Month: January 2004

Wow, it’s jim-dandy out there today. Color me icy! The boy is home sick – we’re waiting for the doctor’s office to call us back. I am trying to figure out if we should call them. He was on vacation for 2 weeks, and I have to assume that they are backed up beyond reason. Of course, having a local 6 year old die from strep complications and a 29 year old die from the flu has probably got people insane. Junior’s had a sore throat (sounds swollen shut) for about 4-5 days now. To me, that screams strep, but I’m not calling in a panic, I’m calling like I have any other time the boy has had it.

I just wish they’d get back to us because the sooner it’s diagnosed, the sooner we can get him on medication and the sooner he can go back to school. It’s his birthday tomorrow, and if he doesn’t go in, how is he going to get to wear the birthday boy crown?

Hit up iParty today to loan up on crap for the 6th Birthday festivities. I think the grown ups were more sucked in by all the party favors, etc. Than Junior was. I wish he’d done a Harry Potter party, they had the coolest stuff.

But no, Power Rangers it is. Someone should explain to the buyers at iParty that Wildforce P.W. And Ninja Storm P.W. are not the same, and you can’t just mix them. Duh! So they didn’t have all the stuff for one or the other. Figures.

Okay, I’m not a tech expert, but I do have quite a bit of UI Design and Usability experience, so my feedback here is not out in left field. But I hadn’t given this topic much thought until I got this Sidekick and started using a WAP device to browse the web.

Couple of things to think about, and I’m not even going to cover all the restrictions the browser has, I can only speak to the ones I’ve run into personally. When I say WAP, I’m referring to MY browser, and MY experience. But I am not alone.

1. Move your menus to the right. WAP parses tables in such a way that each column is shown one at a tome. Picture the navigation in a Yahoo news story with the menus of other news links going down the left edge…I have to scroll past all that (using a scroll wheel) before I get to the story I clicked on. VERY ANNOYING.

2. Images – don’t just resize them smaller using width tags, etc. WAP throws them in maxed back out. On at least 2 sites that have 5-6 images across the top of the page, I have to scroll down past all five of them in all their glory. Make real thumbnails.

3. Javascript = not supported. Especially frustrating when used to launch comments. If some of you stop hearing me, that’s why.

4. We don’t need a text-only page, images load, but load time is much slower than on my desktop, so the fewer images, etc. The better. Hey, maybe just consider a WAP skin…

5. Frames. Cannot view things in frames. I can click on a link to the files that make up the pages, but then I’m probably going to lose my navigation. Frames are probably 90% unnecessary in this time and date, so just dump them, fast.

6. Fixed widths. I have only written to one person about my WAP browser problems, and that’s because literally every word is pushed off the edge so far that I can’t read a single word. If you must format with tables and layers, don’t force widths that are going to make it impossible for me to read.

I could have included the names of sites that don’t display properly, but I didn’t think that would be nice. If you are concerned you’re on that list, leave a comment (don’t forget yor email address) and I’ll get back to you.

I finally dragged Junior out of the house. The boy thwarted my plans all morning long, so I was NOT in a good mood today. Just grumpy from head to foot, you know?

Picked up a prescription, a copy of the National Enquirer, some iron pills (I’m apparently anemic enough to make me the poster girl) and new toothbrushes. Cause you can never have enough of those.

Now I’ve got to make birthday party invitations (seriously, why buy them?) and figure out what I’m going to need for decorations, goodie bags, etc. I don’t know if I’m for or against goodie bags. I don’t know who started that trend, but they can get quite expensive, and everyone feels they have to do it. Kids expect to receive them, which isn’t cool either. Is this just preparing children for when they become Oscar presenters? Well, I’m not handing out jewelry and cell phones, just in case someone was wondering. But when it comes down to it, I’m thinking some people may even limit the number of kids they invite just to cut down on the number of goodie bags they have to make up. Sad, really. So anyway, dollar store, here we come!

Here is my thought. I think today should be a do nothing day. Now by “do nothing” I actually mean do nothing productive. No work, no cleaning, no whatever it is that you *should* be doing.

I think that vow will last about 4 hours, max. I don’t have the energy after working all day to be very productive around the house, so really, the weekend is all I have. I probably should use 90 minutes or so to inprove my living conditions.

I think I’m going to buy two more storage bins today and take care of my lack of storage for my summer clothes. Ya, I know, it’s January. Would you rather I leave them unril it’s time to wear them again?