Rants & Raves

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April 16, 2001 Kate Visits TSS!

Kate makes a visit to TSS!
Hi Kate! We've missed you, our girl geek icon. For those of you who don't know, Kate Botello was cohost of TSS from the beginning of the show in May 1998 until April 2000. She was cheery and lively, and she knew her stuff. She she left to cohost Gamespot/Extended Play. I should say that Patrick Norton has done a great job since taking over from Kate, and I would not trade him for anyone. With a calm, sweet, and understated demeanor, he is the perfect foil for Leo's frequent hyperactivity.

There are a few limitations to Leo's tip about creating a drop shadow effect for your web pictures. If you use the jpeg format, the color of the background of the picture has to match the background color of your web page, or else it won't look very good. Kinda like this:

As you can see, the white picture background doesn't match the blue background. If you want the picture to look right against a pattern background like the one on this page, you have to use your graphics program to designate a transparent color (in this case white) so that the pattern background will show through. However, transparencies only work in images with 256 colors or less,
and only for the png or gif formats. On top of that, graphics programs will generally not do the drop shadow effect on images with less than 256 colors. So, do it in this order: convert to png or gif format, create the dropshadow effect, then reduce the color palette to 256 colors, and then set the transparency color. In the end you should get something like this:

Surprise, surprise. Jessica, the least geeky Screen Saver, wins the geek makeover contest. This supports what I was thinking earlier about there being some backlash against the geek makeover contest. Most of us TSS fans admire geekiness; we are trying to increase our own computer knowledge by tuning in. Therefore, treating geekiness as something that needs to be fixed goes against that. Geeks have the emotional depth to appreciate someone for their intelligence. Not their fashion sense. The contest might have had some takers if it had been a simple drawing for the makeover, instead of having to tout one's lack of fashion sense on national TV. I considered entering myself, but not knowing that there would be no competition, I thought that my appearance wasn't quite bad enough to win. Not that I really care about getting a makeover. I just really, really want to see the set and the show being made live. But I'm glad I didn't. It would be embarrassing to go on TV to say that I think I look bad and need help.

Posted by Christy on April 16, 2001 10:41 PM

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