Monthly Archives: February 2004

Forum BB Email-List Etiquette

Posted on 2/29/2004 by Mark

I have long had a pet peeve with forums and discussion boards. People simply do not pay attention!! There are a few simple rules that should be adhered to with every forum/BB posting (if you want your questions looked at/answered) … Continue reading →

Posted in Rants and Raves, Usability | 2 Comments

WuhWuh 0.1

Posted on 2/29/2004 by Mark

I have put together a “hacked version” of WordPress 1.1 alpha and would like to get some feedback on it before I package it for release. Here is the link to “WuhWuh” version 0.1 (pronounced woo’aah woo’aah) Some of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Code | 7 Comments

Logo

Posted on 2/28/2004 by Mark

What does everyone think of my new “LaughingLizard” logo?

Posted in General | 2 Comments

Does technical documentation need to be bland and structureless to be more technical?

Posted on 2/27/2004 by Mark

This is the first in a series of posts about technical papers and technical writing Here is a technical article written by Joel Spolsky called Painless Functional Specifications It is a multi-part article that I had to read for my … Continue reading →

Posted in Software Engineering, Technical Writing | Leave a comment

“Jobs: Where did they go? Offshoring’s a problem, but there’s a bigger culprit.”

Posted on 2/27/2004 by Mark

Very, very, very interesting article in Newsweek Magazine describing the loss of jobs, the culture of blame and misguided election propaganda. If you have not read through this article on MSN already, and you are in any position of finding … Continue reading →

Posted in Mindful Musings, Politics? | 2 Comments

Of colon cancer, Delhi Belly and Netsky.C@mm

Posted on 2/26/2004 by Mark

First things first. Did you know that colon cancer in human beings can be averted by taking regular trips to a “third world country” such as India and or anywhere in the Midlle or Far East? I find it very … Continue reading →

Posted in Mindful Musings, Rants and Raves, Tech Gadgets, Windoze Hacks | Leave a comment

Am I THAT MUCH of a DumbAss??

Posted on 2/25/2004 by Mark

Wait…don’t answer that!! As a matter of fact, I am going to shut off comments for this post!!

Posted in Mindful Musings | 2 Comments

Top 20 ways to screw with Spammers

Posted on 2/24/2004 by Mark

I had a hardcore spammer visit my site today. He/She registered on my site, wrote a LONG entry and even included a link to a valid email (along with the link to his site) He even posted the entry twice! … Continue reading →

Posted in Mindful Musings, Rants and Raves | 2 Comments

Proof of Concept

Posted on 2/22/2004 by Mark

I have the proof of concept for my thesis relatively completed. I realize that it need not be perfect, but I wanted to get it functional. It features a shopping cart for a Coffee Store and lets the user pay … Continue reading →

Posted in Code, Mindful Musings | Leave a comment

Firefox Tweaks

Posted on 2/20/2004 by Mark

- Enter about:config in the address bar and press Enter – Scroll down to nglayout.initialpaint.delay – Double-click nglayout.initialpaint.delay – Change the default value of 250 to 0 – network.http.max-connections = 64 – network.http.max-connections-per-server=21 – network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server=8 Install Browser Gestures for Firefox … Continue reading →

Posted in Mindful Musings, Tech Gadgets, Usability, Windoze Hacks | 3 Comments

WordPress Convetion ’04 ??

Posted on 2/19/2004 by Mark

Michel gave me a tremendous idea (not his fault, he was talking about something completely off topic)! I would really like to see a WordPress Convetion organized. It would mean lots of WordPress users from all over the world converging … Continue reading →

Posted in Blogging, Mindful Musings | 7 Comments

Cant Cook? You think so….

Posted on 2/18/2004 by Mark

Tony Cervo, a friend of mine from the Wp Forums, has come up with a site that has caught my imagination! A site of recipes he obviously likes. Appropriately, it is called “Cant Boil Water” I definitely think it is … Continue reading →

Posted in Food/Recipes, Mindful Musings | 2 Comments

On Fooling your Own Self

Posted on 2/17/2004 by Mark

Have you ever had the need to trick yourself into doing something or believing in something? I have. I am so utterly sick and tired of working on thesis-work for many hours every night that I have to trick myself. … Continue reading →

Posted in General, Mindful Musings | 1 Comment

Today is our anniversary

Posted on 2/15/2004 by Mark

Two years ago, on this day, Jennifer and I met on Yahoo! Chat. I know that is weird and there are much better ways of meeting people, but I would like to clarify. She was working for Buckeye-Express and I … Continue reading →

Posted in Family, Mindful Musings | 6 Comments

Finished some preliminary work on WordPress Caching

Posted on 2/15/2004 by Mark

Here are some examples: Here is a WordPress 1.1 beta blog showing 300 posts. Here is the same blog, cached with my method Take a quick look at the bottom of the page for the generation times. The number in … Continue reading →

Posted in Blogging, Code | 2 Comments

Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone! (especially Jennifer, my girlfriend)

Posted on 2/14/2004 by Mark

Jennifer and I went to John and Linda on the Mystery Dinner Theatre train ride that departs from Blissfield, Michigan. It was nice and cozy. The food was very nice. We had a 4 course dinner of soup, salad, prime … Continue reading →

Posted in Family | 2 Comments

In jotting down some thoughts on a partially static WordPress:

Posted on 2/12/2004 by Mark

In my opinion, the part of WP which takes up the most MySql queries (and the most time responding to a request) is in setting up the posts for display. If there was another table in which the complete post … Continue reading →

Posted in Blogging, Code | 12 Comments

Making slow painful progress

Posted on 2/12/2004 by Mark

I have been trying to work very diligently on my thesis and am starting to make some progress. However, there is considerable amount of work ahead of me in the next couple of weeks. My friends are being ignored for … Continue reading →

Posted in Code, Mindful Musings | Leave a comment

On genes, genetic confluence and hereditary quirks

Posted on 2/10/2004 by Mark

I caught myself doing the funny walk again this morning. I say again because it made me think of my childhood and mostly of my dad. Let me explain. I am a pacer. I pace when I am excited, when … Continue reading →

Posted in Mindful Musings | 1 Comment

NyQuil – The Wonder Drug

Posted on 2/9/2004 by Mark

I feel a lot better today. I took some Nyquil last night before I went to bed (and the night before) and I slept like a baby. It is good medication. If you have a cold or any symptoms of … Continue reading →

Posted in Mindful Musings | 4 Comments

FireFox 0.8 is out!

Posted on 2/9/2004 by Mark

For those of you looking forward to a really nice browser, FireFox 0.8 is out to impress the world! It is a really fast browser, with a lot of really nice interface tweaks, every little bit of technology that has … Continue reading →

Posted in Code, Tech Gadgets, Usability | 15 Comments

Ill

Posted on 2/8/2004 by Mark

Sick. Sick. Sick. I have some kind of flu/stomach bug/ailment. I done broke myself! I am just hoping it is a software error and not some obscure hardware error that will take forever to diagnose. At my age, it is … Continue reading →

Posted in General | 5 Comments

Site from 1998

Posted on 2/6/2004 by Mark

I dont know how many of you would be interested in this, but I found my old site from 1998. It is located at dinki.8m.com. This site brings back a lot of old and precious memories of my college days. … Continue reading →

Posted in Mindful Musings | 1 Comment

Elitist geek crap from disrespectful, whiny, annoying and arrogant “coders” and tech “professionals”

Posted on 2/5/2004 by Mark

My extreme disdain for elitism in any form can be traced back to my roots in a country that was enslaved by the British for over 200 years. The British considered themselves to be so much better than the natives … Continue reading →

Posted in Mindful Musings, Rants and Raves | 7 Comments

Outsourcing Tech Support to India

Posted on 2/4/2004 by Mark

Here is a quick question for everyone to ponder and think about. Here is the scenario: GustyPC outsources 80% of its tech support from India (or mainland China or some other country other than the US) and has factories in … Continue reading →

Posted in Mindful Musings, Rants and Raves | 4 Comments

A BlogRoll as a Link Archiver

Posted on 2/3/2004 by Mark

As a follow up to the discussion at PhotoMatt‘s I would like to suggest some improvements to the present blogrolling system. To start with, let us look at the present blogroll. My “blogroll” (WordPress Links really) does three important things … Continue reading →

Posted in General | 2 Comments

Blog Statistics

Posted on 2/2/2004 by Mark

My crawler has unearthed dissappointing results. Here are the most recent stats: total blogs crawled: 49807 total wordpress blogs: 193 total Blogger blogs: 13587 total Typepad blogs: 1358 total .Text blogs: 269 total BlogTool 1.4 blogs: 226 I was really … Continue reading →

Posted in Blogging, Code | 9 Comments

Microsoft Natural Keyboards

Posted on 2/1/2004 by Mark

I finally switched to a Microsoft Natural Keyboard. I have one at work and it feels really nice to be typing on. I can concentrate on the work that I am doing without having to worry about making too many … Continue reading →

Posted in Mindful Musings | 5 Comments

Unfriendly Comments from a Telemarketer