Sapper's (Fair & Balanced) Rants & Raves Receives Reader Mail!

Wow! In this morn's e-mail was the message below. In posting a response on the blog, there is the risk of getting too techie for most tastes. However, it isn't the first technical complaint received from Wisconsin, either. The first complaint revolved around the interaction between the blog software and Internet Explorer. (Full disclosure here: I have stopped using Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser. The cyberpunk hackers are relentlessly attacking Microsoft's software and Internet Explorer is a malware writer's delight. Worms, viruses, Trojan Horses, spyware can invade your computer through the swiss cheese code that Microsoft engineers have written for Internet Explorer.) For some reason, Internet Explorer renders a blog page like mine in a font size that doesn't allow an entire post to appear on a computer screen. So my first reader mail asked: How can I view an entire, untruncated blog entry? And, of course—geek that I am—a fix was suggested: go to View in the topmost prompts in the browser screen. Click on View and then click on Text Size. In the popup menu, choose Small instead of the default Medium. Thereafter the full blog entry will be rendered by the Internet Explorer browser. Moving smoothly on to the most recent complaint, I must disclose that I do NOT write the code for this blog. Instead, I use "canned" (preformatted) templates supplied by Blogger. When I first started this blog on June 22, 2003 (More than 1 year of ranting & raving!), the software was available from Pyra Labs. Sometime later in 2003, Pyra Labs was acquired by Google and converted to freeware by the latest Internet behemoth. All of this history of Blogger aside, real computer nerds can modify or rewrite the Blogger code if that is their wont. (More full disclosure: I have very limited code-writing abilities.) So, I have changed preformatted templates for the third time in an attempt to find a format that will render clearly in all browsers (including Internet Explorer). There is a another quick and dirty workaround, though. Use Internet Explorer for the last time to visit the following sites:

• Download Deepnet Explorer 1.1


• Download Firefox 0.9.2


• Download Avant Browser 9.02 Build 101


• Download Opera 7.53 for Windows.

Choose your poison (I have all of the above installed and available and I never use Internet Explorer any more.) and read this blog in visual comfort. The Firefox browser is a faster version of Netscape. The Deepnet browser is based on the Internet Explorer look. The Avant browser is sui generis and doesn't resemble any other browser. Finally, the Opera browser was the first option other than Internet Explorer or Netscape to appear on my scope. All of the above browsers seem to render the newest format of this blog without a hitch. (Final disclaimer: the Deepnet browser pushed my profile and the archive links down to the bottom of the page; ditto for the Avant browser.) Final word: the Firefox and Opera browsers render this blog as the good Lord intended. Neither are under attack by cyberpunks, either. If this is (fair & balanced) self-promotion, so be it.

I thoroughly enjoy your site. It feels perfectly "left" for me.

Your recent format change has been nice. For some reason, however, it doesn't do well on my computer. For the first week or so everything was fine, all the print falling in the light tan area. Since then all the text is shifted way to the left of the screen (Is this an intentional effect?) so half the printing is in the brown field, and the other half on the lighter, easier to read light tan region. Have you had any other mention of this problem, or am I going to have to buy a Windows (ugh) computer to read your blog in visual comfort?

Keep up the entertaining work. It is much appreciated and enjoyed.

Regards,
A Reader