IE7

I just upgraded to IE7. I had to keep IE6 longer than than I’d have preferred because I write a lot of web-based stuff and IE6 was the primary target until recently. IE7 is nicer than IE6 – the tabs are a good addition – but it still has a messed up CSS interpreter, so programming to it is still a hassle. In FireFox, when you create HTML via JavaScript via DOM, it works as expected. But under IE7 there’s still lots of the wierdness that IE6 was well known for. I don’t get it… you go to all the trouble of making a major upgrade relelase yet you still don’t address some pretty basic flaws. OK, I do get it – I’ve contributed to many products that have done the same for economic reasons. But it’s still disappointing.

AOL

AOL is interesting. I’ve had an AOL account since early on, and have kept it as my main email for all these years because I hate changing stuff like this. With the advent of broadband (DSL and cable modems), most people seem to get email addresses with their ISP, eg. joe@adelphia.com. The problem is, ISPs don’t seem to last very long. I had Adelphia which was recently bought by Comcast. So all the @adelphia email addresses are dead and everyone had to get new @comcast addresses, and many people can’t get the address they want. So they invent new email addresses, and expect everyone to update their address books. And I hate silly email addresses – who the hell is furrycat@whatever.com? Whatever happened to myname@whatever.com? My guess is that they lose 50% of their contacts when this happens (I only update the people I’m really interested in). So get an email addess thats not tied to your ISP.

OK, so back to AOL. I’d have dumped AOL a while back if they hadn’t (quietly) gone free. Despite the stigma of having an @aol.com email address, I like mine & don’t want to change, and if you think less of me because I’m @aol.com, fuck you.

Now, finally to the genesis of this post: AOL has XM radio – commercial free! – which I find valuable. I have a bazillion CDs and MP3s, but sometimes I want someone else to choose the music. Right now I’m listening to Yours Is No Disgrace by Yes. I’ve never owned a Yes album, but I like their stuff in small bites, which is how it comes on the “radio”. So, despite their cheesy image and McNews, I like AOL.

Hello world!

I thought I might want a blog. My friend Rich had a great one 10+ years ago (before the term “blog” was invented), and more recently my friend Mark created one (on WordPress) that’s more tech-oriented. Dunno what I’ll do with it, or who might read it, but it seemed like something to do. I have strong opinions on many subjects; not sure how public I want to make them

Deja Vibe

In my continuing quest for the Trower sound, I bought a used mini Deja Vibe (http://fulltone.com/miniDV.asp) thru ebay for $200. It just arrived so of course I gotta drop everything and try it out!  It works perfectly (I’ve never had bad luck on ebay) and sounds good, but I can tell that, like all effects, I’ll need to play with it a bit in order to understand how the the “right” sound out of it.