Archive for August, 2005

So I’m playing through Far Cry again, this time with all the eye candy turned way up. This is all thanks to the wonder that is the GeForce 6800 GT. It’s absolutely fan-freaking-tastic. But I digress…

I had just arrived at Rebellion, quite possibly the biggest map in the game. After clearing the first area of the map, I begin the long journey to the other side. As I round a bend in the road, the screen goes corrupt (in an incredibly wicked way) and my system hangs. Performing the three finger salute did absolutely nothing, so I was forced to perform a hard reset. So now I’m booting up my machine, everything is fine, and BAM - as soon as I reach the Windows desktop, I have the same problem. Complete and utter destruction of my screen. Again, keyboard control is highly unresponsive.

At this point I power down the machine and open up the case. Could the graphics card be getting too hot? I am pushing it rather hard. After waiting a few seconds, I power up again and all is well. I didn’t try loading up Far Cry again, but I plan to give it another go tonight. Has anyone ever seen this issue? I updated my chipset drivers last night (after the crash), and I also patched Far Cry (I was running 1.3, and am now at 1.33), thinking that might help in some way. Hopefully this problem isn’t an ominous omen of some sort. I certainly don’t want to replace this awesome piece of hardware.

Over the past several days, I have been renovating the internal structure of this website. From the actual markup to the styling of each element, many changes have been made. But you won’t notice these changes right away, which was my goal. I delved deep into the style sheet, and worked out a large number of problems. Font families were poorly used, font sizes were fixed in pixels, and a number of other issues also lurked about. These have since been fixed.

One place you will notice a change is on an individual post’s page (click the title of any post to view an example). The post body is now centered, and archive information is better presented. All in all, I think the result is better than what had been used previously.

If I have broken anything, please let me know by posting a comment about it. Or, if you have a suggestion for further improvement, please also let me know. Other minor improvements here and there are inevitable, but I’ll do my best to refrain from making sweeping changes.

(Apologies if this post jumps from one topic to another; I have a great deal on my mind).

For an incredibly long 13 weeks, my family has been trying to sell our house. Anytime anyone wanted to view it, we would end up having to go somewhere. It didn’t take very long to run out of places to visit so, needless to say, we quickly became quite bored of this routine. My mother is particularly tired of it, since she stays home during the day. So every time someone came to view the house, she would have to leave. Thankfully, we have just received our first offer for the house. The folks want to close in an incredibly short amount of time, so I expect things to get hectic around here very shortly. Please bear with me if my posts become erratic. I may not have internet connectivity for a few days (something I already loathe), so updates may be few and far between for a short while.

I continue to make excellent progress on Googlebar Lite 2.2. Just tonight I fixed a lurking bug that was recently reported, added a brand new option, and made several other miscellaneous changes. Some strings need to be translated, and a new feature or two may still need to be added, but this release is already shaping up to be a good one.

Various theme tweaks continue at this site. I located a very inefficient styling problem earlier this week (regarding the background rendering for each page), and squashed that bug. I’m not happy with the way comments are styled, so I plan to alter that in the coming days. I also hope to eventually get a contact page up on this site. Other general improvements are also planned.

Jessie went away last summer, a couple of months ago.
After all our time together, it was hard to see her go.
She called me right up when she arrived, asked me one more time to come.
A living on an L.A. freeway ain’t my kind of having fun.

I think I’d rather be a cowboy. I think I’d rather ride the range.
I think I’d rather be a cowboy than to lay me down in love and lady’s chains.

We were just beginning, it was such an easy way.
Laying back up in the mountains making songs for sunny days.
She got tired of picking daisies and cooking my meals for me.
She can live the life she wants to, yes, it’s all right with me.

I think I’d rather be a cowboy. I think I’d rather ride the range.
I think I’d rather be a cowboy than to lay me down in love and lady’s chains.

I’d rather live on the side of a mountain than wander through canyons of concrete and steel.
I’d rather laugh with the rain and sunshine and lay down my sundown in some starry field.

Oh, but I miss her in the morning when I awake alone.
The absence of her laughter is a cold and empty sound.
But her memory always makes me smile and I want you to know,
I love her, yes I love her; just enough to let her go.

I think I’d rather be a cowboy. I think I’d rather ride the range.
I think I’d rather be a cowboy than to lay me down in love and lady’s chains.
I think I’d rather be a cowboy. I think I’d rather ride the range.
I think I’d rather be a cowboy than to lay me down in love and lady’s chains.

Jeffrey Zeldman, author of the incredibly eye-opening book Designing With Web Standards, has recently redesigned announced the redesign of the excellent web magazine A List Apart. This website has provided a wealth of knowledge for me as far as web design goes, so I highly recommend checking it out if you have not already. And bookmark it while you’re there: you won’t regret it.

Edit: After reading the article discussing the new design of A List Apart, I realized that Jason Santa Maria is the actual site designer, not Zeldman. My apologies.

Before I ever began my programming career, I had a sneaking suspicion that an abundance of coding at work would lead to decreased programming activity at home. And I fear that this is indeed becoming the case with me. I write a mixture of C++ and Perl all day long, five days a week. This level of productivity really taxes my mind, and it has recently resulted in an increase of non-computing related activity each evening. I’m reading books more often (Prince Valiant has certainly helped in that arena), and I’m watching more TV than I used to. I even occasionally go outside! Things like Googlebar Lite and my toolbar tutorial are slipping as a result. I dislike it, but my motivation for programming after 5:00 PM has dropped greatly. Weekends provide some level of salvation, but is that enough?

As I previously promised, I have created a web page that conveys my humble Prince Valiant book collection. (This page has been removed, since I now own the entire collection.) There are a total of 50 volumes in the Fantagraphics line, and I have but 11 of them (4 more should be arriving by mail in the next 2 or 3 weeks). Adding on to this sort of collection is part of the fun, and is a bit like hunting for Easter eggs. I’m just amazed at how much the early volumes sell for on eBay. I have seen several of the earliest volumes (1-7) go for as much as $70 a piece recently, so obtaining this entire collection will eventually cost me. However, I suppose it’s good for a man to have some sort of hobby, and these books have certainly been an enjoyable way for me to spend my time. And it’s a welcome departure from programming and computer gaming!

I did something today that I rarely do anymore: I spent time in the sun. Although a great portion of my childhood was spent in the great outdoors, I have since become an indoor creature. The result is my characteristically geeky, pale skin tone, which can’t hold up to those pesky ultraviolet rays like it once could. Needless to say, I am thoroughly cooked on my shoulders and neck. Hopefully that won’t give me too much of a problem in the coming days.

My reason for actually going out today was a pool party for the tenth grade Sunday school class I co-teach. Tomorrow is our final time together, as well as the final time I will actually be able to be called a teacher (I’m stepping down from that role for a while). I have taught a Sunday school for a number of years now (somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 or 6 years), so I will miss it a great deal. The class we have now is by far the best I’ve ever taught. If any of them happen to read this, they should know that I love each one greatly and will miss seeing them each week.

On a rather sour note, I have apparently been re-infected with whatever viral infection bothered me a few weeks ago. From the highly annoying cough to my joint aches and pains, I can truly say that I am sick and tired of being sick and tired. Oh how I long for no more tissues and cough drops!

A brand new WordPress release was made available a few days ago. I have updated my copy of it at this site, and hopefully I didn’t break anything. Several bug fixes and a new feature or two round out this new release.

I received my Prince Valiant books in the mail yesterday, and they are fantastic! The book paper is high quality, the colors are unbelievably vibrant, and each one is in surprisingly good condition (I bought them used on eBay). Being the geek that I am, I plan to create a little web page; a table listing all of the available books and the ones I currently own. Then I (and anyone else who takes a look) can keep track of the volumes which I still need to buy. Yes, these books are that good.