02.01.2006

(off-site links open in new windows)

Don says:

While I was working on the 2-1-06 issue of our ezine I came across several sites which offer terror alert level buttons.   Most attempt to be humorous.   One is serious.   All open in new windows   The first two are from geekandproud.net.

    

On the same page of Google results I found terror-alert.com.



A narrower search found a couple more tongue-in-cheek versions

    

and a full set with political spin.

These are all remote hosted image links.   This simply means that the images aren't resident on our website; they're hosted on the provider's site and I've merely pasted in a bit of code, copied from their site, which places the image and link on this page.   Because each of these show the U.S. government's actual terror alert level, and must then change colors when the alert level changes, most of them are javascripts but a couple use php scripts.   The Simpson's button and link from creativespill.com isn't any sort of script so they may simply be swapping the image on their website, renaming one of the appropriate color, when the level changes.

The term "bandwidth" refers to the amount of data passed from a website to the computers of persons who visit that website and most web hosting companies charge for bandwidth.   Exceeding one's allocated bandwidth results in extra hosting fees.   Even small images are comparatively large files and enough of them can add up to a bandwidth penalty.   Because Image links are perhaps the most popular method of generating web traffic, many websites offer hosted links so that other sites can link to them without using extra bandwidth.   Of course this means that any site which offers remotely hosted links is likely to be a commercial site which needs the traffic to generate revenue and is thus willing to pay for the bandwidth if you'll provide them a link from your site.

That being said, I set out to find some remotely hosted links to sites that have interesting content, whether or not they're commercial.   Here are the sites I found (all of these will open in new windows):

This one looked interesting.




A web developer with hobby interests.




An interesting musical site.

Pete Thomas Music Producer - Composer - Saxophone


Resources for aging domiciles.

In other news, Lisa and I having for once in our life heard enough blues, on shoutcast, have begun to explore other styles of music which we love.   Our new favorite is called "Flamenco Classical Guitar" from SKY FM.   I'd give a link but web radio addresses seem to change very frequently for some reason so, if you'd like to check it out (high speed connection required), go to shoutcast and, on the upper right hand side of their home page, click on the drop-down menu where you see the words "Quick Genre", click on "Classical", look for the words "Flamenco Classical Guitar" and click on the "Tune In!" button.   We also enjoy some of the comedy stations but they are decidedly not family friendly.

With the advent of CSS most websites (like mine) have stopped using background tiles but I still enjoy making them and I think I'm pretty good at it.   Here's one I made recently:

Here's what it looks like when tiled.

I found a quote I really liked on the web recently.   I wish I could give credit to the author but I wasn't able to find out who wrote this:

"When you were born, you were crying and everyone around you was smiling.   Live your life so that when you die, you're the one who is smiling and everyone around you is crying."

I've been having technology flashbacks recently. A few days ago I had to figure out one of these things:

What a nightmare!   The gadget pictured above is a phone-line-connected, autodialing, telemetry unit which was purchased by a control manufacturer to be integrated into a pumping control system which was purchased by a pump company to be incorporated into a waste water lift station which was purchased by a utility contracting company to be incorporated into a subdivision utility package which was purchased by an real estate entrepreneur as but one component of an entire new housing subdivision.   Now if you aren't entirely lost by this time you should be because I'm certainly lost.   Parts of the system involves 480 volt, three-phase, AC power which I can't legally work on, because I'm not a licensed Master Electrician, but there are a large number of sensor wires which may legally be connected by a mere electronics technician so, when local electricians refused to do more than connect the three-phase AC, I was called in.   I do, after all, have twenty five years of experience as a field-level communications electronics technician (even if the current job description of the position has evolved far beyond my understanding) and I can, in fact, sort out and connect a few sensor wires.   But, and this is inevitably a big but, there were some ambiguities in the system diagram that needed clarification.   Simple questions which needed easy little answers but who to ask?   Just on the surface of things there are five corporations involved in this system and only one person, of the dozens of persons "in the loop" has the answer to any given question because that's integral to the nature of corporations.   Right?   Isn't that how it always is?

Still, after many false telephonic trails, I found a fellow named Alex who answered all of my questions and the Pump Control panel got connected to the low-level float sensor - and the high-level alarm float sensor - and the automatic level sensor - and the autodialer - and the - and the - and with luck, we get paid a little something for having figured it all out.

This was not the sort of job we normally get called for but there are a couple of guys on the crew who know I have a background in electronics and when two local electricians in a row declined to attempt the sensor wiring we got lucky.

As far as we're concerned they can call us any time.   The job was interesting, challenging, and, in the end, not too terribly difficult, but we might feel a little differently about working on it once the system is put into service and that big fiberglass tank is full of, um, "waste water".

I've been fine tuning these personal news pages for the last few days and have been driving myself nuts trying to get rid of the horizontal scrollbar at the bottom of this page.   After an hour or so of googling the problem and trying different things I thought to check the page in Opera and Firefox.   Guess what.   There's no scrollbar at the bottom of the page in Opera or Firefox.   I've been fighting an Internet Explorer bug.   I just hate how that makes me feel about Microsoft. *sigh*   Ok, if you're using Opera or Firefox you're thinking "What scrollbar?" but you folks who're using IE or one of the browsers built on IE (like Maxthon, Avant, or Slimbrowser) can see the scrollbar.   If it bugs you as much as it does me, you can switch to Firefox or Opera.   Nuff said.

Lisa says:

This is the job site.

This was a pretty interesting job.   Of course my status is still that of "gofer" but I'm good at it *grin*.   I made the wiring connections from the pump control panel to the telemetry unit, made a few other connections where smaller hands were useful, climbed down in the "hole" (underground fiberglass tank) and set the various sensors to their specified heights.   Picking up tools in the dark and cleaning up the site are also very important jobs...hmmm.   We were outside for several days and you can see we're getting good tans.   Perhaps people will think we're "persons of leisure" and figure we got the tans on a cruise or on the tennis courts.

We've also been cooking a lot.   Don updated the recipe pages recently, don't forget to check them out.

I'm still typing a couple of novels for Project Gutenburg (see our personal news page of 12.14.2005) and my typing skills have vastly improved, or at least my pinkie knows where the backspace button is.   If there hadn't been a good reason to type this much, I'd *never* have practiced like this.   There's always an up-side.

Spring is coming, I can feel it.   Life is good, love is wonderful.