Problem du jour: Firefox fonts

2007-10-10 1 min read Firefox Eddie

Goal for today: figure out why Firefox for Mac is displaying drastically smaller font-sizes than Firefox for Windows.

Why this may be difficult: I don’t have a Mac to use at work.

RSS newsreaders

2007-10-03 2 min read Firefox Rss Eddie

I am a big fan of Sage, the RSS newsreader plugin for Firefox. In my move, I have tried a few other apps that I thought would be a little better at handling the on-again, off-again nature of me checking my favorite feeds.

I tried Vienna for mac, as it was free, and it worked on my laptop (since I had already packed up the other computers). I liked it fair enough. One of my problems was the keystrokes required to mark all the posts in one feed read, but… aside from that, I had no real problem. (I learned a trick though, the listed keystroke is apple-shift-k, but really, all you have to press is k by itself! Useful, but still on the right hand side… not ergonomic enough.)

Since the PC was the first computer unpacked other than the laptop, I thought that I would give a windows reader a try. I settled on FeedDemon. I like the stuff it does on its own… the type of display, the checking, and the default behavior of folders. The thing I can not stand is the poor usability of the application. The keystroke for marking all feeds in a folder as read is fairly similar to the browser reload… it’s control-shift-r. My brain defaults to that occasionally. The real problem is that it has a separate keystroke for marking all posts in one feed as read, which is control-shift-a. Well, as my brain is hardwired for r, I have pressed that on more than one occasion when trying to mark all posts in a feed as read. What does this do? Well, it marks all posts in the folder I am in as read… and since I imported an OPML feed, it marks all of my feeds as read!!! I’ve already done that at least 5 times. Yes, it is trivial in the grand scheme of life, death, and taxes, but not insignificant for me.

I think that I am likely to go back to Vienna for the moment, with SharpReader (oldie with no bells-or-whistles, but it works the way I would expect) at work. If Vienna can’t convince me pretty soon, I may have to go back to Sage. (Further stating what a great plugin it is).

catching up

2007-10-03 2 min read Baseball Bethesda Boston Classical Music Red Sox Xslt Eddie

This is my appropriately named “catching up” post. As most know, I’ve moved over the last month. Despite my early action, I still had to do a lot of work at the end of the month. C’est la vie, that’s what moving is. Aside that, I’ve also been focused on various work related things (css, xslt, and the “portal” system), as well as the end of baseball’s regular season and the beginning of the post season.

On my list of things to touch in full… 1) Advanced DOM Scripting. I finished the book (a while ago) but haven’t had a chance to review it yet. At the risk of ruining the surprise for my one (hopefully) reader, it was teriffic, and I highly recommend it. I will do a full write-up later. 2) My comments on The Little Schemer. This is simply an amazing book that’s opened up a number of paths in my brain. I’m afraid that any review wouldn’t do it justice. Maybe some thoughts on the book everyone should read. 3) Random thoughts on Bethesda, Kensington, Rockville (my new home!), riding my bike again, the Tchaikovsky concert coming up, my xslt class coming up, my recent css exploits… as you can see, I’ve got a lot of things that I am thinking about, but nothing to put down on paper… yet. (Yes, I know, really, there is no paper… shut up!)

Contrast that with the time that I MUST spend with friends, and the potential Boston trip coming up… and I’ve got a lot to do!! Better get started. Washing my clothes now…

TBS broadcasting the Red Sox playoff game

2007-10-03 1 min read Baseball Red Sox Eddie

Alright, so I would be willing to admint that this is TBS’s first year covering the playoffs… but come on guys, can’t you do better than this??? You have cut out during first pitches, missed plays, repeated common Red Sox knowledge… and worst yet, you put Don Orsillio on the Rockies game. You’re on the clock guys.

Playoffs

2007-10-02 1 min read Baseball Red Sox Eddie

The Red Sox start the playoffs tomorrow at Fenway against the Angels. I will be rooting for them (as always), but with added urgency since I have the chance to go to Game 2 of the ALCS, when they advance. 🙂

Getting tickets is rather unpleasant, but I managed them somehow.

Guess I’ll have to start planning a trip to Boston.

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