Month: February 2009

Categories
Just Shelley

The car: epilogue

I took my car into the shop last Monday, telling them to keep the car until they discovered the problem.

Unlike the last time I took the car in, they could see the charging light, as well as hear the chattering relay (thanks, Dave). They had a hard time hunting down the problem, though.

Three days later, the car was fixed. The shop replaced the alternator they had installed, but the replacement overcharged. They then switched to a Motorcraft alternator, which finally worked. They still kept it overnight one more night to cold start it the next morning to be sure it was fixed. They also replaced the battery, but since it was the original seven year old battery, not unexpected. Not welcome, either, but not unexpected.

I picked it up Thursday and ran errands, ran errands Friday, and today I took it on an out of town trip. Everything tested out, current car crises resolved. Thanks for suggestions and advice last week. It helps to work from knowledge.

Categories
Photography

Snow Leopard

Scratch my belly, and I’ll scratch yours.

Snow leopard stretching in the sun

Very loosely related

Categories
Burningbird

Frugal Algorithm ported

The Frugal Algorithm has been ported from WordPress to Drupal, though I’m still adding odds and ends.

I used the wordpress_import module to import the previously exported WordPress entries and comments. I then used my MissouriGreen theme pages, but the older WordPress stylesheet, and then mixed and matched accordingly.

Categories
Critters

RIP Thinker

If you’ve seen my photo titled The Thinker you’ve seen our zoo’s favorite chimp, Cinder.

Cinder suffered from a hereditary disease that caused her to lose her hair when she was young, though her health was good despite the loss. She’s a sweet tempered girl, and one of my favorite photo subjects, because her hairless state provides visual access to her fascinating physiology. Cinder also has the most expressive face.

The Thinker

Cinder and seven other of her chimp family members caught a cold last week. According to a press release, she looked like she was improving Sunday morning, and her appetite had returned. However, she collapsed, suddenly, Sunday afternoon, and couldn’t be saved.

I’ve spent hours in her company, sharing glances through glass, across the fields outdoors, her posing for many photos. I’m really going to miss my Thinker.

Categories
Specs

IE’s compatibility view

There’s been a lot of confusion about IE8’s compatibility view. To address the confusion, the IE Blog posted a note to clarify how compatibility view works. I think the site did a good job laying all the variations, though I’m not necessarily overjoyed about Microsoft’s decision to create a list of sites that are IE7 compatibility view, by default.

To see which sites will be displayed in IE mode, rather than standards mode, type the following into the IE address bar:

res://iecompat.dll/iecompatdata.xml

Netflix, Forbes, CNN, several Google sites in various countries, SF Gate, Facebook, microsoft.com…there are a significant number of sites in “compatibility view”. I appreciate that Microsoft is holding on to a tiger that is currently biting its butt, but protecting sites that need to update just keeps crappy stuff around that much longer.

For those sites not on the list, you can click a button on the toolbar to view it in compatibility view. However, the button will not display if the site uses a meta element to specifically say the site is IE8 standards compatible. If you access most of my sites with IE8, you won’t see the button. If you do, it’s only because I’ve forgotten to add the meta tag— my sites all work with both IE7 and IE8. IE6, too, but rather plainly.

I wish we didn’t have these browser version games, as they limit the advances we can make on the web. The IE compatibility view reminds me of the recently approved US DTV switch delay: they penalize the prepared and reward the procrastinator.