Blog: January 2003
How to order Pizza?
Will the web never cease to amaze us? I certainly hope not! This evening I decided to give in and call up Pizza Hut to try their “new” Stuffed Crust Gold - a variant of one of my favorite types of pizza. Since now is the time for low income and high prices, I felt I would need to find a coupon, if possible. The first place to check: PizzaHut.com
I have been to this site before and used their coupon search function - a useful tool. This time, I didn’t get that far. On their home page was a link to ordering pizza online. I laughed and figured this was probably only available in New York or Los Angeles - but I decided it was worth a look anyway.
What do you know - it’s available all over the Twin Cities Metro Area - and my local Pizza Hut was one of them. Amazing! Using their online “shopping cart” was relatively simple - though it could use a little fix-up - and I think made the ordering process easier than a phone call. How many times do they ever get your pizza that correct - or ever offer you all available options.
Forty-five minutes later (pretty standard these days), it was here. Oh, and it was good pizza too.
Posted: 29 January 2003, Matthew Schlukebier
Smart Displays
Hey, Microsoft or not, the new Smart Displays look incredible! Remote for your computer, remote for your media systems, what else can they do...
Posted: 25 January 2003, Matthew Schlukebier
Contribute Report #1
I have been using Macromedia Contribute for the last few hours on my personal site. However, this is the first time any changes can be seen.
I have had more difficulties with this “gold” version of 1.0, than with the beta test releases. The biggest difficulty comes with trying to produce lists. When you enter text on the screen (in any different form), you can then select the “list button” to convert it to a list. Each time I have tried this, Contribute breaks out of the <div> tag that contains all of the site content, and splits the page into three very unusual pieces.
The top part remains in the correct <div> tag. The list is created with a new <div> tag inside of the <li>...</li> and the text inside of the <div>. And the remaining portion of the page is placed into a new <div> tag with no identification or class attribute.
I have tried changing the structure of the site a number of times, but so far, with no luck. More soon.
Posted: 25 January 2003, Matthew Schlukebier
Hybrid Cars
Prius. Genius.
Prius. Genius. Cool. You have got to love those ads about the Toyota Prius. The Toyota Prius, in case you were wondering, is the only Hybrid-Electric Vehicle (HEV) currently available from Toyota. (The Honda Insight and Civic are the other two hybrid cars available so far, and Toyota is discontinuing its electric SUV.)
So what is a Hybrid you ask? Well, a hybrid car is a vehicle that uses both a gas engine and an electric motor. The electric motor gives the car a number of advantages over any other auto. A hybrid has a higher miles per gallon, can run a short distance without any gasoline (although, that is not recommended) and, most of all, the vehicle has super ultra low emissions. (The SULEV rating comes from various clean-air laws in California.)
Like so many other Prius owners, I will begin to add some of my “miles per gallon” information to this site in the near future. All I have calculated so far is the that car averaged 44 mpg in the fall, and is averaging 41 mpg this winter.
Hybrid Car Information Online:
Here are a few places to find information about these cars - Prius Envy and Prius Online are more “owners” places to start than the others...
- Toyota Prius (Hybrid)
- Honda: Insight | Civic
- Coming Soon: Ford Hybrid
- Hybrid Cars (www.hybridcars.com)
- Prius Envy
- Prius Online