Who's going to teach us?

Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time is a really good series of books. i was fortunate to have begun from the first book, which is rather unusual around here. anyhow, i started reading them again recently, and in the first book, The Eye of the World, at the end of Chapter 27, Egwene tells Perrin that Ila was giving her advice on being a woman. Perrin replies, "Advice! Nobody tells us how to be men. We just are.". Egwene counters this with: "That is probably why you make such a bad job of it."

i never thought i'd find such a gem in that kind of book. but that precisely is the problem. today's men, by and large, have no idea what they're supposed to do - and more importantly, be - as men. and this is made more serious by the fact that modern men are generally out of touch with other people. men generally find it more difficult to actually relate with people than women (that's why she has more real friends than you do - and i'm not talking about buddies. i'm talking about real friends, who know your heart). dude, maybe someone should start a school or something for men. and don't look at me - i got my own row to plough!

a cursory look at Safari

&;p> after using Safari a bit, here are some things i've noticed:

• it supports SVG (haven't tested it myself), but while it supports web page and image drag-n-drop, it doesn't seem to do so for SVG files. a minus, as far as i'm concerned. Firefox doesn't much care what file type you drop on its window - if it can't open it, it'll offer to download it. considering i was only trying to test SVG support, and i hate double-clicking on any file (call me paranoid) to open it, this is a big minus. i mean, the other browers i used as a reference actually displayed the text of a Wavefront OBJ file. Safari just displayed the "no way, Jose" cursor.
  to be said for it though, its SVG support isn't that bad - though i think it could do with some work. Firefox and Opera beat it hands down in rendering some SVG effects. still, it's a ways better than IE's rendering the actual code of the SVG.
• no, i was not just sounding off, i actually cannot change the proxy settings in the preferences. that's great for when i'm at home and have no proxy. it's however going to be a problem when i get back to school - if i choose to use Safari
• i finally found the Safari equivalent of Firefox's "Clear private data". it's the Edit -> Reset Safari... menuitem.
• it seems Safari supports text DnD. i like it, because if i use a sensible editor like SciTE, i can author my blog posts offline and DnD them into the post editor, instead of copy-and-paste.
• i haven't got Safari to crash yet. i must be doing normal stuff - that means i'm doing something wrong.
• i'm sure it's not just me. i hover over the username field on the Blogger home page, and the cursor is a hand. seriously. it seems okay over other text fields, however.
• i don't know that the use of the OSX LnF inside a Windows application is a really good idea.
• what keyboard shortcut do you use to cycle tabs?
• some text i was entering in here magically didn't get submitted with the form...
• the way Safari pops up messages is wicked cool. the scrolling is awesome!
• what? no fancy highlighting or tooltips for elements with a title attribute? i can't see my acronym meanings!

well, so far, if i find anything nice or nasty, maybe i'll remember to update this...

Apple Safari for Windows users, and Yang takes the Yahoo! reins

you might already know that Apple has released Safari Beta 3 for both Mac and PC users. i downloaded it last night, and so far, i'm not impressed. first all, it looks like i'm using iTunes to browse - which isn't all bad. more importantly, the font rendering sucks in my opinion. From this article, and this article, i agree with Jeff Atwood - Safari's rendering sucks majorly, even with ClearType on. i've not had much chance to use Safari just yet - but i think Steve Jobs' dream of Safari having a quarter market share is a pipe dream unless they work out the kinks in their font rendering system. i wasn't able to change the browser settings as far as using proxies is concerned - and i'm not quite sure that using the OSX look and feel for just Safari is such a good idea. still, if you're adventuresome, you can get Safari and take it for a spin. personally, Firefox is still my major browser, and i just use any others to test web designs, even though i haven't designed anything since Adam was a lad now...anyway, Safari already has been shown to have some bugs and vunerabilities, so make sure when you install it, you also install Apple Update to be safe.

i first read it on Hack in the Box, then saw it on CNN last night, that Jerry Yang - cofounder of Yahoo!, has taken the reins of Yahoo! as CEO. the question is: is he the right person Yahoo! needs? my opinion: maybe. since he created Yahoo!, he'd ben in the best position to say what Yahoo! really ought to be doing. according to the report on CNN last night, Yahoo! can't compete with Google head-on, despite many pally-ups (Yahoo! has roughly $3.5bn US, Google almost $12bn US - meaning Google can outbuy Yahoo!). but Yang hasn't really handled this kind of resposibility before, and this might just be what could send Yahoo! into a tailspin under his leadership. still, for Yang to have been brought on board, it does mean that he's got the backing (if not the trust) of the board (or at least a part of it). i just hope he can do for Yahoo! what Jobs' done in Apple (whether or not i like to admit it - Macs are sexy!)

The state of the nation

It seems the saying, "Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown" is true these days in Nigeria. The new president must be wondering who he sinned against to cause himself so much trouble. first off, the outgone president (Chief Olusegun Obasanjo) gave Nigerians a "parting gift" - increments in both VAT and the pump price of petroleum products. for some reason i don't know, the tanker drivers went on a strike, suspended it, resumed it, and have apparently ended it. the aptly named PHCN (the aptness is for the interpretation, Please Hold Candle Nearby) is pretty much the standby source of electricity these days, and alternative sources require fuel. apart from that, long queues have appeared at filling stations all over the country, with people spending as much as three days to get scarce fuel. now, the NLC is going to begin a strike by 12.00am Wednesday (less than 2 hours from now) if there's no change in the price of fuel. it also seems that a number of new governors have inherited empty state treasuries. i sure am glad i'm not the president now. that said, i don't think there's a better time to be in this country. thank God i'm Nigerian!

Accident at home

i really shouldn't have done it. i should have never laughed. but it was so funny. really. i'm the (not always) proud uncle of an energetic, hyperactive 2-year old. and he's really a creation (literally translated from the Yoruba). right now he's asking me, "what is this?", and if i answer him, i'm going to get questioned to near tears. and no, i can't allow him watch TV anymore tonight. oh, yes - where was i?

as i was saying, i have a 2-year old nephew who is rather strong-willed (aren't they all) and he left his mom and went to pick up the iron she was using. of course, he got burnt. the funny thing was he never dropped the iron - just kept holding onto it with his right hand and screaming. that's one funny thing - and i thank God for it - what if he had dropped it and burnt himself even more? it was also funny because he didn't listen to his mom all day - and got himself into trouble for it. funny thing is, it was his mom he went to for comfort. of course, i pitched in, even though Bolu and i have an understanding: we're friends for just as long as he needs me (playmate, et cetera - i'm the only person who plays ball with him, for example). ah well. he's been bullying me for a while now, and i hope it stops soon...

Yay! Got my Internet connection back!

so i can blog again, and not a second too late. it's kinda cool blogging on Father's Day - even though i've not celebrated it yet. and it is kinda late to celebrate it - it's about 11.00pm. anyway, i've been challenged to get off my butt and get working and become excellent at what i do. thank God for everything. well, gotta go. see y'all!

Jawing @ home

man, it's been a long time! how have i coped with no internet for this long? anyhow, i've uploaded a new deviation at DeviantArt, so pls visit. it's really been great at home - i can now read multiple lines of text. isn't that great? and my friend is getting engaged this weekend. last weekend, i was at Music and Miracles, and it was the bomb! ok, that's about all i have time for on this post (actually, on the internet!). later!