Please update your bookmarks, favorites, and links. Although www.danpremo.com still works, I’ve decided to go with the shorter, dare I say — cooler, URL of danpremo.com.
Tradition
As is tradition, I will now complain about my new hosting provider. (I did it with Tripod and I did it with 1&1.)
Complaint #1. PowWeb features WordPress autoinstall. Great! Only thing is, it autoinstalls WP 1.2.2. The current version is 1.5. I ran the automated install, looked at it for five seconds, then deleted all the files (and all the tables).
Complaint #2. Apparently PowWeb allows me to upload only two files simultaneously via FTP. This shouldn’t be too much of an issue with day-to-day or even month-to-month site maintenance, but I uploaded WordPress three times in the last two days, and it’s a hassle. Additionally, some of the timed-out uploads didn’t resume, so I had to go through the entire WordPress folder structure and ensure all of the files were present and at the correct file size.
The New Site
I decided to bite the bullet and move the page over to WordPress. I haven’t developed my own theme yet, but I have put some time and thought into one.
Additionally, I changed my hosting provider. PowWeb has more of what I’m looking for for a little less money than 1&1. Due to the nature of the Internet, 1&1 still handles my domain, for six bucks a year. I haven’t yet figured out how to manage subdomains when I go through separate companies for domain and hosting.
Spider-Man DVD
In Summer 2003 I talked up a TV show: the CGI Spider-Man cartoon on MTV. It was hot. I loved it. It was cel-shaded. That means it looked like a traditional cartoon, but it was done with computers. The first time I saw that effect done on TV was the ship on Futurama. Nowadays you mostly see it in video games like Jet Set Future Radio on Xbox and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker on Gamecube.
So anyway, sometime between Summer 2003 and … two days ago — let’s split the difference and call it Spring 2004 — I spotted a Spider-Man: The New Animated Series DVD at Wal-Mart. Only problem was, it contained only three episodes. I found another disc containing an additional three episodes. But I wanted the whole first season.
I have to interject here. If you go to the archive page and read my 2003.07.25 23:34 post [UPDATE: link], you’ll see that I spoke about the show and actually said, “When they put out a DVD, I’m gonna snap it up.”
So I was at K-Mart two days ago and came across this. The whole first season, two disc set, audio commentary, special features, widescreen. I nearly soiled myself right there. $19.99. The three-episode discs were like eight bucks a pop. So I snatched it up. I give it five stars out of five.
Firefox Gripe
Firefox Gripe: I want to be able to resize tabs within windows.
You know how some sites are still optimized for 800×600? You know how some center the used portion of the screen, some right justify it, and some (like ESPN.com) give extra crap to fill in all the way over to 1024? To conform 800×600 sites to what I want, I resize the window. But if I resize one site in a Firefox window, then I resize them all … I want to be able to resize the browser in one tab and leave the browsers in other tabs alone.
Until next time …
New Color Scheme
I modified the color scheme a few days ago. You might not even notice. The top and left edges are darker. You can tell the difference (more or less) by checking out the old page.
I still have aspirations of extending the effect to all four edges of the screen … and keeping it there even when you scroll down. The only site I really see doing anything technologically along the lines of what I want is Bungie.net. At least I’m happy knowing that the whole thing renders correctly in Firefox and it validates.
So besides the dubious layout wishes … maybe next I’ll create a database system for the posts … something generated on the fly … I’d like that.
ESPN Redesign
It appears that ESPN.com is in the final stages of rolling out a new site design. You heard it here first. Right this second I’m looking at the golf homepage, and it’s actually a little messed up. A story within the golf site doesn’t display the ESPN logo, and some code is visible. I read an article in the hockey section earlier today, and that’s what really tipped me off. For a couple months now, some articles on the site have featured a new horizontal navigation bar that looks a little bit like Apple.com‘s candy/transparent plastic look. You can see that in the NHL article. I say article because it appears that the rollout (and I noticed this in the last version of ESPN.com) affects articles first, before sport homepages or the main ESPN.com homepage itself. However, I expect that the main page will change before the lesser and offseason sports’ pages catch up.
Validation
The front page will now validate as XHTML 1.0 Strict. Eat that, Lewis. Insert better-late-than-never “your site is down” joke here.
You’ll find two entries below that I wrote a couple weeks ago but never got around to uploading.
Based on the appearance of this site on flat-panel monitors and the fact that I have started to use a 1280×1024 screen resolution, I will be making some cosmetic changes to the site soon. Look out for that.
Go Bills
Yeah, I saw they’re releasing Bledsoe. I’m a little surprised, but not *that* surprised. It’s too bad. He didn’t live up to expectations, but then again, the Patriots didn’t want him. He was definitely an improvement over Rob Johnson. He was a marquee player, and a number one draft pick.
It’s interesting that the story of the current champion New England Patriots started while Bledsoe was still with the team. I read in a writeup on ESPN.com that Bledsoe started all but one game he played in in the NFL. I’m pretty sure that one game was in the playoffs the first year the Pats won the Superbowl — he played the entire second half against the Steelers or something.
So I guess all of Western New York will be looking at this JP Losman guy for the next couple months … Hopefully he’ll be more Drew Bledsoe than Rob Johnson.
Private Accounts
I think private accounts for Social Security are bad. I just saw on the cover of USA Today today a poll asking what people think of Bush’s plan, with results broken out by age. The trend was that younger people like it and older people don’t.
My opinion? They’re going to give every taxpayer something like three options as to what to do with their Social Security money. Which people are best suited to take advantage of this option? People living in trailer parks? The inner city? Or people who already invest and know what the hell they’re doing, people with money to spare? The fact is, wealthier, knowledgable people are going to do better, on average, with this system than poorer, less-educated people. It will widen the gap between haves and have-nots.
And who really needs Social Security? People who are investing in the stock market? Or people who don’t know the difference between a stock and a bond? It’s the latter. And they are not the people who will see the benefit from this system. Therefore I think it’s a poor solution. In fact, I don’t think it’s a solution at all.
Also — I have strong concerns about what effect will occur on these three or so funds when one third or more of the entire US population invests in them. Will their prices plummet? Will the skyrocket? Let me tell you what I think. People want to diversify. It distributes risk. So if I put my Social Security money in fund A, I’m probably not going to put the rest of my money in it. Therefore, I may be more inclined to sell it if I already own it. I might sell it for a lower price, its value might fall. Then these three funds that the government just spent billions of dollars buying will lose a lot of value quickly.