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So after much procrastination, I’ve finally released DVDFolks 0.8. Versions 0.1-0.7 took roughly a month between them (i.e. a new version every 4/5 days). 0.7-0.8 has taken 3 months. hmm..

The extended release time has meant that the code base has had an overhaul, and lots of testing has taken place. The result – I feel confident enough to remove the ‘beta’ label.

I’ve just looked at my site stats for the first time this month – DVDFolks 0.7 now has over a thousand downloads – I get the feeling that transcribing the credits directly from the movie, just isn’t something most people want to do…

I’ve just seen the uber-cool trailer for Serenity.

My sitting-unwatched-on-the-shelf-since-I-bought-them-a-year-ago Firefly DVDs are now calling to me with a strong sense of urgency…

I’m lost for words…

I’m posting (at last) from my new system. The upgrade didn’t exactly go smoothly.

• I did detailed research. This included seeing if my power supply had a 24-pin connector as well as a 20-pin (old motherboard was 20-pin, new one needs 24). It did according to the manufacturer’s website.
• So I ordered the parts (I went for the 3.6Ghz with the extra RAM – I can always overclock, and Windows can never have too much RAM to use)
• Parts arrive
• After screwing down the motherboard, I discover that my power supply doesn’t have the necessary connector
• Since I’d just finished taking apart the PC, and had 2 PC’s worth of parts scattered across the room, I didn’t want to wait for an online shop to deliver – I went to PC World. There I bought the cheapest power supply I could find with the right connector – £64.95!!! (online you can buy a case+power supply for £26 – and that includes next-day delivery.
• I finished connecting the computer together
• Turned it on
• it went <bang>
• Turned it off
• I sent back the motherboard, and rebuilt my old PC

a few days pass

• Receive replacement motherboard
• Connect everything together
• Turned it on
• It didn’t boot (no <bang> though)
• Rechecked screws etc
• Eventually discovered that it booted as long as there was no RAM in the 1st slot.
• Decided to live with a faulty RAM slot.

a few hours pass

• I decide that the heatsink/fan combo that came with the processor were going to drive me nutty with the noise – they were making more noise than my vacuum cleaner does – and my computer case is filled with sound-absorbing materials…
• I order some quiet parts

a few days pass

• The quiet heatsink I ordered was designed for a socket-478 motherboard, and I have a socket-775. This means that I need to install an adapter (ordered at the same time). I now discover that installing the adapter, means I need access to the bottom of the motherboard. So I disassemble my PC for what feels like the hundreth time in a week
• I turn on the PC – all goes well
• I turn off the PC, put the lid back on, and put it upright (it was on it’s side for easy access)
• I turn on the PC – it doesn’t boot….
• I lay it down flat again – it boots
• I recheck screws, put it upright, no boot…

the next day…

• Take it apart
• Holding the motherboard in my hands, with the bare minimum connected it boots – vertically and horizontally
• Put it back (loose) in the case – it boots
• Screw it down – no boot
• Undo screws – it boots
• Tightening a screw, testing, doing another screw up, testing again reveals that a certain screw is causing the difficulty – leaving it undone cures my boot problems
• Observing that the problem screwhole lies next to the bad RAM slot, I put some RAM into the bad slot – it now works.
• Not wanting to push my luck, I spend the next 2 hours testing that the system boots (horizontally and vertically) after connecting each and every cable/card/etc to the motherboard.

It’s now been running for about 12hrs, and seems OK….

As mentioned in the comments of my previous post, David Naylor has taken some screenshots to make browser comparisons easy, and the SeBlog has a couple more (including older Internet Explorers). No-one has posted a Konquerer 3.4 screenshot yet (version 3.4 claims full CSS2.1 compliance), so here’s one I took earlier…

Click to enlarge

Update (12 Apr@11:10): PinkFreud has taken a Safari screenshot

Click to enlarge

Update (13 Apr@17:40):Jonathan Johnsson has sent me an IE/Mac screenshot. It’s different than the others…

Click to enlarge

Is there anyone who can can take a screengrab of Safari and/orIE/Mac for those without access to a Mac?

Update 28 July 2005 – I’ve now got a screenshot of IE7 beta 1 (found on web).

Click to enlarge

The Web Standards Project (WaSP) (the people who brought us browsehappy.com), have just finished working on their latest opus – Acid2.

Quick background: Old-skool web pages use(d) tables (grids within grids) to layout their pages. Exactly how these pages were supposed to look was never defined within HTML, but Netscape was the dominant browser of the day, and when Microsoft launched Internet Explorer, they spent a lot of time copying the minute details of how Netscape did it, to minimise the ‘my pages look different in this new browser – it must suck’ comments. Other browsers (e.g. Opera) also did the same, although by the time Mozilla came to be written, IE was the dominant browser, so Mozilla copied IE, which had copied Netscape. Netscape then used Mozilla…anyway when using old-skool web pages, pages are pretty much guaranteed to look the same between browsers (with me so far?)

Anyway, then came along CSS, which promised a new world of design. Except that because their was no well-established implementation that any ‘good’ browser needed to match, different browsers implemented different parts, differences in rendering weren’t tracked down and fixed – consistent cross-browser CSS became (and still is) difficult to acheive. (still with me?)

Then along came the original Acid test. This was a well-publicised test page that tested the limits of CSS1 (if a browsers can display a horribly complex test page correctly, then it should be able to handle ’standard’ pages with ease). If the browser can’t handle it, but its competitors can…it worked – Microsoft made substantial fixes to Internet Explorer, Netscape dumped the horrible NS4 rendering engine, in favour of a complete rewrite (cue Mozilla) etc. CSS page authoring got a lot easier… (N.B. I didn’t say easy)

With the imminant arrival of IE7 (after a 4 year hiatus), it was decided that it would be a good idea to repeat the Acid test for the next level of CSS – CSS2 (IE doesn’t currently support CSS2). By setting a ‘bar’ for Microsoft (and other browser vendors) to pass, interoperable implementations of CSS2 should finally be here! It’s important to note that the members of WaSP are some of the most respected and well-known figures on the web – this isn’t some crackpot group!

The test is in the form of a smiley face – any deviations should be easy to spot.

Mozilla developers have done the best job so far in my opinion (the current development versions do a better job than Firefox 1.0/Mozilla 1.7), with a clearly defined face, although it doesn’t have any eyes, and the head has a beard!). Opera (both 8.0beta and 7.54) have a recognisable face, but there are some serious problems there. If anyone can find anything that vaguely resembles a face in IE6, please let me know!

Given the state of IE6, I’ll be very impressed if IE7 can pull off the test successfully – but I certainly wouldn’t like to be one of the IE team!

Back in July 2002, I originally had a PIII450. I remember it had a Nvidia 4400 graphics card, because I upgraded it shortly beforehand so I could play GTA3 with a frame rate slightly better than 3fps! It had a DVD drive that I got whilst doing work experience with a computer company in 2000, and it also had the floppy drive from my previous machine (the previous machine kept the drive from the machine before it…) – other details such as RAM and HD size escape me.

That month I upgraded to a P4 2.26Ghz with 128Mb RAM, a 40Gb hard drive and a 5.1 surround sound card. I kept the graphics card, DVD drive and the floppy drive

Since then I’ve upgraded just about every piece of that machine (seriously). I’ve added a 120Gb hard drive (keeping the 40Gb one as well), I added another 128Mb RAM, I’ve replaced the graphics card (see previous entry), added a faster CD writer, added a DVD writer, replaced the DVD writer with a faster one, added wired networking, replaced that with wireless networking, replaced the case/fans for quieter varieties, replaced the 5.1 card (+speakers) for 6.1 versions, upgraded from a 15″ monitor to a 17″, even replaced the keyboard and mouse have been replaced.

In fact the only bits of my computer that haven’t been upgraded since then are the processor/motherboard, the original DVD drive and my trusty floppy drive.

Although slow by modern standards, I’m loathe to replace my DVD drive, because it’s slot-based, rather than drawer-based (think of a car CD-player) and I’ve grown used to simply putting in a disc to watch without to ejecting the drive first. I don’t think they make slot-based drives anymore

If my originally-from-a-286(!) floppy drive dies, I won’t replace it since I can’t actually remember the last time I used a floppy!

That leaves my motherboard and processor which are now 2.5years old. For someone like me, that’s actually pretty good going. In my family, I’m the ‘tech’ guy, and yet both my sister and parents have a better ‘core’ (motherboard/processor/RAM) PC than me. So I’ve started actively researching a range of upgrade options (I don’t know how much I want to spend yet)

In a what was a very closely contested contest [blah, blah]

cue drumroll….

….in 3rd place – The Register with Bush twins to join Air Force tech unit in Iraq

…in 2nd place – Google with Google Gulp (read the FAQ)

..and the winner…in 1st place….NASA with the inspired Water on Mars