IMS_Blog

Damn, my bookmarks seem to be getting out of hand again. Time for some reordering/preening. /:s

Oh no, breakdown . Someone call the AA (they go to Mars don’t they?)

The latest version of Mozilla has been unleashed on the world. See the release notes. New features include cross platform NTLM authentication, some more Mail enhancements and Translate Page is back. Get yours now.

Report that a lost episode of Dr Who has been found. Fantastic. For some reason the BBC used to have a policy of not actually keeping tapes of their series. This episode was found because basically someone nicked it when it was being thrown away to make space!! There are 108 episodes still missing. Check those lofts and don’t throw out strange looking old video reels without making sure their not the Dr!

Are very nice indeed, especially when they come from the shop down the road :-)

Interesting piece in the Guardian newspaper talking about the demise of Saturday evening local papers carrying reports of the local football results. Traditionally these would be printed on unusually coloured paper (anyone know why?), quite often pink. Whilst the version of my youth, the Pink covering Newcastle United, is still around, many others aren’t.
I remember being young and just after tea on a Saturday my dad would go along the shop for the Pink, and normally chocolate (it was always simply the Pink to us, never the Pink ‘Un. My fiancee Rachel knew hers as that, and gets nostalgic over it every time we’re in Norwich on a Saturday). He’d read it and then I would, devouring the tales of goals and chances. Occasionally we’d know we had the very early edition because the score would be wrong due to some 89th minute goal, or they would just mention that goal right at the end with no description. I suppose in this internet age the information is immediately available, even as it happens, but somehow that can’t be the same (strangely whilst the other local Newcastle papers are online the Pink isn’t). What about those tiny local sides always covered a few pages in? The centre page picture of some hero of a player to pull out and reverently attach to a bedroom wall? No, I like the thought that if I happen to visit home on a Saturday I can buy the Pink, despite knowing the score and many of the talking points. Long live the Pink (and Pink ‘Un and Green ‘Un and…)

NASA’s Martian rover really is on Mars now, having rolled off the lander to have its wheels touch the alien soil for the first time. BBC News story. Nothing up on JPL site yet. Checkout 2020 Hindsight for some excellent blogging of it all.
Edit 12:03: NASA JPL site has the news up, complete with rear Hazcam image of the lander left behind with trackmarks in the Martian soil. Well done Spirit (and well done the NASA team).

So George W Bush has announced another intitiative of his dad’s he’d like to finish off. At least this is a good one though. Back to the Moon - and onwards to Mars. (BBC news coverage, Google news search).
Well it’s obviously a political card, trying to capture some sort of mood before elections (what mood isn’t that clear though). However, who cares the reasonings, the vision is still there. Let’s go to Mars. Finally stop just going round and round our little planet and go somewhere interesting (we don’t exactly manage to do much up on ISS these days anyway). And why leave it to the US to have all the fun/glory/burden. The ESA should be on the phone to NASA asking to come along on the ride as well (maybe they could have a look for poor Beagle when there). To go to Mars is to explore and bring the benifits that entails in the same spirit that only a few centuries ago sailors would set out across the seas. We may know where we’re going but, like them, we certainly don’t know what well find.
The difficulties are many but it is from difficulties that we advance. It may be costly but we can find funds for many less worthy things (and anyone who complains at this juncture about spending on world hunger etc should explain exactly what they should do and then agree we should stop spending on art, sport, their nice car…)
Mars has beckoned ever since we understood our, and its, place in our little system whirling round the Sun. About time we answered its call, let’s go to Mars!

Still no release of Moz 1.6 final. Come on, come on….I’m getting imaptiant. Mind it does seem to be a Bugday today, so maybe let them off.

I wish cats could talk. They un-characteristically don’t turn up for breakfast and then reappear several hours later with something of a smug look on their face. Can’t just ask “where have you been?” All you get back is a meow or maybe a purr. The things they’d tell us if they could. “I just wandered down the ginger boy’s down the road. Some night. My head hurts, all that catnip”. Or more probably, “Where’s this breakfast then?”

Apparently theres a new “clone” of the Segway. The question remains, why? Devices such as this are not a miracle mass transportation solution. Users are still exposed to the elements, so no advantage there. There simply not manouverable enough (try quickly turning on the spot to head back where you came), how are you supposed to dive into a shop to avoid that shower? And what do you do with them when in a shop, tie them awkardly to a post? Are they supposed to be ridden on the road (where even the cyclists will get annoyed with them) or pavements (where they’re just too damn bulky-one might be fine, the crowds parting to view the novelty value, but a crowd of christmas shoppers all on their Segway derivatives, I don’t think so).
So, they cost loads and do things worse than a bicycle. May as well just give a bike a bit of power if you’re lazy…oh, hold on..
At least they do have a use, to play strange forms of football. :)

Seems I’m not the only one with a new blog. Spirit, the Martian rover, also has a Blog :)

Well, I added a link to the navigation for my home page so I suppose this is now live! Settings have been changed to ping weblogs.com on update.

Seems to have been this bug. Applying height:100% to the relativly positioned div containing the absolutely positioned divs which were misplaced fixed the problem. Much happier boy :)
Edit: I’ve also fixed the comments window to look like it should in IE, thanks to IE’s lack of support for the [attr] selector.

Grrr… Think you’ve got it all sorted, then you check in IE.

Too tired to fix that now, I’ll have a look tomorrow.

Well, the blog styling is pretty much finished, which means I should probably start blogging properly!! Comments are now available on all posts thanks to Enetation. The form in the comments window is layed out using css based on that by Mark Newhouse, here.
Another screenshot of the blog, styled as of now, is here.

Well, things are moving along. I’ve got styling that I’m more or less happy with (at least at the moment). The title area obviously needs work, and there’s a bit to do to the containing for links content etc, but it’s basically OK. Screenshot of current state is here.
Looks like MozBlog is a bit of a none starter though. Few too many bugs for it to be useful enough. I’ve adapted Phil Ringnalda’s BlogThis extension to provide a bookmarklet to Blog through Blogger’s BlogThis form. That’s quite useful. Head over to the Moz Section for a copy.

Well, there’s some styling on here as I begin to build the blog template up. I’m beginning to understand the blogger tags now. Bit more styling (probably major chances will happen from what it looks like now) and it should ready to be unleashed.
Unfortunatly it seems there are some problems with MozBlog. I might have to go hacking around at its code ;)

Testing mozblog out, an extension for Mozilla to interface with blogger

Watch out. It’s coming! The IMS_Blog. Just as soon as I figure this templating stuff out.