OK party-people, it’s Good News/Bad News Time:

Good News: Having a block of time unexpectently free itself up today allowed me to do a little more research on implementing the aforementioned effluvia bloglet feature. I’ve gone with Sean & Basil’s thinking (thanks guys!) and decided to stick it off to the side. I’ve even found how to do it in WP using all sort of PHP goodness.

Bad News: While the bloglet is up & running and I pretty much have gotten the text to look the way I wanted, the kerning (line-spacing in CSS-speak) is a lot tighter than I have for the text in other off-to-the-side goodies. Without my having done anything special (or more accurately, without my having knowingly done anything special). Now since I’ve decided that I like the kerning on the bloglet, I’m trying to get it to match the other menu items to match. And it ain’t working. line-spacing, as far as I can tell, does not work. Or maybe I should wait for Obviousman to hit me off-side the head.

Time to move on to something else for the time-being…

Update 5:06PM: Fixed it. No particular “eureka” moment, it looks like among the multitude of crapola I’ve copied, pasted, hacked, tweaked, cajoled and just plain pulled out of nowhere and stuck into the CSS file, there was some inconsistency in using “line-spacing” and “letter-spacing”.

So I’m thinking of incorporating a “bloglet”/daily-or-somewhat-irregular-links-list thingamajig into the new design of the site (it’s almost done, I swear! I’m hoping to roll it out this weekend - ideally before NYE, but probably after) as I come across these weird (yet marginally interesting!) pieces of random internet effluvia that I want to point people to, but don’t really have much to say about them - which results in these random one-size-fits-all pile of links posts that are rather, um, unclassifiable.

I’m thinking that with my limited free time combined with the fact that I’ve done zero research on WP solutions to add this sort of functionality, it will have to wait. Considering that another feature I want to add is written in perl which my service provider doesn’t make available (and I have no idea if there’s an alternate method that I can use is available), it’s looking more likely that the re-design launch is going to be a LTFP affair.

That said, here’s some effluvia for your enjoyment:

Living in the Bay Area with a career interest in technology, I’ve been keeping my eyes on how things are faring in the IT industry not only as an indirect indicator of what sort of trends can/will affect my personal situation but also out of genuine concern for my friends employed in IT (and how this affects the larger situation in the US). Needless to say, my interest was piqued this morning by the Survey: IT salaries down last year headline from one of the few mailing lists I get from ComputerWorld. The logic behind the theories as to why this is makes sense (the industry is still trying to correct itself from pre-2000 craziness in salaries), but I’m really dismayed at the dismissal of offshoring concerns (”Well, only the low-paying jobs are getting moved overseas”) continuing to be common theme.

Why don’t people realize that this still is dangerous and not excusable because (a) people new to the IT field have no place to start if all the low-paying jobs aren’t domestic anymore and (b) there’s nothing preventing higher-paying positions from eventually going abroad at some point in the future. Or am I missing something?

Courtesy of Tom Tomorrow, we can get a highlight reel from the Star Wars Holiday Special (Link to video).

I can actually vaguely recall seeing this insofar as I can remember having watched some show with a family of Wookies when I was really, really young. I reconciled the memory to an over-active imagination as I had subsequently never seen anything with a family of Wookies before - at least I now know what the deal is.

Not sure which is funnier: 1970’s TV production values, the stunningly bad stunt of a stormtrooper tripping over a rifle and consequently off a balcony, the unapologetic merchandising attempt at the end, or - a special nod to Sean here - Bea Arthur singing in the cantina band.

For all those Christmas-celebrators out there, Merry Christmas!

For everyone else (and the celebrators too, if interested), let me pass along a recipe sent to me by a friend:

Like a lot of people, I’ve kind of backed off the political front since the election. Every once and I while I’ll ping one of the more popular lefty blogs like DailyKos and Tom Tomorrow’s blog. So needless to say, some stuff does take a little longer to get to me nowadays. Still doesn’t fail to shock when it does get to me, however. For instance, this whole silly crusade against the one-size-fits-all-in-order-to-not-offend seasonal salutation “Happy Holidays” being waged by Bill O’Reilly and company.

Tom quotes his friend Greg from the Talent Show almost verbatim out of my own thoughts about it: I’ve made a conscious decision years ago to always default to “Happy Holidays” in December-season greeting cards and conversations. If I knew the other person was of Christian faith and/or completely desensitized to being offended by being acknowledged with a “Merry Christmas”, then I would certainly go that route - just as I offer sincere and good Hannukah wishes to my Jewish friends. My personal opinions about organized religion (and Christian faiths in particular) aside, I certainly respect the beliefs and opinions of others and just want to inoffensively encourage the general bonhomie of the month of December.

So while I still scratch my head (and suffer from an acute case of blood-boiling) over this whole silliness, let me go on the record right now by saying that when I wish you “Happy Holidays” (or have done so in the past), I most certainly do not intend a “Up yours, baby Jesus” sentiment.

Computerworld reports “SCO Group revenue drops 58%, losses increase as legal fight continues”:

In a statement yesterday after U.S. stock markets closed, Lindon, Utah-based SCO reported fourth-quarter 2004 revenue of $10 million for the period ended Oct. 31, down 58.5% from the $24.2 million in revenue in the same quarter in 2003. For the full 2004 fiscal year ended Oct. 31, revenue was $42.8 million, down 45.9% from the $79.2 million booked in fiscal 2003.

The company said the fourth-quarter revenue reduction was largely due to “competitive pressures” and a decrease in SCO source Unix licensing revenue, which dropped from $10.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2003 to $120,000 in the fourth quarter of 2004.

SCO’s fourth-quarter losses totaled $6.6 million, up 37% from a $4.1 million loss in the fourth quarter of 2003. For the 2004 fiscal year, SCO’s losses totaled $28.6 million, after showing a modest $3.4 million income one year ago.

The loss per diluted common share was 37 cents for the quarter and $1.07 for fiscal 2004.

I think I might have actually snorted when I was laughing from reading the headline.

So reading my morning edition of Macintouch, I noticed a little blurb on their updated software announcement section about a very curiously-named application called Goombah by a little Mainah (Bangah, no less!) company, Transpose. Any sensitivity to the racial slur aside (they direct you to Dictionary.com’s definition which, strangely, makes no mention of the historical slur aspect of the word), it’s an interesting little app.

Using Google Desktop Search? Go update because apparantly a security flaw has been found.

Absolutely insane video capturing a landslide that happened minutes after a group of kayakers got through some rapids on the Sultan River in Washington.

I recommend the “More details” video as it has all of the footage of the before & during from the “Main event” video plus the after…

While I personally can’t take advantage of this freebie (yet - mark my words!), if you don’t have a problem reading stretches of text on your iPod and you don’t otherwise want to purchase the complete CSS style guide for $24.99, go download a free copy. Otherwise continue to either ignore the guide or read it off their website. Whatever works. (Courtesy of Macintouch)

A UK study was just released somewhat recently about the effects of using a laptop on a man’s fertility. An interesting finding (and it certainly makes sense, if you know why testicles are located where they are and do what they do upon temperature variance), but I question what sized laptop was used in the study. I’m guessing that they were using a sub-notebook size, since they mention that the test subjects sat with their legs completely closed.

I guess you can now make the argument that if you have to have a laptop (I certainly can’t imagine going back to a desktop as my primary computer if I had a choice in the matter), it’s better to go big - as in screen size; I’m not advocating that we go back to the days of the Osborne (Check out this ad for a little more perspective if you’re unfamiliar). Otherwise, I suppose this means there’s an opportunity to capitalize on low-profile “tv-dinner-tray”-style lap risers…

Due to the overwhelming success of the U2 Special Edition iPod, Apple is introducing an entire line of Signature iPods. Check it out!

So DrunkenBlog has an astoundingly-long post looking into security issues with Windows and the future of it written from an OS X user perspective. As I just mentioned, it’s long. Really long. There’s some stuff in there that I recognized as inaccurate, but mostly nitpicky stuff like the fact that Active-X, as explained in the post, does have an Apple comparison: OpenDoc which was killed back in 1997 (Yeah, I was a CyberDog user). The other nitpick was actually already voiced by a commenter about the history of Apple’s modern OS efforts (OS X and its aborted predecessors, Copland and Gershwin).

Curiously, commenters have been leaving very brief & unsubstantiated rebuttals, often without leaving any sort of identifying information - so it’s possible there are more (and more significant) errors. But from what I read, it raised important points and gave pretty good histories to support the arguments. It’ll take you a while to read it, but definitely worth it.

Just got this email from a friend:

Please read the following:

Starting Jan 1, 2005, all cell phone numbers will be made public to telemarketing firms.  So this means as of Jan 1, your cell phone may start ringing off the hook with telemarketers, but unlike your home phone, most of you pay for your incoming calls.  These telemarketers will eat up your free minutes and end up costing you money in the long run.

According to the National Do Not Call List, you have until Dec. 15th 2004 to get on the national “Do not call list” for cell phones. They said that you need to call 1-888-382-1222 from the cell phone that you wish to have put on the “do not call list” to be put on the list. They also said you can do it online at http://www.donotcall.gov.

Registering only takes a minute, is in effect for 5 years and will possibly save you money (definitely frustration)!  Make sure you register now!

Doing a little cross-checking, looks legit. Go register. Now!