MexiJew.com

Banana Hammock

2008-06-02T15:23:00.003-04:00

While staying with my father in New Jersey over the Memorial Day weekend, I discovered this lovely item in his kitchen:

Yes. A miniature hammock with a bunch of bananas in it. A banana hammock. My father didn't get it. The humor was entirely lost on him.

Technorati Tags: Banana Hammock.

The Big Word Project

2008-05-14T16:10:00.002-04:00

The Big Word Project is a fun little project setup by two guys from Northern Ireland whose main goal is to study how different words mean different things to different people. Well, that's their stated goal, anyway. I'm sure that one of their unstated goals is to make money.

To participate in the project, you go to their website, TheBigWordProject.com, and search for words. You can then "purchase" a word at the price of $1.00 per letter. By purchasing a word, you can have it link to any website of your choosing, thus redefining the word. For instance, Greg Storey at Airbag Industries purchased "singular" - a great word for him in my opinion - which now links to his site.

After a good 30 second of thought, I purchased "schadenfreude" - my very favorite word in the entire world - which means "to take enjoyment from the misfortune of others." Basically, being an asshole. I like that. It pleases me. You can find a link to my word on the sidebar of this site, just below the search box.

Was it a waste of $13? No way. I really dig neat little projects like theirs. It's a nice departure from normal word play, and let's face it - free marketing for my terrible, horrible, no-good blog. One thing is certain, though: You can expect to read more schadenfreude stories on here now!

Technorati Tags: schadenfreude, The Big Word Project.

CMS for the Accessible Federal Agency

2008-04-25T12:01:00.002-04:00

Every now and then I'm tasked with an especially interesting assignment at the office. A real "humdinger" of a task that breaks the cycle of normalcy and helps to pad the old resume. By default my job tends to revolve around a few tasks that are repeated throughout the weeks and months: website design, maintenance, Section 508 issue resolution, UI support, and helping to write standard operating procedures/white papers. So when new, important tasks come up, I always jump at the chance to help break the monotony. Today was one of those big days.

Today I was tasked with taking the lead on picking a Content Management System (CMS) for the federal agency that I currently work for on-site. It's a very big, very important responsibility that will have a deep impact on everything that I and the web team here do from now until the end of our contract in four years. This will steer the direction that we go and lock us into a very expensive piece of software. Obviously not a task to take lightly.

So, what is it we're looking for in our CMS? Well, the "need-to-haves" are:

Works on the .NET / IIS platform with SQL/Oracle database support
Generates valid XHTML
Uses templates that are/can be easily made to be Section 508
Costs under $30k
Can be implemented on both an Intranet and Internet site
Highly scalable
Licensed and supported commercially
Includes a user friendly WYSIWYG editor for non-technical content managers

Those are the basic elements of the CMS solution that we're looking for. At first glance those seem like a lot of requirements, but really those are just skimming the surface. Cost will probably be an issue and if we decide to go with one of the more expensive packages there will no doubt be discussions back and forth about whether or not it's worth it.

So far in my research, I've come across three CMS packages that fit the basic bill. The first (and best fit thus far) is Percussion Software's Rhthymix, which ironically is being used by HHS. It's got a lot of bang for the buck, and seems to be fairly easy to implement. The price is also listed as "negotiable", which means it's either ridiculously expensive or might actually be within our budget.

The other two packages I've found thus far are called Immediacy CMS and RedDot CMS, which seems to be the more solid of the two at first glance, but starts at $55k - way out of our price range. Never the less, it's going to stay on the list for the initial presentation.

Next Steps

As today was the first day of this project, obviously nothing major will come of what progress has been made thus far. The process of picking out our CMS is going to be long and thorough since it represents a major paradigm shift in the way we currently get our content out onto the web.

After picking out three or four solid CMS packages I'll call the vendors to ask the tough questions (price, support, availability, scale, upgrades, true Section 508 compliance, etc.) as well as try and setup a good date for them to come out and give us a nice demo. That's followed up by discussion, demo testing, more discussion, and then the real work begins: setup, implementation, and moving content from flat ASPX pages to clean, database-driven content.

There's a lot of work ahead of me, and I don't see this really getting to the decision point until May or June, but that will give us a lot of time to get our pages cleaned up and ready for the transition and for me to continue growing my hair out I'll have something to tear out while the transition is going on.

Technorati Tags: cms, content management system, immediacy, reddot, rhythmix.

Site transition: Successful!

2008-04-23T18:58:00.003-04:00

I am pleased to inform you that the move from my former web host to my new host, as well as the transition from ASP-driven pages to PHP-driven pages was successful and there was zero downtime. The DNS update was propogated within four hours of the initial update, and thanks to some handy tricks with my .htaccess file, search engine placement and bookmarks should be preserved perfectly.

The only thing that isn't currently working is the contact form, which I'll need to work on a bit. It's been using ASP Formmail for a few years now, so I've got to consider whether or not to use Dreamhost's free cgi Formmail or write my own script. Depends on my laziness level, I suppose.

Either way, if you discover a bug or find a broken link, please let me know via the comments for this post. Thanks!

The transition begins!

2008-04-23T12:02:00.003-04:00

Mexijew.com will be going down at some point over the next few days while I move it to a new host and switch it over to php. Initially, all of the pages will still be .asp, but I've got the .htaccess file configured to read the .asp extension as a php file, thus preserving search engine placement and keeping URL's fresh and real.

See you on the flip side!

Is it time for Hillary to pack it up?

2008-04-16T15:44:00.001-04:00

As many of my old readers know, and most of the new ones have probably figured out, I am a liberal. A moderate liberal, anyway. I'm not one of those "foam at the mouth" types who go monkey shit crazy for raising taxes and social programs, but I'm definitely more to the left than I am to the right. I, like many Americans, have been displeased with the way the US policy has been shaped in the last seven years and I'm looking forward to a change of any kind, because let's be honest here: None of the 3 major candidates are as corrosively partisan as the Bush Administration has been. No matter who wins, it's highly likely that we'll see some positive changes in some of the issues that matter the most (money, war, foreign policy).

Still, there's something that's bothering me. When it was time to vote in the Maryland Primaries, I didn't vote because I honestly couldn't decide which democrat I liked more - Hillary or Obama. Honestly, both of them share stances on the issues I'm most concerned about that it's hard to tell which would be better for me. Both also represent what I feel to be a major positive achievement in the history of our country: Both would be a tremendous first for the US - first true female contender for president, or first African-American contender for president. The way I see it, it's a win/win scenario both ways.

As time has gone on and things have been released about both candidates, I have admittedly leaned a little more towards Hillary Clinton. Not because of anything she did, however. I've leaned a little more towards Hillary because of the anti-semitic comments made by Barack Obama's pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. While Obama did come out and say that he didn't agree with some of the less-than-friendly stuff that Rev. Wright said, he didn't do what most politicians do in situations like this: distance themselves from the offender. While I can appreciate the candor with which Obama spoke about this incident, my inner Jew is always afraid and suspicious of people who associate themselves with those who blindly dislike my people or blame them for things that we aren't at fault for.

Despite all of that, however, I think it might be time for Hillary Clinton to pack it up and leave the race. Lately she and Obama have been going at it in a very negative way, and I'd hate to see this kind of negativity go far enough that it would damage the chance of the democratic presidential candidate in November. I don't think that would happen since the US has a very short memory of things that are said and done, but I don't think intra-party turmoil does us any good either, except to give the media something to discuss constantly.

Is it time for Hillary to pack it up, or should she continue to campaign and let the cards fall as they will at the Democratic National Convention in August?

Technorati Tags: Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Elections, Democrats.

It's time for a change

2008-04-09T12:25:00.000-04:00

For over five years now, I've blogged on Mexijew.com and it's been a bittersweet experience. I enjoy blogging, and really enjoy all of the great feedback and e-mails I get from people. I haven't enjoyed the racist e-mails and comments, or the fact that I'm simply not comfortable giving some of my coworkers the link to this blog because, well, mexijew sounds more like a racial slur than something that an IT professional writes on.

With that in mind, I believe it's time for a change. I'm going to keep this blog going, and I'm going to keep the domain name mexijew.com, but I'm going to use a new domain name with it as well. I already own a number of domain names that I'm not really using, so I thought I'd give you, my loyal readers, the chance to have some input on what the new domain name should be.

I currently have two domain names that I'm not really using for anything and could switch to:

PartialZero.com - Test blog using WordPress
Flavored-Air.com - Mostly used for file storage

This might also be a good time to move this site from old school ASP 3.0 to php, although there's some obvious logistical issues that would have to be worked out (as well as search engine placement issues), but I think that's something that needs to happen anyway. There's no good reason to use ASP 3.0 anymore.

Do you have any suggestions? Do you think either of those domain names would be great to use? Let me know - post in the comments below.

Technorati Tags: mexijew.com, domain names.

A Haiku

2008-04-02T17:41:00.002-04:00

Busy week at work
Nothing of substance to write
Dogs love Snausages.

Technorati Tags: Haiku.

Accessibility Trick: The real yet fake yet real

2008-03-26T15:45:00.005-04:00

In my post last week I mentioned that we've been spending a lot of time working on Section 508 compliance on my primary contract and today's post is something of an extension of that. Today I'm going to show you a little trick that I created as a work-around for accessibility testing software that tosses off errors (false positives) for having a properly coded and accessible image as a <label> for a form control. Warning - if you're not a web designer and/or don't deal with Section 508 or WCAG, you might want to skip this post. It's a tad technical for the general public.

So, here's your situation: You have a website that has a search box, but because of the design of the site and the way things are setup (i.e. space is an issue), there really isn't a good place to put a <label> to associate to the search box. You literally have a box that the control is in, the form element, and a submit button. The box that the form element sits in has a graphical title (like "Search This Site") that has a proper alt tag and is declared in the correct fashion. To be 508 compliant, your <label> has to be associated with your form element. In this case it's an <input> tag with the attribute type="text", so it's a regular text box. Here's a visual example of this situation:

As you can see, this is a basic page element and can be moved around anywhere in the page. In the case of this example, we use it at the same place on every page - on the left side, at the very top of the content section, just after the site header and universal navigation. This search box appears on just about every page on the site, and it's actually a user control, so the code is exactly the same for it on every page it's used on. That means that if we change this one file, that change is applied in every instance of that user control on the website.

If we were to wrap our <label> element around the image, when you put it through a thorough 508 validator, such as AccVerify, it would come out as a "Priority 1" error and would not be 508 compliant. Unfortunately, because there's really no space to fit a proper text label, I had to come up with a creative work around. Here it is:

A <label for=""> element wrapped around a <span> element that contains appropriate label text but is hidden from the users view (but is fully viewable and accessible by folks using Braille and text readers).

Here's the example:

<div class="bucketTitle">
   <label for="q"><span class="hideForPrint">SAMHSA Search</span><img src="/images/samhsaSearch.gif" width="195" height="23" alt="Search the SAMHSA website" /></label>
</div>

Basically, what we've done is we've wrapped the <label> element around appropriate text inside of a <span> (inline element). The <span> has a class of "hideForPrint". This css class looks like this:

.hideForPrint {
   display: none;
   visibility: hidden;
}

What that class does is it hides whatever is contained in that class from being seen on screen. However, when you are using a Braille or screen reader - both of which ignore CSS and simply read the content on the page - it correctly displays and associates the form control with the appropriate label. Here's what it looks like with CSS disabled:

Thus, we have an amazing, invisible work-around for any form label 508 issues that occur that will fix any validation issues you have! Huzzah!

Technorati Tags: Section 508, Web Design, Accessibility, WCAG, Web Standards.

I have been neglecting you far too long

2008-03-19T17:16:00.003-04:00

Back in the day, just a year ago I think, I used to religiously post a blog here every week. Before that, it was a few times a week. Things changes, life gets busier, and let's face it - my motivations and attention span aren't what they used to be. Still, I love this website, and I love posting to it so I'm going to try my damnedest to get back into it.

What's going on with me?

It's been an interesting couple of months. Medically, I've been something of a mess. Three hospital visits in three months including my first time being admitted overnight - a new record that I'm not terribly proud of. In January I sprained my left ankle pretty good. Still healing a bit from that, actually. In February I got the flu - the strain that the flu shot this year didn't cover - and I got sick enough that I needed to go to the hospital in the night because of the respiratory issues.

Just this last weekend, for the first time in 14 years I threw up (among other nasty things), had a fever of 102.7 and then later on developed chest pains that my doctors thought might have been a heart attack, so I was admitted to Shady Grove Adventist overnight Saturday to Sunday. I'm happy to say it was, apparently, just a very bad virus and nothing is wrong with my heart. I'm still recovering from that but in general am much better.

In my personal life, things are going as they typically go. Some ups, some downs. I had a dinner date with two old high school friends of mine, Amanda & Tracy, two weeks ago. It was great to see them again and I'm hoping it leads to seeing both of them more. Since I've been between illnesses, I haven't really gone out much, although Brian scored us tickets to the George Carlin show at the end of March that I'm really looking forward to. This will be my first experience seeing live comedy, and I'm sure it's going to be great.

I also got a new car in February - my second Saturn, a 2008 Aura XE with all the options. It's great. Power/heated leather seats, OnStar and XM Radio (which I love and am going to subscribe to at the end of the free trial), 3.5L V6, etc. It's a great car, and I'm extremely happy with it. Much nicer than my '05 Vue.

Work wise, I've been extremely busy. Besides my normal contract, my company also has me working on a side contract for a Dept. of Defense program that has been... interesting, to say the least. I'm not doing anything terribly special for this DoD client - developing a public-facing website for them - but it's definitely been a real different experience than I'm used to. I've also had to put in a lot more hours after work and on weekends than I'm used to, which hasn't been great for my mental faculties, but it all works out to more money and more positive notoriety within the company, which is something I've been working at actively for some time now.

At the regular day-to-day contract, things have shifted quite a bit. Normally I'd spend, say, 70% of our time working on maintenance, 20% on new development, and 10% on Section 508 concerns. A few months ago, when I slowed down my blogging, the paradigm shifted and the agency decided to make Section 508 compliance its #1 issue, so we're now spending 70% of our time dedicated to Section 508 testing, fixes, instruction, and revamping, while the other 30% is dedicated to everything else. Keeps us pretty busy here.

My family is good. Well, those that I speak to, anyway. My father is doing extremely well with his girlfriend/fiance in New Jersey. They just got back from a Caribbean cruise - my fathers first vacation in something like 14 years - and he had a blast. My sister just celebrated her 23rd birthday on Sunday. She's very excited that her boyfriend got her a gun as a gift. Yes, a Jewish girl who loves guns and hunting with bows. It's weird, I know. My father and I still don't quite understand that, but hey... whatever makes her happy is fine with me.

Finally, in World of Warcraft news, my guild, <Order of the Raven> on Aggramar-US, (I'm the webmaster for the site by the way, so feel free to give me some props on that nice logo) "beat the game" in the first week of Januaray. That means that all of the raid bosses in all of the instances have been killed. Archimonde, Illidan, all of those jerks. Dead and on farm status now. Last week my main level 70 character, Mayo, got his fifth and final piece of the Lightbringer Raiment (Tier 6 armor set), so he looks pretty bad ass right now. Essentially, until Patch 2.4 (Fury of the Sunwell) comes out, Mayo is wearing some of the best gear in the game. Also, according to Gankbang.com, Mayo is in the top 50 of all holy paladins in the USA when it comes to +healing, which really makes me feel pretty stoked in-game (and makes the e-peen a lot bigger, of course...). In a game with over 9 million players, that's saying something.

So, that's it. I'll post something more interesting soon - no later than one week from now. I promise. Really. Seriously. You can stop rolling your eyes at me, damnit.

Things I'm not doing

2008-02-13T15:34:00.004-05:00

I assure you that I am not dead, not dying, not ice fishing, not writing the Great American Novel of the 21^st Century. I am not hiding, not flashing random strangers, not having promiscuous sex with female rodeo clowns. I am not coating myself in a thin layer of latex, not locked in a round room and trying to find a corner to pee in, not blinded by William Shatner's greatness.

I've just been sick and busy. Something new is coming very soon. Keep your eyes here.

Cast your vote!

2008-01-11T15:24:00.000-05:00

Newsvine is running a really neat little widget that you can put on your website, that allows your visitors to cast their own votes for whom they are supporting for the 2008 Presidential elections. So, without further adieu, please cast your vote!

Technorati Tags: 2008 Presidential Election, Newsvine.

Netscape (finally) dies

2007-12-28T17:37:00.000-05:00

13 years ago, the internet was a very different place. The World Wide Web was just beginning to pique the interests of Americans, and the "Dot Com" era was beginning. Yahoo was tops when it came to search engines, e-mail, and pretty much everything else. Google didn't even exist yet. There was no Amazon, Myspace, Facebook, Orkut, or even I Can Has Cheezburger. At this time, one browser reigned supreme: Netscape Navigator. It is with a mix of emotions both positive and negative that I found out that Netscape will cease all development and support on February 1, 2008.

The life of Netscape is a bittersweet Cinderella-turned-horribly-disfigured-hooker story, filled with high times and extreme low points. Besides being the first real web browser that actually caught on and revolutionized what we call "surfing the web", it was also the flagship product of what many consider to be the first company to ring in the Dot Com era. In 1994, Netscape was what Google is today: unbelievably successful, hiring only the best engineers and making them (and all of their investors) millions of dollars. There was even a documentary about Netscape's millionaire engineers, called Code Rush.

Unfortunately, over the last seven years or so, Netscape has gone from being at the forefront of browser usage to slipping to only having 0.6% of the worldwide browser share. Compare that to IE at over 75% and Firefox at over 15%, and you can see that the world has really abandoned Netscape - and with good reason. Netscape 4, which was the last truly popular version of the browser, was poorly written and didn't obey a lot of the standards and practices suggested by the W3C (although it should be noted that most browsers don't adhere to all of the W3C's standards, but most are a lot better today than they were 5 years ago).

Netscape 4 was used as the baseline a few years ago as the browser that everyone tested against for the absolutely lowest common denominator when they were building a website. That was because it was so bad, so buggy, so terrible at rendering things. If you developed a page using Netscape 4 to test, it would almost surely look different in IE. A lot of companies and federal agencies wrote their website style guides and design standards around IE 5.5 and Netscape 4, which held back a lot of the beautiful design elements we see so commonly today.

On the other hand, the poor quality of Netscape 4's Document Object Model was part of the inspiration that started the Web Standards movement, which has been a true boon for website design and architecture. Still, ever since then, Netscape has never been able to recover from its poor architecture, bad business choices (like when they were acquired by AOL), and the absolutely tanking of its stock. Needless to say, Google should take heed of the hard lessons learned by Netscape, lest they follow a similar path.

So, it is with both a heavy heart and a sense of relief that I bid Netscape adieu. Thank you for being there first. Thank you for influencing positive change in the industry. Thank God you're finally going away.

Technorati Tags: Netscape, Code Rush.

The War on Hannukah

2007-12-05T16:19:00.000-05:00

Bill O'Reilly thinks there's a War on Christmas because people say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas" and occasionally somewhere some genius screws up and forgets to add Christmas to a December holiday calendar. Whatever. Well, let me tell you something, Bill & friends: There's a War on Hannukah and not only have I seen it with my own two eyes - I'm a victim of it!

Yesterday at sundown was the very beginning of Hannukah this year. For those of you who don't know what the holiday is about, here's the quick version: A mean Greek asshole named Antiochus came in and put himself in charge of Judea (now known as Israel) long ago. He treated the Jews like shit (common theme in history), tried to force them all to think, act, and be Greek, took as much silver and gold he could from them, and killed a whole bunch of them. To top it off, he "installed" a new high priest who did nothing but steal silver and gold from the great temple in Jerusalem. After the Jews drove these guys out, there was almost nothing left of the temple. It was wrecked, and there was only enough oil left to light it up for one night. Amazingly, the oil lasted for eight nights - just long enough for the Macabees to fix up more lamp oil. That is why we celebrate eight days of Hanukkah - Nes gadol hayah sham ("A great miracle happened there.").

Hannukah and Christmas really have nothing in common except they both were originally entirely religious holidays but are now the biggest consumer spending holidays of the year (although Hannukah is only like this because of its proximity to Christmas).

Anyway, here's the meat & potatoes of this War on Hannukah. I no longer own a menorah (thing with candles that Jews light each night of Hannukah) because I gave mine back to my father when he moved out of state recently, and totally forgot about it until yesterday morning. At lunch I went around town to try and find one to purchase. I went everywhere I could think of that carried Hannukah stuff in the past. Grocery stores (which usually carry cheap/electric ones, candles, etc), to CVS, to hardware stores (they used to carry electric ones). I even went to an expensive Jewish gift store in Rockville, MD - which had menorahs but was closed for some reason (the holiday starts at sundown, not noon, damnit).

In total, I went to nine places to find a menorah, or at least some candles that I could light (you could very easily make a ghetto menorah using aluminum foil and the right candles). Turns out that not ONE of those nine places, with the exception of the Jewish gift store that was closed - had any menorahs, candles, or even Hannukah-related items. I even spoke to the managers at my nearest (and next nearest) grocery stores, since in recent years they always had candles. I got the same response from them both: "We didn't get any Jewish stuff this year, sorry."

Didn't get any "Jewish stuff" this year? You're kidding me, right? Every freaking store is covered ceiling to floor with Christmas decorations, candy canes, fake snowmen, and inflatable Christmas scenes while "Jingle Bells" is playing over the loud speakers, and there's not one bit of "Jewish stuff"?

War on Christmas my ass, Bill. The War on Hannukah, though? That's the real deal. No one ever wishes me a Happy Hannukah. No stores appear to be carrying "Jewish stuff". Hell, even the Adam Sandler "Hannukah Song" wasn't playing on the radio yesterday or today here in the DC area (at least on on DC101 and 98 Rock - the stations I listen to all day). So, you can take your "War on Christmas" and shove it up your self-righteous "traditionalist" ass.

To borrow and re-write a thought from my favorite rap/R&B artist, "America doesn't care about Hannukah."

So, I had to order a menorah online - it was the only place I could find one. It's a nice menorah, too. It's glass and metal in a very nice, contemporary pattern. It probably won't arrive till Hannukah is over, but that's fine. I'll say my prayers at sundown anyway, and thank God for the great miracle that happened so long ago in Israel. All the while, I'll be cursing Bill O'Reilly and all of the other morons that believe there's a "War on Christmas". Bah humbug.

Happy Hannukah, Merry Christmas, and Joyous Kwanza.

Technorati Tags: War on Christmas, Bill O'Reilly, War on Hannukah, Hannukah.

A lack of understanding

2007-11-30T16:54:00.000-05:00

Explain this to me, because obviously I'm missing something: A teacher, who is working in an Islamic country, has a teddy bear, and lets her class vote on a name for the teddy bear. The class, being comprised of young Muslim children who have been raised to have great love and respect for their religion and those of their faith, decide to name the teddy bear Mohammed - their most cherished prophet. It also happens to be the most common name in the world. So, someone hears about this, and the teacher is charged with "inciting religious hatred", faced a sentence that could have kept her jailed for 40 years AND would've included being physically harmed by a whip or some other blunt object. She "got off easy" and only has to serve 15 days in jail for this.

Oh yeah, and the people of Sudan are in the streets right now, calling for her to be "killed by firing squads."

Obviously I'm missing something, because last I checked, she didn't give the teddy bear the name. Sure, I understand that it's against Muslim law to embody the prophet Mohammed as a picture or some other artistic representation (despite the fact that they have done it many times throughout the last thousand years...), but come on. A teddy bear? A teddy bear the students named?

Wow, folks. Wow.

As an American and as Jew, I realize that when I write here about Islam, I have to be careful about what I say - I've received abusive and threatening e-mails before about lesser topics - but I'm having a hard time buying the whole "Islam is the religion of peace" when every single day I'm hearing about all of these Islamic countries that are simply not peaceful, and are chocked full of people who are full of hatred and would gladly shoot me full of holes, burn my corpse, and drag it through the streets in a celebratory manner just because I'm American and/or Jewish.

I wish I could say I was exaggerating on my description there, but it's happened. A lot. All over the world (except in the USA, thankfully).

I realize that not every person from one religion feels and acts the same as the next, and I realize that there's a lot of Muslims who aren't violent and don't feel like a woman should be killed because she let her class name a teddy bear after a holy prophet. I also realize that there are bad people all over the world who are of different faiths - or of no faith at all. But all of this idiotic violence in the name of God (any God)... it's getting old. It's been old. It's very old.

Get a hobby. Knit a sweater. Build models. Paint. Draw. Play a musical instrument. Learn how to perform taxidermy on your pets. Just stop this moronic violence that you excuse in the name of your religion.

Technorati Tags: Islam, Religion of Peace, Teacher, Sudan.

Writers Guild of America on strike!

2007-11-05T18:29:00.000-05:00

Dedicated to my friend RJ at TVO.

Fight on, Writers Guild of America! I support your efforts to ensure that you receive a piece of the action from new media sales. You deserve it! Though I'm not a major TV watcher, as a person who always wanted to write for a television show or movie, I stand in support of your striking for better contracts.

On the bright side of things, those few people who still watch Saturday Night Live won't have to be subjected to the music of Amy Winehouse. Does anyone even watch SNL anymore? I know I sure don't!

Technorati Tags: Writers Guild of America, strike.

Once a Nazi, always a Nazi

2007-10-08T16:59:00.000-04:00

Allow me to introduce you to Paul Henss, an 85 year old immigrant from the land of beer and Nazi's. Paul Henss was a Nazi and served in both the Hitler Youth organization when he was in his teens, and in the Waffen SS as a "dog handler". Nazi dog handlers didn't teach dogs to sit, speak, and play tricks. They taught their animals to "bite without mercy". Mr. Henss was assigned to the Dachau and Buchenwald concentration camps, where hundreds of thousands - if not a few million - Jew, Gypsies, homosexuals, and other races deemed "undesirable" to the Third Reich were exterminated. Mr. Henss also claims to have "no idea" what was really going on at those camps, which anyone with an ounce of common sense finds a bit hard to believe.

In 1955 Mr. Henss and his wife came to the US. When they arrived, Henss didn't make any mention of the fact that he was a Nazi, or that he was in any way involved in the concentration camps. I'm sure if he had in fact mentioned that fact his admittance to the US wouldn't have been a sure thing, which leads us to October 2007, when the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security have begun deportation proceedings to send him back to Germany.

There's a big argument going on in the media and Jewish communities all across the United States about whether it's right or wrong to send him back to Germany. There are many who say, "Once a Nazi, always a Nazi," and others who say that some mercy should be shown for someone who is 85 years old and isn't in the best of health. Me? I'm pretty torn to tell you the truth.

When I was much younger and my mothers' parents were still alive, my grandfather used to tell me about how he fought in WWII for two reasons: Because he felt it was his duty as an American to support his country by performing military service, and to fight to free the many Jews that were being killed by the Germans, especially the family that he knew were over there Germany and Austria. He was always so passionate when he talked about it. I remember how he struggled to keep himself from tears when he explained what it was like to go to places like Buchenwald and help to free the Jews who were there.

Those were telling moments in my early development as a young Jewish man. I've never been one to go to synagogue or actively pray, but I occasionally read my Torah and go to services. I believe in the Jewish ways. I'm faithful to the beliefs that my family instilled in me, and I'm very proud to be a Jew. My people have taken a lot of shit over the years - thousands of years. From the servitude that the Egyptians forced us into, to the way were treated in renaissance times (The Merchant of Venice is a great example of how Jews were portrayed and treated in those times), and up to the modern era, where we've seen the worst cases mass genocide in history.

That pride screams out for vengeance and justice. "Once a Nazi, always a Nazi," my heart says. Still, is it right to punish this man at such an advanced age? What good would it do to send him back to Germany now? Will he be prosecuted in Germany if he gets deported?

Those questions aside, he did violate US law. According to an article posted on AJC.com, the Dept. of Justice has deported 106 other former Nazis over the years, so this isn't an isolated incident. The law is the law, and if you're going to be for the strengthening of US immigration laws, then you can't start playing the exception game.

My final opinion on Mr. Henss: I don't know. I don't know his whole story. I don't know him as a person. I don't know if he's lived a good, virtuous life here in the US. I don't know if he harbors hate for the Jews. I don't know if he ever did. I can't judge a person with so little information.

Maybe I am leaning slightly more to the side of deporting him. He wasn't a simple guard in the SS. He wasn't some janitor mopping floors in a German government building during the war. He was actively training dogs to kill Jews who tried to escape the concentration camps. He knew he was training these dogs to kill, and he knew that the ones they'd be killing were innocent Jews. He knew.

Whatever the outcome of his case, the crimes committed by the Nazis and all those who supported them can never be forgotten or forgiven. That would be just as terrible a crime.

Technorati Tags: Nazi, WWII, Paul Henss, Deportation, Jews.

Arr mateys! Talk Like a Pirate Day returns from the deep!

2007-09-19T16:30:00.000-04:00

Avast mateys, it be International Talk Like a Pirate Day! In celebration o' this holiday, we be repostin' Cap'n Jeffrey Zeldman's "Inappropriate Talk Like a Pirate Day remarks" , aaar!

Aaaaar! Ye have cancer, Mr Finkelstein.

Aaaar! Be leavin' you, I will, and fightin' fer custody of th' youngins, damn yer eyes

Aar! That joint be not mine, old father!

Aaaaaaaar! Home a day early, ye are, husband. This varmint a poor stranger be who lost his clothes.

Aaar! 'Twas my right of way!

Aaar! The tightening of credit conditions has the potential to intensify the housing correction and restrain economic growth more generally, aar. Today's action is intended to forestall some of the adverse effects on the broader economy that might otherwise arise from the disruptions in financial markets, aaaar!

Aaar! Yer brat should not play so near me pit bull doggie, aar!

Aaar! Come out with your hands up, blast ye!

Aaaar! Lass, ye come upon me unawares! I bought these for the articles, be it so!

Aaaaaaar! Peace be upon he who follows the guidance: People of America this talk of mine is for you and concerns the ideal way to prevent another Manhattan, and deals with the war and its causes and results, avast!

Arr, it be mighty funny, mateys! I fell off me crows nest!

Technorati Tags: International Talk Like a Pirate Day, Zeldman.

The beginning of the end (of the Click Wheel)

2007-09-12T16:19:00.000-04:00

Last week, much to the glee of Apple fanboys like myself, Steve Jobs announced at a special event that the whole line of iPods was getting revamped. Shuffles, Nanos, and iPods all got a makeover. Plus, as an added bonus, a new iPod was added to the line up, the iPod Touch - an iPhone minus the phone but with a larger hard drive and slightly thinner. The old top-of-the line iPods are now known as the iPod Classics and have a maximum capacity of 160gigs, which is outstanding. They've even had their outer skin replaced with an all-metal enclosure that will help to prevent those nasty scratches that plagued the 5th gen iPods.

But this isn't about them. Nor the Nanos. Nor the Shuffles. This is about our new friend, the iPod Touch.

Just over a year before the iPod Touch was introduced, and just under a year before the iPhone was released, Apple filed for a patent with the USPTO for a touch screen interface that had integrated the look, feel, and behavior of the innovative click wheel that Apple brought to life on the iPod some years ago. AppleInsider has a great article with lots of pictures from the patent filing, showing this interface.

A touch screen with a built-in click wheel interface. It seemed like the natural evolution for the iPod. As time when on, that's what we all expected from Apple. An iPod that was nothing but a screen and our friend the click wheel controlling everything from the software instead of the hardware. And then we met the iPhone (or as I like to call it, The Messiah).

The iPhone. The wonderful, amazing iPhone. "Hey, you got your iPod in my phone!" "No, you got your phone in my iPod!" Not just a touch screen interface, but a multi-touch interface. None of that old school digitizer jibba jabba! Use two fingers on this touch screen! But wait… where'd the click wheel go? The click wheel is missing from the iPhone in lieu of its wonderful new multi-touch interface.

Fast forward three months, and we're welcoming the iPod Touch to the iPod family, and it's now the prodigal son. The Golden Boy. Same multi-touch interface as the iPhone, double the capacity, all wrapped up in a sexy black and silver shell.

Could I resist? No, I could not. I looked at my black 30gig iPod with Video lovingly, and clicked the "Add to Cart" icon next to the iPod Touch on Apple's website. I'm sorry, 5th gen iPod. I couldn't resist. I'm sorry click wheel - the end of your time draws nearer and nearer every day. How long does the Nano have with a click wheel interface? Who knows. But I do know this: The click wheel is on its way out. God bless you, click wheel. You will not be forgotten.

Technorati Tags: iPod Touch, fanboy, Apple, click wheel.

Oh, how it irks me so...

2007-08-09T15:49:00.000-04:00

I'll admit it, small things tend to irk me quite a bit. People driving poorly, people coding poorly. Turning in "spaghetti code", invalid xhtml or css, not turning your headlights on in a downpour. Those kinds of things.

As I was driving to Starbucks to get my daily cup o' coffee at lunch, the sky opened up and it began to pour like it hasn't in so very long. Since it had been building up to rain for the last few hours, most people already had their headlights on from the slight drizzle.

Except the minivans. Oh, the cursed minivans being driven by testy soccer moms and frustrated little league dads. The ones who drive 20 mph over the speed limit in a snow storm with their rotten, screaming kids in the back seat, who so ferociously claim that they would do anything to protect their kids (except slow the hell down and teach them proper manners).

Okay, not all of the minivans were driving without their headlights on, but every time I looked and saw a car coming up without its lights on, it was always a minivan today.

Maybe not everyone in Maryland is familiar with the fact that it's a law that you've gotta turn your headlights on when you turn your windshield wipers on for precipitation. Maybe they simply don't care. Either way, it irks me, since it makes it a lot easier to dodge these careless assholes as they speed down the street in the middle of a torrential rainstorm when they have their lights on.

Oh well. I'll just keep praying for Darwinism to take a more firm hold of minivan drivers. Viva common sense!

Technorati Tags: Minivans, Soccer Moms.

What Fox News calls headline-worthy...

2007-07-19T15:28:00.000-04:00

Here's what FoxNews.com had as it's big headline image at approximately 3:30pm (EST) on Thursday, July 19, 2007:

Click for larger screen capture

That's right. "Underage Dino Sex". It's a front page story with a big, eye-blowing (lol!) image!

Here's a link to the article, for those who asked about it: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,289963,00.html

They report. You decide fall off your chair laughing.

Technorati Tags: Fox News, Faux News.

Nope, I'm not in line for an iPhone

2007-06-29T17:10:00.000-04:00

I'm not in line for an iPhone, but the "gadget lust" is killing me. I don't like AT&T, I'm locked in a two year contract with T-Mobile, and Apple has a bad history when it comes to first generation models. So, I'm waiting. I'm biding my time as I eagerly await the release of a new iPod that has the same form factor and touch screen as the iPhone. THEN... I'll be waiting on a line 24 hours in advance of its release.

Damn... I really like the iPhone. ;-)

Update 07/02/2007: Having... trouble... resisting... urge... to buy... iPhone!

Technorati Tags: iPhone.

Peer Reviews: Part II

2007-06-26T11:33:00.000-04:00

In the last few weeks, I've been pretty busy at the office. Besides the normal maintenance and development work we typically have going on, we've also been working on creating the rules and processes for a Peer Review, as I discussed in mid-May. In the last few weeks we've really made some headway, and we'll begin conducting our first Peer Review in a week or so.

The process has been a somewhat bumpy one, but we've utilized a lot of resources, both from the experiences of our wonderful web team here, and from a number of books and articles found on the internet.

The basic process we've come up with is fairly simple. We have created a checklist with three categories, covering the actual code of the pages, the usability/accessibility, and the actual visibility and functionality. It's a fairly short checklist - less than three pages - and it's pretty complete. My only complaint about it, really, is that despite my best arguments and presentation of evidence, my wish of having "(x)html validation" as part of the checklist was ignored, more or less.

I'm not going to go into a tirade about why I feel leaving out actual, true validation is important, because those of you in the business of professional website design and development already know and understand the reasons for true validation, and those of you who aren't in the business don't really care about the whole technical side of it.

Never the less, the Peer Review process we've created here is a good one, and I'll post the results of the first peer review here on Mexijew.com, as well as a copy of the checklist once we've had the first round of reviews happen. I expect there will be refinements and enhancements before the checklist and the overall process are approved and implemented for all of our sites here, but I can only hope that my team members learn from the experience and the quality of our code improves.

Technorati Tags: Peer Review, Validation, xhtml.

Paris Hiltown3d

2007-06-08T14:23:00.000-04:00

They say a picture can speak a thousand words...

Technorati Tags: Paris Hilton.

Paris Hilton released to 'house arrest'

2007-06-07T12:25:00.000-04:00

You've got to be fucking kidding me. They let her out. Because of a so-called "medical condition"? Does being a brainless, mega-rich douche bag qualify as a medical condition? I mean, come on. There's seriously ill people in jails all over the USA, and they don't get sent home to their million dollar palaces with an ankle bracelet.

If anyone needed proof that our system of justice is both corrupt and entirely favoring the rich, this is all the proof you need.

What a fucking load of shit. Pardon my cursing, but really. This just pisses me off.

Technorati Tags: Paris Hilton, Justice.