Monthly Archives: July 2003

A flying visit

Tuesday July 22nd 2003

The weekend saw us travelling to and from Scotland in the space of 48 hours in order to attend sister Hazel’s and brother-in-law (to be) Ian’s engagement party.

The car almost knows its own way now, so the drive up was pretty smooth and we picked cousin Iain & Emily up from Glasgow Airport on the way past, pretty much on schedule.

Saturday brought a showery day, with overcast skys – I took the picture on the right just as the Waverly was leaving Helensburgh pier and two seconds later it was lashing it down.

It had cleared up nicely for the party later on in the evening, though, and it turned out to be quite a good night. Much boogie-down with Aunties Mary & Helen was done and it was really cool to see most of the immediate family in one place.

The night ended on a bit of a weird note for myself once we were back at my parents place. After a visit to the bathroom I decided to treat myself to a quick lie down on the bed, you know – just to get my second wind.

Well, that was the last thing I remember doing – woke up on Sunday with a pounding headache and my change was all over the floor, indicating that Fliss had some trouble undressing me!

Happens to the best of us… ;o)

At least there was a cracking British Grand Prix to watch while I regained my composure on Sunday afternoon. I cant remember the last time Formula One had a race that exciting, but it set me up nicely for the drive back down the motorway.

The legacy of the browser wars

Thursday July 17th 2003

With the announcement a month or so ago that Internet Explorer will no longer be released as a stand-alone product, it became apparent that the only evolution in browser technology will be those which come from the Opera or Mozilla stables. Seems that although MicroSoft won the war, it couldn’t really be bothered with the long term upkeep of the territory it had claimed.

(There’s a worrying real life parallel here involving countries, but this is neither the time nor the place.)

And now, banished from the webscape, Netscape has finally been laid to rest by those in charge at AOL deciding to shut the project down completely. Part of me feels a little sad – Navigator was the first browser I used and one I swore by until I became a web developer. After that my attitude towards it changed completely – sentiment aside, it was a buggy piece of shit and I’m glad it’s gone forever.

So here we are – five years later and the dreams of standards compliant browsers delivering an even playing field across platforms is further away than ever. Sure, if everyone switches to Mozilla or Opera then bleeding edge sites will work perfectly without tricks and hacks. But with the masses sticking with the default install of IE that they get with their new windows based machine, it seems unlikely that the sheer scale of infestation managed by MicroSoft will be diluted any time soon.

It took many years before most web developers became brave enough stand up for themselves and refuse to support Netscape Navigator 4.77. And even in its heyday that only had around 40% of the market. So what of IE 6 and its overwhelming domination?

Just how long will it be before web developers can stand up and say to clients “My advice is not to dumb down your site or fill it with hacks in order to support IE 6.”

And while all this is going on, we’re right in the middle of the Search Engine Wars (TM), except that nobody has even noticed. Like a seemingly innocent friend who has lulled you in over time and before you know it you’re robbing banks and gunning down innocents, Google is quickly and surely changing the search engine landscape.

Keep on runnin’

Wednesday July 16th 2003

The car sailed through its first annual service without any major defects coming to light. When I say “sailed through” I mean “cost ?208 for no apparent reason.”

Still, at least it has fresh oil and whatever else for another journey to Scotland at the weekend.

Also, in an amazing turn of events, the previously Wicked Witch of Kings Chrysler, Sue the Service Manager was actually very pleasant. Heck, she even smiled and joked with me when I went to pick up the car after the event. And this was on one of the hottest days of the year so far, I might add – she could have been excused for being a little testy when the temperature in the shade was a stifling 34°C. I’ll fill in the service questionnaire and give her a glowing report – all is forgiven. :o)

On the way home, Fliss and I witnessed what appeared to be a man in a silver Audi speeding away from a hit and run incident. He had a head shaped, spiders web of a crack in his car windscreen and was overtaking the long queue of traffic on the wrong side of the road with wreckless abandon.

I took his number plate down and when we got home we called the police to tell them the when, where and what, although according to Fliss they didn’t seem particularly interested. Ah well, you do your bit. The dude was clearly up to no good, though – I hope they hunt him down like a dawg.