tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56928712012-04-15T18:57:49.133-07:00Don't get caught with your system down.Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01109343057105566460noreply@blogger.comBlogger136125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692871.post-32889398678200079212009-10-17T21:00:00.001-07:002009-10-17T21:00:34.415-07:00

Web Developers:View the source of this blog entry and feel free to add the following code to the end of your pages. Let's deter people from using Internet Explorer until Microsoft simply gives up on it like they should have done so many years ago! And please encourage other web developers to follow suit.P.S. If you are not using Internet Explorer, you won't see anything below this line.<!--

Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01109343057105566460noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692871.post-45524425983769136352009-03-22T22:32:00.004-07:002009-03-22T22:47:50.326-07:00

This blog is pretty stale. But considering the nature of this blog, I'd say that is a good thing. It has been difficult to keep up with things while building a house, moving, and working full time.Not a whole lot has happened on the Computer Circus front. However, I have since found a new home for my web sites - I finally found one that allows hot linking so I can post my photos and link to

Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01109343057105566460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692871.post-36246644158261799492009-01-03T20:50:00.004-08:002009-01-03T22:03:13.004-08:00

Now that I am getting settled into my new home, it seems some old projects are coming back to life. I was arranging things in the basement today when I came across an old computer power supply casing that I had modified (by ripping out its dead guts) to house a separate, much smaller power supply inside, plus a '386 embedded PC computer board and a tiny hard drive from an old laptop. It was a

Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01109343057105566460noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692871.post-53472456146968715432008-05-10T13:07:00.002-07:002008-05-10T13:36:03.058-07:00

Wow. It has been a long time since I have written an entry here. Not much has been happening on the computer front, which is a good thing. So far, all my computers have survived the move into my new home, although they are not all set up, yet. And I have no home for my web sites, yet.I had an interesting thing happen yesterday. It was rather irritating, actually, because it cost me a day of

Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01109343057105566460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692871.post-2130895949132160222007-07-01T13:27:00.000-07:002007-07-01T16:16:14.191-07:00

I should know by now to never do any of these things:Never use Internet Explorer to download anythingNever look for (or download) anything that has "cracked" or "hacked" in the nameNever assume anything will ever be any different "this time"Never, ever consider computers as a good thingEver.Just after I posted my last UNEVENTFUL post, everything went to Hell. Quite literally. I think I saw the

Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01109343057105566460noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692871.post-2791755741919117962007-06-30T18:37:00.000-07:002007-06-30T19:01:30.207-07:00

I initially posted this in my general blog, but then thought it would be good (for me, anyway) to include the post in this blog as well, as it is appropriate.I was feeling this feeling in my gut that I get just before something bad happens to my computer(s). I have learned to pay attention to these nagging little feelings, because they have been so foretelling in the past. This time, I decided

Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01109343057105566460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692871.post-28339958472308313652007-06-20T20:52:00.000-07:002007-06-20T21:16:03.943-07:00

It has been a long time since I made an entry into the Computer Circus. This is a good thing. Today's entry is a success story, so that's good, too.Just before going out of town for the weekend, the weather turned hot here in the San Francisco bay area. I also just happened to notice that the cooling fan in the power supply of my Linux box had quit. I am not sure how, or why, I noticed,

Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01109343057105566460noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692871.post-1153939154288930392006-07-26T11:00:00.000-07:002006-07-26T11:49:46.190-07:00

When I moved to the fringes of Silicon Valley (just down the street from Oracle) six years ago, I started my first real job in Web development. I had spent my entire previous history in desktop application development, so this was quite a switch for me. I felt like I had taken a big step back in time, to the days when the mainframe was about the only kind of computer there was, and ADM3A dumb

Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01109343057105566460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692871.post-1153530657692494812006-07-21T18:00:00.000-07:002006-07-21T18:10:57.743-07:00

Get over it, people! Ajax is not an acronym! Ajax does not stand for "Asynchronous JavaScript And XML!" Somebody made that up, based on a presumption, and somehow it stuck. Kind of like the name Ajax, itself.Why "Ajax"? WHO KNOWS? It's just some buzz word some guy conjured up while taking a shower. The best way to give old technology new life, I guess, is to give it a name. Hence, Ajax

Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01109343057105566460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692871.post-1147279317667009502006-05-10T09:32:00.000-07:002006-05-11T00:44:54.736-07:00

I played my last game of Asteroids last night. And I don't know if Bunchball went away or if they're just having problems, but the game won't even come up for me now, and I can't get to their web site.Last night, I sat down for a quick game, and wound up playing for three hours straight. I shattered the world high score, amassing over 1,145,000 points, but after carefully typing in my code name

Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01109343057105566460noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692871.post-1146814660441814762006-05-05T00:36:00.000-07:002006-05-06T19:33:37.596-07:00

Go ahead and play a while. I'll come by someday after you've had your fun and I'll set the high score. HA!By the way, if you hop on over to this blog: http://9rules.com/en/browse/featured/archive/81/ and check out the high score, let me know if you see "Kwooda" in the #1 position. That's me! Can you beat that?Update:OW, OW, OW, OW, OW!! My fingers are killing me! I sat down today and

Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01109343057105566460noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692871.post-1144306163079569092006-04-05T23:27:00.000-07:002006-04-07T02:56:27.043-07:00

Oh, the silly things I spend my time on...The deed is done. My little program recorded the time at exactly 01:02:03 on 04/05/06 today. For some reason, it capture the a.m. event, but not the p.m. event. But at least I got one. It's funny what triggers my memory. Yesterday, I surmised that I must have missed the 12:34:56 7/8/90 incident, but while I was sorting out the files after today's run

Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01109343057105566460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692871.post-1144218359928901902006-04-04T23:02:00.000-07:002006-04-05T17:56:24.586-07:00

I have been digging through some of my old stuff lately, so just for fun, I thought I would set up my old IBM PC/XT clone.As you can kind of see, I had some fun painting it way back when. I wasn't sure it would boot up, but when I turned it on, I was pleasantly surprised.Wow, check out all that RAM! 512KB - yes, KILOBYTES!Not only did it boot, but I was presented with my old familiar greeting,

Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01109343057105566460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692871.post-1144014473002377452006-04-02T14:42:00.000-07:002006-04-02T15:10:21.763-07:00

I have been digging through some boxes of old personal items, and I came across a journal entry that was so absolutely priceless, I had to transcribe it here. It is from November 19, 1979! It reads as follows:----I think that computers are starting to take over my life. Ever since school started (even a couple weeks before) I have been working on a computer program. I have (at least I think I

Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01109343057105566460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692871.post-1140500650092268292006-02-20T21:19:00.000-08:002006-02-20T21:44:10.156-08:00

For whatever reason, I always like to get on Craig's List and look for free computer stuff. I rarely ever find anything (that I want), and I'm not sure I want anything, but I always look. It is some kind of addiction, I suppose, for there seems to be no rhyme or reason for it. It is just something I do.So, imagine my surprise when I went to take the trash out at my own apartment building,

Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01109343057105566460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692871.post-1140443154084653092006-02-20T05:29:00.000-08:002006-02-20T05:52:57.146-08:00

I just realized that this blog turned two years old this month. Wow. I didn't know if it would continue this long. I know there were a couple of times when I thought my computing days were over. But here I am.Yesterday, and old friend of mine called me from out of the blue, looking for help with a computer problem. He was putting a system together with a new motherboard, and spent a couple

Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01109343057105566460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692871.post-1137394971438411202006-01-15T22:38:00.000-08:002006-01-15T23:02:53.480-08:00

When it rains, it pours. But that's good, in a way, because when a bunch of problems crop up at one time, they can all be taken care of at one time, so smooth sailing can be anticipated (though never expected) for a while.My wife's computer registered some disk errors the other day while I was looking at it. She has an older machine, running Windows 2000, and we were thinking (still are) about

Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01109343057105566460noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692871.post-1136873232791173552006-01-09T19:43:00.000-08:002006-01-10T12:13:58.476-08:00

It has been a while since I had a really good story to tell. I've also been lax about including pictures with my prose. Today, I think I'll make up for that a little.It all started out rather innocently. I got a new Western Digital 120GB drive over the weekend (it's the black one in the photo on the left), and as I mentioned in a previous blog entry, the drive turned out to be used (if even

Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01109343057105566460noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692871.post-1136771121050173672006-01-08T17:36:00.000-08:002006-01-08T17:45:21.126-08:00

So, I finally got around to setting up my systems with some backups. My wife picked up a couple new drives from Fry's for me that were on sale, one of which was a Western Digital 120GB drive. It wasn't until I went to install it that I noticed the drive had been re-packaged into the box it was in. It was shrink-wrapped and was taped up where the packaging had been previously opened. The drive

Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01109343057105566460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692871.post-1135785289784389772005-12-28T07:17:00.000-08:002005-12-28T07:59:21.590-08:00

What an adventure. I can't remember a more stressful Christmas. But I'll spare you the details and get right to the computer stuff (unless you also read my Haphazard Musings blog, in which case I will expound on the details there at some point).The first live test of the UPS (uninterruptable power supply for those not in the know) took place on Christmas Day (December 25 for those who are

Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01109343057105566460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692871.post-1135121201183503522005-12-20T13:53:00.000-08:002005-12-20T23:58:18.216-08:00

JavaScript objects are somewhat of a mystery, though the exact way they are implemented is not important to know how to use them. But I continually find interesting aspects about them.Study the following code. Print it out and read it before going to bed if you need to (or if you just need to get a good night's sleep). I'm going to pick it apart in the text that follows it.NewA.prototype.f =

Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01109343057105566460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692871.post-1134872397198954882005-12-17T16:49:00.004-08:002005-12-19T16:07:11.220-08:00

So, I have been using JavaScript off and on for years now, never really digging very deeply into it until recently. I am now playing with the object oriented aspects of the language.Objects in JavaScript differ fundamentally in certain ways from other object-oriented languages (like Delphi, for instance), and I just learned some peculiar aspects about them today.In JavaScript, everything that is

Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01109343057105566460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692871.post-1134688811046716832005-12-15T14:48:00.000-08:002005-12-15T15:20:11.096-08:00

There has been quite a bit of data loss going around lately. Just before it all started happening, I got this sickening feeling in my gut like it was going to happen to me. But, so far, it has only been on the periphery.A friend of mine called me up to say that his computer was running slowly. I tried to troubleshoot it, but it started moving again, so the problem eluded me. I didn't know it

Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01109343057105566460noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692871.post-1133643289967536002005-12-03T12:42:00.000-08:002005-12-03T12:54:49.980-08:00

With computers, it is only a matter of time before something goes wrong. That is why I started this blog in the first place - I knew there would often be plenty to write about.I have had this feeling for a while now. A feeling of worry. I am worried that my 120GB hard drive is going to crash - the 120GB hard drive that has all of my creations on it. All of my data. All of my programs and

Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01109343057105566460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692871.post-1133398117832391682005-11-30T16:37:00.000-08:002005-11-30T19:54:38.253-08:00

Somebody please educate this industry about the difference between a designer and a developer! It is hard enough to find a job to get my foot in the door with web stuff, but to deal with employer ignorance only compounds the situation.My wife runs into this all the time. She is more of a designer and she often comes across job listings from employers who say they want a web designer, and then

Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01109343057105566460noreply@blogger.com0