Webthoughts

*Ouch*

Although I figured that Oklahoma would pound Nebraska, but it still hurts to see where the program is right now.

I've decided to give FireFox 1.0 a try full-time. I've switched the preferences on my system to use FireFox as my default browser (instead of Safari 1.2.3) and will force myself to try it full-time for the next few weeks.

Although, in reality, FireFox is just another Mozilla-based browser, there has been a lot of hype behind it, and I want to see if the browser lives up to the hype. Granted, most of that hype has been on the Windows side of things, but it has a presence on the Mac as well and so is something that I think needs to be given a fair chance.

So, I'm using it. I'll let you know what I think as this goes on.

As I indicated in my previous entry, I've decided to try using FireFox 1.0 as my full-time browser to see what all the hype is about. After these first few days, I've come up with some initial impressions of the browser.

This is just cool.

From NSLog();: What do you listen to in the car?

Mostly KOZN 1620 AM (The Zone), Omaha's ESPN Radio affiliate. Yes, it's talk radio; and yes, it's usually mindless sports talk. But it's usually lighter fare than much of the rest of the talk radio spectrum.

Omaha's music radio scene is actually pretty sad. Although there isn't really a dedicated "Top 40" station here, pretty much every station just plays the same forty or fifty songs from their respective genres over and over again. Even the local Classic Rock station (and I'm a pretty big Classic Rock buff) plays the same fifty songs over and over. It gets old.

ESPN Radio allows me to here different things each day, and none of it is really all that important. It works for me.

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your own blog.

Are you taking Friday off from work?

Oh Yeah! Four day weekend! Friday I will be putting up Christmas lights on the house and a Christmas tree in the house. Great fun!

My ISP upgraded Perl on this server recently and, in doing so, broke MT-Blacklist for this blog (MT-Blacklist is a MoveableType plugin that helps prevent comment spam). After speaking with an admin at my ISP this afternoon, they are not going to be able to fix the problem until Monday (due to the fact that the people who will need to fix the appropriate files are out of the office until then). No worries there, because this isn't a mission-critical thing for me.

However, because this blog has been getting spam-bombed over the past several days and MT-Blacklist isn't not working at the moment, I have temporarily disabled commenting until the problem is fixed.

Just so you know.

As I said I would do in an earlier entry, I installed FireFox 1.0 on my PowerMac G4/933 (QuickSilver II). Things, as they probably should be, were much faster and snappier than they were on my PowerBook G3/400 (Pismo II).

I was fairly pleased with the speed of rendering that I saw with FireFox on the G4. I would say it was fairly comparable with Safari on the same machine. So, obviously, FireFox requires a bit more horsepower to do its thing than does Safari. But, I'm not complaining. Just an observation.

That's it for now. I've been playing with Themes and Extensions a bit and will have more to post about those later.

To everyone in the United States and to those Americans who might be abroad, have a great Thanksgiving Day!

My wife and I will be spending time with family, watching (and maybe playing) some football and (later this evening) getting everything ready for decorating for Christmas tomorrow.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

The four-day Thanksgiving Weekend is just about wrapped up. It was a good weekend, filled with family, friends and enough shopping for me for a year.

As I have been asked several times what is going on, I'm just going to post this quick message to say that an update to Print Window is in progress. Yes, it's been a while since the last update, but as I indicated in an earlier post, there was a reason for that.

The next version of Print Window will be a minor update, but it will add a few much-requested features. I am hoping to get this update out by the end of the year, or early next year. After that release, work will begin an a larger update with some pretty cool stuff planned.

From NSLog();: Pen or Pencil?

Pens, all the way. But, with qualifications, of course.

It's actually kind of strange. I would probably use pencils a lot more if I just thought about it. But using a pencil really never occurs to me.

However, when it comes to pens, some of my obsessive-compulsive-eque behavior comes to the forefront. I prefer to use pens, but only certain types of pens. I mostly can only stand using the simple, cheap white-with-black-caps Bic pens you can get in multi-packs just about anywhere. Pretty much anything else (including much nicer, better quality, more expensive pens) actually physically disgusts me. I can't bring myself to use them without feeling a shudder of disgust. I really can't stand signing a credit-card receipt at stores or restaurants, because the pens actually make me feel revolted.

All because I can't ever remember to try using a pencil.

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

Heh. This is funny. As the friend who pointed this out to me said, "It's sad because it's true!" Sorta.

There is no doubt that ineffectual defenses led to a lot of the trouble for Nebraska Football this year (and in years past), but this year's team had more problems than just that. Keep that in mind.

Just thought I would post a picture of our Christmas Tree for this year.

Of course, the picture itself doesn't do it justice, but I just can't help sharing.

We received the first snowfall of the year yesterday in Omaha. And, unlike many first snowfalls around here, this one was actually quite pretty (and productive).

Usually, the first snowfall doesn't really amount to much, just a spitting of tiny little flakes that can hardly be called snow. However, yesterday's snow was of the big, fluffy flakes variety. We ended up with about an inch of snow when it was all said and done.

Of course, much of it melted away today, but they're saying more snow by the weekend, so it looks like Winter is beginning to flex its muscles.

Although my initial impressions of FireFox 1.0 have been for the most part favorable during the past few weeks, I have found one thing that causes FireFox to fall flat on its face: Media. Specifically any sort of animation and or video.