Rants & Raves Archives
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I seem to be a Tweak UI evangelist. I don't try to be, it's just that there are a lot of things that it makes easier. On tonight's bootcamp segment, Leo showed a somewhat complex way to add an expandable Control Panel folder to the start menu in Windows. Tweak UI makes it a lot easier. In TweakUI, click the desktop tab and click on "Control Panel" to highlight it. Then click the "Create As File" Button and save it to the C:\WINDOWS\Start Menu folder.
Bye Russ! I'll miss you. I don't think there is anyone else at TSS who will make as good a target.
Russ' Last Dish
Posted by Christy at 08:07 PM
February 14, 2002 Resizing Text and Cascading Style Sheets
In tonight's bootcamp segment, Leo said that HTML pages that use cascading style sheets can't have the text resized by the user, unless the user overrides the font sizes in the accessibility options. This is not strictly true. My entire site uses CSS, and you can change the text size using Ctrl-scroll, or by changing the IE browser options under View, Text Size. This is because I use "relative" font size units, such as 120%. If a web page author specifies the font size in points or pixels, such as 12pt or 14px, then the text size cannot be changed with Ctrl-scroll or "View, Text Size". I have put up the following page which demonstrates the difference:
Resizable Text And Cascading Style Sheets
Posted by Christy at 11:41 PM
February 08, 2002 Mitnick's Radio, Cell Phone Shooters, and Disposable DVDs
Hmm, it looks as though the news stories didn't make it into the show notes today. I may have a gig chasing down the news links after all.
Mitnick to Plead for Ham License
Have Cell Phone, Will Shoot
DVDs That Self-Destruct (Also on Slashdot)
Posted by Christy at 07:30 PM
February 07, 2002 News Articles
I had an new idea for my rants entries. How about finding the links to the news articles that they discuss at the beginning of the show?
Oops, I checked the TSS show notes, and they've already started doing that. Yesterday. Oh well. I feel like that guy in the commercial about bad timing. But they did leave one out, the article on nematodes being exposed to microwaves:
Mobile Safety Debate Heats Up.
What wasn't mentioned on the show was the significance that these findings have on the debate over whether cell phones cause cancer. They found that the nematodes (basically, small worms) grew faster when exposed to cell phone radiation. Cancer occurs when cells that shouldn't be dividing and growing begin to do so out of control. However, there's no evidence yet that the microwave radiation causes DNA mutation, which is the necessary trigger for cancer.
Posted by Christy at 11:48 PM
February 01, 2002 My Netcam Appearance on TSS
Yes, that was me on the netcam on Thursday. If you've watched the TSS cubecam lately, you know about the signs that often appear in the background. The most prominent has been the "Sarah Rules" sign (Daily Dish: The Saga Behind the Sign), referring to TSS producer Sarah Lane. However, Darci Wood also had her "Darci Rocks" sign up for a time. She is one of my favorite TSS people. When I thought of putting up the sign as a way of perpetuating this ongoing gag, I decided it was time to call in with my question about browser safe colors. I had some idea of what browser safe colors are about, but I have no intention of dealing with them for the layout of my site. But I did design a Javascript tool that allows web designers to design the custom scrollbar colors that appear in Internet Explorer. I wanted to know if I should add an option for browser safe colors.
The video portion of the call almost didn't happen. The instructions on the TechTV site listed iVista as an option for videoconferencing software. I had heard that NetMeeting doesn't work with ATI Radeon video cards, so I chose iVista. After submitting my question to Kevin in the Netcam Cineplex, he called me on the phone. He told me that they were no longer using iVista on the TSS set, and directed me to where I could find Netmeeting on my computer. But there was no icon for it under Programs, Accessories, Communications, as he said. At this point he said it was okay, that I would just be on by phone, and put me on hold.
Well, I wasn't going to settle for that after making the sign. Thinking that I had simply neglected to install NetMeeting, I grabbed my Windows 98 CD and went to the Add/Remove Programs control panel. But it said that it was already installed. A quick file search revealed that the icon was in Programs, Accessories, Internet Tools. I started it up and it worked. I'm not sure if NetMeeting was patched or if the driver wrapper that I installed that made it work. Now the problem was to let Kevin know that it was working. Ten minutes before I was to go on-air, he came back on the phone to go over my question again. He got the netcam connection working, commented on the sign, and put me on hold again. Five minutes later he came back to tell me that it was Darci's birthday (which I didn't know) and said I could wish her a Happy Birthday if I liked. When I did get on air, I stumbled over my question a bit, but I loved the reaction I got from Darci.
Posted by Christy at 09:32 PM