Slightly Remarkable

“It’s quiet. Too quiet.” At least, it has been quiet after my recent re-entry into semi-regular blogging here at Slightly Remarkable. But what has caused such quietness? Certainly I’ve many things to write about, discuss, and share my opinion on. I have unwritten (or barely written) drafted blog entries like “The U.S. Education System: Flaws, Features, and Future” or “Imminent Blog Redesign” or … Oh, that hit a note, didn’t it?

Don’t get too excited because I’ve given you insight into my random ponderings (or that you may see a fresh new look around here sooner or later). I make no promises. They are, after all, drafts!

“But, Jona,” you ask, “why have you been so quiet of late?” The fact of the matter is, I’m finally seeing a number of weeks’ hard labor come to fruition. But we aren’t there yet. I have a number of very, very exciting projects underway. Really cool stuff. Stuff you might find yourself using somewhere down the road. And this stuff all comes under one roof… I’m starting a new company.

Not Again…

Oh yes, again. Remember that silly old start-up that never really got finalized? “Computer Master Minds” was the name. Well, you can forget that less than legendary concept altogether. We’re back, Ryan Gabbard and Jonathan Fenocchi, the dynamic duo, and we’ve got a new name. We’ve got a new look. We’ve got a new direction. And we’re taking the Web 2.0 scene by storm! Look out for announcements here within the coming weeks. I will begin using my blog to provide insight into our processes, procedures, and things that might even help you start your own company. Many exciting things await, and we’re so close I can taste it!! This is the calm before the storm. And the storm is coming… (cue climactic, thematic, dramatic musical finale, etc.)

Yesterday evening, I made some changes to the blog design. They’re not major, by any means, but tweaking the design from time to time really breathes life into the blog itself. It becomes a living creature — one that must be tended to by feeding and grooming.

What changes were made? Well, first, I removed the whole “grunge” theme. It was getting worn out (pardon the expression). I also updated the navigation bar and got rid of that awkward “ghostly” kind of bar. I replaced it with a sleeker bar and changed the hover graphics for the navigation items.

Second, I changed the links. They used to be yellow and would just lose the underline when you put your mouse over them. Now they’re gray and turn a dark red color. This is probably a bad change, but for a few minutes I had a gray/blue theme going. I might change the entire design to blue/black instead of red/black, or maybe blue/white, and keep the design elements similar… The possibilities are endless when you have a design where you can simply replace the graphics files and the entire design transforms. Gotta love that CSS!

Another change I made was the header graphic. I put a couple funky bubbles on the letters “S” and “R.” I don’t know why, but that’s what I did. The way the design works has the added benefit of putting a couple random bubbles along the header (they usually sit behind the search bar on a 1024 × 768 screen).

I have also made some changes today, most notably (and insignificantly at the same time), I removed the quotes around the list of categories at the bottom of each post. So, for example, in this entry, you would normally have seen something like:

In "Site News," "Design," "Blogging."


Now you will see:

In Site News, Design, Blogging.


It’s not much, but something in the way of “change” and “improve” and… er… “ameliorate.” You know, keep moving forward kind of thing… All right, well that will conclude my ranting for today.

I am slowly making minor changes throughout the site, one step at a time. The idea is to get into the habit of updating and playing with the site, little by little, rather than completely overhauling the site, only to abandon it again a few weeks later. (This is also why I have not created another blog design, although that may happen anyway.)

In any case, I’m sure you’re curious as to what minor change I’ve made today. Well, if you look on the blog home page at the leftmost of three near the bottom of the page, you’ll see a section titled “Blogmarks.” These are powered by del.icio.us (and a Wordpress plugin). I wanted to make the descriptions that I saved with my del.icio.us links to be available for those interested, but I didn’t want it to ruin my web page’s design. If the descriptions were displayed by default, it would create imbalance, lack of consistency and structure, and just look terrible.

My solution, of course, was JavaScript. A Show Descriptions/Hide Descriptions link appears only for JavaScript users, and a program automatically hides the descriptions when the page loads (so users without JavaScript will just get the less-amazing version of my design, with the descriptions showing by default).

The solution worked quite well. My JavaScript is powered by the moo.fx library (along with a lighter version of the Protoype library) because it is lightweight and relatively fast. However, Firefox has always had kind of its own hangup with the script, so the visual effect produced wasn’t as smooth as I wanted. I found that this was partially due to the fact that I was running the visual effects on multiple elements (ten of them) simultaneously. What I decided to do today was modify the script to apply the visual effects to one element at a time, creating a quasi-staircase effect rather than a slinky effect. Head on over to the blog home page and try it out for yourself. The effect you see is the change that I made. It’s optimized for speed and looks pretty sweet.

If you’re interested in the code, feel free to snoop around the source. The HTML that is output was generated by PHP, with the exception of the show/hide link that is output by JavaScript. There are LINK tags to the JavaScript files (the libraries and my separate script) so you can see what the code looks like. (The commented part in my script is what I removed, and two lines below the commented area is what I added, plus the function showDelinks() and some global variables for said function.)

Anyway, I’m proud of the fact that I’m making changes. Small, yes, but I am working progressively, and that’s a critical step at this point. And besides, it’s a pretty nifty script, if I do say so myself. =)

And what would compel me to say such things? Why should I write down my thoughts on this subject? Perhaps I was simply moved by their benevolence, or perhaps I subconciously fell in love with this person exclusively due to the compassion they’d shown me… It’s unclear, even to me, but nevertheless I am writing. I must write.

So the story, the story I am to tell you — it is brief, but surreal. The lonely, unexciting road on which I commute to and from work on an almost daily basis serves as the meeting place for many people. These people often are masked by the speed of their meeting, the objects which obscure their view, or their lack of attention for one another, but despite the fact that the may never see each others’ faces, their meeting can be certain. Some travel fast, some slow, some at speed limit. Personally, I travel the speed limit — 60mph — but am often coerced into abiding by a much lower speed limit — not one set by the law, but one set by the drivers ahead of me.

One specific night, around midnight, I was traveling home from my lengthy and strenuous day at work. The two stop lights that are present prior to introduction of this lonely road I have been telling you about were, to my fortune, green at the time I encountered them. Instantly encouraged by the divine enthalpy of the situation, I readily accelerated to the speed limit set by our government. Due to the fact that I must take a right turn off this road, I remained in the right-hand lane, anticipating that one of the turns ahead would be mine. I quickly ascended upon a black Chevrolet — of the SUV variety — that was traveling at about 50mph. As I came upon it, I intended to overcome it by moving to the left lane and then to the right again. However, the moment I raised my arm to indicate to the masked driver in front of me that I planned to surpass him, I was interrupted by this kind individual who signaled that he, instead, would move to the opposite lane to allow my safe passage. Surprised and delighted, I smiled widely, and as I passed him, he signaled again that he would be returning to his lane.

Such kindness has a dramatic effect on one’s composure, as it did on mine. I can only hope that someday this individual will meet me, and I can either thank or, even better, reward him for his benevolence. Thank you, masked driver, for lifting my heart to the sky with your kindness.

First off, I will tell you about how I managed to get to the theater, thanks to a combination of parental and juvenile complaints. The first step, obviously, was to attain permission to see the movie, and naturally since the entire deprived family had not seen it, it was decided that the entire family should go see it. The prior Sunday my brother and sister-in-law planned to see it Thursday along with the rest of the family, but it turned out that they saw it Wednesday because my brother had to go out of town the following morning. As a result, no such union took place. So the immediate family exclusively attended the theater Thursday night. (We couldn’t go Sunday night because the following three days, two of my brothers were taking standardized tests in the mornings.) In any case, on Thursday we planned to go, and that’s what we did. A phone call to the nearby theater revealed that Spider-Man 3 was showing at 7:40pm on the megascreen (largest screen in the theater). However, the issue was that my father had a business meeting during that time and would therefore be unable to view the movie with the rest of the family. Therefore, the rest of the family conceded to attend without him, viewing the 7:40pm showing on the megascreen. Upon arrival, though, the employee behind the ticket booth informed us that our information was incorrect; Spider-Man 3 was not showing on the megascreen at all anymore, due to the release of Shrek the 3rd being released that same day. What ensued was a phone conversation between my parents and a trip to H.E.B. You may have guessed (especially if you’d seen the frown on my face) that I was not enthusiastic at all. The following two hours, the theater in my head played “A Family of 5 People in a Grocery Store Running Around Like Idiots.” Needless to say, this film (which I still recall vividly) was beyond infuriating.

We chose to reschedule, and at 10:30pm that night my entire family, including my father, visited the theater to see Spider-Man 3 (the last showing for the night). We did manage to see it this time, fortunately, but the movie, I feel, was sappy and overrated. It had great graphics and a decent storyline, but the frequent whining and (dare I say it) humorous sappy acting had me disappointed. There were more emotions in the air than I could really perceive with my concious mind, and it somewhat alienated me. Overall, Spider-Man 3 was a good movie, but I wouldn’t watch it again except for the visual effects — the acting and constant crying scenes were frustrating. There was never any “comeback,” simply a “resolution,” and that resolution ended at a grave site, a melancholic ending at best. So that’s what I think of Spider-Man 3. :)

That said, this is of course the first post I’ve made since my transfer to the new web hosting service I have at A Small Orange. My previous host was quite frustrating (you get what you pay for), so I chose iPowerWeb as the host I’d like to try for next. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, they believed my registration information was fraudulent, so I told them to activate my account or lose a customer. Naturally, they didn’t take the threat seriously, but I informed them that I would not be hosting my web site with them after such a dismal experience. Then I selected A Small Orange and had myself online literally in a matter of a couple hours (and that merely because DNS servers had to propagate). Great customer service, great service, a great price, and great features make A Small Orange very attractive for someone running a site as small as mine.

Anyway, I really have nothing further to blog about right now, but expect to see some fidgeting and fiddling with the site’s design, settings, posts, and so on.

How? Well, my friends, I’ve created a new blog, Slightly Amusing, to amuse you and keep your mind off of this blog which I rarely update. No, I’m kidding. I created it so that I could discuss practically anything that I wish without having any professional or formal appearance whatsoever. It’s down-to-earth and 100% real. It’s slightly amusing, folks, so get to it. Tell me what you think of the design (here or there, it matters not), and get ready for some great content coming your way!

I’m very, very impressed that this sort of work is being done; Web Design is getting stagnant with people using just styled
block-level elements to produce artwork. The incorporation of SVG into sites excites me a lot.
How long do you expect it will take for this sort of technology to be widespread?
Obviously you can only speak about WebKit realistically, but if it’s going to take ten years for IE Win to gain (full) support,
we can’t design with it.
I’m amused by the “Becoming more important” line in the first paragraph. This has been a HUGE problem for years –
ever since HTML-2.0 was introduced to be more of a layout language and less of a markup language. For an example,
you just have to look at this site. sex partners Why is all the text
crammed over on the left side of the page with a big blank space on the right side?
Why is the default font tiny and unreadable? Fortunately most browsers now let you override the latter problem.

Wow, I’m simply shocked.

I really don’t have a great deal to say about the design, other than I hope you like it and I kind of threw it together at the last second.

Oh, and if you still see the old design, try checking the sidebar for a link that says “Slightly Remarkable 3.0″ and click that; if you still have old cookies, the design you see may not be the current one.

Thanks, and enjoy!