• Category Archives Computers

  • Imagine a life with no computers……ahhhh……bliss…..

  • A day made of glass.

    Posted on by beno 3 Comments

    This one is interesting for two reasons.
    1. Its Corning. The same people that cast the 200 inch mirror for the Hale Telescope on Palomar Mountain. They were ahead of the game then, they still are now.
    2. What they show here, by and large, is do’able today. I have seen most of it before, just not bought together and put to some nice music.

    I hope you dont mind the stuff I am blogging.
    I kind of like throwing up the stuff that I come across and is meaningful to me.
    (Perhaps also it has to do with me trying to soften you lot up so when I post my three year mega blog in a few weeks it goes past with a tiny blip?)


    Computers

  • Tweaks.

    Posted on by beno 11 Comments

    Tweaked a few of pages on my web site tonight.
    Nothing major, just adding content mostly.

    Even added a tool for Gary and perhaps Dan.
    Let me know if it gets any use at all….

    (Whats that? You want to know what changes on what pages? Well I aint telling, how else can I get you lot to look through my whole site??)

    Oh, and Matt B???? The wall photos are up… so quit ya complaining!!!


    Computers

  • New web site.

    Posted on by beno 2 Comments

    If you cant see it, hold down your ‘ctrl’ key, and hit the F5 key.

    Its a start. I was about 8 months over the old one. So far I like the new one.
    If only because it seems so much faster than the old one!

    I looked at going with something web2.0, but in the end, retro, lean and fast won out. Again.
    Just ask my son Terry, I am always on about function over form. Sure, its not as flashy as some ajax/ruby on rails, drupal, java scrip heavy site, but its simple, clean and fast.

    Feel free to complain. I am a lot better at ignoring that sort of thing these days, but go ahead, you might feel better afterwards.

    I have a few ideas in mind… I want more interactive stuff to play with on my site…. so, keep an eye out for them some time next year…. (at the rate I get to this sort of stuff.. I will be lucky to have it going by then.. but hey, dreams are cheep).


    Computers

  • Don’t bag what you don’t know.

    Posted on by beno 1 Comment

    Some of you might know that I was not a fan of facebook.
    I never said too much here because all my experience was by looking over the shoulder of Freddy and watching her struggle with it.
    Yesterday at 7:06am, after a very interesting week,  I made my account and messed around a little.
    Ended up talking with my buddy Doug over in Lancing MI to try and get me going. In the end we both gave up.
    At 5:43pm yesterday, I deleted my account.

    So. I was right. It is junk. One of the worst web sites I have ever tried to do battle with. Only Godaddy.com and the software of Weather-display is worse.
    It really does have the feel that it was written by a few computer geeks that were half tanked late in the night.
    There are menus all over the place, the feel of the navigation really is such that you can believe that the core code has never been touched and its just been built on, hack on gak.
    The security settings are very confusing and having it wide open by default is just wrong (and very sad).
    The basic lay out is just not logical or intuitive at all. Its like they are still stuck in the 90’s.

    How did it become so popular? No idea. Clearly a lot people have more time and patience than I do. I suspect that they have the 80/20 rule in force. Of their 500 million users, only 20% of them are regulars.

    Anyway, it matters not what I think, they are going just fine.
    I am personally disappointed that some friends and family have stopped communicating along the usual channels since getting their facebook accounts. The pressure for me to ‘just sign up’ to be in the loop is not going to let up anytime soon I suspect.

    So, the Ben Orchard that is on facebook? Its not me…. and its not going to be me anytime soon.


    Computers