June 2007 Archives
Our new pastor, Msgr David, sent me an e-mail saying the website "looked a little sparse." I suspected it was an older browser issue, so I went looking for a website that would take snapshots of www.sjnlilburn.com in different browser versions. I had done this in the past, but I'm amazed at how the tools have evolved. I used two sites. Browsershots.org (free) and one is BrowserCam.com (free 24 hours trial.) The latter is really good and worth the trouble to sign up for a free trial. I used a bloglines disposable e-mail address to register, in case I want to sign up again.
It turns out Internet Explorer versions 4, 5, 5.5, and 6 were all suffering from a stylesheet box problem that, through some trial and error, I was able to repair.
These are some of the many snapshots BrowserCam generated for me. (I could zoom into each one.) The second shows the sparse problem.
The code fix was associated with a technique to trick IE 5.0 / 5.5 / 6.
#left_menu {
width: 155px;
voice-family: "\"}\"";
voice-family:inherit;
width: 155px;
}
/* CSS1 UAs should see and use 2nd width */
html>body #left_menu { width: 160px }
Well-behaved browsers end up picking up the 160px width. IE 5 and 6 pick up the first 155. 5.5 picks up the second 155.
The numbers are backwards, though, because the 160 should be a smaller number than 155 not larger, so there is probably something else going on. I'm just happy the site is no longer sparse.
What chance does a calf have when caught by a pride of lions and a pair of crocodiles? Doesn't seem very good...
Quote at end: "You could sell this video." Thanks to Scot.
Acquired Feb 10 2004:
Machine Name: iMac
Machine Model: PowerMac6,3
CPU Type: PowerPC G4 (3.3)
Number Of CPUs: 1
CPU Speed: 1.25 GHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 256 KB
Memory: 512 MB
Bus Speed: 167 MHz
Boot ROM Version: 4.7.8f1
Serial Number: QP40601BQB8
Exploded diagram shows Airport Extreme (which is what I'm looking for today.)
Claire got straight A's again earning another 10 songs off iTunes.She could only come up with 9 a few weeks ago, but this morning she announced she had decided on her 10th tune-- Radio Killed The Video Star by the Buggles (1979.)
Bellsouth fixed something in May that cured some outage problems. Since then DSL has been reliable and zippy. In fact, I was surprised how quickly the 4 megabyte Video Killed song came down, so I did another speed test. The 1.22 Mbps download is a bit faster than all previous tests, so I think it all comes down to Bellsouth getting something squared away that hasn't been square for about a year. Uploads are much slower, but that is expected.
Download Statistics 1.04 MB
------------------------------------------------------------------
Best Speed = 1.22 Mbps, Average speed = 1.22 Mbps
Worst Speed = 1.22 Mbps, Average time taken = 7.14 secs
Upload Statistics 1.04 MB
------------------------------------------------------------------
Best Speed = 0.21 Mbps, Average speed = 0.21 Mbps
Worst Speed = 0.21 Mbps, Average time taken = 40.57 secs
I noticed that posting comments was taking 15 to 20 seconds. I typed "movabletype comment posting delay" in Google and found this article with these instructions about an anti-spam service, blitzed.org, that has gone out of business. The comment posting routine was trying to contact the defunct service and check to see if the poster was coming from a "blacklisted" spam source. It would give up after 15 to 20 seconds.
Fix instructions:
1. Login to Movable Type. (Your account will need to have System Administrator privileges.)
2. Click on the “Plugins” link in the main navigation on the left hand side.
3. Look for the “SpamLookup - Lookups” plugin set listed among your other plugins.
4. Click “Show Settings.”
5. Under “IP Blacklist Services” highlight and replace the text “opm.blitzed.org” with “zen.spamhaus.org”.
6. Click “Save Settings.”
Comment posting much quicker now! I think this formal kind of support is an advantage of using MovableType
