Sunday, July 30, 2006

Design Marathon

Alright I just started a new blog, its mainly about blogger template design and coding. I have added a few unique designs I have so far. Next in my to do list for this blog is to change most of Bloggers default template in to three column fluid templates. Hopefully this process won't take as long as starting a new template from scratch, ideally within 10-20 minutes each.

We'll see how long this is going to take, but one thing's for sure: alot of work is ahead of me.

posted by Stavanger at 5:19 PM | 4 comments

Friday, July 28, 2006

Yahoo! Hosting

Everyone has probably heard of the internet giant Yahoo! as one thing or another, internet protal, search engine, official sponsor of the FIFA World Cup, owner of del.icio.us, flickr etc. One thing that probably won't come to mind though is Yahoo! being a webhost. Unlike other big webhosting companies like Dreamhost or HostGator, Yahoo! Small Business only offers three levels of shared hosting plans. Despite the fact that it doesn't offer the most competitive price and lacks the room for expansion, some features of Yahoo! Small Business hosting makes it perfect for startup sites which is one of the reasons I hosted my site Blogcrowds.com with Yahoo!


Yahoo! supports the most popular languages and databases with FTP accessibility and a nice control panel that is sufficient. But the best Yahoo! has to offer is the online software available with one click such as phpbb or WordPress. Another important feature Yahoo! includes is credits with various marketing tools, it even offers $100 free advertising with Yahoo! and $50 with Google AdWord. Finally since you are hosting with Yahoo!, of course your site is automatically submitted to Yahoo! and it will constantly spider it before your site even show up on any other search engine. Not a big deal? Well it is when you're just starting up.

posted by Stavanger at 5:53 PM | 2 comments

Sunday, July 23, 2006

GOING OLD SCHOOL

For quite a while I have abstained myself from video games and considered myself free from what I call VeGAS or VidEo Games Addiction Syndrome. Video games used to take up hours of my life everyday and I spent the time in between asleep in school. As soem major tests & higher education came, I beat all the games for one last time and sold most of my collections on Amazon. I have been free ever since and probably won't go back, or so I thought...

A few days ago I picked up VeGAS again, there just haven't been much to do late nights this week, after all its summer & FIFA's over. Well, it might have been much worse, with some self control left, I found some old school DOS games and decided to start with Ultima. For those who are unfamiliar with old school games, let me explain. Old school video games is considered between 1980s-1990s, they have depressingly pixelated graphics with a range of 2-56 colors and requires around 4hours or less of gameplay so hopefully by that time I'm gonna be sobered up and fast asleep orquit gaming because of the horrible graphics. Anyways, I went through Ultima right up until Ultima VI - The False Prophet...


Alright, just went to DOS, Origin Presents a Lord British Production...TV lightning, red flash, needs Avatar, gargoyles, got it


Created a character "By what name shalt thou be called?" what !#$^#!}, did I mention the horrible language? Other than been called milord, it completely drives me nuts. And art thou male or female? ...femaile for the heck of it then I chose the most male looking portrait, trust me its just too pixelated


Ok, up to the voodoo witch, "Thou hast..." excuse me lady, you think I can read? I will just flip a coin


Yes! Journey onward. Lord British's room, aw great, the keyboard stopped working I freaking can't do anyting. Ok, let me try Escape for help. What the, nothing. You know even most DOS games Escape displays a menu or help. Twenty minutes later, finally found the buttons (that's what they are) at the bottom, time to kill some gargoyles, piece of cake, but the dead body on the floor is disgusting even pixelated.


Time to talk to Lord B. "Sir Thomas blah blah blah much has happend blah blah blah only the true Avatar would know what was contained in the Compendium" wtf? What Compendium noone told me about the compendium...great he's talking again "How wert the headlesses produced?" Sex? Nay. By killing them? Nay 'tis not the correct answer Consult thy Compendium. What compendium!!?? Alright, so I fired off dozens of answers for I don't know how long. Couple hourse later I decided to hack the game instead, loooked for the notes I made in the yellowed manual and I saw "Ultima 6 Copy Protection Quiestion and Answers. @#$(*#^&# ....so...the menu is the compendium and the questions were for freaking copy protection!? Jeez, these old school junk is een worse thean Sony BMG rootkits. Ok three questions later, got a key, great ABOUT TIME to leave.


Ok, now someone tell me what's going on with the door? Its not funny, I used the key Lord B. gave me, no use, attacked it, moved it, talked to it, looked at it, all to no avail...somebody tell me what's going on please...nice, letting a door trip me up...

Of course I beat Ultima VI before. As for right now, the freaking blasted door will stomp me and I probably won't touch another video game till Final Fantasy XII comes out.

posted by Stavanger at 4:58 PM | 9 comments

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

FIREFOX - A COMPANION TO "WHY I HATE IE"

Like the way Firefox is straight after install? Well, thats only half of what Firefox is capable of. Unlike other browsers, Firefox has a fantastic open source community that provides excellent tools, adons, and pluggins at the best price of all, free. Instead of covering all of the enormous amount of resources available, I will focues on how I customized Firefox.

BUILT IN - before going into addons, lets exploit some of Firefox's features to the fullest. Most of Firefox's features are ready at your fingertips but some might be hidden.

Tabs - everyone has heard of tabs which let you unclutter your takbar, but at first Tabs might not be easy to find,





for me I like to keep a shortcut for creating tabs at the top of Firefox. So go to VIEW --> TOOLBAR--> CUSTOMIZE or just right click the top Firefox tool bar.



find the new tab button and drag it to where ever you want on the firefox menu bar.

Search Tool Bar - Tired of successive search bars in Internet Explorer taking up too much viewing real estestate, but still like to get search results without actually going to the search home page? Will Firefox have something that you will like

The compact Firefox search bar at the top right corner allow you to add your own search engines to the drop down list and switch between the list as you choose. To add your favorite search engine or site to to http://mycroft.mozdev.org/. Now, no more extra toolbars to take up space! for extra search bar functionalities download the addon here https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/552/

Now that the built in stuff is done, let download some stuff! Before we move on here's some useful shortcuts: Ctrl + Tab browse between tabs Ctrl + U view page source Ctrl + J view downloads Ctrl + H view history.


ADDONS for all your addon needs goto https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/, the site maybe slower than usual because of massive encryption

Skin - first off, lets customize Firefox to be aesthetically pleasing. You can download many Firefox skins at https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/themes/, and then using them by going to Tools --> Themes
However, I find firefox default theme quite nice, my windows blue bar simplly ruins many of the skins.

FTP - FireFTP from https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/684/ provide a simple yet powerful FTP tool that's ideal to use for your webhost or directly publish your blog to blogger via FTP.

RSS - NewsFox from https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/629/, a three panel RSS viewer for RSS fanatics like me to get updates on new/blogs.

Validate Your Code - Total validator from https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2318/ help website developer to validate their code within Firefox

Spell Check - AspellFox from https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1022/ spell checks any window within Firefox

WYSIWYG - A built in What You See Is What You Get (jeez what a mouthful) editor for those less experienced with css/html codes to visual design their webpages. "Because the Xinha editor is installed on your local machine rather then a server it is both portable (use it on any website) and faster (files don't need to be transfered over the net)."


After equiping Firefox with a number of addons, Firefox is quite robust and will most likely satisfy all your internet needs and even some non-web applications.

posted by Stavanger at 6:08 PM | 4 comments

Monday, July 17, 2006

WHY I HATE IE

For some years Internet Explorere was my native browser in Windows until another competent browser come along (certainly not Netscape!). I was amongst the first to test Firefox at the time with no intention on switching. I was soon attracted to Firefox's clean interace and its speed however minute in my dial up era. It seems that Internet Explorer just has too many bugs and vulnerabillities that does not actually compromise your machine but reduces performances.


To me, vulnerability is not IE's biggest problem. As anyone who's familiar with CSS will tell you, IE's biggest problem is Microsoft's big corporate incompatability. It goes without saying that if you design a high caliber site, its probably not even going to show up in IE without any down grades or hack. Internet Explorer 6.0 simply does not support more advanced techniques and renders half of the properties incorrectly. One of the biggest problem IE have is no hover support for Take for example some features on my site, Blogcrowds, on the forums main page when your mouse hover over the forum name/description and the newest post, in Firefox, they change color and the text blackens making it more interactive and increases legibility. In this case IE does not support hover outside links. To achieve the same effect, if possible in IE, would prbably involve an unprecedented ammount of padding for the link which is imprecise considering different text length and dimensions of the forum description. Same goes for the links inside the list item on the header menu. In Firefox you would see the tabs lighten. There are other browser discrepancies across the site, but most have been fixed and others relatively minor.


Some designer even use IE's lack of support for certain elements to design to different themes for one site. The result of MOSe (Mozilla, Opera Safari enhancements) is surprsingly dramatic while leaving the IE version lackluster in comparison. Hopefully all the will change with Internet Explorer 7.0, for Microsoft its either conform or die...

posted by Stavanger at 5:58 PM | 1 comments

Sunday, July 16, 2006

UNBREAKABLE

Well, its Saturday night and I probably have a billion othe rthings that demands my attention, but out of nowhere I remembered a commercial for a M. Night Shyamalan fil that shows on ABC. So I promptly tuned in at eight o'clock and the movie, Unbreakable, was surprisingly memorable to my comics persona (I'm a huge JLA fan, you didn't know that? Well you do now)

The prologue to the movie was kind of unusual for M. Night Shyamalan (perhaps its on next Saturday?), I waited until his name appeared to actually settle down and watch it. Unbreakable has two main characters: Elijah played by Samuel L. Jackson, an avid comic collector crsed by genetic mutation with wak bones factured easily therefore name Mr. Glass n his youth; David, played by Bruce Willis, is an otherwise ordinary man who was never sick and survived a deadly train crash unscath while all other passengers died. The film proceeded in an archetypical superhero motif. David, gradually aware of his "gift" is relunctant and held back by people he cares about, very much like Peter Parker. While Samuel L. Jackson acts as his "mentor" not so far away from Professor Xavier considering he si also in a wheelchair for the most part of the movie. As Elijah uncovers david as the man of steel and his kryptonite-water, David begin to accept what he is and use his ability to sense people's shady past to the great good (which brings me to a point of confusion, David clearly "saw" a drug dealer pocketing something but when he pat him down, nothing came up??) David arrives at a train terminal sensing a motley of crime, theft, hate-criming, rape, and ultimately murder. He followed the murderer and ends up in a scene that shows his superhuman abilities. The next day, the local newspaper shows a story of unknown hero with a hooded figure that remined me of Batman. With all well and the film finnishing, M. Night Shyamalan throws a shocking curve ball ending in an ironic twist. It turns out Elijah has satged many disasters in search of his superhero, David...and I thought he was Professor X. But it wasn't hard to imagin Samuel L. Jackson in his dark purple trenchcoat to be the evil genius, after all he is Mr. Glass...

Although through a different kind of depiction, Unbreakable is a classic superhero sotry worthy of comic books, the hooded figure in the newspaper drawing is pretty darn close.

posted by Stavanger at 6:08 PM | 9 comments

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

BLOGCROWDS LAUNCHED!!!

I have recently launched my new site, Blogcrowds.com focusing on all aspect of blogging. I spent quite a bit of time coding the design and skin for this site and there is still some parts of the design I am unsure of. So this is the time to get these issues off my mind and ask for some suggestions:

1. Just the overall design of the site with 800 pixel overall width and a side bar that's always there no matter what your resolution.

2. How is the triple color? Is the gray text to faint on the light blue background?



3. Having the navigation on a white background just didn't look right so I put it at the top there...at least it should be visible.







4. The Blogcrowds logo is every where on the site to create a feeling of regular theme but over branding?







5. How did I come up with forum names that are all one word? Me in quirk mode?

6. Finally should I change the forum description in Blogware & CMS or should it stay the same? I think it should probably change.


Alright, that is all I can remember right now and if you find anything else we can improve please post here or in the feedback forum.

Thanks and Enjoy!

posted by Stavanger at 6:17 PM | 1 comments

Monday, July 10, 2006

WORLD CUP IN MEMORIAM

The 2006 FIFA World Cup ended yesterday with Italy finishing in a triumphant glory, this wraps up a month of fierce soccer rivalry. It also marks the end of the first World Cup I actually watched. Beginning on the kick off day, June 9 2006, I would say I watched (or sometimes when soccer is on TV and I'm multitasking) a good half of the total 64 matches, so averagin around one game a day. Since this is the first time I seriously watched soccer and the NBA finals starts around June 9th (this year the Dallas Mavericks vs Miami Heat), I couldn't help but to compare soccer with basketball which is more widely watched in North America.

My first total surprise is how long an actual soccer game is, 90 minutes, over time 30 minutes...Its not that actually it is such a long time, but instead such a long time with not much going on. I mean come on, one goal in 90 minutes!? and the rest of the time just kicking the ball around. Its not like you can pas the time watching their 'beautiful' dribbling. Basketball on the other hand, 48 minutes jam packed with action averaging around 80-100 points for both sides and a 24 second shot clock to ensure never a dull moment. Every few minutes with an alley oop, fade away, hook shot, or a dunk that you can just get up and start cheering. You can also actually watch Dwayne wade dribble past two defenders, a crossover, then spin move, and finish it with a layup, SKILLS...which bring us to skills in soccer. I'm sure all the soccer players in FIFA are extremely talented, but you can't get past the fact that its very hard to control a soccerball with your feet much less with someone chargin towards you, so this results in the umpteenth turnover, corner kick, and the soccer ball stuck in midfield action.

I guess soccer is an okay sport to watch, don't get me wrong, I will still continue to watch soccer - just not like how I watch basketball or another sport - and probably only at the next FIFA World Cup.

posted by Stavanger at 8:03 PM | 1 comments

Saturday, July 08, 2006

Germany crushes Portugal 3-1 taking 3rd place in 2006 FIFA World Cup

Wasn't much in the first half, but starting in the second half Bastian Schweinsteiger made a beautiful goal from way out in the field. Then few minutes later the Germans passed a penalty kick to Petit from Portugal for yet another goal...aw nice, Petit, score on you own net... Later in the second half Bastian Schweinsteiger scored again from way out in the field, quite an amazing curve ball. Almost at the end of the match Gomes of Portugal scored with a header that was just to fast for German goalie Kahn.

But all to no avail German finished 3-1 in this quite exciting match, it would be nice to see Germany in the finals but I guess we will have to wait for another 4 years.

posted by Stavanger at 6:02 PM | 10 comments

Friday, July 07, 2006

FIFA WORLD CUP OVERVIEW

As early July begins, the 2006 FIFA World Cup draws to a close. After three weeks of stiff competition, an all European Final Four was produced; and the Italians and French are going to duel it out at the Fianls this sunday. To me, this conclusion was a totally unexpected and chucked my predictions staight down the drain.
The biggest upset this year is of course that neither socer powerhouse Brazil nor Germany(I don't usually watch soccer) made it to the finals. The home team Germany put on a stellar performance right up until facing he Italians in a stalemate (like so many other World Cup elimination games) concluding with an Italian goaldue to positional negligence.



The Italian made yet another goal a few minutes later, making their victory final and sent the Germans home.
Brazil vs. France, omg, I still can't get over this, just look at the stats. The odds against the Frenchmen were just to great. Brazil has a team of world class soccer superstars, Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Kaka and take a look at the Frenchmen performance.

Finishing off second in their group after Switzerland, France tied both Swiss and Korea, only winning agianst Togo. I mean come on, for that group I was rooting for Korea...
With all that been said, this World Cup Finals maybe quite interesting, of course not a good as German vs. Brazil. I think France might just win with their...I don't know what to call it, usual luck, underdog determination, or new found skill but they have a formidable Italian team to beat.

posted by Stavanger at 7:54 PM | 1 comments

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