October 2003 Archives

Today is my last day at work. I've decided to take a break from web design work for a while. So we had a nice company lunch yesterday at a Spanish restaurant. I wanted to share this drawing with you. It is the cover of the envelope of my farewell card. It is our tradition to have an illustration on it, and the colleague who thought up this one was particularly ingenious, since he combined two of the most important things in my life together, the greatest being God, and the second being ... well, you just have to continue reading to find out what it is!

Jay Allen has released version 1.5 of his esteemed comment spam eradicator, MT-Blacklist, which works on Movable Type. When zipped, this little bundle of happiness is only 32kb.

I just upgraded my version in, like 1 minute. *Yawn* Can it get any easier than this? Never mind what Wired omitted to say. We'll say it: The man's a genius. Three cheers for Jay!

So, the battle has begun again. I have reason to believe that we have been followed onto the new premises.

Just an hour ago, I put on a Christian music CD. Everyone else was fast asleep in their rooms. My Sony CD player has lasted for twenty years and does not usually stop by itself. Tonight it has stopped at least three times, each time when I was not in the room. It was put to 'repeat all' mode every time. The CD is clean. Other non-Christian music CDs played perfectly fine before that.

Now some of you might laugh at me for being paranoid. Well, try getting spiritually attacked in your bed, a chill creeping up your legs, and hearing the door knob turn and a woman's gasp from the nearby darkness and finding out it wasn't your mother or sister, who were both fast asleep. That happened to me nearly a year ago.

Still think I'm paranoid? Try telling that to my maternal grandmother, who saw a tall dark shroud standing beside her as she slept on my bed, while I was still studying in Bristol, a few years ago.

What kept me going was that my prayers for help that night were answered, and I was filled with the warmth I'd attribute to the Holy Spirit, which pushed out the coldness. I once received warning signs - strange urges to check my rear view mirror, and loud roaring sounds in my head, before I nearly reversed into a hole in the ground that I could not see at night. And I remember how I avoided the accident just two days ago. Thus I know He is watching and protecting me.

So every night since last December, sleeping has been a challenge for me, a real test of faith. Not only am I distracted by the computer, I face certain obstacles when I sleep. Prayers, faith and music keep my sleep peaceful. Tonight I pray for the Lord to bind whatever is with us, that it may not disturb us in our slumber. Amen.

On my way home, I was on the leftmost lane of Zion Road, at the junction of the Blue Cow pub, waiting to turn left. Traffic was heavy and the cars in front of me were edging onward to the junction while the light was still green.

Suddenly, I heard a crunching of bumpers. The car directly in front of me, had run into the car in front of it. I was going at a snail's pace myself and kept a following distance of about three feet, so I was able to brake in time along with the other cars behind me.

Since we were on the ONLY left-turn lane, and since the two cars involved in the accident were also the first in the queue, the rest of us were stuck waiting as the drivers got out, surveyed the damage, exchanged numbers...

Soon, the cars behind me (having more maneuvering space) edged their way into the next lane and bypassed the scene. I, unfortunately, could only watch the rest of the world go by, and slowly reverse myself away from the cars in front of me so that I too could change lane.

The drivers were still busy talking. Even pedestrians next to the pub had engaged in conversation and the pointing of fingers at various parts of the vehicles. More cars which arrived behind me, realised what had happened, and started to horn at them. The men scurried back to their cars and re-started the engines. By which time I had just eased myself out of the leftmost lane. Doh!

Anyway. I said a little prayer thanking God for keeping me safe, and went home feeling vindicated for all the times impatient drivers tried to cut into my lane or tailgate me, because the incident this evening proved that on the road, it is safety and not speed that matters, above all.

My colleague brought a few rolls of Haw Flakes, a kind of pink, coin-shaped candy that many Singaporeans might have eaten as children. After indulging in a few of the discs, we realised we still didn't know what Haw was. One theory on the internet was that it came from the Hawthorne bush (interestingly, it appears that many non-Asian/Western/white people are also interested in its origins). Other folks have mistaken it for firecrackers, but on trying the candy, seemed to like it.

Alarmingly, Haw flakes were also banned by the FDA for having unsafe colouring. However I understand that the brands we have in Singapore may be different from the brand that the Hong Kong company listed on the FDA website, tried to import. So hold your Hawses.

In fact, this page lists some health benefits of eating Haw, but adds that it's best to check with your doctor first.

I'm not a big vocals fan, but the South African show Umoja at the Esplanade was excellent. It was a performance of music and dance throughout the years, developed from tribe (think Zulu) to village/colony to gospel (praise the Lord!) to street.

I have never seen a standing 95% ovation at the Esplanade before. I felt happy. Many people around me were happy. We were clapping our hands and waving them to the left and right. My grandparents saw the show yesterday and they loved it so much, they decided to bring other me and a couple other grandchildren too. I'd watch it again, only that tonight was the last show.

Oooohmm!

I went on a book-buying spree yesterday and picked up the following: Half a Life by V.S. Naipaul, a book I devoured completely by yesterday evening, delightful in some parts, but leaving me with a sense of incompletion (more reviews); Thomas Friedman's longitudes and Attitudes, which should be easier to swallow than From Beirut to Jerusalem (which I also own), seeing how it is a collection of short columns before and after September 11; lastly, Aung San Suu Kyi's book, Letters from Burma.

Respectively, then, I'd be reading the works of a Nobel Prize winner for Literature, a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, and a Nobel Peace Prize winner. Good stuff they have at Borders' 3 for 2 section.

Just as importantly, I finally purchased my own copy of Lord of the Rings. A neat boxed set. Now before you start screaming at me, "WHAT?! You mean you've NEVER read Lord of the Rings? What have you been doing with your life?!" Let me explain.

When the first movie came out, I told my mum: "Maybe it's time I bought the book." As a child, I had resisted her attempts to make me read the Hobbit, because it started off by sounding really boring and therefore I believed the rest of Tolkien's books would be the same. But the movie rocked. So maybe the Lord of the Rings book wasn't so bad after all.

"Don't buy it, I have an old copy somewhere," came the reply.

The second movie was out. I repeated my intentions. I was promised that the book was around somewhere in our house, and I kind of knew it would be a waste to get my own copy. So I waited.

We've moved out, and the book is nowhere to be found. The third movie is going to show soon. I decided to buy my own copy. Mwahahahar.

Some interesting information on the clash of cultures in Iraq:

Cultural unfamiliarity can be bad for troop morale.

The use of sniffer-dogs on Muslim civilians, for instance, are a no-no. So is holding a woman under detention for refusing to be searched this way.

There may be three Iraqs, not one: tensions between the Sunnis (Baghdad), Kurds (Mosul) and Shi'ites (Basra) could hinder the establishment of any one authority over the entire country.

The Washington Post has a summary of who Iraq's Shiites are. As with the Kurds.

It's just been relaunched, and it's beautiful, inside and out. Kick off to issue 160.

I feel pre-eety, oh so pre-eety...

The PHP problem, as you have probably noticed, has been fixed. Tech support confirmed that because of the PHP 'upgrade', include files with absolute links produce error messages, although the files in question still load. This could cause some CSS site designs to bust (as it did mine in IE).

For the benefit of others who may be affected by this problem, here is the full solution as provided by my web host:

Example of a problem file:

<?php
include(' http://somewhere.com/header.htm');
?>

Suggested workarounds:

(1) Use relative paths rather than absolute URLs when including files stored locally on your account

Example:

Use this:

<?php
include('/home/hruserid/public_html/stuff/file.htm');
?>

...instead of this:

<?php
include(' http://yourdomain.com/stuff/file.htm');
?>

(2) When including remote files located outside of your domain try using @include rather than include

Example:

<?php
@include(' http://otherdomain.com/file.htm');
?>

For more information, please see following PHP bug tracker page: http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=24053

I also discovered a new MT plugin which should be able to satisfy even the most rabid standards-crazed designer. Checks are made by the W3C Validator in real time, and the status (a customisable message) is reflected on your newly published page. Thanks to its creator, Brandon Fuller. You can find out if this document is compliant by scrolling down to the very bottom of the page.

I also decided to follow one of his suggestions, and let loose Nathaniel Irons' Amputator on my weblog as well, so all evil ampersands (&) will be reconstituted accordingly, never again posing a threat to my kingdom. Bwahahahahar.

• Apple's iTunes for PC hits 1 million download mark
• Robin Hood's bones may have rested here
• Sony to release world's smallest 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens (Kristen may like to hear this)
• You may be interested to read the UN's Arab Human Development Report 2003 (2.11mb)
• The Guardian's Best British Blog 2003 nominations are out. Good choice of judges.

Obviously, I know something is wrong with all my web pages.

I suspect the administrators installed or upgraded something on the server side without informing yours truly, because all my include file links seem to be generating errors - although they do load. [My earlier suspicions seem to be well-grounded, as checks reveal that the server was modified just today/yesterday and might be running a newer version of PHP.]

We'll see how quickly they can fix this bug.

In the meantime, please excuse my silence. I promised to complete updating my church's website weeks ago. Now we've settled into the new premises, it is time I fulfilled my duties.

[Update: Yes, tech support has confirmed they upgraded the server. They will install a fix soon - I hope! I suspect that the server no longer understands/supports full URL links in PHP include files. Once I change the path from absolute to relative, the error messages disappear. However, the error still occurs where I include links hosted on other people's servers (e.g. Blogrolling).]

What the ...? An uber-cool 3D border house. Entirely designed in CSS. Look at the source code, and cry. Link from Kottke.

Even more here.

I'm ill. With a runny nose, slight cough, headache and a fever that just went away. It's a feeling I'm not used to, seeing how I've only taken medical leave once in two working years. To make things worse, I spent the whole morning and afternoon moving house. The amount of junk we have is astounding. I mean, if you took away half the things in my room, I wouldn't notice the difference (unless you took away my computer. We're subliminally connected, you know).

When it boils down to essentials, all I really need at home is something to sleep on, something to brush my teeth with, soap, a towel, comb and clean clothes.

On that premise, I threw away most of my greeting cards and other memorabilia accumulated since I was in primary school. Friendships, as a close friend advised me, stay in the heart and not on pieces of paper. I did however keep a few letters that dealt with key issues in my life over the years.

What delighted me, however, was the re-discovery of many creative works (sketches, cartoons, poetry, short stories, plays and songs) and a few books which I thought I had lost for good. So, to make packing a little more enjoyable, I designated a 'creative box' in which all my works are now residing. When things settle down, I will run through my works and perhaps put up a little showcase on this site, so watch this space.

In the meantime, I'm exhausted. I'm going to rest for a while. Goodnight.

Soon after reading Ben's Oct 13 post on comment spamming and how to prevent it using Jay Allen's MT-Blacklist, I discovered that one of my old posts has been violated. Vandalised. Whatever. Looks like I'll have to do a little tinkering with my website once again.

Anyhow, spamming is not a credible way to sell health products (or anything else, for that matter). It makes me thing your medicine is dodgy and that you're too cheap to pay for proper advertisements. I think your product is so lousy that nobody wanted to recommend it. You probably didn't even make it to Sellavision. And prior to this, I never even heard of your product, or gave a stinkin' damn what your product did. But now, I am most certainly NOT buying your product. Dig?

[Update: A big thanks to Jay for working so hard on this magnificent tool. I took only 2 minutes to set up MT-Blacklist - including FTP time. His config page is a no-brainer, and I now have an updated list of offending domain names which you can view here. ]

[Update 2: Great. Now whenever I get email notification of new comments posted, I am also given the option to 'De-spam using MT-Blacklist' by simply clicking on a link. So it should be quite easy updating my 'Naughty' list.]

I found this little anecdote from the Reuters article quite amusing:

China invented gunpowder and legend has it that a Ming dynasty (1368-1644) official named Wan Hu attempted the world's first space launch. He strapped himself to a chair with kites in each hand as 47 servants lit 47 gunpowder-packed bamboo tubes tied to the seat.

When the smoke had cleared, Wan was apparently found to have been obliterated. But the dream survived.

Congratulations to the three Chinese astronauts. Do land safely.

• Nokia phones exploding (link from Kottke). According to a book on security, Nokia allegedly rigs its phones to switch to full power mode when third party batteries are detected, and blames those manufacturers for the damage.
• Sharp producing the world's first 3D laptop monitor. No goggles required. I'd expect the price tag to be in the third dimension, too.
• An Iraqi boy who lost both his arms, his parents and 13 other relatives in a US bombing raid, speaks his mind and very likely echoes the sentiments of by many other countrymen frustrated and resentful of the war. (A small consolation: he got to meet his hero David Beckham, before the Turkey match.)
• The Electronic Frontier Foundation has a good post on How Not To Get Sued By The RIAA For File-Sharing. It also has a petition with a neat plan to legalise P2P file-sharing AND compensate artistes at the same time.
• Taking Stylesheets and XHTML further: Mozilla and Firebird have a secret weapon. Go to this page at mozdev.org and hit F7 to turn on caret browsing. You'll be able to edit and format text in a designated area of the page! This is done by using CSS to specify the editable region (link from Bitflux). This could be useful for editing pages in a real WYSIWYG browser environment. Oh - and it appears to be a CSS3 user enhancement.

The MT Meetup at Olio Dome, Suntec City went well - yours truly found her way there 20 minutes early with a MT Meetup sign. Members present: Wuyuetian, Tribolum and Krisalis.

Only when I met up with fellow bloggers, did I realise what geeks we are. Since we weren't given an official agenda this time, we ended up talking happily about our favourite gadgets (or plans to acquire new ones), our domain names, the strangest keywords that search engines have associated with our blogs, and how various parts of our bodies have caught fire before (OK, that was just Kris and me).

We also discussed a few technical questions, and wondered when Movable Type Pro was coming out. Ahem.

Hope to see more of you at the next Meetup!

[Update: A heartwarming news report on how friendships, both virtual and real, have been forged through blogging. ]

I'm helping to write an ad for a full-time Flash designer and decided to check out the job advertisements other companies were placing online.

What amazes me is how some companies looking for 'web programmers' only require them to know XHTML and CSS, while some 'designers' are required to know how to program.

I am equally amused by the vagueness of some employers or agencies. For instance, to quote a line from an ad:

• Required skill(s): HTML, XHTML, Macromedia.

What exactly do they mean by Macromedia? Is it a new dance move? But seriously, which Macromedia program(s) in particular do you want prospective employees to be familiar with? They can't possibly know how to use the entire range of products. I'd assume this employer was looking for someone familiar with the Studio series (the usual, Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks, Freehand), but didn't know exactly what they did, either.

One more funny quote from another ad:

Applicants must be willing to work in Orchard.

If you were a Singaporean, you'd know that this advertiser probably meant 'Orchard Road', our main shopping district. But I couldn't help but imagine this: the eventually chosen employee sitting in the Botanic Gardens ... you got it, planting flowers in an orchard.

Other more minor gripes include poor spelling/typos (including important technical terms and software names) and bad grammar. I know that in a tight job market, the employer is still king, but being able to express your needs clearly would certainly make your selection process a little easier.

In summary, call a spade a spade - don't shut out potential applicants by making them think the job title disqualifies them immediately. And be specific, especially if the job has important technical requirements. How you recruit people also shows a lot about your own company.

As long-time readers would know, I am a huge fan of Turkish football, which has long been underrated until last year's World Cup. England is also one of my favourite teams, so this isn't easy for me. (I have a feeling that France will be the ultimate winners of Euro 2004, but that's a story for another day.)

Hurrah! At least five Singapore MT users (including myself) will be attending this coming Monday's meeting. Which means I will be seeing you at Olio Dome, Suntec City at 7pm.

View the members list to find out who's attending.

The agenda has yet to be confirmed. We don't have to talk about technical stuff (unless you have a burning question, which might be better discussed via email anyway).

The Democratic Debate was showing on TV this morning as I was getting ready for work. I didn't catch much of it, but at least I managed to see Howard Dean (blog), Gen. Wesley Clark (blog) and the man who could've/should've been Vice-President, Joseph Lieberman. Other names I recognised were Rev. Al Sharpton, Richard Gephardt and John Kerry.

My favourite quote came from a candidate (not sure which one) Wesley Clark, who was answering a question from a US army officer recently returned from the war zone, who wanted to know what benefits they planned to give to the armed forces. The difference between Republicans and Democrats, this candidate said, was that Republicans like big weapons. Democrats like people.

Of course, I'd think the purpose of these debates is to present a unified Democrat stance on general principles, blame Bush and company for the usual woes - the economy, the war in Iraq and so forth. Yet at the same time each candidate had to differentiate himself or herself in a way that would make viewers want that person to be President.

A summary of the debate can be found here.

[Amendments and updates: It wasn't the first debate. My bad! Many news commentaries give different viewpoints, with various candidates being criticised or praised. Time to find out more. ]

And it's the most popular weblog topic on Daypop right now. I'll leave you to read what other bloggers have to say about the website.

Now, I'd like to know if my readers in the US (I'm assuming there might be a few of you) are able to access www.georgewbush.com/blog, because I can't. I wonder why...

In the meantime, I've imagined how a blog really penned by Dubya would look like. Maybe like this:

My first post

I am smarter than Dan Quayle. Hyuck, hyuck. Hey, what's that new guvnor's name? Scherwartzetenerr? Oh, never mind. I can still spell 'terrorism'.

All right, I'm mean. Actually, I'm miffed that I can't view his website and read his blog. I'd really like to see how he thinks.

[Update 28/10/03: The Guardian has an article aptly titled, "Don't blog like Bush." Worth reading.]

A parting note as I tidy up / revamp what I hope are my last series of Flash movies here. If you know your source files are going to be handed over to other designers or programmers, please:

1. Label your layers. Especially when you have twenty of them per file.
2. Name your elements. It gets disparaging looking at a library full of names like Symbol 23 and Tween 1. Even better, sort them into folders.
3. When etching out photos using image editing software, try applying something called anti alias. It helps, y'know, to make your graphics look smoother, so I don't have to look for all the original photos again and re-crop them for you. That includes our client's logo, which, above all things, should not be made to look tacky.
4. You can draw simple shapes in Flash. It saves file space, and vector graphics look SO much nicer. Try that next time, instead of importing rectangular photo borders.
5. If you know your files are still going to take a while for users to download, it would be useful to include a preloader. Don't be lazy.
6. If you have a cluster of instances (objects) appearing one by one in sequence, try placing each instance in a separate layer instead of lumping them together increasingly, in a series of keyframes.
7. You use input text for forms. Not dynamic text.
8. Black text on brown is OH so passé. And illegible, too.
9. If the image you want to insert is only 200 pixels wide, you could try something called cropping. Instead of leaving lots of background space that does nothing.
10. It is often good practice, where Actionscript is used heavily, to leave // comments so we know what this code is supposed to do. I have found this extremely helpful in the past.

More pointers welcome.

As promised, my friend K kindly compiled a list of SMS's I sent her an hour before Q's surprise party.

To understand what on earth was going on last Friday evening, here is the situation in brief. As Q, the birthday girl, was getting a lift from K, who was supposed to drop Q off to meet her family for a simple, quiet dinner, THEN zip around to the car park of the same building to meet me and the rest of the conspirators, I dared not call K - just in case Q would overhear our plans in the car.

I knew could still reach K by SMS. But what if Q, being a good friend of K's, decided to be helpful and read out my text messages - thereby uncovering my secret coordinates?

So I wrote in code. I had already made it to the underground car park, and needed to beam my location to my partner in crime and let her know I was going to start blowing up the balloons:

Destination reached. Ship has been docked at rear section. Initiating air transfer.

After my first attempt (which was eventually successful), I realised why I never wanted to blow those friggin' balloons again. The back of my jaws felt like they were going to burst:

One up. Eleven to go. Reserving the pink and red ones for you. Cheeks exploding.

Did I omit to say that K loves red and pink? I am just too thoughtful a friend. Anyway. My second attempt on a yellow balloon was more ambitious, resulting in an unfortunate accident which has since adversely affected my complexion. I told myself NEVER to blow too hard again. Since it was rather lonely by myself in the car park, I decided to let out my misery to K once again:

First casualty, yellow regiment. Exploded without warning. Recalibrating air pressure transfer. Face skin in pain.

Where in Singapore was K, anyway? I soon received a status report. K was still waiting for Q, who was late, apparently, but fortunately so were Q's parents. That meant I'd have to lie low in my secret hideout and continue to inflate balloons. I ignored strange looks from passers-by who had parked their cars next to mine. I blew up a third balloon, which didn't explode. Unfortunately, my first balloon started to deflate. Guess I really blew it. Feeling irritable, I thumbed another text message to my comrade, wishing she'd get over at once and help me with this most tedious task:

Situation grim Blue regiment retracted without warning. Cheeks hurting . Require backup troops.

I managed a fourth, and called it quits. Well, actually, I called it something else in Anglo-Saxon, but it isn't suitable weblog material, so there.

Thus ends our surprise party text message transcript. K eventually found me in the car park, blew a couple balloons and together we sneaked in for the surprise. Actually, we were afraid Q would notice her friends through the glass windows, so we covered our heads with the balloons and waltzed our way up to her table!

Addendum: At the party, after relating our underground adventures to the other guests, Q's dad exclaimed, why didn't you tell me? I have a helium pump!!

It was raining again, for most of yesterday. And I neglected to buy enough parking coupons to last me the whole day at work - only until lunch time. I picked up some new coupons near the office, but as the rain was still going strong I decided not to brave it back up the hill to the car park.

I kept on wondering when would be a good time to go back to the car, because the rain wasn't subsiding. I decided to do it later. Lunch time was nearing - I'd have enough time to walk to the car.

After a quick bite, I took my umbrella and walked back to the car park. And was I glad I hadn't left any earlier. Big branches, as thick as my arm, had fallen off two trees and had smashed into pieces, on the exact path I'd have taken to the car park.

I shuddered to think of what might have happened to me, had I left earlier. Thank God for that!

I'm pleased to announce the arrival of The Daily Weblog's new category newsfeeds, for those who only want to read about a certain topic in their newsfeed readers. Cheers to the girlie matters for this very useful tip (among many others).

Yesterday, we had at lunch Royal China, which opened recently at Raffles Hotel in Singapore. Fans of the original restaurant chain in London will be delighted to know that their dim sum is still scrumptious. However, the lobster noodle dish, so heavily promoted here, was nothing special. The quality of lobster was fine, but I didn't like the noodle 'smell'. Maybe some prominent food critics will have differing views on this, but I've tasted the lobster noodles at Mandarin Kitchen (Queensway, London) and nothing so far compares to it. Of course, since I'm in Singapore now, I'm perfectly happy with the Geylang crab noodles.

Red face

Yesterday, while planning a surprise party for Q, I ended up blowing balloons in my car (it's a long story). They were heart-shaped, meaning it was twice as difficult to inflate. My cheeks felt like they were going to burst. So did the second balloon. One piece hit my forehead, the other, under my lower lip. It felt like a very, very hard slap.

This morning, I woke up with a painful, prickly swelling under my lip. I put some anti-allergy cream on it. It's evening, and the red patch is still there. I'm trying awfully hard not to touch my face. I pray it'll go away soon.

Shreds

I spent most of this evening shredding paper. Namely, a tinful of receipts on everything I've ever bought, since 2000. Considering it's been three years, I am glad my receipts only filled up a cookie tin. I decided to run them through the paper shredder, because our credit card numbers, names, and expiry dates are on each credit card receipt. Meaning, anyone who rummages through your dustbin will be able to buy things over the Internet. Scary thought, isn't it? No point having 128-bit encryption in your browser, if all that's needed is a small slip of paper.

Moreover, some shops also print out your full credit card number on their own receipt. From those shops, only Borders and Tower Records listed my number on their receipts as XXXX XXXX XXXX 1234, which I think is a much more secure practice. Just felt like telling everyone to be a little more careful.

Busy

We will be VERY, VERY busy over this weekend and the rest of the week. So I'd like to keep my social obligations down to a minimum. Please understand I cannot promise to help with anything until our work is done. Hopefully, by next week everything will be cleared out and I will have cause to celebrate with my fellow Alpha Greens.

Worth reading: A US marketing professor's damning report on the poor accessibility support found in the vast majority of private sector websites. Its conclusions are based on statistical evidence. In fact, the other articles on the Equal Access to Software and Information (EASI) website are pretty good reads themselves.

[Linked from Builtforthefuture.com.]

A new phone blogging service has been launched in Ireland and is available on the 02 network.

FoneBlog is a server based system that integrates to operator messaging, portal and billing systems. Its advanced architecture supports all mobile networks and the full range of multi-media standards and handset capabilities. FoneBlog incorporates a wide range of blog features such as commenting, voting, bookmarks, skin designs and messaging that provide a rich and personalisable service.

All that metas: The Guardian reports that metadata is taking on an increasingly important role in software applications such as Adobe Photoshop and Microsoft Office 2003. The US government is using it in its documentation of the Iraq war, and so is the UK police force. Tied in with XML capabilities, I'd expect metadata to receive increasing support and usage in time to come.

Looks like we're not the only ones with this problem. According to the Business Software Alliance, more than a quarter of business software used by UK companies (mostly SMEs) in 2002 was illegal. The most popular pirated programs were products from Adobe, Autodesk, Macromedia, Microsoft and Symantec.

You might have heard of the English Premier League footballers who allegedly raped a 17 year old girl, and have yet to be named. I resisted for days but succumbed to Google, and found a few football forums with enough conspiracy theories and suspects to indict almost the entire league.

Fortunately, none of my really favourite players were named. And Villa seems to be in the clear, since they went home after the match, so my friend Aaron (a loyal stadium supporter) will be pleased about that. That's probably all I can say, just in case a lawyer decides to sue me for libel.

And it definitely can't be David Beckham - besides, he's having enough problems with the missus to keep himself occupied. But it was coming. That's what you get when the wife spends less than a month in Madrid with a husband whom many women still find attractive. If the worst happens (I hope not), Victoria and Nicole can form an Old Wives' club. Can't trust those Spanish beauties.

Back home, we have the case of the Brazilian-imported soccer player who was photographed in the changing room, towel wrapped around his waist, with an unfortunate member of his body hanging out. Can't believe they'd publish it in the press. I'm sure all back issues of Berita Harian, our Malay newspaper, were sold out.

My friend Lucian, who's been freelancing as a web designer, writes of the difficulties he faced while convincing a potential client of the importance of web standards.

I can completely empathise with him, though after being in the industry for three years I've become less idealistic. Face it, clients in Singapore haven't heard of the W3C, Zeldman or the Web Standards Project, and they aren't going to care about it unless you convince them that it helps them save money AND time. Times are hard. Budgets have been cut, deadlines are tight, and our clients have performance reviews to worry about. As a result, I usually keep my sentiments to myself and implement compliant code on my own, after we've won the pitch.

There are times when people ask me how I get my work done so quickly. It's then that I tell them, because I use stylesheets to control the look of the entire website. All I need to do is change ONE file, and the whole site 'looks' different. That's when they want to find out more, and I'll gladly teach them. I conducted a training session on CSS for some overseas counterparts recently, and was glad to see this new knowledge being worked into their current projects.

However, it is still an uphill battle. We still have to live with the fact that most people use IE - not the world's most obedient browser. Many other people working on the project with you may still insert chunks of code which don't agree with the Validator, and you just have to change it after they're done.

People may not be impressed with the reduction in file size that stylesheets usually bring about. Some are, some aren't. 'Lots of people in Singapore having broadband connections' is an excuse I hear, myself. Not necessarily the rest of the world.

This is the reality we have to face. We won't get the sort of reception others have been getting elsewhere. We don't have anything resembling Section 508 or a Web Accessibility Initiative (maybe we should implement fines, Singapore-style). Design schools (as far as I know) do not emphasise this in their curriculum. Many local designers themselves don't know about web standards, or find it too troublesome to implement - despite the fact that other highly reputable web designers have. Employers do not encourage it either, because many do not know about it, or fail to see how this can win more clients, who in turn wonder how this is going to woo more customers and improve sales. It's a chicken and egg thing.

But enough about standards et al. I've ranted enough. I'm announcing my departure from web design. My design workload is slowly being offloaded. I will still maintain my personal weblog, and provide consultations. But my job scope requires research into other areas, and to be frank, I don't see the point of fighting in a market based mostly on price, not quality. Or maybe I'm just too cynical. Try working in Singapore as a web standards evangelist, and see.

Some news I've stumbled across today.

Sleeping more reduces risk of cancer, says the Stanford University Medical Centre. Siesta, anyone?

Governator update: It appears that Arnie's promises may not be that easy to achieve. Still, he's on a roll, and his new campaign website is up and running.

[We interrupt this transmission to bring you a code critique. What amazes me is the fact that no stylesheets were used. There are as many as 17 tables on the front page alone, unclosed break tags, and javascript is used for almost everything - including linking, and those cool nav bar rollover effects which could so easily have been achieved using CSS. The List-o-matic would have done the same thing in four easy steps, and less code. Oh, and - no ALT text for images. Tsk, tsk.]

I want my money back! Microsoft might pay US$10.5 million to consumers it overcharged, despite admitting 'no wrongdoing'. Hmm.

Satisfaction is re-coding a large intranet you designed over a year ago, transferring design elements into the common stylesheet, removing spacer images, using header tags, and ultimately reducing the file size of each document in the process, thereby reducing the amount of bandwidth taken up on our clients' already busy server.

Aaaah! :-D

Jakob Nielsen on his two-hundredth Alertbox, outlining the milestones in his usability doctrines:

In what might be its most striking victory, the Alertbox ushered in the decline of the glamour design agency. Sure, there are still a few glamour agencies left, and a company that wants to waste money on an unworkable website can easily find designers eager to take the money in exchange for a beautiful, if useless, site. But the average Web design agency pays attention to usability these days. Most bigger agencies have hired usability professionals, and it's common for clients to actually request websites that work, not just pages that look good.