New found old IEs

Once again, very similar to [before](http://un-excogitate.org/wp/archives/2004/08/23/fonts-seem-more-natural/), i find myself wondering why i never stumbled upon this useful page before.

Just the other day i was wondering to myself why i didn’t have multiple versions of [Internet Explorer](http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie) installed on my home machine, which would allow me to debug web-pages in older copies of IE (as it’s usually the poor bastards on IE5 or 5.5 that cause me the most grief!), so it was with much relief that after stumbling onto [What Do I Know](http://www.whatdoiknow.org/) from [Stopdesign](http://www.stopdesign.com) that i ended up at [Skyzyx.com](http://www.skyzyx.com).

Ryan over at [skyzyx.com](http://www.skyzyx.com) very conveniantly has put together a collection of downloads that will allow IE browsers all the way back from IE3 (to IE5.5) to be installed in their own stand-alone folders, which i’m hoping (please god) that they don’t interfere too much with my currently installed version of IE6 (don’t worry, i don’t use it - i’m a [Firefox](http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox) bitch).

What was interesting was going back to IE3, loading up un-excogitate.org and seeing that it doesn’t load up any of the CSS at all, but reverts back to the text based layout (which is fine with me) .. in fact, what amazed me was the fact that both IE5 and IE5.5 seemed to render my page fine! This mainly came as a shock to me because my header-navigation employs [Dave's](http://www.mezzoblue.com) technique of using a single image for the mouseovers, as written up over at [A List Apart's](http://www.alistapart.com/) article: [Image Slicing's Kiss of Death](http://www.alistapart.com/articles/sprites/).

Unfortunately for my humble domain, IE4 has the most difficulty rendering the page. Navigation is all whacky, even the blog-text comes out strange. I’m guessing there’s some way that i can tell IE4 to not use the CSS, but then again, i think that if i go back through my logs, my experiment might have been the first time that IE5 had even accessed this site.

Can you stand up to the test of *ye-old* scrutiny? Download Pre-historic Internet Explorers [Today](http://www.skyzyx.com/archives/000094.php)

Posted by Christian Posted in: Web Development 1 Comment » 28 August 2004

New Beginnings

A lot of stuff doesn’t work atm - but eventually/hopefully it will.

If i give up, i’ll resort back to the old one.. so anyway.. hi.

ps. i know that the links and stuff aren’t up-to-date, but i intend on shifting all that stuff over when i can.. until then - you can do (i suppose :P)

pps. if u see anything funky, please tell me .. I for one have seen it do funky things in IE, but not happen for other IE people, so pleeease leave a comment if u see anything.. please.

Posted by Christian Posted in: General 4 Comments » 24 August 2004

Fonts seem more, natural.

Excuse me for being stuck in the 2001’s, but why didn’t anyone ever tell me to enable “ClearType” fonts in XP?

It’s funny how 1 little drop-down menu can transform everything that i read into something so much more aesthetic, i mean even looking at this site - it just looks.. better! (Even as i’m typing this into [MT](http://www.movabletype.org) it just looks so much more .. crisp?)
Is crisp the word I’m after? I’m not even sure it’s the correct word - i mean, it’s definately not sharp or smooth. Font’s look more natural.
Even going through my [friends](http://www.livejournal.com/users/xntrik/friends) list, everything seems (or is it feels) more natural.

I guess i’ll be feeling the repercussions a bit until i’ve adjusted myself, specially when opening Word later on today - or doing some HTML in Ultraedit. Weird.

So does everyone have this setting enabled? Am *I* just thick? Is this one of those things that is the norm but for some reason i slept through it?

Probably.

Posted by Christian Posted in: Computers 1 Comment » 23 August 2004

Neal Stephenson - Quicksilver

Neal Stephenson - Quicksilver

URL: Amazon

Why:
As mentioned in my last novel write-up i’m a stephenson fan, so it wasn’t like i wasn’t going to read it.

Thoughts:
HUGE. This book has got to be one of the more difficult books i’ve read in aggeees. No joke, this book took me reading on and off probably over half a year! Not to say it wasn’t good, because overall it was good, unfortunately - a lot of it went quite high-over my head. Specially trying to follow the multiple titles(names) of the endless-list of characters/sub-characters/chameo’s/etc .. and their ranks and formal-titles and relationships to each other - serves me right for not paying much (if any) attention to 1600-1700 history!

The parts that really captured me included the tales of Jack, the king of the vagabonds, and a lot of the gory(but great) tales of the Natural Philosophers, following the interesting tale of early/pioneering scientists.

Apart from being quite a melt-down of a book overall i enjoyed. I’m slightly apprehensive of the sequel, specially because it’s just as large - but i can’t NOT read it.. i mean really, i’m a sucker for punishment.

Posted by Christian Posted in: Books No Comments » 22 August 2004

Gyroscope - Sound Shattering Sound

Gyroscope - Sound Shattering Sound

URL: http://www.gyroscope.com.au/

Tracks:
1. Confidence in Confidentiality
2. Safe Forever
3. Take This For Granted
4. Hollow Like Cheyenne
5. Doctor Doctor
6. Misery
7. Get Down
8. Midnight Express
9. Are You Getting Any Better?
10. My Hands Are Tied
11. Driving For The Storm
12. You Try Waiting This Long

Why:
Well when i saw these guys play a while back while at a grandcentral show i was totally blown away. I think after this i started to recognise some of their tracks on triple j - but it wasn’t until i saw a video-clip on some weekend morning pop-vid-clip show (haha.. how embarrassing!) that i knew i had to get my hands on this disc. So while i was looking for a birthday present for my boss i saw this disc and purchased it.

And yes, i still haven’t gotten my boss a present, but that’s orite.

Thoughts:
What is happening to my taste? In high-school all i used to listen to was heavy shit (or over-emotional stuff) - and now i’m slowly turning more pop/emo - it’s all quite unexplainable, but that’s okay.

This album is great - to me it falls into that same sort of driving genre as the Hot Hot Heat album, in that i can drive around with the album turned up real loud screaming (singing :P) as loud as i can and COMPLETELY turn off to everything else. The singles on this album are great, Doctor Doctor, Safe Forever, Midnight Express etc. - i’m sure there are more.

I just realised something else, this is my first local album to have a lil write-up of. It won’t be the last, as in the last sort of couple of weeks i’ve gotten my hands on a couple of great local act albums.. Anyway.. buy it.

Posted by Christian Posted in: Music No Comments » 22 August 2004

Ocean of heads

It’s funny how the internet is often like one thousand thousand heads bobbing up and down on an ocean, sometimes from where you are you can see a vast quanitity of those heads, but then other times the wave drops you back down and all you can see is the heads in your immediate vicinity. So for me, in this ocean of heads, the last couple of weeks and the weeks in the forseeable future, i will be a head that is under water. I’ve listed my reasons before so i won’t get back into it.. I just want to reassure you (anyone out there?) that eventually my wave will come back up, and i’ll be one of those high heads on the ocean.

You know what, i have NO idea wtf that analogy really means. At the time it seemed like a really solid idea but now seems flakey. It just seems that everything is changing so quickly around me, and with my plate being full, i just can’t keep up.

So anyway, excuse me while i bop under for a bit.

Posted by Christian Posted in: General 2 Comments » 19 August 2004

I hate apologies.

i hate just using this blog for apologising. Especially when it’s apologies about not-posting.

Anyway, my life lately can be summerised into a small list:
* Uni Papers
* Feeling Sick
* Not doing much work, but knowing that a stack of it is coming
* Trying to play in a rock band whilst sick, and failing miserably

But really, apart from that i can’t complain. I promise when i collect my head i’ll post this all much more properly.

Posted by Christian Posted in: General No Comments » 16 August 2004