Going, going...

It's machine #2 (of 4 total) on sale now at eBay: my G4 400 MHz Tower. If you buy it, let us know that you heard about it here and we'll throw in a signed copy of any one of our Peachpit Visual QuickStart Guides. Thanks, and tell your friends!

More UI info

Yesterday's discussion (which spilled over into today) with Robert Scoble about font sizes and browsers made one thing clear: people aren't looking over on the right hand of this site. Hey folks, check it out: there's some useful stuff there! At a minimum, please note the top of the nav area, where you can change the font face/size, and choose whether or not you want the background graphic to appear behind this text.

In other news, Robert's chosen weblogger to pick on today is Jason Kottke. Hey, even being mentioned in the same post as Kottke is an honor.

Feh on the Republicrats

The Ugly Truth About the Republican Party: The Myth of GOP Conservatism is an interesting article. I disagree with much that's in here, but there's a few gems. And it's always (imo) good to see the Libertarians breaking ranks with the Republicans. Via Declan McCullagh's Politech email list.

Can't read this?

Robert Scoble asks: Dori, what's your defense for your font size?

I think that Robert's actually asking several questions here, so I'll answer them separately:

1. Why do we use pixels?
   Because they work. While ems are the most "accessible," that's just in theory. In practice, too many browsers (such as old versions of Netscape/Mac, which is used by many visitors here) choke and die on ems.
2. Why do we use 10px Verdana as the default?
   Because I like it, and because it looks good to me on both IE/Mac and IE/Win (the browsers I use most often). What can I say except that I like my fonts small?
3. What about people who don't like your choice in fonts?
   Such as, oh, say, the other half of BB? (other lobe?) In that case, click the button over to the right that says "Lg Serif". You'll immediately see this site displayed in 14px Times, which I think looks like crap but should be large enough for just about everyone. And thanks to the wonder of cookies, you should only have to set this once.
4. Why won't my larger/smaller buttons work?
   You must be using IE/Win. Every other browser that has larger/smaller buttons allow you to resize pixels. For some reason, the IE programmers chose to cripple their Windows client and not allow them to change fonts displayed in pixels. (Quick rant: this isn't the only place they've done this; IE/Win can't check plugins via JavaScript, either. And in both cases, IE/Mac supports this feature just peachily, so it's not a matter of Microsoft not knowing how to do this; instead, they've deliberately chosen to hurt their Windows users. Welcome to how Mac users often feel!)

If you hate both of our choices in font face/size, it's not difficult to add a third option. Let me know in the comments what you like and why, and I'll see what I can do. And this goes for all our readers, not just Robert.

Kung-Log

Kung-Log is a Mac OS X application that lets you post and manage Movable Type entries. Written with AppleScript Studio, I believe.

Shameless Plug

Tom is completely falling down on the self-promotion front, so it's left to me to say that he's going to be the guest tonight at the Peachpit Press Presents... Author! Author! chat. 6:00 pm Pacific, 9:00 pm Eastern. It's supposed to be about his new Quicken book, but you can ask him just about anything (and if you can't think of anything embarrassing to ask him in public, drop me a line). See you there!

Not quite the real thing

Missed the O'Reilly Mac OS X Con? Or you were there, but there were multiple sessions at once that you wanted to see? Many of the presentation files are now available online.

Compare and contrast

Your assignment for today: compare and contrast

• Pick up your own damn socks.com (the weblog for wives & girlsfriends. why? because sometimes you just need to whine. anonymously.)
• Score brownie points.com (give some. get some.)

That damn XML

From Shelley Powers: The Parable of the Languages. Parse this!

Dori's new toy!

My T68i phone showed up today, so (unsurprisingly) I'm combing the web for good related sites. Expect to see them here over the next while, and feel free to add your own in the comments!

What I've got so far:

• t68.info: themes, ringtones, logos
• Cool Mac themes
• Ericsson Client software for OS X
• Ericsson Client Yahoo Group to discuss the above app

Have a happy!

Happy 1^st birthday to Ben, Mena, and Movable Type, and congratulations on the release of Version 2.5!

Go to bed, already!

I'm finally starting to get caught up on all the email that piled up while I was gone/sick last week. What's stunning me isn't that I'm sending email out at midnight—it's how many people are responding back within minutes. C'mon people: go to bed already!

I'm SO Versatile!

Bizarre Amazon database glitch, or proof that I'm a far more versatile writer than even I thought? Apparently I'm the author (even though my middle name is not David) of Color Atlas of Diseases and Disorders of Cattle. Moo.

Sanitized for our protection

New MT plugin added here: Brad Choate's Sanitize Plugin. If all goes well, you shouldn't notice anything a'tall. But I have to say, one of the things I like most about Movable Type is the way it can use 3^rd party plugins.

Trifecta!

This blog claims to try to cover technology, culture, and politics. The article Candidate turned himself blue hits all three of those. This bozo, well, here's the article's subhead:

Montana's Libertarian candidate for Senate has turned blue from drinking a silver solution that he believed would protect him from disease.

This was, of course, in preparation for Y2K antibiotics shortages, but even though he's stopped drinking the stuff, the skin color changes are permanent. My guess: this will be the next goth in-thing-to-do.

Groan...

Tom said "We've both been a bit under the weather," but that's putting it mildly. Today's the first day since I got back Thursday night that I've been able to do amazing tricks such as eat solid food and have it stay down. I'm even sitting up right now, which would have been a major accomplishment a day or two ago.

Or in other words, don't expect much from me as yet.