Susie's Meanderings

Speedy like a fox

So, inspired by my new computer classes, I've spent the last two weeks pulling my little 3 year old gateway apart, dusting off its parts, reformatting the hard drive, and today, glory be, I installed an extra 512MB of memory. I've been wanting to do this for some 2 years, but Gateway, in its wisdom, made my computer with the proprietary (and expensive) Rambus RAM, and in two years of waiting, the price has never gone down. One day it occurred to me....lots of people must be getting rid of their old tired RDRAM on ebay.... and sure enough, I found everything I needed, available to "Buy it Now" for less than half the price of new RAM. It arrived today, and was installed within minutes. My computer flies now.
Next, a new video card... which requires a new power supply to support it....

Seasonal CSS

A slight change to my stylesheet in honor of the first day of winter.... (which is the 21st). It'll be back to the pansies again after New Year's. Unless something else strikes my fancy...

More Tinkering

After much gnashing of teeth and several false starts, I finally have my calendar page updated and matching. I really really really hate tables. Not that there's much interesting to see on my calendar now that I'm home, but I thought it was good practice. It's a little prettier in IE, since I can do transparent filters, but such is life.

Tinkering

After four consecutive nights of nightmares in which I am trying to stuff unwilling people into snippets of code, I've finally taken myself in hand and fixed the majority of the jumpy hover links on this page. I haven't quite resigned myself to giving up the ones on the side bar, because I know there's a way to fix it, I just don't remember what it is...
Now, on to the rest of the site.

Dreamweaver

I have Dreamweaver now (thanks Tim!) and it's amazing. Once I got past the fact that hyperlinks on pictures are called Hot buttons, and once I discovered that I could map areas of one picture and link them to all different places, I was sold. Next thing I know, I have six programs running and I don't leave my cabin for ten hours. The cosmetic changes are minimal, but KB will no doubt be delighted to hear that I'm finally coming to terms with CSS (badly, no doubt, but those of you using Firefox will be delighted to know that the little brackets on my calendar have now disappeared). So watch for more changes. I'm afraid 10 hours only got me as far as the home page and calendar page, but the Louie pages are next.
Meanwhile, the Caribbean is lovely as always, though I wouldn't know, because I'm sitting in a dark cyber bar, updating my website.

Ping Spam

Once again, a big thank you to KB for sending me the link to block all ping spam. Now I feel smarter. (Not that I didn't have a few moments of frustration in setting up the script, but I really really wanted to figure it out myself) nothing like 300 ping spams in the space of 24 hours to motivate me.
Meanwhile, today is the last Ketchikan - we're going for Thai food, where, oddly enough, I've had the best Won-Ton soup I've ever eaten. I've been dreaming about it for two weeks. If only it would stop raining.

Getting Acquainted with JavaScript

For a while now it's bothered me that, while I have lovely pop-up windows for my pictures within my blog, (thanks entirely to Movable Type and Image Magic and certainly no skill of my own), I haven't been able to propagate this to the rest of my site. Well, no more. I gritted my teeth and came to terms with just enough JavaScript to get me in trouble, and I have entirely revamped my Louie page. So for all you fans of Louie (and I know there are some besides my mother), here are 16 brand new pictures of Louie's adventures from Mexico to Athens, all of them lovingly hand coded to pop up into a 600px by 600px window when you click on them.

Louie Page

Finally (or Almost)

So, after much sweating of blood and compromising my artistic sense by using Frontpage (with occasional mop-ups of hand coding the HTML), I have managed to post a few (well, quite a few) pictures from this summer in the Med. The first page is sort of a random assortment from different places, but there wasn't room for everything, so look for the links to Italy, Greece and Turkey. Oh, and it's still sort of a work in progress, so let me know if you see anything glaringly awful. A lot of this was done under the influence of a gang of 6 year olds.

Susie's Med Pictures

Gmail

Oh, and by the by - I have 6 gmail invites, if anyone's interested. It may take me a couple days to get them out, but let me know if you want one. Oh, and here's what marshmallows look like when they're toasted in the toaster oven with chocolate chips.

Cleaning House

I got a wild hair today, and changed my color scheme to a nice soothing periwinkle. Actually, according to Visibone, it's a "pale, dull blue", but it suits my current mood. Maybe it's too much time spent here in the Northwest. I notice that everything for sale in the little craft shops here (mostly ceramics) are all varying shades of blue, green and purple. Which, really, I find a little odd - you'd think we'd get enough of that color scheme just from our surroundings. Who wouldn't like a little splash of orange here and there to brighten up the place? Incidentally, I have also ruthlessly pruned my blogroll, so if you haven't posted since 2003, your name has disappeared. A few of the remaining ones (don't make me call out your names) are skating on the thin edge of inclusion. At any rate, my CSS is a little rusty, so if you all notice anything broken, let me know.

Updates

One of the benefits of getting my run out of the way at 7:30 is that the day then stretches endlessly out in front of me with nothing to do but play on the computer. As a result, I've updated my calendar through October (I could probably do it with reasonable accuracy through May, but that seems a little excessive) for those of you who are waiting with 'bated breath to see where I'm going next. Anyway, it's back to the Med for me for the moment (followed, if all goes as planned, by Tahiti, Australia, and East Asia). Who's coming with me?

New Pages

Okay - countless hours and one pair of strained eyes later, I have added two new pages: French Polynesia and the Cook Islands, Marquesas and Sunsets I've also added to the Louie page, so you can see him and Bob at play in Bora Bora and on the ship. I hope KB will forgive me that I have not yet fully embraced CSS, but rather just customized the HTML I already had in place. But now, of course, I'm burning to improve upon the existing site, and find a better way to display the pictures, as I'm finding the current system a little cumbersome. However, in three days I get on another ship and will have limited internet access. So for now - here it is. KB will further be pleased that I have buried my DHTML deeper in the site, so you no longer come upon it involuntarily.

Thanks KB!

Once again thanks to the web wizardry of KB, my site is free of comment spam. Yay. And, if you will look over to the right, there is now a category index, also due to some IM hand holding on KB's part. Now I just have to start working on content. And just so you all know how rusty I've gotten, it took me five minutes to remember how to make a hyperlink.

Takes a licking...

The other day I was doing a huge mound of laundry (which means I didn't check my pockets very carefully before I threw it in the wash) and when I went to take everything out of the dryer, imagine my horror when I discovered my 256mb flash drive sitting perky and clean in the lint trap. Keep in mind that every document I need, all my PowerPoint shows, useful bits and pieces, are on this little drive, and while I have it moderately backed up, it had been a few weeks since I'd thought about it. On a whim, because it really didn't look too destroyed, I plugged it into my computer, and lo and behold, it worked like a charm, not a single file lost after 30 minutes in the washing machine (cold wash) and 30 minutes in the dryer ( permanent press, medium heat). Will miracles never cease?

Banner Day

After months of waiting, now my website shows up first when I type my name into Google! I have found myself.

Katie Rocks

First of all - Kris' CSS class was excellent, it's sort of like getting a map to a city that you've been wandering around in blindly for a long time. But Katie is the one that held my hand and walked me through the transparency and the picture stuff, and I have to say, she is the VERY soul of patience. In other news, I met with Steph, Kristy and Gretchen for lunch today at Sushiland. I think that Paradise must be very like sushiland, with little tidbits of food running around on conveyer belts for all eternity. Steph has promised pictures.

Changes....

Many thanks to Katie for her patience and assistance with the tweaks to my blog. It's still not where I want it, but thanks to Katie, I can now play with it to my heart's content.

Susie Gets Movable Type!

Well, I don't know what you all were complaining about, moving to Movable Type is a piece of cake. Mind you, I didn't actually do it, just watched in awe as Kris moved script around the screen. I'm fortunate to be posting without his help. Yipee! I just figured out hyperlinks all by myself. So, that aside, Susie's little word of advice for the day... don't let your hairdresser get involved on an emotional topic while she (or he) is cutting your hair. Mine just got back from a cruise which she hated, and as a result, my hair is a full inch shorter than anticipated. On the other hand, that's a quick and easy way to lose half a pound.

Attempting the thumbnail

Above, I'm attempting the thumbnail thing again. Still getting errors from blogger, but they seem to sort themselves out after about 12 hours, so bear with me.

So, I would have posted

So, I would have posted yesterday, but I was apparently being imported to the new, improved blogger. We shall see. I have Finished Harry Potter (amazing how much reading you can get done on a 5-6 hour flight) and recommend it highly to all fans of HP. I am delirious with joy to be back in Seattle, but find myself confined to a dark room today with a post-trip migraine. Ugh. I've finally reached a point where I can walk around the house without contemplating suicide - actually, I'm feeling positively perky now, or I wouldn't be posting.

On a happy note, I

On a happy note, I have free high speed internet. Yay!!! Harry Potter can wait.

Susie's new favorite site.... check

Susie's new favorite site.... check out the Dayalets and the Gallery of Regrettable food in the Institute of Official Cheer Is it a surprise to anyone that my favorite site involves food, even if it is regrettable? I've been giggling more or less uncontrollably since logging on.

Louie Loves HTML

Ah, diving back into the morass that is HTML, my home computer is doing some really weird things, like not allowing me to view the source on my webpages, unless I save them to my computer, in which case it did some weird messing with all the links. However, I have emerged semi-victorious - the code is ugly, but the page looks like it always has. For any fans of Louie (if there are any) I have finally updated his page with some new pictures. I wanted to be true to the spirit of the only page I've ever written from scratch, so I did it all by hand (well, except for the little photo montage at the top, I have to admit to a little assistance from Front Page there - but when my computer lost the background picture, I had to fix it by hand, so I think that counts for something. Anyway, it's past time to walk AWAY from the computer for me. But before I go, please note the new link to Kris' fantastic photo blog over on the right hand side.

Slave to Public Opinion

I am nothing if not accomodating. Aaron requests better colors for my visited links. Done. Tracey wants an email link. Done also. I have WAAAAY too much time on my hands. Any further requests? I'm happy to oblige. (and Rebecca - if you're reading this, I've also fixed the inconsistency on my August Calendar) Oh, and in case anyone out there is interested - today I had brie in my sandwich. In fact, I'm just working my way down Pete's Deli's Sandwich Specials List, so far the Cran Turkey still reigns supreme, but in the meantime I'm finding some tasty little sandwiches. Had a few brief moments of heady freedom today, drove all the way up to Everett to do a little shopping - I find it a little ironic that I live in the middle of a big city, and still have to drive 45 minutes to shop at Target.

Giraffes

Spending a most productive day in the office playing with my site and my photographs. I've changed up the home page a little bit, but I'm getting a little frustrated with my background image. does anyone know how to make it stretch rather than tile? Grrr. At any rate, it's far far to beautiful a day to sit in the office any longer. On the other hand, if I leave now, my home page is going to look funny all weekend. Or, I could do another crash course in HTML. Wait , Luke is here to help me.... and once again, it comes down to CSS, which clearly I'm going to have to learn..

bad networking juju

I'm having bad networking juju this week. On Friday, I had a broken Office Connect (or it didn't like the ISP - between Networking and I, we still couldn't figure it out) but I did manage to share out the library's existing connection. In the next library, they needed an Office Connect, but they slipped through the cracks somehow, and didn't get one (my apologies to the trainer that gets to sweep that library), and their exitsting computer didn't connect to the internet, so no sharing there. Then today, our library got a Linksys, but when I asked how they connected to the internet, she pointed to the cat 5 cable on the ground and said "that's how". And it turns out they connected to the town's ISP, which was housed in the basement, and we were not to touch it. Fortunately Kristy's networking brain was working better than mine, and she got it working without touching anything in the basement. Yay Kristy. I've also managed to break the high speed internet in my room. Sigh. It's definitely time to come home.

ARgh

ARgh - in a vain attempt to fix my archives, I have destroyed my blog and lost my comments. At least I don't have it running down the page in streaky lines anymore. I hope you all missed that. Anyway, I shall keep struggling with it

DHTML

Kris Bell -please don't hate me, but it was irresistible. I have a little moving mouse trail on my photos page, but in deference to the purists, I've also made a link to the nice, quiet, no movement photo page, so Kris...please don't hack my site....Okay, I'm off to pack, so I can take the redeye to Boston this evening. I don't anticipate having much of a connection for the next few days, so there won't be much in the way of changes in the days to come. Which is probably a good thing, since I'm dreaming in HTML these days. I'm so scatterbrained today, I don't feel at all prepared for this trip....Now I can't get this stupid thing to post. It's definitely time to go home.

HTML

Well, I made up for my no computer day yesterday, and wrote my first page in HTML from scratch (with a little judicious copying from an existing page, but still....) Wahooo! And I dedicate my work to my little travelling companion - Louie - who is the star of the page. If you can bear to look at pictures of cute little stuffed lambs, here it is... Louie's Page There's lots more to come, as soon as I can get to a scanner. Now I need to move away from the computer and get the blood running back into my lower extremites...

Betty Newbie

So, I'm spending a productive day at work playing with my new web page. Kris has promised to make me understand Cascading Style Sheets next week (yes Aaron , I know you warned me), so this will all look better soon. In the meantime, I guess it's time to play with thumbnails so I can get my photo page up and running. Any and all advice is welcome.

Wahoo!

Wahoo! (In the words, if not the tone, of Ms Frizzell) - I just did my first html editing to my page. Granted, it was only copy and paste, but I'm pleased nonetheless.

Kris Bell is Smart

So, a mighty thanks to Kris Bell, without whom I wouldn't have comments on this page, and it would all still look weird and bad. Kris weaned me away from Front Page extensions today and led me down the primrose path of ftp. Yay. So easy, now that I'm getting the hang of it. Good to be home, it's become one of those fantastic sunny days in Seattle, and because it's spring, it even smells like flowers (at least it did on the walk to Pete's today). I'm feeling all organized, because I made it to the grocery store (Can anyone get out of Larry's Market for under $50, or is it like an entrance fee?), and I'm planning a little roast chicken for dinner tomorrow night. Well, back to my book - I'm rereading one that I read in college - "The Cuckoo's Egg "- by a guy who discovered a spy ring hacking into his computers based on a 75 cent accounting error. It all took place back in the 80's , and it's funny to read now when he talks about high connection speeds, and means 9600 baud. Anyway, it's great to read it now that I understand what he's talking about, when I was 20 it all seemed like hopeless scientific jargon to me.

What? No Front Page?

Grrr, I just discovered, much to my surprise, that I don't have Front Page on my new computer. Now I'm going to have to learn HTML. Sigh....

Luke tempts me over to the Dark Side

Okay, Luke has encouraged me, wisely I think, to use a template for my blog. I'm all for artistic freedom , but given my prediliction for animated clip art, a few guidlines are probably a good thing. I just can't promise to use it for my whole web site. So, my last day in Wisconsin, this place has started to grow on me a little bit, now that the weather's better and the trees don't look so dead. I actually stayed at a great B&B on this trip that had its own french chef and shade grown coffee, so I ate better on this trip than I have in a long time. On the other hand, that made it really hard to adjust to eating at Sammy's diner tonight. So, if you're ever in Marinette, go have dinner at the M&M Victorian Inn, but be sure you have reservations and lots of money. And say hi to Stefane for me. Well, that's enough for now, I have an entire website to create.

My Very First Post

Okay, I can't have "this is a test" as my first entry. Now I'm testing to see if my firewall will let me post this.