Korny’s blog

Well, my previous post and linked page seems to work nicely. (I did fix a minor glitch in ie7)

However, since then I’ve done some more reading - and my conclusion is, don’t do what I did - ie6 png transparency is just too risky. Have a read of the discussion at http://blogs.cozi.com/tech/2008/03/transparent-png.html?cid=106552420 - they found that when used heavily, the AlphaImageLoader filter causes ie6 to deadlock. Ow. If it’s critical, you can work around this, but it sounds really really painful.

So I’ve reverted to using something that is basically Scott Schiller’s technique - see http://www.sietsma.com/korny/corner_test/test2.html - but on ie6, you get no translucency.

The good news is, I can now use a single image, instead of slicing the image up. And I’ve fiddled my rmagick rounded-corner generation code, it’s now getting pretty nice - I’ll post it when it’s done. Not as nice as what you can do if you’re a photoshop/gimp guru, but it’s nice to have something generated by code, so I can change colours/sizes at will.

The next step is probably to make this stuff javascriptable, so I can use a single div for a minimal styling version, and then prettify it in javascript… possibly. I’m still a bit unsure if using javascript makes the code more ’semantic’ or not.

[ed: sigh - I thought I’d posted this weeks ago.  Somehow, it got saved as a draft…]

I’m still getting spam in the moderation queue. Poot. I’ve gone through and disabled more stuff, I’ll see if I can work this out somehow.

Things seem to have been somewhat down lately. We’ve had two funerals in the past month, one for Yolande’s grandmother, a fabuous gal who is sorely missed; and one for Sophie and Aaron’s daughter Jordan, also a very sad story. Phew. I don’t know if it’s just random, or if it’s the age we have gotten to, but there have been a lot of funerals in the last few years…

On the work front, I’m on a nifty Sensis R&D project - more details when it goes public. But the lack of a front-end coder on the project has forced me to cram my CSS and Javascript considerably - I’ll have to have a go at styling this blog!

Comments are back on, at least from here on, hopefully I can get spam blocked somehow, but it seems pointless to block friends but not spammers.

Disabling comments for now (not that I get many!) - despite making comments moderation-only, I still get a vast number of failed spam attempts. Maybe if I turn off comments I’ll drop off their lists. And maybe I’ll get a pet unicorn for Christmas!

While I’m blogging…

I’ve started using a Getting Things Done TiddlyWiki - there seem to be a few of these around, I’m using the d-cubed tiddlywiki from http://www.dcubed.ca/ - it’s quite neat, and I seem to be managing to keep it up to date. I’ve set up a second standard TiddlyWiki for “general stuff” - things that aren’t tasks so much as reference info.

This is helped by the fact that I’ve set up a https based Subversion repository at home, which I’m now using to store all my vital configs, scripts, etc. - and being http based, I can check in/out files from work as well as home; I can even mount it as a WebDAV disk from OSX, Linux and (to a lesser degree) Windows. Though this seems to generate a pile of checkins, so I don’t do it often - manually checking in and out will do me just fine.

And it’s very nice to be able to share and access all the little handy scripts, to-do lists, and the like. Especially to-do lists; I haven’t managed before this to find a way to carry around *electronic* to-do lists that I could access from anywhere, and keep backed up. I was doing OK with index cards a-la HipsterPDA, but they aren’t so good when I want to put in URLs, or back them up! Still, they are my fallback solution for sorting out tasks in meetings or on the train… My N95 will actually render the TiddlyWiki, which is pretty impressive, but it’s not really usable, and there isn’t a subversion client for the N95 anyway!

Now I just have to work out how to integrate this with Google Mail, Google Calendar, Remember the Milk, my Delicious tags, and all the other places I’ve strewn todo-lists and starred items and the like.

I foolishly left the default wordpress setting to “send me an e-mail but allow comments”. So now I’m on some spam source - I’ve made comments “moderate only” but I have to log in regularly and kill a pile of spam in the “to-moderate” folder. Maybe it’ll force me to blog more!

Stretch hummer at Priscilla try two, originally uploaded by Korny Sietsma.

An amazing sight… Global warming anyone?

Never say good luck on opening night!, originally uploaded by Korny Sietsma.

Slight chaos at the opening of Priscilla the musical… There’s been a bomb threat, and the whole theatre has been evacuated into the city square! Fun fun fun!

Here comes the sun…, originally uploaded by Korny Sietsma.

And Gough is a happy cat. Though hungry, as always!

the bike of doom!, originally uploaded by Korny Sietsma.

thorne’s evil bike!

Rutherglen, originally uploaded by Korny Sietsma.

Just back from a great week in Rutherglen … Doing nothing much!