Category: Techie

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New validator?

The W3C has just made some changes to their HTML validator service. As a result, most of my pages have stopped being XHTML 1.0 compliant.

The main problem seems to be that I have two or three blank lines at the top of each HTML page, before the <?xml version=”1.0″?>. Strictly speaking, this should always be the first line in an XML file, and it looks like they are now applying that rule–strictly.

I think the extra lines are coming from the MTMacros I’m defining at the top of each template. It shouldn’t be too hard to re-work these, though.

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Thoughts on new PC

I think I’ve decided on a set of components for upgrading my PC:

  • Asus A7V8X motherboard. Good reviews, excellent features (6 x USB 2.0 ports, 2 x Firewire, Gigabit ethernet, on-board sound, et al.), and a nice price point (£100).
  • AMD Athlon XP 2000+. Seems to offer the best price/performance ratio in the range I’m looking at right now.
  • 512MB DDR 2100 memory.
  • AcoustiCase ACC6606A quiet case. One of the things I don’t like about my current PC is that it’s really quite noisy. I don’t notice it so much when I’m working away at it, but when I’m doing something else, like watching TV, the background noise is annoying.
  • Matching ultra-quiet 300W PSU.
  • And a Zalman Flower Cooler to keep the CPU cool & quiet.

Total cost looks like it would be around £450. Hmm…

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Computer upgrade

I used to upgrade my PC based on the following simple formula: when CPUs of twice the speed of my current processor drop below £100, it’s time to move up.

Right now, though, I’m running on an AMD Duron 800Mhz from over two years ago, and Athlon XP 1600 processors are currently going for less than 50 quid. The main reason I haven’t upgraded yet is that I now do most of my games playing on my PS2 rather than on my PC. (And one of the joys of a console is that you don’t have to upgrade it to the latest hardware to run the latest games adequately.)

But I think I’m getting to the point where I’d like to upgrade my PC. The last game I played on it (Warcraft III) was noticeably sluggish when there were a lot of characters on screen, and when I’m running Virtual Machines, they aren’t as snappy as I’d like them to be. And if I plan to be running a Linux VM sort-of permanently, I’d quite like it to be snappy.

Unfortunately, my current motherboard (an Abit KT7) won’t take an Athlon XP. So I’ll have to upgrade the mobo. Also, it looks like all of the Athlon XP mobos only take DDR RAM, so my 512MB of PC133 isn’t going to be any use, either. My wireless LAN card sits in an adapter in the ISA slot on my current motherboard, but ISA slots seem to be extinct now, so I’ll have to get a PCI adapter instead. At least my Radeon video card will still be okay in an AGP slot.

All in all, I think I can put together a nice little upgrade package (Athlon XP1600+, or maybe higher, plus motherboard, plus 512Mb DDR RAM, plus PCI adapter card) for about £250. Also, I can probably recoup some of that cost by selling the old parts on Ebay. (We’ve played the game of keeping spare PC parts around to build new computers from them…but we have all the computers we reasonably need already.)

I think this is going to be a project for the new year, though. I need some time to get myself back up to speed on motherboard technology. I’m not looking for top of the line hardware, but I’d like to make sure that I’m not going to be buying a lemon.

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Discussion board

One of the last things I did during this year’s Linux Experience was to try out some discussion board software before deploying it to Sunpig. I’ve been meaning to play around with this for a while, but it was only really last week that I found an incentive.

Richard had set up a chat board on EZBoard for his friends to hang out. But EZBoard’s free service throws huge banner, footer and popup ads at you, and their member signup forms are possibly the most deceptive I’ve ever seen. (One wrong click, and who knows how many mailing lists you’re on.) Also, the free service only lasts for so long before you have to upgrade to their paid service, and that time had come…

So, knowing that I have a bunch of space and bandwidth here on Sunpig, and the ability to install and run my own scripts, PHP, MySQL databases, etc. (through EZPublishing–our excellent web hosts), I offered to set up a board right here.

And just a few days later, it was up and running! The board runs on phpBB, which is a breeze to set up and get going. (I had a look at phpNuke as well, but phpBB is more lightweight, simpler, does all the basic stuff nicely enough, and has some spiffy default templates to go with it.)

If you want to come along and hang out, the board is at http://discuss.sunpig.com/brunton/. Note that it’s Richard’s board, not mine, but he says his intention was that he would invite his friends along to it, and then they would invote friends of their own. So just tell Rich that I sent you 😉

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The Microcontent Client

An interesting and important article on where “web content” is currently at, and where it is going. It takes in content creation, aggregation, tools, and the culture surrounding all of these. (Via DollarShort.org)

“The microcontent client is an extensible desktop application based around standard Internet protocols that leverages existing web technologies to find, navigate, collect, and author chunks of content for consumption by either the microcontent browser or a standard web browser. The primary advantage of the microcontent client over existing Internet technologies is that it will enable the sharing of meme-sized chunks of information using a consistent set of navigation, user interface, storage, and networking technologies. In short, a better user interface for task-based activities, and a more powerful system for reading, searching, annotating, reviewing, and other information-based activities on the Internet.”

I certainly find my web habits moving in the direction outlined in this article. I skim, I scan, and I have twenty-three browser tabs open as I’m writing this. Opera suits these browsing habits of mine: tabs, mouse gestures, opening new windows in the background, search functions integrated in the address bar, the ability to quickly turn images of/on… All of these functions make it a lean, mean, browsing machine.

Continue reading “The Microcontent Client”