Beast-Blog.com
Mike Cherim's Professional and Personal Web Log

Somebody out there wants you to be a fool. Somebody out there is hoping you’ll be a fool. In fact somebody out there is counting on it. And if you are, it’s a shame, because it reinforces the belief that fools abound on the web and the non-fools have to suffer for your ignorance or, in some cases, plain old stupidity. Have I piqued your interest? Good, there’s hope for you yet. Please keep reading as herein are fifteen ways to prevent yourself from becoming an Internet fool and thus saving the rest a few headaches. In a place where no fools exist, those who ply the trade of foolery will eventually get tired and move on.

Continue reading “Don’t be an Internet Fool” »

This article is my version of the What, When, and Who of Internet history — with a few of my own additions — from when it was wood-burning to present. I have hopefully made it inclusive and comprehensive but please be sure to read the Credits and my Disclaimer. That said, I hope you find it as interesting reading it as I did writing it. I must confess that it was a pretty big challenge, more so than I had envisioned. Enjoy

Continue reading “What, When, Who… Internet History Timeline” »

It’s not a meme — or maybe it is — but either way I decided to jump on the bandwagon and give it a go myself. Just for the fun of it. Click here to view or download my contribution or click on the inset thumbnail. Want to see what others have done? In addition to Veerle Pieters’ and the lastest one from Roger Johansson, check out this extensive collection on flikr to view the 143 of them loaded there so far. Fun stuff. Enjoy my green desktop!

Continue reading “Design is Shades of Green and Other Colors” »

I’m pleased to announce my accessible Beast-Blog theme has been once again localized, this time in Hebrew — the first one was done in French. I’m grateful to Sharon Gefen for doing the work on it. Toda raba, Sharon. I must say it looks pretty cool with a right-to-left letter direction. It really pleases me to see the popularity of this theme keep right on growing and growing.

Continue reading “New Beast-Blog Theme Localization” »

I have to hand it to Roger Johansson for being a master of coming up with interesting topics on his web log. His article, Light text on a dark background vs. readbility really generated a lot of feedback. And in that feedback there was of course myriad opinions about what’s best and what people prefer. The short answer is there’s no perfect way to do it. The saying, you can’t please all the people all the time, pretty much sums it up. Some like light text on a dark background, while others prefer dark text on a light background. It’s not easy.

Continue reading “Not Quite Black and White” »

If you’re like me — and you’re a web developer — you’ve been testing your creations in Internet Explorer (IE) version 7 (beta 3). (You should be, anyway.) But this leaves one problem: Trillions of Internet users are still visiting your sites with IE6, thus you still need to test with it. One solution is to have two computers, one running IE6, the other IE7. But this may not be feasible for everyone. Another option is to run concurrent versions on the same (Windows XP) computer. This scares me, though. I’ve never considered myself a computer guru so anything as involved as this sounds makes me as nervous as a cat in a house full of rocking chairs. Being the Luddite I may seem to be, I have found another solution. One that’s doable for even someone like me.

Continue reading “The IE6 Alternative” »

For my wife’s birthday I bought her a (pre-owned, 2004) Dodge Ram 1500 pick-up truck. Her last vehicle was a Nissan Pathfinder and it was over ten years old. She lets me drive her new truck now and then and I made an observation when driving it the other night: The automobile industry has come a long, long way since Henry Ford said of his Model T: “You can have in any color you like so long as it’s black.” I made this observation because I got into her truck, adjusted the seat, popped open the cup-holder tray to set down my drink, tilted the wheel, set the air conditioning, figured out the onboard navigational computer, found my favorite radio station, opened the windows, turned on the lights, and few other not-very-exciting tasks. And not once during any of this did I need to consult the instruction manual.

Continue reading “Web’s Future and the Automobile Industry” »

Is this a neighborhood you would want to live, work, or play in?

Imagine living in bad neighborhood; a really bad neighborhood. A neighborhood where nothing is sacred or respected. One where every single day various miscreants visit your home, business, church, club, bar, every place and any place you call yours. When they visit, without even considering whether you’re present or not, they jiggle your doorknobs and rattle your windows, testing your security, verifying you’ve locked up. And if you didn’t, even if the doggie door is ajar, they will enter your place and destroy what you own claiming it as their own or simply taking it away from you. They will rob you blind, rape your dog, raid your fridge, kill your houseplants, and flatten the tires of your car. Every day, all day, all the time.

Continue reading “A Really Bad Neighborhood” »

It’s been a while since I brought up GrayBit. No news is often good news, but sometimes it just means no news. The online grayscale conversion tool made by Jona and I has been in active use since it was first announced, and then later updated. Since that time the tool has seen 111,471 page views, 32,541 conversions, made by 18,094 unique visitors. But that’s not why I’m writing about it today. Yesterday the WAT or Web Accessibility Toolbar was released for Opera, and guess what? Yep, GrayBit is on it.

Continue reading “WAT is Up with GrayBit?” »