Tech

Tech-focused ramblings. Computers, blogs, and whatever else fits.

In the beginning…

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I first saw this years ago, and recently ran across it again thanks to Dave Caolo. It’s always made me laugh, hopefully you will too.

In the beginning, there was the computer…

In the beginning there was the computer. And God said

c:> Let there be light!

Enter user id.

c:> God

Enter password.

c:> Omniscient

Password incorrect. Try again.

c:> Omnipotent

Password incorrect. Try again.

c:> Technocrat

And God logged on at 12:01:00 AM, Sunday, March 1.

c:> Let there be light!

Unrecognizable command. Try again.

c:> Create light

Done

c:> Run heaven and earth

And God created Day and Night. And God saw there were 0 errors.
And God logged off at 12:02:00 AM, Sunday, March 1.

And God logged on at 12:01:00 AM, Monday, March 2.

c:> Let there be firmament in the midst of water and light.

Unrecognizable command. Try again.

c:> Create firmament

Done.

c:> Run firmament

And God divided the waters. And God saw there were 0 errors.
And God logged off at 12:02:00 AM, Monday, March 2.

And God logged on at 12:01:00 AM, Tuesday, March 3.

c:> Let the waters under heaven be gathered together unto one place and let the dry land appear and

Too many characters in specification string. Try again.

c:> Create dry_land

Done.

c:> Run firmament

And God divided the waters. And God saw there were 0 errors.
And God logged off at 12:02:00 AM, Tuesday, March 3.

And God logged on at 12:01:00 AM, Wednesday, March 4.

c:> Create lights in the firmament to divide the day from the night

Unspecified type. Try again.

c:> Create sun_moon_stars

Done

c:> Run sun_moon_stars

And God separated the light from the darkness. The sun ruled over the day and the moon and stars ruled over the night. And God saw there were 0 errors.
And God logged off at 12:02:00 AM, Wednesday, March 4.

And God logged on at 12:01:00 AM, Thursday, March 5.

c:> Create fish

Done

c:> Create fowl

Done

c:> Run fish, fowl

And God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that creepeth wherewith the waters swarmed after its kind and every winged fowl after its kind. And God saw there were 0 errors.
And God logged off at 12:02:00 AM, Thursday, March 5.

And God logged on at 12:01:00 AM, Friday, March 6.

c:> Create cattle

Done

c:> Create creepy_things

Done

c:> Now let us make man in our image

Unspecified type. Try again.

c:> Create man

Done

c:> Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over every living thing that creepeth upon the earth

Too many command operands. Try again.

c:> Run multiplication

Execution terminated. 6 errors.

c:> Insert breath

Done

c:> Run multiplication

Execution terminated. 5 errors.

c:> Move man to Garden of Eden

File Garden of Eden does not exist.

c:> Create Garden.edn

Done

c:> Move man to Garden.edn

Done

c:> Run multiplication

Execution terminated. 4 errors.

c:> Copy woman from man

Done

c:> Run multiplication

Execution terminated. 2 errors.

c:> Create desire

Done

c:> Run multiplication

And God saw man and woman being fruitful and multiplying in Garden.edn
Warning: No time limit on this run. 1 errors.

c:> Create freewill

Done

c:> Run freewill

And God saw man and woman being fruitful and multiplying in Garden.edn
Warning: No time limit on this run. 1 errors.

c:> Undo desire

Desire cannot be undone once freewill is created.

c:> Destroy freewill

Freewill is an inaccessible file and cannot be destroyed.
Enter replacement, cancel, or ask for help.

c:> Help

Desire cannot be undone once freewill is created.
Freewill is an inaccessible file and cannot be destroyed.
Enter replacement, cancel, or ask for help.

c:> Create tree_of_knowledge

And God saw man and woman being fruitful and multiplying in Garden.edn
Warning: No time limit on this run. 1 errors.

c:> Create good, evil

Done

c:> Activate evil

And God saw he had created shame.
Warning system error in sector E95.
Man and woman not in Garden.edn. 1 errors.

c:> Scan Garden.edn for man, woman

Search failed.

c:> Delete shame

Shame cannot be deleted once evil has been activated.

c:> Destroy freewill

Freewill is an inaccessible file and cannot be destroyed.
Enter replacement, cancel, or ask for help.

c:> Stop

Unrecognizable command. Try again

c:> Break
c:> Break
c:> Break

ATTENTION ALL USERS *** ATTENTION ALL USERS: COMPUTER GOING DOWN FOR REGULAR DAY OF MAINTENANCE AND REST IN FIVE MINUTES. PLEASE LOG OFF.

c:> Create new world

You have exceeded your allocated file space. You must destroy old files before new ones can be created.

c:> Destroy earth

Destroy earth: Please confirm.

c:> Destroy earth confirmed

COMPUTER DOWN *** COMPUTER DOWN. SERVICES WILL RESUME SUNDAY, MARCH 8 AT 6:00 AM. YOU MUST SIGN OFF NOW.
And God logged off at 11:59:59 PM, Friday, March 6.

On March 8, God created the Macintosh.

Just an idea

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Possible design tweak

I’m tinkering with ideas for the design here — kind of fun to do, but it’s definitely not one of my strong points (something that’s driven home when I keep seeing people come up with designs like this). Part of what I’m working with is something to seperate out the sidebars a bit. As it is now, I feel like the three columns blend together a bit too much, there’s no real visual distinction. I don’t want to go back to the boxy-borders look I used to have to separate things out — while it’s extremely simple to do by adding borders in CSS, it’s not very visually interesting.

So this is one possible idea I was dinking with tonight. Not a major redesign, and it pulls the columns out on their own while still pulling the eye into the center where the main content is with the lighter color. I’m just not entirely sure I really like it. Too grey, maybe? Hrmpf.

Someday I’m actually going to come up with a good, clean, attractive design. Until then (and that day may be a long, long time coming), I’ll keep poking, prodding, and stumbling around.

Rule #1: Validate

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Having problems with the design of your page? Things working in one browser, but not another? It happens to all of us, and it can be pretty frustrating when it does.

The number one way to fix issues like this is simply this: validate your code.

As Mark Pilgrim pointed out back in May…

Newbie Designer posts a link to a test page, asking for help because it doesn’t behave as expected in this or that browser. Guru Designer replies, telling Newbie Designer that their page doesn’t validate, and that they should go validate their page before asking such questions. There is no further discussion; no further replies are posted; no one else is willing to help.

Why does this happen? Why won’t we help you?

The short, smart-alec, Zen-like answer is that we are helping you, you just don’t realize it yet. The full answer goes like this:

  1. Validation may reveal your problem.
  2. Validation may solve your problem.
  3. Valid markup is hard enough to debug already.
  4. Validation is an indicator of cluefulness.

There’s even a new version of the validator that gives more helpful error messages and tips to get them fixed, though it’s still in beta right now.

Bottom line: valid markup is a Good Thing™. Sure, it’s a bit of a pain, and it can take a little time to get used to the conventions involved in writing valid code. The amount of time, effort, and anguish involved in solving niggling little browser issues that valid code saves, though, is more than worth it.

(Oh, and in case you were curious — yes, this page validates!)

'Stay away from MS'

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According to the Register, the Department of Homeland Security is being urged to avoid using Microsoft products.

THE US Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA) has urged the US Department of Homeland Security to avoid using Microsoft software.

The Washington based association, which represents members that generate over \$300 billion, has issued an open letter to Tom Ridge, Secretary of the department, urging him to review his decision to choose Microsoft for its desktops and servers.

It claims that last week’s events relating to the Blaster and SoBig worms, have highlighted problems in cybersecurity.

(via MacBytes)

Yahoo! News RSS feeds

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Jeremy notes today that Yahoo! News now has RSS feeds available. A good thing for finding news — but not for linking to news. For once, I’m in complete agreement with Dave Winer:

There’s another concern, linkrot. Links into Yahoo News rot relatively quickly, as compared to News.Com, for example, which is near perfect. So, until I hear something has changed, I’m going to use Yahoo to read news but try hard not to point to stories on Yahoo from my weblog.

I noticed this quite a while ago. Anytime I find or am sent a link to a Yahoo! News story that I want to link to, my first step is to copy the title of the story, head over to Google News and search for that story. Usually I can find a link to another news source that doesn’t delete its pages after a time. Yahoo! News and the corresponding RSS feeds will be quite handy for finding stories — but until they start keeping their archives online, they’re essentially worthless for linking stories.

SoBig virus source found

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Security teams have tracked down the original source for the recent SoBig F virus — however, the author is still unknown.

FBI investigators have now tracked down the source of the virus, known as SoBig F, to a porn website in Phoenix, Arizona. It was put on the net in the guise of a photograph posted in an adult ‘newsgroup’, a forum where users post messages and pictures. When people clicked to download the picture their computers unwittingly became infected and spread the virus which emailed copies of itself from their accounts.

Antici…

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Talk about a difficult decision.

I hadn’t mentioned this publicly on here yet, but last week I went down to The Mac Store in the University District and plunked down the money for a mid-range 1.8 Ghz single processor Power Mac. At the time I paid for it, the salesmen were fairly sure that they’d be receiving the machines within a few days.

As the week has gone by, though, it’s become apparent that even though Apple has started shipping the new machines, it’s something of a slow process. The current theory (which I read on a messageboard last night, though I can’t find the post now) is that Apple is shipping the low-end single-processor 1.6Ghz machines to educational institutions first, and retailers second, to be followed by midrange single-processor 1.8Ghz machines, then finally, the high-end dual-processor 2.0Ghz machines. When I called The Mac Store this morning to see if they’d had any further word on their shipment date, I was given a similar story — they’re expecting the 1.6Ghz machines “any time now”, but the 1.8Ghz machines have a much looser ship date, possibly “as late as Sept. 8th”.

So, I got to thinking. Part of the reason I ordered the midrange machine was simply impatience — word was out that Apple was on-track to ship on time (which, in all fairness, they’re doing — just not as fast as we’d all like), and I’m more than ready to move up from my current 350Mhz G3 tower. I had the money available for the midrange machine, expected it to arrive within a week, and decided to go for it. Now, however, I’ve been waiting for a week, and it’s possible (though not gauranteed) that I could be waiting for another two weeks. Given that, I turned it over in my head for a bit, and decided that as long as I’m (whimper, whine) resigning myself to waiting longer than I’d expected, I might as well wait for something really worth waiting for — and called The Mac Store and changed my payment from a full payment on the midrange machine to a (large) down payment on the top of the line machine.

So, I’m going to be waiting a bit longer — current estimations for shipping on the high end G5’s are mid to late September. But that gives me a few more weeks to scrape up the last \$600 I need, and when the time comes, I’ll have the absolute top of the line high-end dual 2Ghz G5 Power Mac sitting in my apartment. The waiting’s gonna kill me — but the final result will be more than worth it.