They needed to note that a song entitled “Fuck You” has explicit language?

I realized yesterday why I really dislike working on Macs so much–because I find the interface chaotic and annoying.

That’s a screen capture of a small portion of what I was working with: Endnote for Word 2008. There are toolbars and windows and boxes lying over and under each other, and getting in the way of what I want to do.

And note you can’t see the menu–it’s on the top of the screen, no matter where the program window is, so if I have multiple programs open (like I did yesterday with EndNote and Word) I’ve got to move my attention from one part of the window to another, while hoping that whatever toolbars I need are not hidden behind something else.

It’s chaotic and I find it maddening. I don’t want my commands scattered all over the screen, I want them in one place, where I can quickly and easily find them (For what it’s worth, I can’t stand working in Photoshop for the same reason.) I don’t want part of my program hiding under other parts of the program. I want to select the program or window and have everything right there, neat and organized. I don’t want to have to hunt down my toolbars from wherever the hell I drug them to last time I used the program, when they were completely in the way.

And don’t even get me started on the fact that by default there is no right click on a Mac. First you scatter my commands to the four winds and then you won’t let me right click to access the commands that way?

How on earth can someone function in this environment without spending half their time looking for whatever it is they want?

It Gets Better

Because whether you’re gay or straight, it does get better.

Jeri posted a question about Geek Women & Clothing, and my first thought was, “are you kidding me?”

Jeri’s questions were raised by this essay on Clothes & Geek Feminism, which addresses the question in a slightly different manner, but still, it bothers me.

I am who I am. I dress in a manner that makes me comfortable, and I feel makes me look approachable–after all, my job is to help people. I rarely wear make-up, because that’s who I am and it’s the way I’ve always been.

This question puts my hackles up, because I’ve spent a great deal of time getting comfortable with myself in my own skin, and I don’t see why I should have to dress in an manner as dictated by anyone just to properly classify myself as a true geek.

In my opinion, what people see when they look at me is shown as much by my projected attitude as by what I wear. My goal is to look competent, approachable, and helpful, and in my opinion, I show that through my attitude. I do not dress to conform to anyone’s ideas and attitudes of who I am, I dress to be comfortable and to do my job.

For me, the point of being a geek is taking delight in who I am and the things that make me happy. If a geeky t-shirt makes me happy, then that’s great. If a silk suit makes someone else happy, good for them.

If people think I lack “geek cred” because I dress–or fail to dress–in a specific manner, that is their problem, not mine.

These are the graphs from the software that comes with my pedometer. Orange is aerobic steps, orange and blue (or just blue if there was no aerobic) shows the total steps for that day.

Hooray for progress!

Here’s May. (Note that this chart also shows that I was having a hard time with my depression, and skipping the gym when I should not have.) Can you tell what day I broke my ankle?

Then June:

Now July. (On the 7th I forgot to put on my pedometer. on the 10th it accidentally went into the washing machine. Oops.)

If you haven’t already seen it, go read today’s Non Sequitur comic.

Got it?

Now read this news article I came across this morning.

No, I didn’t watch the video. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.

I’ve been watching the uproar over Facebook with a fair amount of bemusement.

Yes, I am on Facebook and have been there for awhile, however, from the beginning I have been careful what information I placed there. If you could find it by doing a public search of my name, I was OK placing on Facebook, otherwise, for get it. So my address and phone number have never been on listed, and the only e-mail addresses are my work address (which you can find it you search my name) and my address I give out to businesses and such. And neither of those was ever public. (Go ahead. Search for me on Facebook. See what you find.)

Yes, I probably do know a bit more about online privacy than most people, but it seems to me that not placing your phone number and address on a free website is a reasonable thing to do. If someone needs that information, they can e-mail me (or search for my work number–that’s out in the wild as well.)

But that’s where we get to the part I don’t quite get.

Facebook is a FREE service. It provides you with e-mail and a place to post pictures and an easy way to stay in contact with family and friends–all at absolutely NO COST TO THE USER!

Why on earth are people offended when a free service does things to make money? It’s not like there is a legal requirement that you use Facebook, it’s not like you are required to post your address or phone number, or give them anything more than a throw away e-mail address (OK, yes it was different in the beginning, when you need to have an edu account, but that’s essentially a public address.)

TANSTAAFL people!

Believe it or not, the internet costs money! Facebook (and Google and Yahoo and everyone else) has to pay money for the hardware upon which their content sits. And the busier your site, and the more content you have, the more expensive the underlying architecture.

For example, it costs me about $100 a year for hosting for this site. That’s about what I’ve been paying since Michael bought me my domain for Christmas a really long time ago (and I’ve used a variety of hosting services over time.)

Because I pay for this site, I expect certain things in return, such as prompt customer service, privacy, and the ability to do as I please (within reason) with my site.

I do not have the same expectations about Facebook. They are providing something for free, so I expect that they will want something in return, in this case, advertising.

You get what you pay for, and if the dollar amount you pay is free, then you’re going to have to expect to pay the price in some other way.

Would I pay if Facebook changed to a pay service? It depends upon how much they charged and whether those I keep in touch with remained on Facebook.

In many ways, I really like Facebook–I like a semi-secure place where I can keep track of a variety of friends and control to some degree what information is available to those who are not my friends. I love regaining contact with people I haven’t seen in years–yes, there are people who I don’t care as much about, but I can hide their status updates if they post things that annoy me, so it all comes out in the wash.

So yes, I would be willing to pay a small amount for Facebook; less than I pay to host my own site though–I don’t love it that much.

And that is what I think people need to keep in mind when they get all up in arms about the way Facebook or any other free service treats their information: You have recognize you’re going to pay the price in one way or another. Realize this, and privacy concerns really shouldn’t be an issue.

Michelle: (holds up drawer) Is everything in here useful?
Michael: YES!
Michelle: Do we really need five power cables?
Michael: (silence)
Michelle: Why do we need five power cables?
Michael: I’m THINKING!

Finally got a new scanner!

Last scanner was purchased in August of 2000, so I figure that we got our money’s worth from it.

I was surprised that the two scanners are quite similar in size. (Kat is added for comparison)

Anyone interested in a used scanner? Still works fine–and has drivers for Windows ME! (but not Vista or Windows 7)

here are some of the terms that brought people to my website. All things considered, I’m hoping most of these people left disappointed.

bourbon balls pregnancy
Not unless you’re the gingerbread man.

klishis.com bleh
Yeah, I know. One day it’ll get better.

something to make me mad?
Republicans. Next?

i’m understanding some things really make me mad
And you didn’t know this about yourself before?

random reasons to be mad at friend
Friendship; you’re doing it wrong.

women make me mad
I’m noting a theme here…

anti feminist folk tale
See: “The Brother’s Grimm”

jake.cisco fanfic
1) It’s Sisko. 2) Ew.

michelle is random
Yes.

klishis.com tentacles are not my thing they are shawns thing but no one ever sends him tentacles
That is very specific. And amusing.

irish fairy folk tales i’ve got a fairy on my
Your what?!

me and the pumpkin queen resoluion
What?

venite creature betlehem
No, really. WHAT?

Why it looks like a blog!

(blows dust off top of bookcase)

Looks like someone has been neglecting the place.

As the physical house is getting cleaned today, the likelihood of anything more entertaining appearing here is quite low.

But you’re more than welcome to make yourself comfortable in the interim. Plenty of cookies and legal beverages. Have a seat, pet the cats, just look our for Kat, he’s been pissy lately.

For those who may use and RSS feed for this place (there are legions of you I’m sure), I’ve been tweaking the layout for the site.

I’ve added a temporary snowfall, which was a lot of fun to create I must admit, and I created a new set of banner headers. Refresh and you’ll see a new header (Michael created that php file for me a couple years ago, and is willing to share it if anyone is interested in it.)

All the photos in the headers are mine, and all the manipulations are mine.

I’ve learned something new! MUAHAHAHA!

I’ve modified the search resultsof my library database search so that for most search results, you can sort the results by clicking on the heading.

If you aren’t a geek, you’ll want to go and play with the search, rather than read than read the code bits that follow.

I got that using “switch”

if(isset($_GET['sort']))
{
switch($_GET['sort'])
{
case ‘a’:
$order_by = LastName ASC, FirstName, Series, Year’;
$a = “{$_SERVER['PHP_SELF']}?sort=b”;
break;

case ‘b’:
$order_by = ‘LastName DESC, FirstName, Series, Year’;
$a = “{$_SERVER['PHP_SELF']}?sort=a”;
break;

default:
$order_by = ‘LastName, FirstName, Series, Year’;
$sort = ‘a’;
break;
}

$sort = $_GET['sort'];
} else {
$order_by = ‘LastName, FirstName, Series, Year’;
$sort = ‘a’;
}

Isn’t that nice?

But even better, I managed to get a more accurate sort for my “title” results. I got it to ignore a, an, and the when they start a book title. Which means the title results are now truly alphabetical.

ORDER BY trim(LEADING ‘The ‘ FROM trim(LEADING ‘A ‘ FROM trim(LEADING ‘An ‘ FROM Title))) DESC

Isn’t that lovely?

You wouldn’t believe how long it took me to find that. Most of what I came across wanted me to modify the book title to place the definite articles at the end of the title followed by a comma, or in a separate column, or even create a separate column for sorting, all of which were overkill for what I wanted.

But trim(LEADING ‘The ‘ FROM trim(LEADING ‘A ‘ FROM trim(LEADING ‘An ‘ FROM X))) DESC worked like a charm.

By the year 2020, you won’t need a keyboard and mouse to control your computer, say Intel Corp. researchers. Instead, users will open documents and surf the Web using nothing more than their brain waves.

Scientists at Intel’s research lab in Pittsburgh are working to find ways to read and harness human brain waves so they can be used to operate computers, television sets and cell phones. The brain waves would be harnessed with Intel-developed sensors implanted in people’s brains.

Interesting you say. Yes, it is. Excellent for those who are paralyzed or have lost a limb–again true.

But I still think this is something that will go horribly, terribly wrong if implemented.

Why? Here’s the second headline of the article: Brain waves will replace keyboard and mouse, dial phones and change TV channels

Change TV channels.

Think about that for a second. You’re sitting down watching TV, when suddenly the TV switches to professional bowling. You switch it back to Baywatch:Hasselhoff and the Girdle of Doom. It switches again back to bowling.

Can you imagine a scenario where this does NOT end up in fisticuffs?

Me either.

I am delighted by the changes I made to the main page of my site.

Go ahead and refresh!

And really, you should be using a browser other than IE. Because IE is evil.

Well, exciting and expensive.

Saturday we got a new range. 30″ Kenmore Elite Range (white). Michael researched everything in our price range, and this was the top rated stove we could afford. It’s got five burners, five racks, and convection.

Even better, we got it 12 months same as cash. (Here’s not never paying interest!)

It’s to be delivered next Sunday.

I’m wondering how many things I’ll ruin till I get used to the convection?

Today, I got a new laptop.

HP Pavillion dv6, and 18 months same as cash for payment. (Woot!)

Getting a laptop was almost more complicated than buying a new stove. You see, I’m a lousy typist. So all those laptop keyboards with the page up/page down etc buttons to the right of the enter key are a nightmare for me, since I’m constantly hitting them. That significantly reduced the number of options available; primarily to Sony, Asus, Lenovo, and HP, and not all all models of those brands.

After spending an evening looking at specs and reading reviews, I had a couple models I thought would be good.

Since Amazon didn’t have any of those models with 6 or 12 months same as cash financing, we wandered off to Best Buy, where they had the Sony, Asus and HPs I was considering, but no Lenovos. Which is too bad, because for the most part I have liked my Think Pads (though my favorite, the T41, was actually made by IBM before they gave the Think Pad line to Lenovo.)

After about 20 minutes of back and forth, I finally settled on the HP Pavillion. 15.6″ screen, and extended keyboard.

I’m in love!

Of course, I’m tying this on my old old desktop in the basement, since I’m supposed to be down here doing bills.

Including all the ridiculous purchase we made this weekend.

Perhaps I’d better get back to this bills…

I do not think it means what you think it means.

female big brust picture
I’m not sure how Steven Brust would feel about that.

james madison admitted states to union
All by himself?

I just realized that my web host is only saving the top twenty search terms. Why on earth would I want just the top twenty? The weird ones appear only once.

This is my life, in flowchart form.

If you are offended by strong language, don’t click.
(more…)

Still sitting in my parent’s basement, while Michael sets up Dad’s new computer.

Microsoft seems to be unclear on the definition of “word”.