RasterWeb!

Despite my complaining about Windows, I just installed Windows XP on my Mac. Have I totally lost my mind? Almost…

I’ve been doing a lot more work that requires testing sites in Internet Explorer 6, which of course, is only available for Windows. I contemplated getting a cheap PC, maybe spending a few hundred on a low-end model from Tiger Direct or finding a friend with an old cast off machine, but I finally realized the insanity of that, and decided adding a Windows PC to my network/desk/life would be a bad idea. So Virtual PC it is!

I had an older copy of Virtual PC, but it seems to have broken under Mac OS X 10.4, so it was time to upgrade. Installation took way to long, and there were way too many hiccups along the way, but eventually (3 hours later, right after midnight) I got it all working. I can now test things properly, and see what the world looks like using Internet Explorer on Windows XP. I’ll try to keep the swearing to a minimum.

You might know that I am not a fan of Microsoft, but I do try to give them a chance now and then. My latest attempt was the use of Live.com, a search engine. I’m not even here to complain about the search results (though I did find it amusing the third result was a link to Google with my site’s url in it’s query string.) My complain is all in the UI and usability.

Live.com uses some crazy scrollbar that doesn’t work like the standard scrollbar that millions of sites I’ve used does. Nope, they decided to implement their own damn scrollbar. Someone decided that instead of working like 99.5% of the other web sites out there, that creating a custom scrollbar, that probably requires Internet Explorer 6 on Windows XP with a top-of-the-line Dell, would be sheer genius. Maybe it’s just because I’m a Firefox user with a Mac, I don’t know. It seems that Microsoft still doesn’t get the web, and believe me, I’m getting sick of saying that. I no longer get pleasure from it, and I hope someday I can say that Microsoft does get the web. Will that day ever come?

I do not remember where I first heard about the “ringtone that adults can’t hear” but I figured I’d look it up, as my hearing is pretty poor (what?) and I wanted to test this whole thing out.

Luckily it didn’t take much to find someone with a recipe, in this case, it was JimXugle’s comment on Digg which goes like this:

open Audacity…

Generate > Tone

Waveform: Sine
Frequency: 18000.00
Amplitude: 1.00

*generate tone*

So I fired up Audacity and started to experiment.

I started with 18000 Hertz, and I could not hear anything. I then started at the low-end instead, and I could hear 12000 Hertz, and 13000 Hertz, but 14000 Hertz? No good…

Fascinating!

I’ve been using LinkedIn a bit lately, and this is what I discovered.

Obviously I am living in the wrong place…

If you need me this weekend, you might not find me, as I’m going camping.

I just have to finish printing out some maps, and putting coordinates into the Garmin eTrex, and charging the video iPod, and syncing my Nokia 7610, and clearing the SD cards so I can shoot video, and find my iRiver so I can record audio, and…