Category: Web/Tech

Ever wonder if Java is working on your browser? Sun provides a Test for Java Virtual Machine

Saturday I became bored with my desktop wallpaper (which was one of my own photographs) and went surfing for something new. I found the site “Visual Paradox”:http://visualparadox.com/gallery.htm via “Google”:http://www.google.com. This site has a variety of images for wallpaper in various sizes, including a nice selection of alien landscapes. I saved several for future use, and my desktop now looks like the following:

BrowserSpy can tell you all kinds of detailed information about you and your browser. Stuff like the version of your browser. What kind of things it supports and what it doesn’t support. This site shows a lot more than sites I have seen before that tell about the browser and the operating system. (via “J-Walk”:http://j-walkblog.com/blog/)

NIST maintains a site that gives the official U.S. time using a Java application. It looks as there are some other interesting exhibits on this site as well. For some reason I haven’t investigated yet, my computer is not synching correctly to a network time server, so I decided to find an online clock.

After I read Simon Willison: The dangers of PageRank, I googled my own first name, Elaine. I was astonished to see that my name came up eighth on the first page of results, since my name is not that unusual. Nor is Five Acres a popular weblog. Very odd.

Yesterday evening, I got home to find out that the entries I made in the morning were not showing up on my website. (Yes, I check my own weblog: doesn’t everyone?) My service provider had moved my files to a new server, and things got out of sync. Fortunately, I was able to log into the old server, save the MySql database backup to my PC, then apply the backup to the new server. Now I know that the MySql backups will work. I had always been reluctant to test since I only have the one live database with which to experiment.

If anyone noticed the now you see it, now you don’t on my website yesterday, this was the reason.

NIST, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, has prepared guides to the archival Care and Handling of CDs and DVDs. There is a longer guide and a one-page summary. I do a weekly backup of my important files to CD, and it is nice to have this information.

Email attachments that cause problems are in the news this week, but email phishes are also a problem. The Anti-Phishing.org – Stop Phishing and Email Scams site explains what these are, and how to avoid exposing valuable personal information.

I have lost Network Access at home and won’t be updating my blog until it is restored. Update: 2003-12-04 Still no access.

ReUSEIT shows many submissions of the redesign project for “Useit.com”:http://www.useit.com, a website devoted to computer usability.