Friday, July 29th, 2005

In case you didn’t know, Internet Explorer 7 (beta) has been released to testers this week. Under the small, but growing threat from Firefox, Safari and Opera, MS decided to bring back their IE team and throw out a new browser to keep their current customers, and maybe win some back. A lot of people, myself included, was hoping to see some major rendering fixes so that web design and development would be much easier.

Anyone heralding the announcement of IE7 as a major leap forward for web standards is kidding themselves. Apparently, almost none of the well known IE bugs have been fixed since IE6 was released. I won’t bore you with all the particulars of escaping floats and hover states, but the point is that Microsoft is making it very difficult for web designers to write clean, fast code for use in all browsers. Generally speaking, one has to write code to standards, then go back and fix all the IE issues that crop up.

Granted … it’s a beta release, so I’m not *too* worried yet. If IE7 is released alongside Vista, we’ll be waiting at least 12-16 months anyhow. It’s just that, if no major strides are made between now and then with their browser, it’s going to be holding back the web … again. Even what I would consider basic CSS formatting issues are still unresolved. But hey, they’ll have RSS integration (something every other major browser has had for months, or in some cases, a year).

I sincerely hope that anyone reading this page uses an alternative browser - Firefox, Safari, Opera, whatever.

Welcome! If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Posted on July 29th, 2005 | 4 Comments »

Tuesday, July 26th, 2005

I got to see the shuttle launch this AM, which was really cool. When I was a lot younger, I had gone to see one with my family but they scrubbed it at the last minute, so I’ve always wanted to see an actual launch live. Oddly enough, I watched it no more than 2 or 3 miles from the same spot I was at as a young lad.

The liftoff was scheduled for 10:39am, so we planned to head out there at a decent time so we could at least get near the beach before liftoff, while not getting *too* near all the traffic (some of the people I went with had to be back @ class by 1pm). We actually only got within 10-15 miles of the actual liftoff, but it was still amazing to see how quickly that sucker got off the ground and out of our vision.

As a matter of fact, we just got out of our cars on the beeline and walked to a bridge to watch the actual lift off. Most estimates I read had anywhere from a quarter to half a million people converging for the launch today. Having a 2-lane expressway just wasn’t enough to handle all that traffic from Orlando.

Ever since I was a little kid, I have been infatuated with space flight - that interest has waned a bit in my old age, but I still am very interested with the shuttle and the space program in general. After a long hiatus, it’s good to actually get a shuttle back in the sky. Hopefully they don’t run into any issues and land safely as well.

As many bad things there are about Orlando, every few weeks I get reminded of the few things that do make it a really neat place. The weather and the beach usually are the ones doing it, but this time it was the shuttle launch. I won’t miss much of this place, but things like that make Florida unique.

Posted on July 26th, 2005 | 2 Comments »

Saturday, July 16th, 2005

About moving back to Atlanta. I’ve decided to move to Georgia after graduation. I’m actually kind of excited about it. I wasn’t sure until recently what I wanted to do for sure, but a few job opportunities combined with a better cost of living, and the simple fact that I don’t like Orlando that much (Florida is nice enough, but I would want to live near the coast if I were a FL resident) has compelled me to head north on October 1 of this year. I’ll miss being so close to the beach - and I’ll certainly miss the winters here, but there are a lot of good things about Georgia as well. It’s strange to not have a change of seasons. It just goes from Really hot to just kinda hot down here. I miss the fall and a true spring. But the main reason is work. There aren’t many good design companies in Orlando, and I already have a handful of companies in Atlanta singled out that I have the skill to work for. I’ve also started scouting apartments - I found a few potential apartment complexes in the area I want to live in, and hope to sign a lease by the end of the month or so.

I’ve met some really cool people while down here to be sure, but I don’t think this is the place for me. I’m honestly not too sure Atlanta is either, but I’d rather try my luck at getting a job there, and then figuring out my next step from there. It’s absolutely amazing to me that it’s already been a year since I moved down here. This time last year I was putting in my 2 week notice to Caribou Coffee and getting ready to move out of Georgian Hills. That seems like yesterday. In any event, 2 months from now I’ll be gearing up to move to a slightly nicer Apartment in A-town. Looking forward to it.

Posted on July 16th, 2005 | 13 Comments »