirely.

I’ve used a variety of web browsers over the years. When I first got a PPP internet account, I used Netscape (0.7 as I recall). As time went on, I tried IE 1.0, but stuck with Netscape. When Netscape stopped getting updates and became a giant bloated piece of dung, I reluctantly used IE for a while. When Opera came out, I grabbed it (even though I had to pay for it, it was better than IE). A while back, the Mozilla Project came out with Phoenix, which became Firebird, which became Firefox. They got sued out of their previous names, but I guess nobody wants to remember the Clint Eastwood movie so they’re safe now.

Firefox has tabbed browsing, built-in popup blocking (that actually BLOCKS everything, unlike IE’s attempt), and is fast. The program is significantly smaller than IE’s bloatware, but allows an impressive variety of extensions to be used. If you use Firefox, here’s the extensions I recommend:
Adblock – nukes any images from ad-serving web sites. Doubleclick, begone! Must-have for dialup users.
All-in-One Gestures – let’s you use the right mouse button to jump back a site, go forward, or do the hokey pokey. Until you use mouse gestures, you will not understand why people love them. once you use them, you’ll hate using a machine that omits them.
Flashblock – Allows you to decide whether to load that Flash-based content or not. Must-have for dialup users.

And here’s some that I like a lot:
TabBrowser Preferences – exposes many of the tabbed interface options that are hidden by default.
Forecastfox – shows a multi-day forecast at the bottom of your browser. Takes no space, and alerts you if there is a weather alert.

If you do a search for “I voted for the moron” on Google, you now get my post about the button and bumpersticker design I made. I wonder how frequently that particular search is made. hehe

Just to add a trifle more surrealism to your websurfing experience, I’ve added a little code to my site that displays the lyrics to the most recently played song from Winamp on the sidebar (bottom of the right side). Yes, I am a geek, thanks for asking.

Just a quick test to see if the latest Live Press update fixes what ails me.

Update – Sure looks like it.

Lots of photos were taken the past two weeks. It will be a while to get a substantial number of them uploaded, but a starting set are up now, and more will come soon. Keep checking back, or hit the Gallery to see when new pictures are posted on our site.

For some reason, my times are wonky on here, for syndication. The last post, at 20:19, was listed as 12:19 in the RSS feed. Hmm…

You may notice a difference in the site. I’ve upgraded to WordPress 1.5, which has a very different theming engine than WP 1.2 (which relied on an external tool called styleswitcher). Have fun, feel free to tell me what’s wrong, etc.

Concho Online is live. Now, to get more contributors…

While reading up on CivicSpace, I came across a reference to w.bloggar – a tool I used to update my site when it was a Movable Type blog, but was kind of frustrated by. It seems a lot more polished now, but I can’t help but wonder why I would use this external program to update my site, when I usually am using the “blog this” link on my browser to comment on something I’ve found online anyhow. Oh, and my plugins for LJ synchronization don’t show up in w.bloggar either.

Must ponder more.

Since comment spam has become a well-known problem with well-known solutions, I guess it was inevitable that a new scourge has arisen – Trackback Spam. This morning, I have received no less than a dozen trackbacks from online gambling sites. Since I use WordPress, the trackbacks get sent into the same queue as comments and nobody but me sees them. But I still have to clear them out manually. It’s about time I got a spam-killer plugin for this thing…

Thank you for playing. Rabbit Hole Day was a fun time for all.

We now return to our regularly scheduled surrealism.

This is a requested design this time: We Learn Korean So You Don’t Have To. I plan to add one that changes it to “because you can’t” tomorrow, since I don’t think the DPRK is a really credible threat in most people’s eyes.

The shirt design is similar to the ones they sell at DLI, but DLI doesn’t do mailorder. 🙂

Forty cents is all that stands between me and a commission check from CafePress – my first in over two years. This has more to do with the change in the minimum check amount (from 10 to 25 dollars) than any slacking of interest in my exclusive wares, or at least that’s what I tell myself.

With the recent What Would Chthulhu Do sale, I’m 40 cents from getting a commission check from Cafepress. Since they raised the minimum from ten bucks to 25, I’ve received no checks. That’s about two years now. I actually got two checks in 2002, for a total of 28 bucks. Not exactly paying for any extravagant vacations, eh?

I’m still surprised that someone bought the WWCD shirt. It was a joke!

I added a style switcher and a bunch of styles to the blog. Now you can all see things in different ways, depending on your whim.

Is it not nifty?

Came up with another new design for the shops – Some mornings it’s just not worth chewing through the leather straps. I think it’s funny.

This is your weekend update, with your anchor… Oh, never mind.

We’ll be gone this weekend, doing the “drive to the airport” thing which only people in the middle of nowhere Texas associate with a two-day ordeal of roads and hotels. The end result is that I won’t be online until Sunday afternoon. It’s shocking, I know – Gary away from the computer for over 24 hours; however will I survive?

I’m told I’m not supposed to eat Cool Ranch Doritoes and drink Mountain Dew all month while they’re gone. Sure, right. 🙂

I added a pair of Size Matters stores to my Cafepress pantheon. Not that I actually sell anything, but it amuses me that such items exist. Don’t forget my other designs:
What Would Cthulhu Do?
I’m not wearing any pants (inspired by )
Army Girl
Sassy Bitch
Ninja
Eat Me
Get Odd
Mess With Texas

Now that I’ve settled into a decent WordPress and LJ combined posting system, there’s one more item to address. Those of you reading this via Livejournal, would you prefer to have the separate LJ commenting system as it is now, or would you prefer to jump into the main comment setup on my site (as demonstrated by the link at the end of each dual-posted item)? I’m flexible, but I know some of you are hidebound and anal. 🙂