Made some minor usability changes on the photo album. I've had lots of ideas on how to revamp this whole thing with servlets (or applets) so that one can have "prev/next" type functionality on the individual photos. But so far I've avoided this because I'd also like to be able to archive the whole collection on CD and send to folks. Once it requires a server with smarts or a downloadable media handler, it would make the thumbnail pages either partially or totally unusable directly off a CD. So the problem becomes one of how to improve usability without using anything but HTML. Fortunately I'm not out of ideas yet. I changed all the target anchors so that at least a new window pops up for viewing individual pictures separately from the thumbnail indexes. I know this will be a bit more useful to family members on modems because the index doesn't have to reload after every time you choose something specific to look at. It avoids a lot of use of the "back" button. Some folks like me have gotten used to opening the link in a new window, but with a different window for each full-size picture, one then has to close them all. Hopefully this is a compromise that works better for everyone (and will also work directly off a CD). I'm also investigating the possibility of having "prev/next" logic contained in javascript on the thumbnail page itself. There may be a way to pull that off in pure HTML also, but I'm less optimistic. I'll have to let the brain work on that in the background for a while.

My "media" computer is getting pretty well maxed out, so I was looking to upgrade it. Something like a gig CPU, and Windows 2000 because it's slightly more stable than the other Microsoft trashware. So the first task is to go through a checklist of everything on the computer and make sure that the software and more importantly hardware drivers have recent updates. Webcam drivers, Photoshop/Illustrator, CD jukebox, scanner, printer, studio software, etc. Everything but one, and that kills it. Come to find out that the folks who made my MIDI interface were acquired yet again - now by Gibson Guitar Co. As part of the acquisition they stopped supporting "old" MIDI cards (mine is slightly less than a year old). Actually it appears they stopped supporting MIDI cards period, putting their new programmers to work on studio software, where they're so late to the party that there's zero chance of survival. My existing card will only work with Windows 98 *first edition*. Nothing else. So if I upgrade the computer, I end up with a $500 paperweight and have to buy a new interface for about the same price from somebody else. I like Gibson generally, but this was a horribly dumb business move on their part. The solution is to just do nothing. Everything works right now, it just could stand a bit of improvement. But if I'm looking at several thousand bucks to make it work marginally better, why bother? So much for doing my part to kickstart the tepid economy.

Yet another person put me on their "list of people to send funny jokes to". Look, I've read all the jokes. I've seen all the funny pictures and internet panics and pleas from the kid who wanted to collect the most postcards (he died in 1986). Microsoft (or AOL or Intel) are not going to send you a check every month for using their email software. I probably got the same joke you sent to me more than 25 times yesterday alone. Yes, I've been known to forward a funny joke (maybe twice a year when I see the rare new one). But take a tip, never forward a joke (etc.) to more than one person, and never to anybody that you don't write to with some degree of regularity anyway. You may not care if you end up in my spam kill file, but if you someday have something important to say and wonder why I didn't respond, it's because (doh) I put you in my spam kill file because all you ever sent me was spam.