http://www.crankyrants.com Irritable Notes and News From Our Technical World. Tue, 06 Jan 2009 06:59:31 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.3 http://www.crankyrants.com/web-development/wearing-your-site-buttons-and-shirts-and-large-poofy-hats/#comment-102 Thu, 10 Aug 2006 14:52:28 +0000 http://www.crankyrants.com/web-development/wearing-your-site-buttons-and-shirts-and-large-poofy-hats/#comment-102 What? You have a problem with giant unicorns and neon green urls? Well what am I supposed to do with all these shirts? What? You have a problem with giant unicorns and neon green urls? Well what am I supposed to do with all these shirts?

]]> http://www.crankyrants.com/tech-world/elearning-update-online-degrees-and-accreditation/#comment-43 Mon, 07 Aug 2006 17:15:09 +0000 http://www.crankyrants.com/tech-world/elearning-update-online-degrees-and-accreditation/#comment-43 Students must beware of online schools that are regionally accredited, but which lack accreditation for specific programs. For example, many schools offer business degrees, but the academic programs are not accredited by AACSB. The Univ of Phoenix and Strayer Univ (among others) fall into this category. Students must beware of online schools that are regionally accredited, but which lack accreditation for specific programs. For example, many schools offer business degrees, but the academic programs are not accredited by AACSB. The Univ of Phoenix and Strayer Univ (among others) fall into this category.

]]> http://www.crankyrants.com/ancient-rants/Hey-British-People/#comment-7 Sun, 09 Jul 2006 01:51:45 +0000 http://www.crankyrants.com/ancient-rants/Hey-British-People/#comment-7 [...] A much-reduced Labour majority leaves me feeling conflicted. On the one hand, thanks to the fact that my British political brain lives in a permanent 1990, I’m honestly wowed by a third Labour term. This puts the party on an equal footing with the Tories’ record, and Blair on an equal footing with Thatcher (in oh so many ways, but let’s not go there for now). And like Thatcher, he’ll probably get booted out in the middle of his third term. Except there’s already an annointed successor, Gordon Brown. On the other hand, Blair blew it with the war and I wish he’d lost. BBC election coverage is a wonderful thing. There is, of course, the Swingometer. No, this isn’t a device measuring 1970s sexual funkiness. It’s a large - and increasingly computerized - needle that the BBC has been using for decades to display the swing for or against a given party. It’s a glorious two-party relic, but it’s always nice to see how they’ve zazzed it up with nifty graphics. However, the real highlight of the evening in terms of animation was the illustration of how far the three major party leaders would need to go in order to become Prime Minister. This was accomplished with a virtual Downing Street, and computer animated versions of each leader that looked exactly like characters from Grand Theft Auto. I kept expecting Michael Howard to run over a hooker. [...] […] A much-reduced Labour majority leaves me feeling conflicted. On the one hand, thanks to the fact that my British political brain lives in a permanent 1990, I’m honestly wowed by a third Labour term. This puts the party on an equal footing with the Tories’ record, and Blair on an equal footing with Thatcher (in oh so many ways, but let’s not go there for now). And like Thatcher, he’ll probably get booted out in the middle of his third term. Except there’s already an annointed successor, Gordon Brown. On the other hand, Blair blew it with the war and I wish he’d lost. BBC election coverage is a wonderful thing. There is, of course, the Swingometer. No, this isn’t a device measuring 1970s sexual funkiness. It’s a large - and increasingly computerized - needle that the BBC has been using for decades to display the swing for or against a given party. It’s a glorious two-party relic, but it’s always nice to see how they’ve zazzed it up with nifty graphics. However, the real highlight of the evening in terms of animation was the illustration of how far the three major party leaders would need to go in order to become Prime Minister. This was accomplished with a virtual Downing Street, and computer animated versions of each leader that looked exactly like characters from Grand Theft Auto. I kept expecting Michael Howard to run over a hooker. […]

]]> http://www.crankyrants.com/ancient-rants/The-Canadian-Passport/#comment-6 Sun, 09 Jul 2006 01:51:05 +0000 http://www.crankyrants.com/ancient-rants/The-Canadian-Passport/#comment-6 [...] Hopefully by the time the government does fall my new Canadian passport will finally be here, as I’ll need it to register to vote. Mmmm… voting. It’s been a while. In the mean time, for those residents of a parliamentary democracy hell-bent on bringing down a minority government, here’s a handy how-to guide courtesy of the CBC. [...] […] Hopefully by the time the government does fall my new Canadian passport will finally be here, as I’ll need it to register to vote. Mmmm… voting. It’s been a while. In the mean time, for those residents of a parliamentary democracy hell-bent on bringing down a minority government, here’s a handy how-to guide courtesy of the CBC. […]

]]> http://www.crankyrants.com/web-development/web-20/web-20-61806/#comment-5 Sat, 08 Jul 2006 19:29:14 +0000 http://www.crankyrants.com/web-development/web-20/web-20-61806/#comment-5 [...] This entry was posted on Sunday, March 27th, 2005 at 8:52 pm and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the comments RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. [...] […] This entry was posted on Sunday, March 27th, 2005 at 8:52 pm and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the comments RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. […]

]]> http://www.crankyrants.com/ancient-rants/Extreme-Bureaucracy-or-La-Migra/#comment-4 Sat, 08 Jul 2006 18:42:45 +0000 http://www.crankyrants.com/ancient-rants/Extreme-Bureaucracy-or-La-Migra/#comment-4 [...] Don’t worry about the government So when I visited La Migra a couple of weeks ago to be processed for my final Scary Card, I was told that said card would arrive in a minimum of fifteen weeks, possibly as long as six months. This raised the possibility of all sorts of interesting and exciting change of address snafus. La Migra doesn’t allow its mail to be forwarded, so I anticipated long bureaucratic struggles and multiple visits to their LSM office following an inevitable misdelivery. [...] […] Don’t worry about the government So when I visited La Migra a couple of weeks ago to be processed for my final Scary Card, I was told that said card would arrive in a minimum of fifteen weeks, possibly as long as six months. This raised the possibility of all sorts of interesting and exciting change of address snafus. La Migra doesn’t allow its mail to be forwarded, so I anticipated long bureaucratic struggles and multiple visits to their LSM office following an inevitable misdelivery. […]

]]> http://www.crankyrants.com/web-development/seo/gaming-the-search-engines/#comment-3 Sat, 08 Jul 2006 18:21:50 +0000 http://www.crankyrants.com/web-development/seo/gaming-the-search-engines/#comment-3 [...] Matching the links is the toughest part of the job. Copy and paste the links from Google or Yahoo into Excel, and be prepared to do a lot of string manipulation. Ideally you can take all of the existing search results, such as www.crankyrants.com/?p=7 and tie them with the critical information from the original page, such as title, tags, or content itself. If you’re site is database driven, you can then format the spreadsheet accordingly and push all of the information into a table. Now when any of the search engines come looking for an article or page, you at least have some of the familiar information waiting for them. Given enough time, you can then go in to backfill any content if you would like, further strengthening the pages.  [...] […] Matching the links is the toughest part of the job. Copy and paste the links from Google or Yahoo into Excel, and be prepared to do a lot of string manipulation. Ideally you can take all of the existing search results, such as www.crankyrants.com/?p=7 and tie them with the critical information from the original page, such as title, tags, or content itself. If you’re site is database driven, you can then format the spreadsheet accordingly and push all of the information into a table. Now when any of the search engines come looking for an article or page, you at least have some of the familiar information waiting for them. Given enough time, you can then go in to backfill any content if you would like, further strengthening the pages.  […]

]]> http://www.crankyrants.com/web-development/seo/gaming-the-search-engines/#comment-2 Sat, 08 Jul 2006 18:09:34 +0000 http://www.crankyrants.com/web-development/seo/gaming-the-search-engines/#comment-2 [...] Matching the links is the toughest part of the job. Copy and paste the links from Google or Yahoo into Excel, and be prepared to do a lot of string manipulation. Ideally you can take all of the existing search results, such as www.crankyrants.com/?p=7 and tie them with the critical information from the original page, such as title, tags, or content itself. If you’re site is database driven, you can then format the spreadsheet accordingly and push all of the information into a table. Now when any of the search engines come looking for an article or page, you at least have some of the familiar information waiting for them. Given enough time, you can then go in to backfill any content if you would like, further strengthening the pages. [...] […] Matching the links is the toughest part of the job. Copy and paste the links from Google or Yahoo into Excel, and be prepared to do a lot of string manipulation. Ideally you can take all of the existing search results, such as www.crankyrants.com/?p=7 and tie them with the critical information from the original page, such as title, tags, or content itself. If you’re site is database driven, you can then format the spreadsheet accordingly and push all of the information into a table. Now when any of the search engines come looking for an article or page, you at least have some of the familiar information waiting for them. Given enough time, you can then go in to backfill any content if you would like, further strengthening the pages. […]

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