Standing On Boxes » Uncategorized

If things are slow…

jacs — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:16:11 +0000

Maybe it’s just when I do things from the WordPress admin interface but…

I’m using the default Yahoo WordPress database config — meaning I told the Yahoo site manager interface to install WordPress for me. Not sure what it does but occasionally it comes to a staggering halt when doing some database operation. It eventually recovers but it really shouldn’t do that.

So don’t panic! I’m looking into it. (And it only affects the blog, not anything else I have on the site.)

In Moderation…

jacs — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 02:08:44 +0000

A word to the wise — all comments to this blog are moderated. At least the first time someone posts a comment. (Of which there have been 2 so far since I set up this blog – both spam.)

Safari…

jacs — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 08:37:42 +0000

I tried the Safari v3 beta on several different machines this past week. On my work PC (Windows XP Pro) it actually works like a charm. No crashes or anything like that.
On my Powerbook (A 12″ G4 (last generation before the MacBooks – so it is maxed out as far as Powerbooks go))… on the other hand..
It ran BUT everything seemed to have slowed down. Menus dropped down slower. Text entry in some programs was slower. Firefox slowed down to almost unusable. Overall… not encouraging (Good thing it is a beta)
I uninstalled it on my Powerbook. The system seems a bit faster now. Except Firefox (2.0). That stayed slow after the uninstall. The uninstall must not have uninstalled everything.
Haven’t tried it on my mini (under either Mac OSX or XP)
I should say, just to be honest, that I’ve always felt Firefox on a Mac was excruciatingly slow. Speed wise, on my Macs, Safari has always been faster subjectively. Not a big deal. I prefer the uncluttered looked of Safari anyway. I don’t need/want “Kitchen Sink Software.” I just want a web browser that works. And I have yet needed to visit a web site that doesn’t work with Safari.
Sure, Firefox has that wonderful extension thing going for it… but I don’t need most of that. (And I don’t understand the Safari hatred in some quarters. And I don’t care that some people claim Firefox is better. So let’s not go there. Okay? I come from the “Simple is good” school of user interface design. Safari fits my philosophy better than anything else at this point.)
I do use Firefox almost exclusively at work. But that’s because I don’t have much choice other than IE. (I use both because I work on a Web 1.0 application/web interface to one of our applications (Meaning it has very little Javascript and only uses CSS for font colors, and other color things.) And no, I can’t rewrite it as a Web 2.0 kind of thing. I can’t change the interface – much.)

I worry about things…

jacs — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 08:15:37 +0000

Can’t explain it, I just do. Probably more than I really should. Used to drive my ex crazy.
Usually it’s about the future. I try to guess/predict what is going to happen based on things I’ve done or things that could have happened. And prepare for them. In all possible permutations.
Not a good thing, I think, to be so pessimistic as a result of that. Hope for the best, expect the worst?
I also worry about things happening as a result of something I did. Usually as a result of driving (A lot of my worries? Center around my car. Especially if I felt like I did something stupid or potentially foolish while driving. Yes, a matter of perception. )
Oddly enough… this part of the country… some of the worse drivers I’ve ever seen. They don’t pay any attention to speed limits or things like yield signs or stop signs or red lights…
And I worry that this has seriously affected my own driving ability. I know I drive faster than I should on the way to work/home every day… even if I’m driving WITH traffic so I can’t really drive much slower without causing an accident. I need to work on that. Need to get my regular speed down a notch or two. Cut back on the yellow light syndrome. Especially since I’ll be traveling this summer to a part of the country where they actually pay attention to traffic laws.
Bad driving habits? Hard to break. Especially when it is the norm for your area.
And to top all this off? This area… rated in the top 10 by my insurance company for safe drivers… in the country… based on how many accidents people have. Scary, very scary. Especially since I actually see how people around here drive.
Have to wonder if that is based on only that insurance company’s customers (Insurance wasn’t required around here until a couple years ago. So a lot of people didn’t even have car insurance.)

Okay… now we’re current…

jacs — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 01:42:17 +0000

Some additional notes…
The problem with the blog… the partition on my Powerbook I keep my blog on… something went wrong with it last night. A huge chunk of it is unreadable. And a ton of files were in that spot… including the database file containing my daily blog entries. And my backup was 4 days old. Fortunately, my fics are stored elsewhere.
(I have a new/larger drive waiting to be installed but there are warrantee issues… and the whole — Apple doesn;t design their laptops to have user upgradable hard drives. Add memory? No problem. Add a wireless card? Sure. Change the battery. Not a big deal. Replace/upgrade the hard drive? Expect to spend an hour with a screw driver just taking it apart. There must be over 50 screws to take out to get to the hard drive. Yikes!)
I backed up everything important tonight… but there are a bunch of programs I’ll have to reinstall when I replace the hard drive (though if I want to use them, I have them installed on my mini so it isn’t a big deal.)