Category: Web/Tech

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.

“They” won. I’m not sure how long I’ve used my old email address, maybe eight years? Certainly I started using it long before spam was more than once a week occurrence. Currently, my load of junk email is now approaching approximately two hundred a day. The only way I have been able to cope at all is with two layers of filtering.

However, I am starting to lose stuff in my filters. I check, but it can be hard to see the rare good item in all the junk in the reject folder. Since my web host provides virtually unlimited email addresses, I have set up a new address for personal correspondence, several addresses for the various lists in which I participate, and a “throwaway” address for registering at websites.

I have tried to send my new personal address to those who know my old one. I can also be contacted at the link in the side bar to the left.

A List Apart, an online magazine devoted to web design, is back with a new design and three new articles. The new design is very pleasant with subtle earthtones.

Layout-o-matic is a tool that generates CSS code for layouts with up to three columns.