Performance Zen

Author: spierzchala

  • English as a Second Spelling

    The Blog Herald has a great discussion on blogging to a world-wide English-speaking audience (Choosing your English: the choice for new bloggers).

    As a Canadian living in the US, my spellings have slid more towards the English(US) side of the spectrum in the last five years. This has been a matter of survival when dealing with annoying spell-checkers and US businesses (some of which claim to have a world view).

    After reading the article, I think that I will make more of an effort to use my native spellings, and preserve what I learned growing up.

  • Browser Share

    Ok, I am with Eric on this one. I do not give one iota about designing to a specific browser. I know what I use, and my pages look good in that browser. I also know that the browser I use is very standards compliant. And it’s too bad if other browsers cannot play that game.

    Standards, in HTTP and web-rendering languages, exist for a reason. I shake my head that we have to bow to something that not only is partially standards compliant, but based on technology that is creaky at best.

    Design to the standards, and eventually everyone will have to bow to the accepted standard.

  • Kamloops? You said Kamloops?

    Ok, as far as Internet hotspots, I have never tagged Kamloops as one of the biggies.

    But, as Darren Barefoot passed along, they are the first city in Canada to get city-wide wifi.

    Nice place…but, not for me.

  • Browser Stat Flood

    Ok, in a weird little way, the subtext of the browser wars has started to re-surface in the blogosphere. Everyone is getting into the browser distribution mix.

    Including me.

    Check out the Browser Percentage Stats for this blog and for the GrabPERF Server.

    Thanks to Tim Bray for re-starting this mess.

  • Blog Hit Count Graph Up

    Remember that little piece of tracking code I cranked out on Friday afternoon (December 17, 2004)? The real-time graph of the hit-count is up. Not a huge number, but it just shows that with a little PHP and a MySQL database, you can achieve a lot in very little time.

  • What is a Damnation Hound?

    Ok, here is a picture of the World-Famous Damnation Hound.

    wiggles_on_bed_1

    Yes, Wiggles is a cross between a dalmatian and a bassett hound. We have this thing for freaky dogs, and she is one of the best.

  • They say the weather outside will be frightful…

    Expecting snow overnight…like in the 3-7 inches variety. Very cool.

    However, as the ZenWife pointed out, she has yet to have a white Christmas in her life!

    Now, surely you are wondering how a woman who is Canadian cannot have had a white Christmas. Well, her entire life has been spent on the Wet Coast, so she has never seen snow on that special day.

    Last year, like the Red Sox, we thought it was a sure thing. I mean, Christmas in Massachusetts? Come on, how could you miss?

    On Christmas Day, I was wearing shorts and the boys were riding their bikes. It was 55F and sunny. Ugh.

    So, the bribe of snow tonight looks potentially like what we need…until I read that it will be 45F and rain later in the week.

    Here’s hoping for next year…?

  • CBC gets RSS feeds

    About bloody time: CBC Gets RSS.

    Thanks to Dave Winer.

  • In the category of Oxymoron…

    Why is the Phoenix Airport called the Sky Harbor? Last time I checked…well, you know where I am going.

    Also just noticed that the Typepad editor limits you to 256 Web-safe font colors (16 of which are black!).

  • When the tracking site goes down…

    So, what is a geek to do when SiteMeter goes down? He writes his own tracking code and embeds it on his blog page!

    Really simple PHP Code:

    <?php
    include([DATABASE CONNECTION INCLUDE]);
    $logtime = date("YmdHis");
    $ipquery = sprintf("%u",ip2long($REMOTE_ADDR));

    if ($REMOTE_ADDR != [EXCLUDE SOME IPS]){
            $query2 = "INSERT into logger.blog_log 
    		values ($logtime,$ipquery,'$HTTP_USER_AGENT','$HTTP_REFERER')";
            mysql_query($query2) or die("Log Insert Failed");
            mysql_close($link);
    }

    print "<META HTTP-EQUIV=Refresh CONTENT="0; URL=[IMAGE FILE]"/>";

    ?>

    Then I create a table in my logging database to trap the results. Once I have that, I created an IFRAME call in an MT Typelist and away we go!

    There is always a geeky solution to a customer service issue. If this works, I will cancel my SiteMeter subscription.