Blog: February 2005.

Humor for the Day

Ten Commandments: Minnesota Style

  1. Der’s only one God, ya know.
  2. Don’t make that fish on your mantle an idol.
  3. Cussing ain’t Minnesota nice.
  4. Go to church even when your up nort’.
  5. Honor your folks.
  6. Don’t kill. Catch and release.
  7. There is only one Lena for every Ole. No cheatin’.
  8. If it ain’t your lutefisk, don’t take it.
  9. Don’t be braggin’ about how much snow ya shoveled.
  10. Keep your mind off your neighbor’s hot dish.

New: Worth Reading

News articles and other web pages of interest.

I have added the first run of a new feature on my blog to present quick links to articles and other web pages that I find interesting. This will help separate this type of content out of my main blog — to better define what I want to present in this location — and place this material in a separate location on both this page and my links page.

Similar to the web links presented on my current links page the data will be stored in my content database and will be managed via my content administration pages. I am still playing with exact format and timeline for display of this content, but, in general, (I think) the feature is working quite well. Please let me know if you have any suggestions.

“Worth Reading” is located at the bottom of my blog page, before the archive, and on the links page at the bottom.

Posted: 24 February 2005, Matthew Schlukebier

Green Mars

From NASA

Bam, Bam!

On my way to Bedrock!

Just a little side story:

My friend, Hayley, and I were out to dinner on Monday night at a relatively new local restaraunt (Enjoy!) in Apple Valley. At the end of dinner, the server ran my Visa check card and brought back the receipt. I noticed something very funny …

Neither my first name, nor my last came through the computer correctly. My new last name is “Schlukebam”. I figured maybe it was Emeril, but when I pointed it out to Hayley, she mentioned that I must be related to Bam-bam from “The Flintstones!”

Bedrock, here I come!

Schlukebam… Bam! Bam, bam… okay, well, it was funny to me.

Posted: 17 February 2005, Matthew Schlukebam!

Albert Einstein

… Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust — we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper. Albert Einstein

Site restructure

Code clean-up

I spent some time today tightening up this site’s code. I had already created this site in XHTML 1.1 using CSS 2.1, et cetera, plus the site matched up with Section 508 and other means of accessibility. However, I think the code still didn’t quite match up with the proper idea behind a simple outline. With a little effort and experimentation, I think it is there. Take a few shots at it with whatever tools you have, and let me know what you think about it.

Further separation

In addition to the cleaner code, I removed the majority of the JavaScript functions present on the page. They are all contained within one script file, which has an onload function built in. This allows further separation of style and structure, and now function as well. The only downside is that only one JavaScript file can have the onload within it. Others are approaching this matter looking for solutions, however, I am not sure that I have found one that best suits the site yet. (See the link below for a related article.)

This site is (obviously) using active server pages (and VBScript). A neat little function that I added (in relation to the script files) is that if you add or remove a script file to the “extras” directory, the script tag will be added or removed automatically each time you refresh the page. And with the removal of the function calls from the main document, the “missing” functions cannot hurt the page when no longer present.

Related links.

Lots of missed links to review.

Here are a bunch of random links that I have been trying to get to and discover and/or review … anyway, they are all here for me to get to and you to fiddle around with as well.

Enjoy!

Oh, this would be nice if all companies allowed this. Here is a little something from “When blogging gets risky” from MSNBC:

Sun Microsystems, Inc. encourages employees to blog on company time and within company space, then posts the blogs on a dedicated site.

Posted: 16 February 2005, Matthew Schlukebier.

Technology Show at … Panera Bread?

For lunch today, I stopped by one of my usual hang-outs: Panera Bread in Plymouth, Minnesota.

Panera has been advertising quite a bit lately about its latest convenience for you at lunch — wi-fi. And, today, I finally saw it in use. At the table next to me, an indvidual sat down, opened up a laptop, and logged into Blogger and checked some e-mail accounts with Outlook. Talk about 21st century. Then, I took another look around the room to see if anyone else was doing similar. Nope. But nearby another older man was showing off his new cell phone using a voice command feature to call a friend; a family was taking photos and videos with a digital camera; and yet another was (of course) talking on a cell phone.

I began to wonder if anyone was there to eat.

Cool, but weird too.

Posted: 09 February 2005, Matthew Schlukebier.

Star Trek: Enterprise

Cancelled!

Well, UPN has done it. They have made the worst decision since their founding. They have cancelled Star Trek.

For the first time in nearly forty years — the first time since the original series — a Star Trek series has been cut short. While the viewership of the series has gone down since it started (no denial to that), UPN has made little effort to help improve the situation, while the producers of Star Trek have made extra effort. And rather then spend money to try and promote their only decent on-air television show, they [UPN] just threw it out.

While maybe a break is needed with the production of Star Trek — it has been going since 1987 — cancelling the series was not the best way to retire the franchise for the time being. Another season or two would have allowed the show to reach its true potential, at which point in time it would have been able to end the same as Star Trek: The Next Generation did.

The network is what should have been cancelled.

I have been extremely disappointed with UPN since its founding. Bad decisions about their good shows; increased numbers in their poorly-written, worthless half-hour comedies (the majority of which die after a year or two) have been brought on the air; and, little sign of anything except more commercials and lower quality programming.

Can anything be done? For the network: I doubt it. For Star Trek: If only the Sci-Fi Channel could pick the series up. However, it has been clear that they do not seem to have any interest in rushing into the Star Trek universe. They are busy with their three main flagship series (two Stargates and the new Battlestar Galactica). And you cannot blame them for that. But, it would still be great if they could save the day.

This was not a good day to die.

But UPN just does not care.

Posted: 03 February 2005, Matthew Schlukebier.