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

The past 100 years have brought about enormous change. Not the shallow electoral kind of change. I’m referring to much more potent changes, like those in communications, medicine, aerospace, manufacturing, and transportation. And more. A lot has changed in that time. And with all that change has come a not always flattering public opinion about it. Take Rock ‘n’ Roll, for instance, my parents didn’t go for it, they pretty much hated it. Not me, though.

Continue reading “Enduring Rock” »

Picture this, there’s this guy who loves web development, but lately hasn’t done much of it. You might wonder why. Well, I’m that guy, and I have been telling you for a month or three that I’ve been up to something on the side. The deal is, as you may have gotten from the title, I have been hard at work on becoming a photographer. I enjoy photography, I have been an amateur since I was a boy, and it suits me. How it suits me and how I got to this point is a bit of a story.

Continue reading “Picture This” »

I’ve been trying to find the time for a post — and I have a couple of good ones in draft form — but nothing is ready to go. Then again, I have been trying to cut my hours to something resembling a normal person’s, so less time is being devoted to… well, everything. That is why this post is so strange in my opinion. It’s really out of the blue. Conception to completion happened in the blink of an eye. I rewrote the lyrics for Mad World, the Gary Jules/Michael Andrews version (originally it was written and performed by Tears for Fears). I gave the song an angle a web developer might appreciate. Here’s Mad Web:

Continue reading “Mad World to Mad Web” »

I haven’t been posting as much, roughly once a week I guess, but not as much as I used to. This post is meant to explain why. To tell you what I’ve been up to — or not up to as the case may be. I have been purposely cutting back. I have family, it’s the nice time of year, and I have a life-long hobby I’m taking to new level, or trying to. I’ll offer more about that at another time. I have been dong fewer web and blog projects, or perhaps you could say I’m allowing more room between projects, making time or all of my other pursuits. Which are varied.

Continue reading “My What-I’ve-Been-Up-To Post” »

Please, let me explain. I speak not of wives without husbands. I am instead talking about a typographers’ term that defines an undesirable situation that looks bad in print and is best avoided for reasons of both aesthetics and readability. The term pertains primarily to print as said, but it also applies to a web page situation that, in my opinion, is also best avoided. I’m not going to provide graphical example of the aforementioned malady, but I will offer a quick definition of the term I’ve introduced you to.

Continue reading “Killing Off Web Widows” »

It’s time to get a couple of nasty old Post-It notes off my desk. They’re dusty and faded, they no longer stick to anything, and their edges are curled. A sad and all too typical sight no doubt. On them I see what may be little nuggets of one man’s wisdom, and maybe a question or two (hard to read). Some of it is crap, some of it is gold, that is up to you. Since none is really worthy of an article of its own, I locked them away in a Post-It note safe so to speak. I am now opening that safe — and the contents are spilling out. If something looks good to you, feel free to grab it.

Continue reading “The Minutiae Motherload” »

I’ve been reading the various facts and opinions (links at the end of the article) and the pros and cons about the plan proposed by Microsoft that will make “DOCTYPE Switch” obsolete beginning with the up-and-coming Internet Explorer 8 (IE8). This news has angered some standards-compliant web developers, while others are finally seeing light at the end of a seemingly endless tunnel — a tunnel filled with various IE versions of past and present partially blocking the way. Immediately I was against the idea, but I do see the good side of it, too, what with never having to deal with IE version fussing and constant updating again. And if other browser developers jump on board with this idea we will never have to update our sites again (yeah, sure, ha ha). Like a good sales pitch it has appeal. But maybe this is a surface sheen.

Continue reading “What’s Best for Web Standards?” »

Boating in New England has provided some unparalleled experiences for my family and I. Some of these experiences were fantastic in the most positive sense. Others, though, scared us: stormy seas, rough passages, and even one emergency. But all of these experiences have something in common: they all gave us a broader view of life, on the ocean and off, and all taught us lessons we couldn’t have learned elsewhere. The following is an reprint of an article I wrote in 1998. It was formally published in Points East magazine in the summer of 1999. This is a true account.

Continue reading “Inside a Microburst” »

I published a “Best of” list like this last year, too, so this will likely become an annual undertaking. Some of the articles were chosen because I really liked them, others because you really liked them. If you want more of the latter let me know what you’d like to see. Sometimes I get stuck for ideas — though I usually think of something — but requests help.

Continue reading “The Best of the Beast in 2007” »