I had installed WordPress 2.7 as a beta last month.  When the final release came out WordPress notified me, but instead of like previous versions, it just let me click a link and it handled the upgrade on the server with very little fuss.  It was like buying a 2008 Honda knowing that when the 2009 Hondas came out you could push a button and for free your Honda would upgrade to the latest.  Before several steps were required, now, I just click a button.  Wow.

The new interface for administration is very clean and polished and easy to use.  Wow.

The ease of editing posts has been taken up just a notch, which is quite nice.  Wow.

I can install plugins from within the plugin interface without having to download and unzip zip files, it just works.  WOW!

Thanks to Matt and the rest of the team at Automattic for a fantastic release that is well worth the upgrade.

I finished installing the sound dampening accessories on our new dishwasher tonight. I had waited on the off chance of leaks from the new installation. No leaks meant silencers were to be installed. This washer is quiet now. The air gap which prevents backflow contamination is now louder when it’s draining than the washer is when it’s running.

I am going to say this: if you have a washer without a backflow prevention mechanism such as an air gap: get one. I can think of no other cheap installation that could be better for your home repair money. I could have possibly saved my old dishwasher from replacement had I known about the air gap. Installation took all of 20 minutes because I’m slow and wanted to triple check the connections.

So far I’m thrilled.

Also, I fixed a broken closet door tonight. Tip: don’t cut corners with “repairs”. The previous owner of this house did and I’m having to make up for it in dishwashers and wood and time :). Not that I mind. After hours in front of a computer screen physical labor is refreshing.

I’ve just crossed the 10,000 picture threshold on my Canon S3IS.  I’ve used it for personal photography, portrait photography and for product photography.  I have taken many great pictures with it (some of which can be found here) and I still love it.  It is definitely a consumer level camera compared to some of the options available to the Digital SLR camera owners, but this is a fantastic camera and I highly recommend it (and its preceding S5IS available as the latest revision as of this writing) to the person looking for a great video, photography and otherwise awesome digital documentation device.  I’d show you the 10,000th picture except that its a picture for a client – so you don’t get to see it :)

And now onto the other things I need to do with it.

No matter how you feel about digital rights management, copyright issues or peer-to-peer networks MediaDefender, a ‘company’ out of California runs a shady business helping companies ‘preserve’ their data on peer-to-peer networks.  MediaDefender took down Revision3’s servers over the long weekend because of various problems – but read this article and judge for yourself – a company that violates laws to do business is just asking for a take down like never before.

The government needs to uphold the lows of copyright, and they need to uphold laws of proper business practices.  When companies step outside of the government to ‘uphold the law’ and those companies violate the law: the companies themselves need to be fined.  Sony and other companies have used Media Defender and I hope that the FBI (as mentioned in the linked article) takes them out of the equation and strips the company of any legal rights as they have a history of violating the law over and over and injuring completely legal companies.

I have spent far too much time on ‘fixing’ a bug that only happens in Internet Explorer (AKA Internet Exploder).  Here’s a run-down on the problem:

1) Use math to figure out where something should show up on the screen

2) Test in Firefox – works!

3) Test in IE7 – Fail!

4) Remove rational math that appears to make sense and replace it with nonsense – works in IE7, fails in Firefox because Firefox isn’t as buggy

What I don’t get is that more people use Internet Explorer and its older.  Why does the new browser have to work better, smarter, faster and cleaner?  Thanks for reading my whine.

IE7 hack  post mortem: in Firefox, use math.  In IE6 & IE7 use meth.