Now, without going into the wrongs and rights of it all, most of my websites follow a familiar theme of being a set width. This blog, even though it’s WordPress, is, as is BMTG and Copy+.

This width is designed to fit on the width of what I deem to be the smallest screen that a reasonable number of people are using (on PC’s – not going into mobile phone handsets and the such). That size, in my belief, is 800×600¹- the initial Asus PC’s, which sold so well this year, were exactly that.

However, the width I’ve been using has been very much a “finger in the air” affair – so much so, that the appearance of a vertical toolbar causes the horizontal one to appear in some cases. Yep, I got it wrong.

I’ve therefore, recently, been doing some research – I wrote a JavaScript program to display the current browser size, and display a horizontal bar in varying lengths. This allowed me to work out how much “real estate” the browser was using up – e.g. launch IE7 and it takes up 21 pixels horizontally. That means whatever your screen size is set to, the web page will 21 less to play this. In fact, IE7 was the worst offender (along with IE6), so that’s become the benchmark²- 779 pixels.

Firefox uses 17 pixels and Opera, well, god only knows – I got strange results. Without a vertical scrollbar, it took up (strangely) 1 pixel horizontally. However, introduce the scrollbar and it took up – the same. It would allow my image to be 799 pixels wide and not bat an eyelid. Make it 800 though and the scrollbar appeared. Why this happened I honestly don’t understand. But I’ve tried a 779 wide page and that works, so Opera is certainly not using up more than the “magic” 21 pixels.

Konqueror uses 19 pixels and Safari (on Windows) is the slimmest at just 15 pixels.

The Copy+ site has already been converted to this new width, and the BMTG site will be soon too.

1. according to Google Analytics this was the 5th most popular resolution used by visitors to the BMTG site [↩]
2. IE does something that the other browsers don’t – it has a permanent horizontal scrollbar. So whether it’s needed or not, it’s there using up the same amount of space all the time. [↩]

I’m struggling with a Foxmarks problem – I’ve become pretty dependant on this useful utility synchronising my Firefox bookmarks. After sorting out an initial problem it’s now working until the point that I add a new bookmark. Then I get a bizarre error…¹

[2008-09-29 17:42:43] Exception in AcceptNodes: Error: Places error calling function untagURI() {
[native code]
} with args [{}, [""]] Original error: [Exception... "'Illegal value' when calling method: [nsITaggingService::untagURI]"  nsresult: "0x80070057 (NS_ERROR_ILLEGAL_VALUE)"  location: "JS frame :: chrome://foxmarks/content/foxmarks-places.js :: Call :: line 100"  data: no]
[2008-09-29 17:42:43] Returned error: Synchronization error(3)
[2008-09-29 17:42:43] Will retry at Mon Sep 29 2008 18:12:56 GMT+0100 (GMT Standard Time)

Weird. Anyway, I’ve emailed Foxmarks now – I hope this gets sorted out.

But, hey, as much as that made me tear my hair out last night, that’s nothing to the feeling of loss when I woke up to find my internet access missing! I’ve a red light on my modem against “Internet” (but a green against “ADSL”). I’ve rang my ISP and they’ve run some tests – it’s either the modem or a BT line fault. They want to check the former before logging a fault with BT and I’m work now. So it’s an evening job… all without my internet access. How will I cope :p

1. bizarre in that I can’t find anyone else who’s had it [↩]

You’d think I enjoyed dabbling with my WordPress theme and plugins wouldn’t you

Ok, yes, of course I do. It’s great fun.

The smiley above is one such change, as I updated my “smiley pack”. I’ve also introduced the calendar which you can see at the beginning of each post. The way to do this is relatively easy (assuming you know your CSS and a bit of PHP). At first I had an iPhone style background for it, but after a scourer of the ‘net, I came across this more suitable dark version. Very nice, and I chose a text colour to match (it was white before and looked obviously stuck over the top).

The menu at the top has recently changed, to include some popular categories, and the sidebar had a refresh a while ago.

And, thanks to Tony, I’ve now added footnotes¹.

Finally, I’ve settled into Twitter and am now happy to say what plugin I’m using for that! I kept swapping at first as I tried various Twitter plugins, all of which didn’t work quite how I wanted. I wanted two pieces of functionality – to be able to inform Twitter of a post and to be able to display my latest Twitter – and thought I’d have to have two plugins. In the end, though, I cam across Twitter Tools which does both and has all the functionality that I wanted. Perfect.

Not WordPress related, but whilst on the subject of Twitter, I also experimented with Firefox plugins – TwitterFox ended up the best of that bunch (I wanted a simple way to post Twitters from my browser, and one that didn’t fowl up through my works proxy and firewall).

However, as much as I’ve plugged into my blog, I’ve also taken out – there were quite a few functions that I simply wasn’t using. It’s also keeping this installation as lean as possible – thanks to the shoddy speed of my hosting I need all I can get. As soon as I can scrape some money together I’m off to Memset (yes, yes, I keep promising that I know).

1. and this is an example [↩]

So, the government are to create an organisation to “improve children’s safety online”. Not that there isn’t already a plethora of such groups around and even a government backed one is unlikely to have “teeth”. You see, they don’t have a choice really – people demand something to be done, so they have to be seen doing something. But the internet, all free speech and open access (except China, of course), isn’t designed for you to be able to. Maybe they can shut down some websites in the UK, and only when they’re breaking UK laws, but that’s about it. Other than that they’re likely to be full of pamphlets and online guides.

But that doesn’t make the internet a lawless zone for kids – there is plenty of excellent software around which assists with monitoring and restricting what they see and do. It would be wonderful if Windows came with this as standard, but it won’t. You see, if Microsoft includes any new software where there’s already a market, they’re accused of anti-competitive practice, fined, and told to remove it.

But there’s a thriving market for file searching software – why, for example, is Windows allowed to have such a facility as standard? Or a file manager? Well it seems to me that if Windows has had it all along and these companies have survived anyway, then that’s acceptable. But if Microsoft try to add something – such as child safety software – then the existing companies will cry foul and court orders will begin. It’s very sad and very restrictive. I’m sure many parents are unaware of very good, free child protection software that’s available.

A few that immediately spring to mind are…

Windows Live OneCare Family Safety
Crawler Parental Control
Glubble
Sentry Lite
K9 Web Protection

I’m sure there are many more. And for not a huge amount of money there are even better commercial products available. Many are US-centric which can be an issue, so it’s worthwhile giving them a trial first.

CyberPatrol is one such which, although I had a fall-out with them, I’d recommend.

As I’m sure you remember, my modem/router failed the other week. On top of that I managed to blow out an extension lead. Both of which ended, unceremoniously in the bin in what I like to call “the computer room” (but is otherwise known as “the little bedroom”). In fact, I managed to break in the bin, so I had to get a new one.

Now, this is deviating from the story a bit, but how hard is it to buy a standard plastic waste bin? All Tesco, Asda, et al, wanted to give me was faux-leatherette versions and the such. Anyway, in the end I got an over-sized bathroom bin which works just fine. But I digest…

My wife, who normally is the only one organised to remember to empty the various bins around the house into the wheelie bin before it gets collected, duly emptied the previous bin, full of equipment. Fair enough.

Now, last weekend (also blogged about) I went to my in-laws and helped “fix” their computer. Before I went I carefully went through my various boxes of spare parts, cables, and the like, and made up one box full of the stuff I needed. The rest I put into a large paper bag that I had knocking about. This I left on the floor. In the corner of the room. Near to where the bin used to be (this is before the other day when I got my new one).

Today I went to sort this bag out and found it… missing. I ask my wife where it was. Yep. You’ve got it in one. It went in the wheelie bin earlier in the week. The wheelie bin that was emptied this morning. Every-single-spare-part-cable-and-bolt that I possess. Including all the spare SATA cables (preventing me from ever putting the various parts of a potential second computer together, let alone put my current PC back in its original case if I ever have to send it back), etc. I could cry. But it’s not her fault. Or mine come to think of it. Lessons learnt all around I guess. Spilt milk, etc.

And it’s only Saturday….