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D
e n n i s J a r r e t t
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The basics: I'm a professional writer, mostly for IT-related journalism and (more recently) marketing collateral such as brochures, websites, case studies and presentations. I also do design for all of those. And somewhere in my cabinet are the eight unfinished novels, the slim volume of poor poetry, and the performance art pieces. I began my working life as a technical author in the computer business, moved into IT journalism, worked as a staffer then a freelancer, moved on to my own publishing companies to do newsletters and a couple of newsstand magazines, then branched out into consultancy. The skillset: Today I still describe myself as a consultant if pressed, because my activities spread across a variety of milieux and media – including these:
For the full story in bullet points, click here to download my CV. The ramble: What follows is a kind of not-blog not-diary, most recent entries last (though since they're undated, that information doesn't really help you, does it?) Mostly it's a pen-portrait that should permit some deductions. No guarantees about the up-to-dateness of the entries, but you'll see some triffic tips and tricks in here (I should think). For rants, moans, bouquets, comments, offers click here.
Had a Friends Reunited email from my very first girlfriend the other day. She's changed her name, took up acupuncture, runs a college of alternative medicine in North London. Probably looks a bit different too, but fortunately so do I. Ah, memories — those names from a country grammar school in deepest Cornwall: not so much ghosts, more like people who are leaving the room just as you enter it. Including me: a couple of years back I came across a notebook of autobiography that I wrote at the time, thinking (quite sensibly) that if I didn't get it all down then I'd have forgotten it by the time I was old enough to start reflecting on the past. First girlfriend featured, of course, along with several other names that I don't now remember at all. Who were those people? Come to that, who was the prick writing that stuff? Mind you, until I got married I always felt that the past happened to other people even if one of them had the same name as me. I was always keen on the present: the past seemed an academic nicety, a dump of missed opportunities and damaged dreams and hopeless aspirations. No real relevance to now. Getting married did change my views somewhat, but I still find looking over my shoulder less interesting than looking around. Criminal self-justification, of course. The reason I'm not rich (or even free of overdraft) can be attributed directly to bad life choices and career decisions in the past. On the other hand, I'm pretty happy with the kind of person I am now: and I know I wouldn't be that person if I hadn't had that past. Trite but true.
If you just want a background image without tiling and without scrolling, this works for Netscape and Opera as well as Internet Explorer:
Put this above <body> and after </title>.
One interesting effect of moving here: we have many more friends than we ever had in London. Or rather, because of the distance between people (we have a neighbour either side, then the next house is a mile away, the nearest village is nearly three, our nearest close friends are just over three) I guess we work harder at maintaining relationships. Swings and roundabouts: I still hanker sometimes for a Docklands flat with a slab of glass for one wall and a room with odd multifunction minimalist cubes spaced strategically. And I'd like to be able to think "let's go out!" and have a hundred choices within 20 minutes. Then I look out of the window, grab one of the last Worcesters, watch the geese fly over like they're on to their way to bomb Germany, wait for the blackbirds to sing out the day and see the sunset staining a dozen different colours in as many minutes and wander around as the bats come out and live for the kind of night that can be so dark you'll never see your hand in front of your face. Or to put it another way, we don't lock the cars here. We walk on the hills and look at castles. We grow quantities of tomatoes and herbs, and this year a bucketful of chard too. And Majestic Wine delivers.
So "empowered" might be an ok concept. But it's lying there like a lexicographical slug, twitching slightly and glistening with slime and mocking me. Stab that word with the mouse pointer, squash it with the Delete, smear it away from the white page as if it never existed. Sometimes though I feel like the kid at the Pick 'n' Mix counter who looks at all the gaudy, sugary offerings and says "But aren't there any plain dried apricots"? Yeah, sure, and I knit my own shoes out of wheat stalks too.
Resolution is ok for web images (640x480) and because there's no flash and no LCD display the whole thing can run for a good while off a single AAA battery. And there's enough memory (8Mb) for 20 or 30 pix before you have to empty the thing into your PC. You can also use it as a webcam, apparently, though from a cursory glance that looks tricky … Still, I'm only at the stage of feverishly ripping open the packaging to get at the gismo as quickly as possible. First-impression downsides - well, it's a bit ugly. Or rather, it could have been a lot more stylish: why not do it in brushed aluminium (or faked plastic equivalent)? Indoor photography is a bit iffy. The USB cord is a tad short (I keep my system box out of the way under the desk). But hey, for the money you can't complain …
Replaced
it with a Lexmark X125, a cheap all-in-one for less than £150
– a perfectly good fax machine, an ok scanner, and a pretty
decent not-especially-photo-realistic colour inkjet printer. No
ansaphone, but I think you can add an external one that can distinguish
fax tones from a voice call.
More tasks:
So before I look for some pencils to sharpen, I'd better write to John. My bestest male friend and the only one I still know from my youth (well, university): best person at my wedding: father to my not-really-godchild: husband to the lovely Sarah: haven't been in touch for two years, maybe three. How could I let things slip this much? Must write. First a quick game of Spider ...
That's it. Exit and you'll find the next time you go to Tools | Macros there will be one listed as removehyperlinkglobally.
So I hit Windows Update just like Microsoft wanted me to, I found several goodies and fixes that Microsoft reckons would make my life ooh so much better, I downloaded them, and when I tried installing them the update ground to a halt. Unidentified installation failure. Tried again, failed again. And this on the day I hear Gates has decided to pay Microsoft shareholders a dividend, the largest such shareholder being W Gates who trousers around £60m as a result of that decision. Accidentally discovered that Windows 2000 and XP have a built-in funny that can cause installation failures if there are too many files sitting in the INF folder. A patch was released early in March – download it here – but (perhaps typically) it's not in the list of patches that Windows Update itself is currently recommending …
Sure, it's good practice to have high contrast between text and background on your web page (unless you're making some kind of point about style and design). And it most cases you'd think that black text on a white background would be the safe bet. But if you have a lot of white visible, and if the viewer has their monitor set for maximum contrast, and especially if the punters have been surfing for 12 hours straight, the usual white (#FFFFFF) can be a bit scorching to the eye. Try softening the white with yellow (#FFFFCC) or blue (#CCCCFF) or even black (#CCCCCC). Or just cut down the actual amount of white space blaring at the hapless visitor.
According
to one Bill Gates in a New York Times interview, five percent
of all Windows computers crash more than twice per day. That's
more than twice per day – so it doesn't include those
that just crash once or twice a day. And it doesn't include those
users who have chosen not to notify Microsoft when Windows crashes
(like me). On the plus side, Windows isn't necessarily to blame
for everything; Windows reports application errors via the same
system, so some of the problems might be caused by third party
issues. Still, five percent ... |
Sunday 
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