Jeremy Simmons: The Blog

I like seeing people be creative with things like this.

This is a batch script I made for running a Google Search. It supports up to 9 words which are space-delimited. For reference, it went in my %USERPROFILE% directory and is named gs.bat. Any other location which is in your %PATH% is also acceptable, I happen to use that directory because it's quick to get to. Just open the Run dialog box. ( + R) and type .  (thats a period)

The syntax is pretty easy,

gs word1 (word2 word3 word[n])

@echo off
IF [%1]==[] (GOTO Syntax) ELSE (GOTO Run)
:Run
SET QUERY=
IF NOT (%1)==() SET QUERY=%1
IF NOT (%2)==() SET QUERY=%QUERY%+%2
IF NOT (%3)==() SET QUERY=%QUERY%+%3
IF NOT (%4)==() SET QUERY=%QUERY%+%4
IF NOT (%5)==() SET QUERY=%QUERY%+%5
IF NOT (%6)==() SET QUERY=%QUERY%+%6
IF NOT (%7)==() SET QUERY=%QUERY%+%7
IF NOT (%8)==() SET QUERY=%QUERY%+%8
IF NOT (%9)==() SET QUERY=%QUERY%+%9
start http://www.google.com/search?q=%QUERY%
GOTO End
:Syntax
ECHO You must specify at least one word to search for
ECHO gs word1 word2 wordN
pause
:End
SET QUERY=%MYTEMP%
:EOF

The code is really pretty simple, but lets not put the whole thing in our mouth at once. Remember what mother said, take small bites, and chew each one 30 times.

<table height="600" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="600" align="center" border="0">

Start with a table tag. Zero the borders, give it a width. No spacing, no padding, give it a height, and make the table align center to it's parent.

<col align="middle" width="200">
<col align="middle" width="200">
<col align="middle" width="200">

We're going to have 3 columns, and we want each one to be a set width. 1/3 of 600 is 200.

<tr>
<td bgcolor="#FF0000" colspan="2"><h3><font color="#FFFFFF">RED</font></h3></td>
<td bgcolor="#0000FF" rowspan="2"><h3><font color="#FFFFFF">BLUE</font></h3></td>
</tr>

Row one has two cells, one two columns wide, then another two rows tall. Make the background color of each appropriate, using short-cut style hex notiation #RED_GREEN_BLUE (two numbers each, 0-F, single number means two of the same). After that, we're going to make the font larger using the h3 tag, and a color using the font tag with a color attribute. No CSS yet, this is BASIC HTML.

<tr>
<td bgcolor="#FFFF00" rowspan="2"><h3><font color="#FFFFFF">YELLOW</font></h3></td>
<td bgcolor="#000000"><h3>
<font color="#FF0000">C</font>
<font color="#FF6600">O</font>
<font color="#FFFF00">L</font>
<font color="#00FF00">O</font>
<font color="#0000FF">R</font>
<font color="#9900CC">S</font>
</h3></td>
</tr>

Another row bites the dust. We need a cell that is two rows tall again, and then just a single column, single row cell. Then comes the fun part, wrap each letter in a color, like the rainbow. It helps to have a color chart for this. Maybe Visibone?

<tr>
<td bgcolor="#00FF00" colspan="2"><h3><font color="#FFFFFF">GREEN</font></h3></td>
</tr>
</table>

Finish it up with the last cell, two columns wide. Don't forget to close the table tag! Congratulations, now you have a pretty finished product. You have used the table, tr, td, col, h3, and font tag. Play around with the values in the attributes and see how pretty or ugly you can make it.

Sigh. I hate when hosting providers mess with your permissions, and you find out that all of your blog entries for the last two months haven't ACTUALLY posted. Oh well... I guess it's fixed now.

I read something the other day that had a tremendous impact on me, I thought I'd share.

Truth

Truth is unchangeable reality.
It doesn't depend on circumstances.
What is true is always true in every place on every occasion.
Truth systematically links facts together to create an understanding of life's situations.
Line upon line, precept upon precept, truth builds it's house.
-Author unknown

I was reading a post here about how firefox is just as insecure as IE, but not more secure by default. I highly recommend you take a look. http://blogs.msdn.com/ptorr/archive/2004/12/20/327511.aspx

I got down to the comments, and I read how someone said that they 'prefer' to use Firefox for developing web applications because it is more (among other, very valid reasons, even though IE has just as many, if not more compelling reasons itself) 'standards compliant'.

I am so SICK of people saying that Mozilla, Firefox, and Opera are more 'standards compliant' than IE. While I whole heartedly agree that if we're comparing the two in terms of the proposed W3 standards, then that person is totally correct. However, making that statement assumes a few things. In the end, isn't all that really matters to the end user is how their content is rendered on the screen, and that it is rendered correctly?

I pulled this from dictionary online http://www.dictionary.com. You know, those long alphabetically organized books that seem to have the common interpretation of words.

Standard adj.

1. Serving as or conforming to a standard of measurement or value.
2. Widely recognised or employed as a model of authority or excellence: a standard reference work.
3. Acceptable but of less than top quality: a standard grade of beef.
4. Normal, familiar, or usual: the standard excuse.
5. Commonly used or supplied: standard car equipment.
6. Linguistics. Conforming to established educated usage in speech or writing.

1. IE is the standard browser Microsoft has chosen for their OS for the last 10 years. They haven't changed to Netscape, or anything else. I'm fully aware that it's built into the OS, and that excuse doesn't work on me, you can take it out with tools like WinLite. Furthermore, you can run all the versions side by side on the same install of Windows as standalone web browsers.
2. IE is still the most widely used browser in the world. So says these people, http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp and these people ttp://www.webreference.com/stats/browser.html
3. Nobody on the open source community can dispute this one. It displays a large majority of content correctly. Remember, my argument is not that it is the best, just that it's more of a standard than the "other stuff"
4. Who's browser had the buttons first? Who's layout is imitations who's? That would be IE, of course.
5. Refer to point 2.
6. Not applicable. This is a piece of software, not a language.

So, we weigh in the results, and it looks like IE is ahead of "the rest of them" with a score of 5:0 on the definition of "standard".

I will concede defeat that these "W3 standards" are definitely supported by the "other" browsers "better" than IE, but until the market share is in reverse, you can take your "standards compliance" and shove it. It doesn't mean a thing unless you own the majority of the user base.

So, stop the incessant whining about how your browser is more "standards compliant" and start realizing that the majority of the user base A) doesn't care, and B) most likely will never care.

I as a programmer do care, but have some care for me and stop whining that you have to write a few extra lines of code.

These are great

"The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple."
Oscar Wilde

"First get your facts; then you can distort them at your leisure."
Mark Twain

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics."
Benjamin Disraeli

"Then there was the man who drowned crossing a stream with an average depth of six inches."
W. I. E. Gates

Have you every heard someone say something like

"One man with a club is a hooligan. A thousand men with clubs are a regiment."

or maybe

"Kill one man, and you're a murderer; Kill a thousand men and you're a conquerer"

I'm not so sure this is a correct approach to life on any level. Is a man with a club, still only a hooligan in any amount? Have you not simply identified a group of 1000 hooligan's. On the same tangent, have you not just given that murderer the pardon for 999 murders, because now you consider him to be a conquerer.

Take a stand. Speak the truth. A conquerer is no more than a serial or mass murderer, and a mob is no more than a 'bunch' of hooligans who have mutually accepted eachother's wrongness.

When you see your fellow man try to excuse their own or another's inadequecy or faults because they have joined 'mainstream' or 'the norm', call them on it. There are still absolute truths that dictate a moral society.