Ree’s musings

I'd been making a point to check through a support forum every few days to try to help people out, since I'm fairly familiar with the system being supported. A few days ago, I grumbled to myself as I made my usual check: "Nobody ever says thank you."

Before my next support run-through, someone I'd helped left me a note thanking me. You're welcome!

I had an exam due for an online class today. Unfortunately, a thunderstorm began brewing before I'd finished all the study exercises. I rushed through the exam so I would be done before any lightning could fry my poor computer.

I got an A. Other than the some thick, dark clouds, the storm never really manifested.

Heh. I just have to see what this "More" panel in w.bloggar does.

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(Surveyness!)

Hair and fingernails are made of the same stuff. Right?

So how come my nails shatter when I try to remove my earrings, but my mighty hair has snapped allegedly "Unbreakable" combs in half?

Attention everybody with a webpage -- and that includes blogs, MySpace accounts, or anything else with a URL:

Quit hating on my brower. No, I don't use IE, and I don't use Firefox either. I use the browser best suited for me. It is not "good enough" to test your webpage in just IE and FF -- a well-made webpage works on all browsers, not just the most popular.

I almost always browse without Flash and sometimes with Javascript, mostly because both are horribly abused in webpages. This means that if you use Dreamweaver's Flash buttons just for a crappy rollover effect, I can't reach any of the areas the buttons link to. People, simple CSS can do link rollovers -- use it, that's what it's there for. Then everybody can access your blasted archives and we're all happy, unless your archives suck.

Don't use Javascript when plain HTML will do. If HTML is a pain to render similarly across different browsers, Javascript is worse. Stop taking away my access to entire areas of your site just because you though a pop-up window would be "really cool" or because you thought an accessibility control was "pesky" and had to be done away with. It's not pesky; it's how I used to navigate your site, until you took it away and left me stranded.

I've been exploring various systems to run something on my website, and I think I've almost given up. There was one I thought would work really well, but I am continually horrified at how much accessibility is lost with every bit of add-on functionality. The core may be good, but third parties have absolutely ruined it by refusing to consider cross-platform issues and then releasing their only partially functional addition to the general public.

Also, entry splash pages are the Devil himself. There are precious few good reasons to use one and I promise you, kiddies: you don't have one.

Whew. Okay. I think I'm better (for) now.

Muwahaha! I am Queen of Stylesheets! Bow before my might and probable overuse of selectors!

Heh. I got some annoying CSS bugs figured out, including an IE-only bug that I'd thought I fixed months ago. Lo, upon an email list came the answer I knew not that I needed, and so I didst implement it, and it was good. Bwaaha! Fear my negative margins and positioned DIVs!

(I've had two energy drinks today -- does it show, does it does it huh? And I'll fix the scads of selectors after I review specificity -- layout now, refactoring later.)

Had I been a patient woman, I could have pointed people to these first few paragraphs instead revealing my inner snobbery. Dammit.

One of the best things about being an online student is the ability to sleep in. For whatever reason, I actually slept soundly last night, and woke up more refreshed than I've felt for weeks. I haven't even had caffeine yet today -- that's how good I feel.

I was chatting with Mutt on AIM today when the muttly one asked me what would make good icons. I like a certain fuzzy blue elf, so my tastes ran to a Nightcrawler icon.

Later in the conversation, I got linked to these.

Mutt is Best-Man, the best superhero ever.

Hm. I seem to have fallen off the planet for a few days. Again.

I love my psychology textbook. In my current reading on conditioning, the author made reference to pulling habits out of a rat, like magic. I wonder how many of my classmates caught the joke?