Rob Eberhardt

On the meaning of life:

What if Life is just one big, much-too-interesting waiting room?

If so, I think I'm a bit afraid to find out what's next...

Business has been good.  Unfortunately, it has been so busy that the smelly old Slingshot Solutions website stuck around way too long.

When I say smelly, think:

• IE-only (in 2002, IE was 95%+, and Firefox was still a glimmer)
• IE6-only -- IE7 often crashes (why can browsers still be crashed by web code these days?)
• Outdated in various ways (6.5yrs)
• Kinda ugly
• Over-complicated
• Wordy -- can there be too little horn-tooting?
• Did I mention IE-only?

So my goals for a new site were focused on simplicity and compatibility.  I started designing building it when I started back to Slingshot Solutions full-time, and have been alternating between false starts, second-guessing, and neglect ever since. 

It's finally done now, though.  Please meet the slim and trim new "slingfive.com 2.0":

It works on any modern browser, plus IE6 (kicking and screaming).  Some other geeky goodness:

• It's Javascript-heavy, but it's all non-obtrusive and progressively-enhanced, so it still works with Javascript disabled.
• JQuery greatly helped simplify the visuals by hiding less important stuff until it's needed.  Rather than a second page just for a contact form, Contact Us is just a popup.  Similarly, I built a hide/show toggle for less-important content details.
• FONTS!  Every web designer hates the fact that you have to choose fonts based on lowest-common denominators (not everyone has your font on their system).  Alternatively, you can use images or Flash to get around this (carefully!).  I certainly wanted automatic as possible, so I tried SIFR (implementation stinks), then settled on DotIR.  Unfortunately v3 only outputs non-transparent GIFs, but with the wonders of open source, I've improved it to output anti-aliased transparent PNGs (including IE6 compatibility), and made it medium-trust compatible (for web hosts).  Hopefully my changes will reach the next version.

Weaknesses / to-do:

• Still way too wordy, this time with TLAs ("acronymy"?).
• I pulled over my old code section for developers.  I've tested none of it though, and will surely need to fix several server-side settings.
• The layout wrecks at less than 1024x768.  Stats say that covers 90% of the world, but that's hollow comfort.

For now I'm just happy it's out and not killing anyone.  Hurrah!

Because not proofreading shows your contempt for us both.

Dear Mr. Q: 

I find it disturbing that you could misspell your own name, and not notice/care for this long.

Dean pointed out that Apple's Webkit team is finally adding Internet Explorer's CSS Visual Filters (invented back in 1998 with Internet Explorer 4), and are calling it CSS Masks in Safari.

The sad news is that nobody's giving the IE team due credit.  The good news is that that power is now there. 

So hooray Safari for ignoring web standards!  Yes, I mean that.  I'll take a good de-facto standard over nothing any day (anyone remember when the W3C actually did stuff?)  Step up to the plate, Opera, Mozilla, and Konqueror!

While you're at it, don't forget to grab IE's other great dev features, too!  If we get DHTML Behaviors, Databinding, CSS Expressions, Conditional Comments, and Deferred Scripts, that will cover my 2005 Dev Wishlist for Other Browsers.
    That done, MS-haters could complain less about proprietary/innovation and the the web could keep moving forward.  To be clear, I'm saying the effort to complain about IE's extras would be better spent copying them in other browsers, helping web developers and by extension users.

Hooray for progress!

I saw Matt McSpirit's posting about Microsoft's new PartnerBot IM agent and contest, and gave it a whirl.  The result was a bit disappointing, and then went downhill:

(4:45:55 PM) me: How can I combine SQL instances on SBS 2003?
(4:45:56 PM) MS PartnerBot: Welcome back...
Do you want more on How to buy SQL Server or SQL Server Product information?
(4:46:00 PM) me: no
(4:46:00 PM) MS PartnerBot: I'm sorry I couldn't help - please try again
(4:46:16 PM) me: I'll just ask Google.com instead
(4:46:16 PM) MS PartnerBot: Component Object Model
(4:46:20 PM) me: What?
(4:46:21 PM) MS PartnerBot: Partner Bot is unable to answer your query, please try again.
(4:46:30 PM) me: Like I said, Google will help.
(4:46:31 PM) MS PartnerBot: I'll try to help - please type your question
(4:46:40 PM) me: No thanks.
(4:46:40 PM) MS PartnerBot: You're welcome, please come back soon.
(4:46:55 PM) me: (for nothing)
(4:46:56 PM) MS PartnerBot: I cannot help you yet, could you refine your search?
(4:47:03 PM) me: Who's asking the questions here?
(4:47:03 PM) MS PartnerBot: I'm sorry I can't find that name in my directory - please try the Outlook Address Book
(4:47:17 PM) me: Ok.
(4:47:18 PM) MS PartnerBot: Partner Bot can't understand your question. Please rephrase it.
(4:47:32 PM) me: Who is the Heartland District's partner representative?
(4:47:33 PM) MS PartnerBot: Our partners are our priority - we want to help you develop and grow your business. Please visit the programme membership page at http://partner.microsoft.com/uk/40014052.
(4:47:43 PM) me: Why don't you show me that information here?
(4:47:43 PM) MS PartnerBot: In a competitive environment, having the right business intelligence can be the deciding factor in closing a deal. Gain a competitive edge with the information your customer needs to make a decision in your favour. Learn more at: https://partner.microsoft.com/UK/40018122
(4:47:58 PM) me: You're Eliza, aren't you?
(4:47:59 PM) MS PartnerBot: I am Partner Bot - code with attitude. Please type your question.
(4:48:04 PM) me: ha

"Code with attitude" -- if only it was helpful too.

A friend gave me a work update today, which made my day:

"They wanted a craptastic site that just shows what they offer and how to get a hold of them, so I pooped something out of Frontpage and gave it to them."

I'd normally give credit, but I'm pretty sure he doesn't want it for this.