I wrote a post a little over a week ago (read: The Laptop Incident) about how I spilled wine into my laptop.  Well, as the weekend came around, I thought I was in the clear.  The laptop was working pretty well and I was fairly certain that I might be able to avoid having to replace it. But alas, fate has won yet again.  Last night, my laptop would make popping noises and then completely shut down.  It did this several times before I realized the battery wasn’t charging either.  While plugged into the wall, I removed the battery and the system lost power.  Normally, a plugged-in laptop doesn’t need the battery.  That tells me that the laptops electrical system is probably fried.  When the battery officially runs out, I fear that there will not be any way to power my laptop.

Having reached my conclusion, I prepared to shut down.  After all, whatever time I have left (about 7 minutes) may be necessary to do any quick backups.  Figuring nothing more could happen, I started the shutdown process.  Then my power pack started to smell.  It was incredibly hot to the touch - so hot I couldn’t hold it.  It was even a little soft as if the plastic were melting.  Now that is scary.  What would have happened if I wasn’t there to unplug the pack?  Would it have caused a fire?

So aside from the obvious moral (Back Up your hard drive often), I now learned a new lesson:  Never trust your power packs.  From now on, if I’m not in the room, my power packs will be unplugged.  Maybe I’m paranoid…but I’d rather not replace more than my laptop.

My productivity is likely to be slowed for a little while.  I had an incident the other night where I spilled about half a glass of wine into my laptop causing it to short out.  Unfortunately, my laptop happens to be the only machine I own that can handle Photoshop CS3.  So that seems to be putting a damper on my work flow.  I’ll probably be without a new laptop for a couple of months, at least.

I will continue to update the site with new tips.  I will even try to process some of my images on my lunch breaks at work.  But I know my productivity will drop for a while and I wanted to warn you guys of it before you started to worry.

Thanks for your patience.

Just a reminder to all Americans to go out and vote today.  It’s going to be a close election, your vote really does count.

I keep statistics on the visitors to my site and I can definitively say that 33% of you are still using Internet Explorer 6 (IE6).  You will notice that my site (and others) don’t look just right in IE6.  As much as I have tweaked my template for readability in IE6, it will at times break because of an javascript element or any number of documented flaws in IE6’s rendering engine.  It is suggested that you upgrade to a more current browser such as Firefox 3 or Internet Explorer 7.

If you are viewing this page in IE6 - it will appear messed up.  This is not due to problems with my page - it is a problem with IE6’s inability to properly render XHTML, HTML and CSS.  But don’t take my word for it, do a Google search on ‘CSS for IE6‘, and you will see hundreds of pages and tips targeted at tricking IE6.

Now, I feel that it would be unfair of me to suggest an upgrade based on readability alone.  But there are a number of security flaws that exist in IE6 as well.  For that matter, did you know that Microsoft has already stopped support on most version of IE6?  That means that they are no longer doing security updates for many of the versions available.  Even Microsoft wants you to upgrade to IE7 (a free download) for security reasons.

Security aside, there are a number of reasons to upgrade to IE7.  Usability is first and foremost on that list.  With tabbed browsing and an easier interface, your browsing is much smoother.  It’s rendering engine is also a lot faster than its predecessor - which means faster page loads.  And as I already mentioned, it’s rendering engine actually follows the latest HTML and XHTML standards set by the World Wide Web Consortium (they set the standards).

Finally, if nothing else, IE6 is out of date.  It was created in 2001, almost 8 years ago.  IE7 has been around since 2006.  They’re even working on IE8 already.  Don’t you think it’s time to upgrade?

Here are some browsers that I would recommend instead of IE6 (in order of preference):

• Mozilla Firefox 3
• Google Chrome
• Internet Explorer 7 (I don’t recommend the BETA of IE8 yet)
• Opera Browser

Download one of these and try it out.  Among these, you will find something significantly better than IE6.  You will thank me for it.

Slightly off-topic post today, but it is somewhat related. I was forwarded a few videos the other day from a conspiracy theorist on YouTube who has been posting videos that are allegedly proof that the government is conducting weather control experiments that could negatively affect the human race. Before I go on, please realize that I think this woman is absolutely nuts. I’ve watched at least half her videos now and there is no real science behind any of it. She just sounds crazy.

Take, for example, the video below. She claims that this is not a moire effect that it wouldn’t show up on wood (again, her words).  Anyone who knows their way around any sort of camera knows that this is obviously a moire effect.  And then she talks about how moire effect doesn’t move or show directionality in more than one direction.  What?  On a video camera that is obviously not still, it would move.  And a moire effect will almost always have a curvature to it, sometimes in multiple directions or at least different arcs with varying radii. This is obviously a case of a camera with poor focal qualities.

As you are all educated, especially in the world of optics, I don’t really need to get into proving my case.  You can take a look at the video for yourself and get a chuckle.  The lady is obviously completely ignorant.

So my lesson for the day is simple:  Don’t try to be an expert on a topic you know nothing about.  Your ignorance will become very apparent to most of your audience.