Hasta La Vista, Baby

So long, its been good to know you…

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd”>

I’ve tried to keep HR’s halfVAST Blog in compliance with XHTML 1.0 Strict markup since I “remodeled” it back in July 2006.  And up to now I have managed to keep a large portion of it in compliance without too much effort on my part.

Continue reading “Hasta La Vista, Baby”

Today

Its cold (25.8 °F / -3 °C), its snowing and the wind chill factor make it feel like the temperature is 16 °F / -9 °C.  And I just finished updating HR’s halfVAST Blog software to WordPress Version 2.1.  And that’s why what you are looking at right now may be a little screwed up.

Cold Spell!

The local weather forecasters are warning that tonight will bring “bitterly cold” weather.  The temperature is expected to drop all the way down to 26°F (-3°C).  And there may even be “Snow Flurries.”

In the place I was born and raised, this would be considered just another mild Winter day!

100% Pittsburgh

Although you may be long gone from there, I guess you never really forget those things that are peculiar to the place you grew up in.  Here’s my score on the “100% Pittsburgh” Quiz.

You are 100% Pittsburgh.

Great job! There’s nooooo doubt about it.  You’re from Da Burgh.  You deserve a reward, so go have an Ahrn City or two. And GO STILLERS!

How Pittsburgh Are You
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FiOS is Here…

Verizon showed up as scheduled yesterday and installed my FiOS service.  Fiber to the home is now a reality rather than some future technology that is much talked about but never happens.  The installation was problem free.  I got the “low bandwidth” option…5Mbps incoming; 2Mbps outgoing. 😉

I ran a few speed tests using SpeakEasy and got the following results:

  • Vienna, VA to Washington, DC – 5.073 Mbps in/1.791 Mbps out
  • Vienna, VA to Los Angeles, CA – 5.073 Mbps in/1.771 Mbps out
  • Vienna, VA to Dallas, TX – 5.073 Mbps in/1.785 Mbps out

The interface to FiOS is a bit different than that of the DSL line it replaced…it does not use the PPPOE Protocol common to most DSL service providers.  So it is “connectionless,” i.e., no userid and password required and no connection setup time.  And, none of the overhead one incurs when using PPPOE.

One of the side effects of the new FiOS service is that I now have yet one more perfectly good wireless router that is in need of a home.  I got a new router as part of the FiOS install.  I guess I’ll eventually figure out some use for the old router.

In summary, FiOS is a few dollars more per month than DSL, but so far looks like its well worth it.

And, if you have any interest in seeing what HR’s Homenet looks like now that it is “FiOS-Enabled,” take a look here.

New Year, New Layout

The layout of HR’s hafVAST Blog has changed yet one more time.  Maybe this time the layout will stay the same for a couple of months or so…or maybe not!  The site displays correctly on the IE7 and FF2.0 browsers but has not yet been tested with earlier versions of either browser.  One of my design goals was to avoid the use of “hacks” to compensate for the way the different browsers implement the W3C xHTML and CSS specifications.

The new layout validates as xHTML 1.0 Strict…or at least it did last time I checked!  If you are using an older browser that does not conform to the standards , the layout may appear to be broken.  I hope it is still readable in those cases.  If the display does not render properly on your screen, feel free to leave a comment telling me what browser and version you are using, along with the screen resolution.