The Logics

While updating to WordPress version 3.0, the automatic update from within the dashboard failed. The screen froze and when I attempted to access the blog an error message appeared: “Fatal error: Cannot redeclare get_alloptions…”

I did not find any direct reference to the error online, so I tried updating within Fantastico, which appears to have worked well. Whew! :-)

Luckily I had just performed a complete backup of everything, so I was not worried about losing data, but I was concerned about a huge amount of time reinstalling files. I am posting this with the hope that anyone else having a similar problem might find the post and hopefully solve the problem as easily as I did.

Over a year ago I had mentioned on one of my pages that the MSN® search engine appeared to be undergoing changes. The result was the new Bing® search engine. If you have not seen the new home page of Bing, take a minute and go look.

Google® remains the most widely used search engine, and there will always be favor with Google’s width of data bases, as well as Google’s high speed and minimalist footprint, but Bing reflects a specific quality that (to my knowledge) is currently only found in Microsoft® products.

Several years back I had written about the differences in the numerous word processors, and that though those like OpenOfficeorg® and WordPerfect® are definitely good products, MS Word® remained the single choice because of its quality of text display. For those of us who may spend eight to twelve hours a day typing, Microsoft’s clear type smoothing of fonts is a necessity that many of us will not forfeit just because a different word processor might be less expensive or have a few features that Word does not have.

In the field of web design it is easily observed that the majority of layouts are aimed at the younger audiences who prefer television-like animated displays, which is a good thing because everyone of every age bracket should enjoy their time online. Only a relatively small percentage of web designs are aimed more for individuals with a maturity of experience in academics, arts, and sciences. The Logics has been one of my attempts to experiment with and to learn what type of layout might suggest of itself to be mature and of an above average base of topical knowledge. The site still needs a complete rewrite along with a new layout, but the site has been a good start and learning experience. The newer Ethics website is currently receiving a rewrite, which once finished is hoped to possess an improved sense of design, balance, and maturity. (The difficult thing for me with the Ethics site is that it is intended to raise questions within the reader, not give answers to be memorized, and it is not an easy thing for me to keep some of my most favored thoughts unspoken.)

The new Bing home page is a useful compromise between minimalism and animation, and repeatedly I have opined to myself that Bing has a desirable quality that I at present can only term as mature, intelligent, and very much experienced. For many years I have wondered if Microsoft hires experts in psychology and graphic design who choose how the finished products will appear on the screen, but whoever it is that has the final say, I believe that they have done very well with Bing.

I want Google to stay like it is – fast, small, and very useful – and I suspect Yahoo may soon have a new design now that Microsoft controls Yahoo (perhaps more minimalist than Google?), but I do like Bing’s look, and it is something that is rarely found online: classy smart.

All three of the search engines may give different results when searching for a topic, with each of the search engines often providing a different quality of websites that match the keywords. Which search engine is best? I say use all three, and enjoy finding something new each day, like Bing’s home page.

As the ethics website is being updated, (http://www.ethicsmorals.com), rather than rely on email it has been decided to make use of this blog for contacts. If you have a question about the ethics website, please post it here.

When building websites I use a dual monitor computer with 19” and 15” monitors so that I can see how the websites will fit different sized screens. I also use Explorer®, Firefox®, Google Chrome®, and Opera® browsers to ensure that the websites will display properly in each. Microsoft’s Explorer continues being favored for its quality of display, and though I frequently use Firefox due to its speed and choice of skins, I have been pleasantly surprised with the new Opera version 10.10.

Opera’s turbo mode is said to use Opera’s own servers to compress a web page’s file before sending it to your computer. In my experience the turbo mode does work well, typically increasing load speeds two to three times normal. Although I have not yet actually timed page loads, I am almost certain that Opera is sizably faster than Firefox. The only known drawback of the turbo mode is that graphics arrive with a fair bit of distortion due to being compressed at a high percentage. Nevertheless, the distortion is of little concern since it is a simple thing to turn off the turbo mode and refresh the screen to download a page’s graphics in their best quality.

Most noticed by me is that Firefox and Opera both have recently improved their ability to properly display text. The browsers can now accurately display a tabbed first line in a full-justified paragraph, a thing that only Explorer was able to do previously. Too, Explorer, Firefox, and Opera appear to be handling tables well, but Google Chrome completely fails to display tables that are empty of content but used for coloring of the page’s design. An example can be viewed at http://repoman.websitedesigningamarillo.com/. The red and blue lines display properly in Explorer, Firefox, and Opera, but are not displayed at all in Chrome. I suspect that very few users would ever know of Chrome’s limitations since the errors may not be noticeable without the user viewing the same web pages with Chrome and other browsers. To ensure the web page is properly displayed in all browsers, in the future I will replace the colored tables with fixed lines sized to a similar thickness.

Chrome now has a few choices of browser coloring, but Chrome is still somewhat primitive in feel, look, and use as compared to the steadily increasing refinements of Opera. As soon as I import all of my bookmarks from Firefox and Explorer, Opera may become my main browser.

Opera’s full-screen command (F11) works well, and it also hides the vertical scroll bar. I am accustomed to undoing the full-screen mode by moving the mouse pointer up to the top of the screen on Explorer, Firefox, and Chrome where a click can restore the screen to normal size. Opera is a little different, your only needing to right click anywhere on the screen which results in a menu popping up with the option to toggle the full screen mode. Opera has a lot of added features like mouse gestures, some of which I believe are worth having like the ctrl + scroll acting as page zoom.

At present I am so pleased with Opera’s layout and function that I thought it would be a good thing to sing a little praise for the good work done by the Opera people.

http://www.opera.com/

Favored Skin: ibis_inspire-2_91

The Logics, , April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November
MS Explorer, , 58.7, 35.5, 10.8, 60.7, 57.4, 56.4, 59.7, 55.9
Firefox, , 28.7, 57.4, 86.8, 27, 30.4, 29.9, 25.1, 27.7
Unknown, , 0.5, 0.5, 0, 0.4, 0.3, 1, 0.6, 0.7
Opera, , 2, 1.4, 0.3, 2.1, 2, 2.4, 2.4, 3.5
Chrome, , 4.5, 1.8, 0.6, 5.1, 4.4, 4.8, 5.1, 6
Mozilla, , 1, 0.7, 0.6, 0.8, 0.8, 1.3, 1.2, 1.2
Safari, , 4, 2.3, 0.4, 3.3, 3.8, 3.5, 5, 4.4
Netscape, , 0.1, 0.1, 0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.1, 0, 0.1
Sony/Ericsson, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0
UP.Browser, , 0, 0, 0, 0.1, 0, 0, 0, 0
Others, , 0, 0, 0, 0, 0.1, 0, 0, 0
Omni Web, , 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0
Wget, , 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0
K-Melon, , 0, 0, 0, 0, 0.2, 0, 0.1, 0
Nokia, , 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0

The Logics Blog, , April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November
MS Explorer, , 50.2, 57.7, 39.2, 29.9, 56.5, 26.8, 37.1, 32.9
Firefox, , 33.4, 21.3, 34, 38.7, 23.4, 14.7, 19.9, 19.5
Unknown, , 6.5, 8.6, 9.6, 5.5, 7.3, 12.8, 9.1, 14.4
Opera, , 5.3, 0.9, 5.7, 3.3, 2.1, 33.5, 22, 8.8
Chrome, , 1.7, 4.5, 2, 8.6, 2.1, 4.2, 4.1, 7.1
Mozilla, , 1.4, 3.1, 7.2, 9.6, 3, 4.6, 4.3, 11.5
Safari, , 0.9, 2, 0.8, 3.4, 2.9, 2.2, 2.5, 4.6
Netscape, , 0.1, 1.4, 0.8, 0.7, 1.9, 0.4, 0.2, 0.8
LibWWW, , 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0
Acrobat Webcapture, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0.2, 0
SIE, , 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0
Others, , 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0.1, 0, 0
K-Melon, , 0, 0, 0, 0, 0.4, 0, 0, 0
Nokia, , 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0
Phoenix, , 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0.2, 0, 0