We Want to Know What You Think

alternateorg on November 27, 2000

If you look to the left of the homepage now, you might be rather startled to see the addition of a poll to our site. In our never-ending quest to be just like MacOSRumors, we decided that we needed one. So we have one. Use it, so we can know about you and what you think. Right now, you can flood it every 10 seconds with votes, but we’d rather you didn’t do that. So vote your conscience, and try to just vote once per poll. Insert your own reference to the botched presidential election…. -HERE-

Stats for Nerds (Windows still sucks)

alternateorg on November 27, 2000

Here are some cool statistics about server uptimes for all you uber geeks out there who might give a fuck. Of course the stats are from the always reliable NetCraft so go ahead, be a nerd and check it out by clicking here.



Scott from SVN thinks it’s interesting that Apple can run a somewhat-beta OS and get that level of reliabilty. Word, my brother. Word.

Also, take a peek at those lack of uptimes on IIS 5.0 and 2000, ewww!!!! They still can’t get shit right out there in Redmond. I’ve got a hint for them, its called (shhhh) Unix. That makes me think… hmmm… how scary would MSLinux be… I think they could do serious damage if they could pull that off… let’s hope they don’t.

The Best Website Ever

alternateorg on November 26, 2000

Okay, so I know that most of my posts tend to lean a little toward me hating whatever it is I’m writing about. But you’re in for a treat today, because this past week, I found (via a link from the unbeatable Kaliber10000) the International Herald Tribune, which just happens to be the best website ever, news or otherwise. It has the perfect balance between the elusive ‘compelling content’ and out-of-your-way-but-really-damn-cool interface.

First of all, it looks as if the right designer (or team) was given total control over the interface and functionality. You can even hide the banner ad at the top with a little ‘x’ right next to it. The whole site is done with DHTML layers and Javascript, so it isn’t exactly the fastest loading site in the world, especially for modem-users, but I trust it’s much quicker than a Flash site would be with the same quantity of info. Browse by region or section, or you can browse all the clippings of the articles, and make your own list of articles to read. When you click the little icon next to the clipping, it ‘moves’ to the top bar, and the number next to the ‘clippings’ menu item changes to reflect the number of clippings you have. But I digress. I can’t really go into a full feature list here, just see it and click all the cool little buttons. You can even change the weather listings from Celsius to Farenheit and back if you wish. It’s awesome.

So check it out.

But you knew I would have something to bitch about, right? This has nothing to do with the IHT, but more with my ISP, Earthlink. And not really Earthlink, but the ‘My StartPage’ service in particular. This week (right about the time I discovered the IHT site) Earthlink decided that, despite the fact that I already have DSL through them, they needed to add a little Flash movie to my startpage, letting me know how great it is. It has music. So if any of you have used a personalized startpage, you know that there’s a lot of clicking on news stories, then clicking ‘back’ to get back to the startpage again, right? Well the geniuses over at Earthlink didn’t do the Flash correctly, and so every time I hit ‘back’ from a news story, the animation and shitty music start up all over again, letting me know how great the DSL I already have is. So I’ve stopped using it. If you know of another decent startpage service,let me know.

Another Q&A

alternateorg on November 22, 2000

If you read the story below first this will make more sense. I was *almost* hired at the same Denver New Media shop as Kevin… Problem was I knew Design, HTML, and Network Administration and wanted to be paid like someone who knows and will use all those abilities. So, was I right in requesting more money than say a “low-end” designer would make? I think so, BUT they don’t. Funny thing is, I know Macintosh like the back of my hand as well as Windows and several flavors of UNIX. In fact, I can think of at least 3 or 4 ways to get that piece of shit Dave off the godamn desktop whether they are using NT or Solaris. Damn. Fuck. I hate people in high places in the tech industry, they seem to know nothing except that they *should* use Microsoft products. What a crock of shit that is. Think different and think for yourself.

Simple Question, Not-So-Simple Answer.

alternateorg on November 21, 2000

Okay. So here’s the question I pose to you, the reader.

As some of you know, I am a web designer working at a midsize web shop in Denver. We have a CTO, a VP of Technology, and a Network Admisitrator. Now, the Network Administrator has had a number of servers (Sun and otherwise) delivered to him to set up, and an entire TEMPERATURE CONTROLLED server room built for him. So far, no problem. Where the friction starts is here: over half of our staff uses Macintosh computers, in some form or another (iMacs, G3 PowerBooks, G4 towers, etc.), and all of the aforementioned technology people have ZERO experience either maintaining or using Macs. I’m surprised the network admin even knows what one looks like.

Fully half the office needs to use a piece of shite software to connect to the filesharing servers, and the one that most of us work from is a tiny PC-shaped box. It isn’t even rack-mounted. It just sits on the floor and takes our abuse. Now, Dave (conveniently the name of both the SMB software and the network admin) is very unstable and crashes our computers often. And besides that, as most casual Mac users, the designers manage to get their machines in horrible states of crash and sub-crash, and guess who comes to the rescue? Me. Because our tech people could give a shit about us or our OS.

I’ve always been the person in the class that the kids come to instead of the teacher for computer help, from elementary school on up through college, but right now, I’ve got other shit to do. How come I’m the only one the designers trust to set up a new machine that comes in? I don’t get paid to do Mac support, but my question is, should I? I mean, I love doing it (most of the time), but sometimes it’s just a bitch to do, and I could be doing other things. The admin and myself tend to butt heads on a lot of issues, and I’ve just kind of given up on trying to be cordial to him. I mean, I understand that an OS is not nearly as important as another human being, but he honestly pisses me off sometimes. I’ve often thought of just ignoring the cries of my co-workers, and sending them over to have the admin help, but I know that if I were to do that, he would just come back to me with a question, and undoubtedly anything he did would have to be undone and done right by myself. And I would do all that, too, because I care that much about people having stable Macs to use. So there’s the second part of the question: Are he and I destined to be mortal enemies? Let me know what you think.

Hm. I'm a Little Perturbed…

alternateorg on November 20, 2000

I know that I always rip on the poor saps who have to use ALL Microsoft products for just about everything (MS Windows, MS Word, MS PowerPoint, MS CanOpener, MS ShoeMatcher, etc) but, I just looked at my Application Switcher, and I noticed something that kind of surprised me.

I have exactly 7 applications currently open: 2 of which are MS (Entourage and IE5), 2 of which are Adobe (Photoshop and GoLive), and 2 of which are Independently developed (Napster and Audion). The last one is the Finder, which doesn’t really count, I guess. So a full third of my non-OS apps are MS, and another full third are Adobe. I can’t believe that I rely this heavily on basically 2 software developers. Wow. I’d download Netscape and use it exclusively for both email and browsing, effectively getting rid of my MS product usage.. Oh, wait. I just remembered that relying on pre-beta software is a BAD idea, possibly worse than relying on MS.

Entourage Is Pretty Nice

alternateorg on November 19, 2000

I just… er.. acquired a copy of Office:Mac (MS Office 2001), and I must say… Entourage is pretty nice, although I’m kind of confused about something: You know how in the OSX-native ‘Mail’ app, when you type in a mail address, it remembers that address forever, without it being added to your address book? Well Entourage does the same thing. Here’s what confuses me: it even suggests to me addresses that I typed into Outlook 5, which I imported into Entourage. So if Outlook 5 was saving all those addresses, then how come it didn’t have that same functionality? Oh, well. No big deal, I guess.

Right now, I’m either moving to Entourage and IE5 for my internet needs, or Netscape 6 for all of them (including FTP, which it has a kind of neat way of handling.. check it out, you’ll see). On one hand, I have a couple semi-stable products to depend on, albeit developed by MS, or one quasi-stable app to depend on, but by doing so, I support open-source and a non-MS browser/email client. Honestly, I’m liking this ‘Orbit’ theme for Netscape right now. I’ll let you know.

AT&T Can Bite My Shiny Ass

alternateorg on November 17, 2000

Okay. Very rarely do I really get this pissed. Maybe it’s punishment for not paying my bill on time, but AT&T has totally fucked up their digital cable interface. Instead of the bland, colorful (but usable) interface that I had before, there is now a gradient-laced, piece of shit staring me in the face, complete with a giant, useless TVGuide logo. I used to be able to read the names of the shows as I scrolled through them on-screen, but now, there’s a giant yellow line that surrounds the title. It’s barely legible, let alone from a distance.

And that’s not even the worst part.

There are ads. Yup. Advertisements. For movies playing on PayPerView, for mattresses, you name it, they come up on the panel that shows up in front of shows when I browse, and in the ‘Menu’ section. I am soooo canceling this service. I pay 60 bucks a month for not only cable, but to be served advertisments in my own home. They don’t make enough money from subscriptions? They have to generate revenue via ads INSIDE the interface now? Whatever. I’m getting a satellite dish.

Responses…

alternateorg on November 15, 2000

I find it interesting that I’ve been contaced more times today by readers than I ever have in the past. Not that the number is high, but apparently I’ve been writing about some touchy subjects. Let me just reiterate that I am not in any way attempting to be a news outlet on my own. I just like to get my opinions out. I enjoy criticism and responses, but keep in mind I’m just like you; consider this site as more or less a weblog. If you have a difference of opinion, or a comment to make, please always feel free to contact me. Just bear all of this in mind.

re: My Post Earlier About Gays on TV

alternateorg on November 15, 2000

I just wanted to make a slight addition to my earlier post about homosexual characters on TV not being played by gay actors themselves. I have been informed that the actor who plays ‘Jack’ on ‘Will & Grace’ is ‘definitely gay.’ So maybe that’s a good start.