Because I Love My Readers

The Wandering Geek is now easier on your eyes...

I did a quick css hack-a-thon for an hour (I started at around 6 am) to finally fix some of my peeves about this blog's design

1. 1024 x 768 is the new 800 x 600. That's what my Google analytics data tells me. So I took the liberty of increasing the widths of my main content and the sidebar to allow for well, more content. :)
2. Small is out, big is in. I've been wanting to increase the default font size here, because I know, being here can totally hurt your eyes (and the dark background doesn't help that much either). Now we're 1.2 em big. Not as big as how I originally wanted it to be, like this and that, but I think this as big as I could go for now without really changing the rest of the design.
   
3. I've been using Trebuchet because that's what came with the Emire blog template (damn you.. :p ). When all this time I've been really into Georgia. Finally, The Wandering Geek is now Georgia-powered. Yeah. :)
4. Comments. I still can't find a way (read: didn't even bother to google) to change the style for alternate comments. But for now, I hope the little improvements i did in the comments will ease your eyes enough that you wouldn't be turned off to comment. What comment-bait?
   
5. So that's it. I hope you these things help, that is if you still read The Wandering geek outside an RSS reader, and, I have to add, if you're not on a suck-ass, pixel-y OS like Windows 2000.
   

Thunderbird: Finding a New Home

Thunderbird might be leaving MoFo to become an independent entity. Mitchell Baker discusess this in her blog and Scott Macgregor, lead engineer of Thunderbird, also chimes in for a more in-depth explanation about why Thunderbird is looking for a new home.

This could be seen as a sad moment from the community's point of view. But like all things that "are hard, but must be done," I think this is a necessary step that will benefit both Firefox and Thunderbird. I will just point you the mentioned posts above, as well as one by Ben Goodger (on renaming the Mozilla Corporation to Firefox Corporation) for more thoughts on this.

On Calling Them Users

An enlightening post by Josh Bernoff:

I promise to avoid the word user whenever possible.

I will think of people who use technology as people, customers, and friends. I won't use them, and they won't use me.

And another take on the topic by Jimmy Guterman at the O'Reilly Radar:

As has often been noted, there are only two industries that refer to their customers as users: high tech and illegal drugs. Is this the company we want to keep?

But perhaps the best crafted thoughts on this is one by Don Norman:

Words matter. Psychologists depersonalize the people they study by calling them “subjects.” We depersonalize the people we study by calling them “users.” Both terms are derogatory. They take us away from our primary mission: to help people. Power to the people, I say, to repurpose an old phrase. People. Human Beings. That’s what our discipline is really about.

OCSAFAK

I missed our last climb to Mt. Romelo (Famy), and Ariel, my previous boss here at OCS missed it too. That turned out as a problem because we were the only two who have climbed Mt. Romelo before, so the group ended up leaving for Famy without a clear plan for their guide. To make matters worse, it was a night trek (on a new moon). They ended up hiring a guide for the climb.

Next we'll be climbing Mt. Makiling, since most of the members group haven't been there. That includes me by the way, since I didn't reach the peak the last time (and first time) I tried.

Thanks han for letting me me join this one. :)

By the way, we used to call the group OCS Akyat, but since we're not really all from Oberthur, we decided to call it OCS and Friends Akyat instead, or OCSAFAk, to Carlo's prodding. :) So we're now the ocsafakers. You don't get any more classy than that.

...

I just wish it's easier to learn not to care.
Saves us all the trouble.

Discovering Dylan

He's probably one of the greatest artist and songwriter and it's a shame that I haven't even listened to any of his original performances.

Sam's (not so) New Look

26-06-07_2102
Originally uploaded by jazzyminn

Sam's head usually gets too hot (literally) with his old cherub curls so we had his hair trimmed a month (ish) ago. He looks a lot like a big boy now (emphasis both on the BIG and the BOY).

Photo was taken by tita Jazz (or was it tito Rohel) using Moto RAZR V3X in Medical City.

I usually get asked at the office for a more recent picture of Sam since the one I have on my office desk is quite old (taken before his first birthday). Now I'll just point them here. :p