2008 Site Design

A new year usually means a fresh start on things. So, of course, my website has to reflect that. This new design is something I've never done before. For one, it's fixed width. All of my designs up until now had been fluid. But I wanted something a little different this time around. And yes, I threw in rounded corners. They're fun. :) Not surprisingly, the biggest thing hindering this effort has been IE6. And believe it or not, once I managed to fix the IE6 bugs, IE7 gives me trouble. Oh how I despise you Trident. But at least Trident 6 is looking promising passing the Acid test. :)
I still have a lot of work to do. Not everything is polished yet, but at least it's functional. So for the next week or so you'll see some restyling, but the majority of the work is done. Sorry for an inconveniences.
This time around I also went for a more striking color scheme. I like it, but it's pretty bold. :P

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Open-Source Project Corruption

A spokeswoman for the Wikimedia foundation recently said that without further donations, Wikipedia would be taken down within three months.
I think this is another corruption of an open-source ideological project. It seems as if more and more projects are started as healthy open-source ideas. But as they mature, they ask for more and more monetary support. Isn't this infringing upon the very idea of sharing that the ideal open-source advocates and institutes? It's almost as if these open-source supporting companies lure in contributors by selling their open-source project. The adopters of open-source stuff are usually pretty zealous and loyal, and therefore have a greater chance of contributing money to the project. This is destroying open-source. The projects threaten loyal users to contribute money or they will stop development otherwise. They try to make it as dramatic as possible. Another example of this is Dillo, with the new FLTK2 port. The head of the project is refusing to release the port until he gets donations. If a project is going to advocate open-source, they shouldn't hide behind it trying to make a dollar. It's really sickening to see things like this happening to open-source projects with so much potential.
I understand that it does take actual resources to support a project when you're not actually making a profit off the product. But too many projects are exaggerating it. They are taking advantage of innocent contributors who want to really help the project.

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Wii Browser Trial Released

As I was going to sleep last night, my Wii's slot illuminated and pulsated, notifying me of a new message. I promptly checked it to find that the new Opera Wii beta browser was available for download on the Wii Shop.
So far, I'm very impressed by the browser. The custom-built Flash plugin does its job well enough, making accessible lots of new multimedia on the Wii. The layout engine itself is pretty sweet. Opera has done a good job porting Presto.
The browser itself should have a few more features, however. The only "extraneous" feature, in respect to pure browsing, is Bookmarks(or Favorites.) I'd like to see the browser have an address bar above the page itself rather than having to navigate to a "control panel" page. And, of course, it needs tabs. I agree that as much of the screen needs to be dedicated to the page itself, but they can spare room for an adress bar and tabs(and maybe a personal bar... ;).)
I love seeing more and more activity in the browser market. It really stimulates me to work on my own layout engine. Maybe someday I'll have something that can compete with... Lynx. :P

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Blogtastic

Linktastic