Great, yet another browser to test things on - by rights, my code that works in Firefox 2, should work in Firefox 3, but checking through a site I had built recently, I noticed my floats were not floating.
Continue reading ‘Firefox 3 - CSS Float problem.’
Archive for the 'Grrr' Category
15
Sep
Bloody Google
Why does the whole world seem to revolve around Google…
I have been trying to work on 3 different web projects today and have been hampered because something is wrong with Google - i.e. their entire infrastructure appears to be down from where I am sitting.
This would not seem to be a huge problem as I can use Yahoo to search, but the as so many websites rely on Google Analytics & Adwords, etc. I am still stuffed: When Google’s servers go down, all the other sites break because they hang when trying to load content from Google.
So, I can’t download the latest version of Wordpress, I can’t seem to read all the blogs from one particular aggregator. I am having problems using my time tracking tool, plus a load of other stuff, which means I can’t do my job today through circumstances beyond my control.
So much for the internet being unbreakable - back to the drawing board people - although this does highlight the fact that relying heavily on one particular provider could bite you in the a** if they go pear shaped.
This provides a good example of why monopolies are bad: if you rely on Google, Amazon, or any of the other big players for your livelyhood, you are stuffed when they screw up. I guess it’s a bit like investing all your money with some cronky US bank, although at least with the internet, “investors” are as stuffed as the “customers” as it is more democratized, which is one nice thought.
Tip of the day - Web designers, put the effing analytics code and any other JavaScript that relies on external resources at the bottom of the page just before the </body> tag. To do otherwise is a bit of a schoolboy error and I shall swear at your incompetent web offerings, then go somewhere else.
06
Jun
SWFAddress and a tip
Working on a revamp of a website, I decided to try out SWFAddress to make the back button work instead of a hand-rolled solution…
I managed to get this up and running really quickly, which was nice, but then I spent 2 hours working out why it no longer worked when I integrated the SWFAddress into the site…
The Flash bit worked okay - change something and the address bar got updated, but the back button never worked - or did not send any events back to Flash.
2 Hours later, after stripping my code back, I found the problem:
If you are using SWFObject, the javascript for this needs to be included before the SWFAddress javascript. Doh!
Apart from that small hiccup, it’s nice and fairly simple to use…
28
May
regular expressions…
Tip of the day for Dreamweaver users.
If you are doing a search and replace for ellipses with the corresponding HTML entity - … - remember to turn off the “Regular Expressions” check box, especially if you have selected “Entire Current Local Site.
Otherwise your computer sits there and starts making pretty patterns and if you go and make a cup of tea, it might make it through your entire site.
I just ran into a frustrating problem with Flex using embedded fonts and a custom preloader…
I have been working on a small app, was ready to upload it all the other night then tested it again and noticed my fonts were not working properly - they had previously been fine.
It was really wierd, the bold version of my font was fine, but where I was using the normal weight typeface, my character set was limited to a few characters:
“adgino0123456789L.”
I tried changing the font I was using and embedded a different font and everything was okay - wtf?
I spent about 2 hours fiddling round without any luck and was about to change the font I was using permenantly because it seemed that Flex was having problems transcoding all the glyphs I wanted to use in my project - time for a break.
Sitting down and feeling refreshed, I noticed a strange thing about my characters - look again and see if you can work it out:
“adgino0123456789L.”
Still no wiser (it’s an anagram)…
Oh b****r, it says “Loading.”
Guess what, the last thing I had done before uploading was tweak my custom preloader for the project to display the % loaded. There are a few useful tutorials about doing a custom preloader for Flex:
http://www.onflex.org/ted/2006/07/flex-2-custom-preloaders.php
http://www.bit-101.com/blog/?p=946
http://jessewarden.com/2007/07/making-a-cooler-preloader-in-flex-part-1-of-3.html
Unfortunately by making my preloader use dynamic text, I had also embedded the font in the SWF file. This overrides Flex’s embedding of the font - not sure why, I guess the font in the preloader is “loaded” before the main application fonts, so Flash Player thinks it is already there - what a nightmare.
So, beware if implementing a custom preloader - don’t use the same fonts as you use in your app, or embed all the characters you are going to use, which defeats the object of having a preloader if you ask me…
Nasty, on further reading, it seemed that Jesse Warden has also run into the same problem…
http://jessewarden.com/2006/12/integrating-a-flash-interface-into-flex-2.html
03
Mar
PhotoShop Strikes Back
I wrote last week about problems with Adobe’s CS3 trial messing with my file associations.
Well guess, what this has caused bigger problems this week, time=money-wasting problems…
Apparently editing files in PhotoShop CS3 and using the backwards compatibility option when you save, does not guarantee you will be able to open them in an old version of PhotoShop. I learned this painfully, when I edited a couple of PSD’s in CS3 (after double clicking to open them, grrrr) and then saved them without worrying about the consequences because the little box tells me I should be able to open the files in older version. Only this is not true. When I try to use PS 6 to open my files again, I get the ominous and much discussed “not enough memory (RAM)” error message when I try to open them in PhotoShop.
This means I have lost several hours of work, because Adobe saw fit to dick with my registry. Backups you say - well I have been backing up, but as this was the start of a project, files did not get put into version control until the end of the day.
I reckon this is some sneaky bastard trick to make me upgrade. If it’s not, it still makes me angry.
Thanks Adobe, you have cost me at least the price of PhotoShop in lost work. Guess where I won’t be spending that money.
F***ers.
28
Feb
Grrr buses
Having lived in the city and experienced decent transport, one of the things that really bugs me about living in Cornwall is the bus service. I try to use public transport to get around, but about 30% of my journeys are not smooth and the inconvenience + cost of going anywhere on the bus vs the time taken does not make it worth me trying, let alone justify families using public transport rather than cars.
Until recently there were 2 major bus companies down here, Truronian and First Bus. The former has just been bought by the latter, which means that First Bus pretty much have the monopoly down here - that’s bad as their service is pretty poor most of the time.
Where I live now, we get buses going East about 2 times per hour, up until about 6pm, in the evenings, it gets a bit silly - there is a 31/2 hour wait to get home if you go to St Ives on the 7:30 bus.
To travel into Truro, like I did this morning, takes 1 hour 20 minutes by bus - 20 miles by road, 30 minutes by car, 20 minutes by train. 2 buses an hour is okay, if they turn up, but like I said about 30% of my journeys do not go so well: 20% of the time, the buses don’t arrive, 10% of the time they are very late. The route here to Truro is one of the main routes in the county, but the time between buses gets even longer if you go off the beaten track. If your bus does not turn up in Mullion, you can have a wait of up to 2 hours ’til the next one - WTF!. In the city, it did not matter if a bus did not turn up - another would in about 10 minutes, but it’s impossible to get to work on time with things like this happening, a lot.
What comeback do we get? None, which is why having competing bus companies gave you a bit of a chance, (although, only some routes where covered by both), so you could take your pick. This will now change and the bus company don’t seem to have to answer to anyone, which is bad. I don’t believe having a monopoly on the buses in an area is bad - it used to work fine in Edinburgh with Lothian Buses, but where the service is pretty spartan already, it sucks big time, particularly when you consider that it costs £5.60 return to Truro as opposed to using about £5 in petrol for the trip. So even with one person travelling, it’s almost cheaper by car if you factor in other running costs (similar for trains too) and that should not be right in this day and age.
So what do we do? Well, it would be nice to see a lot more local people sharing lifts & using public transport down here, which would ease the burden on the roads in the summer, but that’s not going to happen without a big shift in ideologies, so until then we just have to keep trying to catch the bus, put up with the crap service and rubbish customer relations. For me, I may have to pass on the cost to clients in order to cover the lost time, because unless they choose to meet virtually, then travelling to see them takes too much time. Taking 3-4 hours out for a 1 hour meeting costs a bit more than £5.60 at my rate. Even though these may lead to more work, it eats too much out of my day for it to be cost-effective.
Grrr
28
Feb
Grrr Vista
My girlfriend bought a laptop before Christmas and unfortunately, it came with Vista pre-installed. Being the geek of the household, I have the misfortune of being PC support and now it’s for an OS I don’t use or care about. Should be easy enough, but no, Microsoft in their infinite wisdom have seen fit to mess around with fundamental things like where the network connections panel is, folder structures, etc. This is irritating and not good for workflow.
Not only that, but they seem to be obsessed with turning everything iconic and removing text based menu’s. Now both me and my girlfriend would be considered fairly expert users of Microsoft Office, but it took us 10 minutes to work out how to save something! Why? Well instead of a File menu link, there is now a big shiny button that you click on - we thought it was just decoration, but no, it’s apparently a button. This sort of thing seems to be an insidious, but increasing occurrence with Windows / MS software and it is particularly annoying having to work out where all the functionality has been hidden. I don’t mind icons, but at least give me the option of having familiar text based things. I feel for people who are not proficient PC users, although that may be to their advantage as they don’t have to overcome ingrained practices, but have a clean slate to start with when it comes to learning how to use the computer.
The more things I discover about Vista, the more frustrated I get, every time I run a new program or try to do something with the system Vista has a stereotypical American style paranoid reaction - “There could be terrorists lurking in that executable, are you really, really sure you want to open it up? “YES DAMMIT I AM THE F***ING ADMINISTRATOR!” was not available as a button, but it should be a tick box to take the action, “don’t bug me about this again”. Maybe that option is hidden away somewhere in a secret panel.
I also have to spend ages getting programs to work because the changes in the OS have made stuff outdated and don’t even get me started on the hardware side of things…
I am probably not going to have to install Vista on my PC for a very long time as I will be learning by supporting my girlfriends adventures on her laptop. If only the f***ing network connection decided it was going to work every time and we did not have to enable it when it randomly decides not to work. Apparently this maybe because of the TCP/IP IPv6 stack being flaky - someone recommended turning this off for networks that don’t use it because it can screw things up, too early to tell, but that may solve problems.
To sum up, I should not have to mess around with my OS stuff, it should just work, I have plenty of more important things to learn without having to mess around and relearn basic computer operation everytime some wiseass in Redmond has a great idea. Windows XP has been pretty good and, from a generalised objective perspective, it works, end of story. But… I have always teetered between switching to another system - Linux / Apple and this maybe the tipping point.
19
Feb
Grrr Royal Mail
I am beginning a war of attrition with Royal Mail and people who send junk mail to me.
I have registered with the MPS, but this does not seem to stop the postie sending us “hand delivered” junk mail that companies pay the post office to send me…
I reckon if you get this stuff through your door and don’t want to keep getting it, apart from putting a sticker on your letterbox, you could have some revenge.
1. Post all the junk mail without free pre-paid postage return envelopes straight back in the post box.
2. Either fill out pre-paid stuff with stupid fake names and addresses - not your neighbours please, or just tear it up and stick it in the envelope then post it.
Maybe if we all did this, Royal Mail would no longer find it cost effective to deliver this crap to us.
My postie is particularly annoying because he just dumps several copies of each leaflet through my letterbox, so watch this space…
Annoying phonecallers next…
Grrrr
17
Nov
Grrr printers
Well I just spent ages trying to fix my printer after I kept getting “document failed to print” messages to no avail, so I blagged a couple of free ones, which did not work.
I went back through the troubleshooter, which asked me if my port was working properly - well it shows up in the printer properties page, but funnily enough, when I checked Windoze Device Manager - LPT1 (parallel port) is missing.
One reboot later and a fiddle with the BIOS, it turns out the motherboard has randomly disabled LPT1. Great, so this is turned back on and hey presto, my printer is back online…
Moral of the story is, if your printer ain’t working - check the ports exist in Device Manager too rather than believing what your printer properties tell you - these are just what you set up (doh!).
Anyone want a couple of printers - one works, needs cartridges (£10 + £10), the other, well, needs cart’s but don’t know if it works.
