Thursday, February 15, 2007

Done (More or Less)

OK, that's it, I'm done with the big site upgrade. The new Blogger code is pretty different than the old version, so it took some time to find my way around. All the tweaking to the template is done, with the one exception of Haloscan Trackback. Haloscan makes it easy to do comments & trackback, but I just want Trackback, which I'm still working on (and Haloscan ain't making that easy).

There's still a font issue under Linux, but it's very minor been fixed/is a client issue. Testing IE6, IE7, Firefox, and Opera running under XP revealed no issues. Again, no Mac/Safari to test.

As to the "new" Blogger system. . . I gotta say that I like it. Having built-in categories (Blogger calls them "Labels") is nice (less code to load/work with), the Archiving system is pretty sweet, and best of all, no more Endlessly Rotating Triangle of Publishing Death ("Old Blogger" users know what I'm talking about). Plus the backend is a bit easier to work with. Gotta love instant changes to template/widgets/etc.

I guess I'm happy with it. Now if I can just, y'know, keep publishing new stuff. . .

Backhand, Forehand, results matter

Well, while the Georgia House is busy doing wonderfully worthy things such as trying to take down street signs, it looks like the State Senate is trying to actually accomplish something:
The state Senate unanimously approved a bill Tuesday requiring Georgians to obtain a valid state driver's license before they can pick up a tag for their car.

The legislation would effectively make it harder for illegal immigrants to get behind the wheel.
Sounds good to me. Of course, that's not the only reason for the bill, says its sponsor, Chip Rogers, who said that
the bill is designed to close a gaping loophole that allows those who might not qualify to drive in Georgia to nonetheless slap a Georgia license plate on their car.
Of course, the local open borders crew isn't exactly happy about it:
Jerry Gonzalez, executive director of the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials, said it was another backhanded way to deal with the immigration issue.

Gonzales said Rogers' bill, along with a pair of other driver's licenses measures moving through the Legislature this session, will effectively make illegal immigrants less willing to cooperate with law enforcement out of fear they could be punished.
Oh, so people already breaking the law, who live in insular, already close-mouthed communities, are just jumping for joy when they see or have to interact with law enforcement as things stand now? I refuse to advocate extreme anti-illegal immigration measures, such as refusing hospital care, bigotry, etc., but any attempt to make areas of the country other than Georgia look more attractive to illegal immigrants is fine by me. By extension, of course, the Federal government should be doing similar things on the national level, but that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish.

Honestly though, how much effect will this have overall on the illegal immigration problems in the state? My guess is, not much. But every little bit helps.

Southern Baptism

God, do I miss football already. It's going to be a long time 'til fall.

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Or as I like to call it: Tuesday

Blood-drinking woman slashes man during sex

Golden Dome Showers

I hate reading stuff like this. I don't expect any level of government to be efficient, but I wish the state government would at least act like they're using their time wisely. Bickering over whether or not to remove former U.S. Representative Cynthia McKinney's (D-Nutbag) name from street signs in Dekalb Co., on the other hand, is just blatantly saying, "Hey, look at us! We could give a crap about creating useful legislation!" to the taxpayers. What's worse is the fact that her supporters in the state House are fighting it by threatening to introduce their own legislation to remove the names of people they don't like from street signs. I'm no fan of McKinney, but this is just ridiculous.

Hey, guys, instead of wasting everyone's time with pissing contests off the roof of the State Capitol, why don't you work on important things that directly affect Georgia taxpayers? Or would that get in the way of your little pet projects?

Almost done

Did a few more things in between walking the dog and eating dinner, but I still have some features to add/upgrade. All the categories are up and all posts are labeled. All the colors/fonts are the way I want them (except one). No Trackback yet, although that's more because installing the peek-a-boo comments is a pain, at least on a custom template. If it wasn't for that, trackback would be up now.

I tested in IE6, IE7, Firefox, and Opera under WinXP, and Firefox under Kubuntu Linux, and everything seems to be working fine, other than a minor font issue under Linux, which isn't worth worrying about right now. Didn't test Mac/Safari, as I don't have 'em, but it shouldn't matter.

Hopefully I'll be done with upgrading this place soon, so I can go back to ignoring it.

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Still Building

OK, I worked on this place for a bit this evening, and all the basic stuff is up. Now I just have to tweak everything around (colors, fonts, getting my peek-a-boo comments back, trackback, etc.) so it looks right and has the functionality we want. I might get to it later tonight, but more likely it'll happen tomorrow.

The new Blogger backend is somewhat nicer than the old version, but time will tell. . .

Monday, February 12, 2007

Maintenance

I'm working on the site, so bear with me. I don't know why I'm doing so, since I barely have the time or desire to actually browse the Internet, much less comment on the things I find there. What can I say; I like things to be tidy. So I'm going to work on some Blogger-to-Blogger2 migration issues, including doing away with my del.icio.us category system, which takes time, as I have to set some things up manually. So anyway, I'll get everything cleaned up and hopefully start posting again.

I ain't making any promises though.

Frank Chen

Goddamnit.

I just found out via Chris and The Other Side Forum that Frank Chen aka Stiletto killed himself yesterday. I haven't been by the Forum (where I post, or used to post, occasionally) in awhile, but the threads he started were often the most discussed and often the most fun threads on that board; hell, he created or helped create more than a few of the cliches on the Forum. I didn't know the guy at all, no more than a handle, an avatar, and some interesting, if sometimes strange, firearms-related intellectual exercises, but he seemed to have a fine mind (especially in engineering) and a bright future.

What a waste. He was 21 years old.