Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category
Tuesday, January 2nd, 2007
My new website is up and running: www.rubicondesigns.net. I finally decided that I would go ahead take my web design hobby to the next level. I have my business cards ordered and expect them to arrive shortly.
While it doesn’t mean the end of this website, it does mean that even without it generating any new business I’ll have to devote some time to getting it fully operational. As well as a marketing tool, I have also decided to make it into a technical support site, so I now have a forum and trouble ticket section to maintain. I have a lot of articles and FAQ’s to write, so it will take up a lot of my free time.
With any bit of luck, this will generate some income, but if not, it’s still experience to put on my CV.
Tags: Blog, Internet, Technology, web_design, whatithink
Posted in Internet, Technology | Comments Off
Thursday, December 28th, 2006
A couple of months ago I bought an external hard drive: it was a Seagate 320GB 7200 rpm. Now it’s a paper-weight. I felt that with all the data I had on my PC, it would be a good idea to have some sort of backup. That was the theory anyway. But of course, the practice was quite different. I stored all my data on that drive instead of on my PC.
There was about 200GB of data on that drive. That was until yesterday, when I committed the faux pas of plugging the wrong ac adapter into drive. My laptop uses 19 volts. The hard drive expected 12 volts. No smoke, no bang, just a continuously flashing LED on the drive. And no drive detected by the operating system.
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Tags: dead, flashing, hard-drive, led, power, Technology, whatithink
Posted in Technology | 13 Comments »
Saturday, December 23rd, 2006
After another call and more troubleshooting with my provider I’m still having problems with my connection. I’ve done everything I can to eliminate any hardware or software problems on my side. So far I’ve tried with:
- 3 different computers,
- 2 different routers,
- no router,
- Windows XP (Home and MCE),
- and Linux.
Still no joy. I know the problem is not with my equipment, but I’m having a tough time explaining that to my provider.
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Tags: Broadband, broadband_connection, connection, connection_speeds, customer_support, download_speed, Technology, update, upload_speed, whatithink
Posted in Broadband, Technology | Comments Off
Tuesday, December 19th, 2006
After much deliberation and thought, and very little planning, I’ve decided to do some freelance web-design and PC repair. So my site is now going to be a marketing tool for my new “business”. (It’s not a business in the sense that I expect to make a living solely from it, but I do hope to make enough to pay off my credit card, with some left over for some new gadgets.) I’ll be keeping the day job and I’ll do this in my spare time.
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Tags: business, cards, Technology, web_design, whatithink
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Thursday, December 14th, 2006
Got a call from my broadband provider today. Apparently there is a problem with the high-site that my wireless broadband connection is routed through and engineers will be dispatched to have a look at it. Hopefully, it will be sooner rather than later.
Tags: antennas, Broadband, broadband_connection, interference, Technology, unstable, update, upload_speed, whatithink
Posted in Broadband, Technology | Comments Off
Monday, December 11th, 2006
I’ve been on to my broadband provide again this morning, and this time I was lucky enough to get someone that seemed to know what they were talking about. After doing a lot of ping tests, they’ve decided to escalate the case and send someone out to check the high-site I’m connected to.
Apparently I’m the first person in my area to report any problems, so we’ll have to see what the outcome is. Hopefully, I’ll be back up and running sooner rather than later.
Tags: antennas, Broadband, broadband_connection, connection_speeds, customer_support, Technology, unstable, update, upload_speed, whatithink
Posted in Broadband, Technology | Comments Off
Saturday, December 9th, 2006
For the last year my internet connection has been rock solid at 1 Mbps. While that kind of speed might not be something to shout about where you come from, where I am it’s practically light speed. Recently my broadband provider decided to upgrade their existing customers connections. That’s where my problems started.
While my download speed is acceptable, my upload speed has died a death worth of the book of revelations. So I called my broadband supplier. Worst mistake ever. Not only do their support department not have a clue about the technology that they are supposed to be supporting, but they lack a complete understanding of how to deal with people.
And the thing is that despite this complete lack of service – both the technological and customer kind – this company stays in business. Not only stays in business but makes quiet a handsome profit every year. They’re not the only company that does it of course, but we as customers accept it. Why?
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Tags: antennas, Broadband, broadband_connection, Technology, unstable, upload_speed, whatithink
Posted in Broadband, Technology | Comments Off
Wednesday, November 22nd, 2006
What’s the point in having standards if they are just going to be thrown out the window and ignored? I really feel for the guys out there who do web design on a full time basis. No wonder they hate IE so much. I hit just one major problem, and it wrecked my head trying to sort it out.
Anyway, after a couple of days away, I finally got a chance to sit down and do some research about my “position:fixed” problem. I initially thought that I would have to create two CSS files and then use some scripting to do some browser recognition and redirection. Turns out the answer was easier than that. Instead I used a CSS child selector to fix the problem. (more…)
Tags: css, ie6, Technology, update, whatithink
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Saturday, November 18th, 2006
Just an update on the CSS Problem. After a quick search on Google, I discovered that IE6 does not support the “position: fixed” attribute of CSS. I was using this attribute for the navigation bar, the external links bar, and the copyright bar. So when rendering the page, IE6 just ignored this attribute and laid out the different div’s one after another, which caused the messed up layout.
My original intention was to have those three blocks visible on the page at all times so that navigation would be easier. They also helped frame the content.
In the meantime, I’ve changed the attribute to “position: absolute”. So now the layout is nearly what I want. But not quite. I’ll work on incorporating the two style sheets, so that the true layout is available to those with compliant browsers, and IE6 users get the updated CSS file. That way, the site looks the way I want it to, and not the way that Internet Explorer, thinks it should look. At least IE7 does recognise “position: fixed”, but only time will tell what other parts of the CSS standard Microsoft have decided to ignore.
Thanks to my sister Lena, for pointing out the rendering problem on IE6. Kudos!
Tags: css, ie6, Technology, update, whatithink
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Saturday, November 18th, 2006
Here was I thinking that my site design was working fine, until I tried to view it on IE6. Oh. My. God. What an abomination. In Opera and Firefox it looks perfect. Even in IE7 it looked perfect, but in IE6, it was all over the place. For those of you on IE6, below is a screenshot of what it should look like. For those of you using a proper, standards compliant browser, there’s another screenshot of how IE6 renders my site. The problem is that the site does not use tables, but div’s and CSS to lay out the various sections.
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Tags: css, ie6, opera, Technology, whatithink
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