Chris.Weekly.org - A Web Space

I share a monitor between a Mac Pro tower and a Dell PC laptop, using a KVM switch. A couple days ago, toggling to the Mac resulted in a totally blank screen. Thinking it was a problem w/ the KVM switch itself (as I’d run into this trouble w/ a previous switch) I plugged the monitor directly into the Mac… with no change. I was able to launch itunes using keyboard shortcuts, so I could confirm OS X was running fine. After restarting the Mac, doing tests on the monitor and googling around, I still was faced with no display. This is a particularly frustrating problem to have, since most solutions involve being able to see what you’re doing. Finally a friend and mac guru suggested I try resetting the PRAM. It worked! I’m posting this in case anyone else has Mac display issues.

To reset your Mac’s PRAM:
1. Power the machine down
2. Hold down Command+Option+P+R all at the same time
3. Power the machine back up, while holding those keys down
4. Listen for the boot chimes to sound several times (I cycled it 5 times before releasing the keys)
5. Release the keys and cross your fingers.

With luck the reset PRAM will eliminate whatever temporary issue was getting in your way.
Here’s Apple’s page on this topic: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379

Many thanks to EJ for the help!

This will only interest web developers.

Using Firefox 3.0.10 on XP, with the firebug console open, I kept noticing seemingly arbitrary errors like this:
[Exception... "Component returned failure code: 0x80004001 (NS_ERROR_NOT_IMPLEMENTED) [nsIRequest.name]” nsresult: “0×80004001 (NS_ERROR_NOT_IMPLEMENTED)” location: “JS frame :: file:///C:/Program%20Files/Mozilla%20Firefox/components/nsLoginManager.js :: anonymous :: line 282″ data: no]
file:///C:/Program%20Files/Mozilla%20Firefox/components/nsLoginManager.js
Line 282

I finally realized this was triggered by using the right-click context menu option “View Selection Source” (which is very useful for examining generated markup, e.g. after scripted DOM manipulation). It’s a minor bug in Mozilla’s code that seems harmless enough.

Anyway thought I’d share in case anyone else is scratching their head wondering why this error is polluting their console logs.

Thanks to Tim Berners-Lee for dreaming up the web 20 years ago. I’ve been making a living on it for more than half of its existence so I’ve got a lot to thank him for. =)

cnet.com article

Hi
It’s more convenient for me to post to twitter sometimes, and though I may integrate those posts into this website at some point, for now there’s quite a bit that doesn’t make it here. So, if you have any interest in twitter and/or my random writings on technology, culture, interesting websites and my personal life, please follow me there. Thanks!

http://twitter.com/cweekly

This is really awesome; this guy takes random youtube videos and mixes them — both the audio and video — to make something infinitely better:

I’ve been helping Mike Rivard — amazing bass player and composer and leader of the Cambridge-based band “Club d’Elf” — turn his emails into a blog proper. It’s live at http://blog.clubdelf.com/ and Mike’s begun posting there. Great stuff, check it out!

Here are just a few of the things I’ve done to my Firefox client to make it more useful.

Install Add-ons:

• Firebug
• Yslow
• LiveHTTPHeaders
• ieTab
• Clear cache button
• Web developer

Configure UI:


View > Add Ons > LiveHTTPHeaders > Options > Config > ‘Add … to sidebar’ checkbox



View > Sidebar > LiveHTTPHeaders



View > Toolbars > Customize: drag icons to Navigation toolbar, esp. “Clear Cache Button” and ieTab and Firebug


Teach LiveHTTPHeaders about your CDN:

Type URL "about:config" in location bar, confirm "ok" at warning
Right-click and choose “new > string”
Enter name (without quotes) “extensions.firebug.yslow.cdnHostnames”
Enter CDN URL values (without quotes), e.g. “im.529.com,olmcdn.529.com”


Teach ietab to automatically use IE for specific URLs:

Right-click and choose "new > string" again
Enter name (without quotes) “ietab.filterlist”
Enter value (without quotes) “/^file:\/\/\/.*\.(mht|mhtml)$/ http://*.usa-ed.net/* http://*update.microsoft.com/* http://shrpt/* http://ushare/* http://www.windowsupdate.com/*”


There are many more add-ons I like, and some about:config tweaks as well, but as a core shortlist of web development -related add-ons I find these ones indispensable. Enjoy!

Last week she was doing a tumbleweed across the carpet (roll, turn, sit, topple, repeat, gradually making her way across the room)… but just yesterday she woke us hollering something serious in the middle of the night, and when I went in to comfort her she was standing stock upright, holding her crib’s bars. She wasn’t very happy about it but it’s a pretty good milestone as far as I’m concerned. =)

Also my great friends Ben and Jody just closed on their amazing new house; Jody is due in about a week(!), we’re pretty excited for them, and relieved the house came through in time. And it turns out their new address *is* in the same elementary school zone as ours! So awesome.

I’ve been splitting online writing between here, facebook, twitter and comments on taplin’s blog. 8 or 9 years ago I made a concerted effort to bring all my online stuff together in one place, now it’s gotten dispersed again. I have the feeling there’s a reasonable way to avoid this balkanized content publishing, some kind of federation (the twitter javascript api does not come close) … but I haven’t found it. Interested in others’ thoughts, or if you’re reading this and are interested in following me, try also:

http://twitter.com/cweekly

or come find me on facebook. Cheers.

Hi
A reader kindly let me know he had trouble posting a comment here. I had cranked down the security on commenting too far (in fighting comment spam) and accidentally blocked discussion. Whoops. The comments are now open again and I welcome any non-commercial thoughts anyone reading this might care to share. Cheers.