Internet Brothers Lucid Confusion

11th of November 2000

My credit union changed computer systems a couple weeks ago. I can't recall receiving any prior notice. The first signal that something was amiss was an automated teller capturing and keeping my debit card. When I informed the credit union, I learned "Oh yeah, there was an error in our changeover and all cards are being incorrectly captured." They failed to inform me the cards would also be destroyed. I learned that a week later when I inquired why mine hadn't been returned yet.

Now I've had to order a new debit card, a process that takes a minimum of three weeks. When you've become accustomed to using this convenience, financial transactions become more difficult. For example, I received an offer to take out the .net and .org versions of my web domain for just $10 apiece. A good deal, I immediately jumped on it, but then remembered I don't presently have my debit card.

I learned yesterday of a second snafu resulting from the computer system change. When my ISP tried to make their normal monthly electronic fund transfer from my CU account — their transaction failed — account invalid. Since this occurred late on a Friday afternoon, I can't do anything about it until Monday and my ISP is threatening to terminate my signon. Good thing I didn't try to register those new web domains with that old credit union account number.

In this digital age, we've heard the excuse "computer glitch" for a long time. Hey, I've been a computer professional for 27 years. Computers don't make mistakes. They only do what people tell them to do. When things don't work right it is either because of poor programming, bad data, or incorrect instructions or procedures. I simply don't accept the excuse — the computer system made an error. Some person screwed up and I'm getting extremely annoyed that it's inhibiting the ability to access my money.

10th of November 2000

Hi Joe. This is a test of the Dailywebthing Broadcast System.

9th of November 2000

Indecision 2000 created an odd cloud over the workplace. People who have toiled together for decades, friends — at the least colleagues — were polarized in a manner I've never observed before. A few even became downright red with each other. Past lively debate and discussion of political matters have always been welcome and civil. For reasons of frustration with the uncertain election, attitudes unraveled. I'm as interested in how this all plays out as the next guy, but it isn't worth alienating relations with peers I cooperate with every day. I hope this isn't happening all over.

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Too bad Jann's bite isn't in a less discreet place. Being hidden where it is makes it difficult to show to others and collect a little sympathy. If it's arachnid, I can certainly sympathize. Just a couple years ago I got a spider bite on a toe. Within a week, the toe was purple, swollen thrice normal size, and painful as all get out. Two years later, the nail on that toe still isn't normal. Get well soon Jann, and be careful where you sit.

8th of November 2000

I agree with Stephen Ambrose. It's better than the Super Bowl. Better than a Bob Dylan-Joan Baez concert. It's America doing what it does. It's America at its best, and worst. Whew!

7th of November 2000

While Heather's promise of a personal spanking is definitely tempting, instead I will be casting my vote for George W. Bush today. It's the middle-aged, middle-class white-male thing to do. In spite of that, you ladies will be pleased to know I am voting for women in the gubernatorial and congressional races in my state.

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Photoshop is rich with features for artistic expression. Further, it's a virtual impossibility you will remember every shortcut key to access all those features. Therefore, a cheat sheet would be very helpful. Deke McClellan has dubbed his all-inclusive Photoshop shortcut table "The Great-Grandmother of All Shortcut Tables."

6th of November 2000

The long-time head football coach at our state university announced his retirement over the weekend. A fixture at WVU since 1980, Don Nehlen brought integrity, excitement and occasional prominence to a once lackluster program. Nehlen guided the Mountaineers to undefeated seasons in 1988 and 1993, and took them to 12 bowl games during his tenure. This final team has three more games to capture his 200th career victory, making him only the 18th coach in history to achieve that milestone. A sad but proud time in West Virginia.

Back to work after more than two weeks off. No doubt they've discovered by now they can get along fine without me. Most likely they have also forgotten what I look like. That will be especially true when I walk in for the first time ever without glasses.

5th of November 2000

Must be time for me to get with the program. Brother Dave is doing his bit to promote the Internet Brothers name in the snowy alpine air of Colorado with this snazzy new license plate. Since I just renewed my plates in June, I still have another seven months already paid for. Besides, I may be living in Michigan by then anyway. Nice touch Dave.

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None of us cares if a browser supports a certain feature until we implement the feature and get burned when it doesn't work across browsers. Fortunately, WebMonkey has a great chart detailing all the supported features of the most popular browsers and operating systems.

Many of those features are found within the DOM. The Document Object Model is a container holding all the elements in an HTML page. An ideal way to illustrate the power of the Microsoft DOM is through a simple JavaScript example. We'll use the Microsoft Internet Explorer DOM object and JavaScript to print each tag used in an HTML document. To do so, open any HTML file and place this JavaScript at the end of it:

The key area of the code is document.all. This is the pointer to the DOM object that allows you to reference any Web element on a page. For example, the variable a enumerates through the DOM collection and prints the tagname for each collection object. To see the results, preview the page in Internet Explorer. The JavaScript will write to the screen each tag used in the HTML page. Kudos to John Pollock.