Category: Work

Attack of the Killer Nested Tables

I took a major step backwards in my attempts to write better structured HTML at work today. I’ve resorted to using a few nested tables in a layout that I’m currently working on. The reasons are “ehh”: time allocated to the project (almost none), possible future replacement of the navigation with flash will be easier (I think), working from a mock up done by a print designer (print != web).

I can’t help but feeling like I’m moving back towards 1999/1998 with this layout. So much code to display so little content… This layout leaves a bad taste in my mouth. (It’s either that, or the salt bagel I just ate…)

-Hool

Contrary to popular belief, I don’t want to work in a "cave"

Something’s been bugging me about my workstation all day, and I finally put my finger on it. One of the strips of flourecent lighting that is usually off is on today, and its causing glare near the top of my monitor. It’s been bugging me on a subconcious level. I only figured it out after playing with the angle of my screen and seeing the glare move.

I prefer to have the lighting directly over my head turned off, which was fine when I was in a bull-pen with like-minded individuals, or in a cubicle on my own. I was finaly able to compromise with the folks I’m sharing working space with now. The flourecents in the bullpen are off, the fixtures that create ambient light by bouncing it off the wall are on. (The light sources themselves are hidden abouve acoustic tiling, and there is a about a 3 foot gap between the tiling and the wall, allowing light to bounce down.) I actually like this set up much better than just having everything off.

There is a good-natured, running joke around here that some people would prefer to work in a cave. The fact is, they are just trying to cut down on monitor glare from the flourecent lights. I think the ambient light solution (described above) in this building is great, and I wish it was used a lot more. Why can’t all the fixtures just bounce light off the ceiling?

Anyway, I went over to the wall and played with the switches for my immediate area. I was able to get rid of the glare on my screen, and I don’t think I’ve affected anyone else’s light levels too much. The people that are still here in my immediate area are fine with the changes I just made. I guess I’ll see if I have to do some negotiating about the lights when I come in tomorrow.

Another advantage to the current lighting: my lava lamp looks so much cooler now. 🙂

Some People…

So, I’m looking at some printouts at my desk, and decide I could do with a bit more light. I reach over to turn my desklamp on and nothing happens.

I examine the lamp more closely and realize that someone’s stolen the lightbulb, out of my lamp, which is sitting on my desk. What the hell?

I thought briefly about bitching to the company-bulk mailing list, but that never has the desired response. I would have just started a chain of smart-ass replies. 1/8 of the company would feel obliged to share thier remarkable wit, (“The lights are on but nobody’s home..” , “Who’s bright idea was that?” , “Huh heheh huhhuh – you said ‘bulb'”, and worse – ad infinitum.) 1/8 would send “please quit with the stupid replies” to the jokesters, but it would go to the whole company, (since they don’t know the difference between “Reply” and “Reply to all” in Outlook,) and 3/4 of the company (the remainder) would laugh, then get annoyed, and then update thier filters to block the rest of the thread – not neccisarly in that order.

Instead, I went down to see the nice folks in facilities. I told them what happened, and after sharing my exasperation with the annonymous bulb-filtcher, they gave me 2 new bulbs. Now I have a spare in case the first one burns out, (or someone steals it again.)

Now I’m tempted to send a message to company bulk that says:

[Quote]
To all those that might be interested: The next time the bulb in your desklamp burns out, feel free to contact facilities for a replacement. They have plenty on hand, so you shouldn’t feel the need to take the one out of the lamp on your neigbor’s desk.

This has been a public service announcement brought to you by the web team.
[Quote]

But again, I’d just succeed in annoying 3/4 of the company. So I’m bloogging it instead.

At least they didn’t take the bulb from my Lava-Lamp.

Edited on Jan 17th 2003, 01:25 by Hooloovoo

IE PNG Petition

Not that it really bothers me too much as a user, (since my primary browser has proper PNG support) but as a designer, my life would be made that much easier if MSIE supported the PNG image format correctly. So, without further adieu, I present to you the Proper PNG Support in Internet Explorer for Windows online petition.

I’m not sure if anyone remembers, but a while ago, I posted this image in an entry:

That is an example of why PNG alpha transparency is cool, and why no one really uses them yet. If your browser supports the format properly, you will see a penny sitting on the background color of the page (no matter which theme you happen to be using) without the anti-aliased “fringe” so common to transparent GIF images. If your browser doesn’t (*cough* IE) you see the penny sitting in a light-grey box.

There are work-arounds for getting PNG images to display properly in IE, but the methods I’ve seen thus far seem kludgy to me.

3 Hours to Go

Soon I’ll be counting down the minutes until my vacation. The only reason I haven’t left already is that I’m waiting on a delivery from an outside design agency. I don’t really want to have to come in on Monday if I don’t have to – of course if I do, that’s 8 hours less PTO I have to burn…

Tick Tock.

Make it stop. Please, make it stop.

I finally figured out why I’ve been so edgy since lunch.

The HVAC system in my part of the building is acting up again.

It used to buzz or whine in the mornings for a couple of minutes and for much longer at night. I’ve literally been driven out of the office at 4:45 a couple of time because the niose was giving me a headache. Our facilities people finally figured out what the problem was, and fixed it. (well – “MacGyvered” it anyway…)

Right now its not whining, but it is clicking – sounds like a pc doing some heavy HD writing over in the corner. (I thought that’s what it was at first, untill I walked over and saw that the machines over there are all powered down.) I really noticed it about 30 min ago – it probably took a while for the noise to register as unusual – I bet it’s been clicking away since at least noon.

The noise is driving me batty – music doesn’t seem to mask it, and I don’t have any headphones here. 🙁

Frustration.

Wouldn’t you think it’s bad when a company upgrades its firewall and the person primarily responsible for updating content on said company’s live web server can no longer gain access to it because traffic on port 22 (used for ssh) is now blocked?

Or how about blocking all port 443 (https) traffic – which ends up breaking the company’s online store, since customers can no longer access the secure transaction server?

That’s just the tip of the iceburg.

Gah.

Somebody slap me.

I spent most of yesterday working on a nifty little php script for work…

When I was testing it, I was running into all sorts of odd behavior and I got tired of trying to de-bug it. I put it up on my website so I could work on it over the weekend.

I just spent the last hour or so breaking the script from a single php file into 6. I thought my scheme for having the different steps the script goes through as functions controled by a variable called $stage was somehow flawed, since in some cases I was making the script pass arguments back to itself via the URL. Or something – I wasn’t exactly sure what was wrong. It was buggy and needed to be fixed.

THEN I see that I’m using “=” instead of “==” to check what “stage” I’m on in the master control structure that determines which function to do.

OF COURSE the statement

if (stage = 1) {
doStepOne;
} elseif (stage = 2) {
doStepTwo;
…

is going to always have me doing step 1…

GAH! I r stupid.

Now the question is, do I go back to my single php page design, or keep working on the multi-page one?

Edited on Oct 27th 2002, 07:49 by Hooloovoo

Edited on Nov 22nd 2002, 17:56 by Hooloovoo