Author Archive

So, IE 8 is plugging along (http://internetexplorer8.net/) and the reviews are mixed, at best.  Normally I would just laugh at Microsoft’s sad attempts at building a browser that is even remotely standards compliant, but I find myself seriously rooting for them to pull it together on this one.  Ok, ok, I have a vested interest.  [...]

So, I need to come clean.  I’ve been harboring the secret for far too long… I admit it, I still use TopStyle from time to time.   (I can hear you laughing from here.)  I only use it for css, but for some reason the auto-complete just feels right to me, or maybe we are just [...]

Now is not the time to be surfing, now is the time to be voting!  This election promises some of the highest voter turnout ever, with numbers in the eightieth percentile, so please do your part.  If you are still undecided and want to know where any of the major or third party candidates stand [...]

hmm.. i just looked at the current results, and Basta, this one may be for you:
It’s election time!  Voting is in the air, but some of us may be out of practice from not voting since the primary, or since last fall, or even since 2004.  So, for those of you who are psyched to [...]

Have you ever noticed that age and computer knowledge seem to be inversely proportionate?  My friend Rhino-boy once predicted that someday there would be a Secretary of the Internet in the President’s cabinet… and that they would be twelve!  (Sorry, Basta, you’re too old now )  With a new administration around the corner, who [...]

Come on, it’s time for a trip down old school lane.  For each and every one of us, there was a time when we knew nothing what so ever about html.  There was a time when we didn’t know what an a tag was, a time when we thought that CSS was some sort of [...]

Go and the Art of Business Part III - “Crisis, or Opportunity?”

Lisa: Look on the bright side, Dad. Did you know that the Chinese use the same word for ‘crisis’ as they do for ‘opportunity’?

Homer: Yes! Cris-atunity.

As mentioned last time (http://spgblog.solidcactus.com/2008/10/17/go-and-the-art-of-business-part-ii/) the etymological claim above is not technically true, although it remains a popular [...]

So, here is the story: as a joke in his webcomic ‘xkcd’, Randall Munroe talked about creating a virus, the sole purpose of which was to read youtube comments out loud before they are submitted.  (http://xkcd.com/481/ for reference, although please abide by network security policies and protocols if reading this post from your place of [...]

Ok, I’ve figured out an idea for our next feature.  Based on demand, we now offer Magic Zoom installation.  (See http://www.solidcactus.com/magiczoom-installation.html for details.)  What’s the next step?  Magic eye zoom, of course!  When you hover over the image the zoom window appears, but it is pixelated like one of those Magic Eye puzzles.  So, after [...]

Go and the Art of Business Part II - “Try to win by exactly one point”

In Part I of “Go and the Art of Business” (http://spgblog.solidcactus.com/2008/10/09/go-and-the-art-of-business-part-i/) I introduced one of the basic sayings of go, “Try to lose your first 50 games as quickly as possible”. This week I’d like to introduce another [...]