The unnecessary use of quotation marks is a pet peeve of mine. I don't know where people learned to use quotation marks for emphasis, but it's downright stupid. This blog has some amusing commentary on this inane practice. Fun reading.
Don't get me started on the misuse of apostrophes in (mostly American) written language!
I just came across a fantastic plug-in for Firefox called StumbleUpon. I had heard about it awhile back on on digg, but I didn't get around to installing in until the past weekend. StumbleUpon allows you explore oodles of web sites based on the interests you designate. It's a great way to learn about new websites that you'd never happen across otherwise. You can also share your sites with friends and vice versa. I think of it as a more usable version of del.icio.us. Highly recommended.
It seems like everyone is getting into the social networking scene these days. I just stumbled across Yahoo's version of MySpace/Friendster/etc. today. It's called Yahoo! 360°. I went ahead and created a page for myself for no other reason than to reserve my user name. I have to admit that I don't really care much about social networking. I do have pages on MySpace and Friendster, but I rarely visit them (let alone try to meet other people through them). I guess I just prefer meatspace (aka Real LifeŽ) for making friends and meeting people. Call me kooky.
Here's a site that's been around for a long time. It's not only very humorous, but also quite informative. It amazes me how many BAD web sites still exist, despite the advent of CSS. I guess a lot of people either use FrontPage or simply don't care about usability.
Anyway, this article lists the 2005 "Razzie Awards" for bad web sites. There are some real stinkers here. Enjoy.
read more | digg story
I came across this site this evening. It shows the how much the geography of North America has changed throughout the major geologic periods. I found the images fascinating. It really puts in perspective how dynamic geological forces are, and how dramatically different the continent is in the modern era. Looking back to when the dinosaurs lived (Cretaceous period) reveals a startlingly different landmass. Cool stuff.
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Just saw this story on Digg - it looks like Google has quietly added a large number of customizations for their personalized homepage. Some of them are pretty silly, but there are some gems here and there. I've been using Google's personalized homepage since they introduced it. It's a great way to keep track of news stories via RSS, and it's seamlessly integrated with Google's other applets (I use Gmail and Google Groups in addition to the search engine). Cool stuff.
read more | digg story
OK, I have to admit that I'm horrible about updating my site. I've been using Movable Type as a back-end for the site, which has made adding entries much simpler than manually coding the HTML. However, it still requires me to go into the tool and manually add entries. I know it's not really a big deal, but it's just one more step for me to go through to update the site.
Recently, I've come across a great little Firefox extension called Performancing. This cool plug-in overlays on top of the browser window and allows me to type in entries without having to go into the back-end tool. It's great for on-the-fly notes. Maybe now I'll update my site more often. Maybe. =)
I made the decision to change web hosts this week. A friend of mine, who also hosted at Bravidio Networks, lost access to his mail server last weekend (starting on 5/13 — go figure). He submitted several trouble tickets to Bravidio's helpdesk, but received no response whatsoever. I attempted to contact the powers-that-be at the company to no avail. In fact, I have a few open trouble tickets with them as well (including my cancellation/refund request)!
I had been quite satisfied with Bravidio's uptime and performance since moving my site to their servers back in April. However, I was concerned about getting a problem resolved if something went wrong with my site. Having moved from FeaturePrice hosting prior to Bravidio, I didn't want to go through the trauma of having my site down for weeks on end. I'm simply not going to put up with subpar support from a hosting company again. I suspect Bravidio's issues are related to growing pains. Outgrowing the ability to support one's customer base seems to be a common trend among web hosting companies. I hope for their sake that Bravidio can get their problems sorted out. However, I'm not going to wait around for them to get their act together.
I am now hosted at UnitedHosting. This host is highly regarded at the WebHostingTalk forums. Although the company itself is located across the pond in the UK, their datacenter is located right here in Texas (I'm on the Spirit server). The transition was seamless. After signing up with them yesterday, I already have my site up and running and am in the process of uploading some new projects. I've even had the opportunity to test their highly-touted support team. This evening, I submitted a trouble ticket to get my email to stop bouncing mail (apparently new accounts take a few days to authorize with UH's mail scanner). Within 10 minutes, I received a response to my ticket stating that the problem had been fixed. Needless to say, I was impressed.
Hopefully, their support will remain consistently good, and my domain can stay put for a while.
I decided to give the page a revamping after over 2 years of disuse. I'm now using the popular Movable Type weblog software to keep my page current. It's a much easier process to post new entries as well as change the overall site design.