Month: February 2003

A local school has banned teeshirts with “ethnic” messages. Does that mean that sports team jerseys like for the Indians or the Braves are now banned?

Probably not.

The web is a difficult animal to wrangle. A web page may appear different in different web browsers. For this reason, as a web page designer, I keep various web browsers like IE, Netscape 4 and Netscape 7.

Being a professional in the world of web page design, I think it is important to be aware of the software products that might somehow impact my work. Have installed lots of software program demos relating to graphic design, broken link checking, site stripping, etc. Several of the free, useful ones and a few of the paid for ones continue to grace my installed programs list.

Knowing about the new web browsers that might shake up the big 2 (Microsoft and AOL-Netscape) is very much so part of my job.

Here is the answer to the question of the week… “How many web browsers do I have installed on my work computer?”

1. Internet Explorer 6.0
   
2. Netscape 7.x
   
3. Netscape 4.x
   
4. Opera 7.x
   
5. Mozilla 1.x
   
6. Phoenix 0.x
   
7. Lynx 2.8.4
   
8. Ghostzilla

I have 8 web browsers installed at work. At home, I just have 3 (IE, Phoenix, and Mozilla).

People get in a tizzy over the dumbest things sometimes. Cell phones with cameras are not a menace to privacy, any camera can be. Yeah, cell phones are small. Lots of digital cameras are so small they can easily be used in the palm of a hand, hidden into small objects, or otherwise concealed.

We should not ban cell phones in order to ban cameras. We should ban cameras, even the really small ones.

Quiz question for the week…

How many web browsers do I have installed on my work computer?

It feels like 80F outside. Thought it was supposed to be winter? Couldn’t sleep in cause I was sweating so much.

These are some thoughts in response to a comment to my last post:

“on a nother note i spent almost all day arguing with a friend about why there should be a black history month and not a white history month”
AlanaNightingale

Not sure I agree with just a Black History Month. There is also a Hispanic History Month, but it does not get nearly the acknowledgement of Black History Month. It is good to encourage people to look into the history of people whose accomplishments and impact on the society of the United States are sorely under-appreciated. Yet, there should also be Native and Asian-American history months for the impact people whom are members of these cultures are also indeed very strong to the society in the United States.

One could make similar arguments for appreciation of Arab, Asian, African, American, and European cultures. Immigrants into the United States have come from every country in the world. We frequently are content just to try their food and look at their art. Appreciation of their history and their contributions to our own history can only enrich us.

In my opinion, knowledge of history is extremely important. Understandings based on learning the points of view from those who participated or were impacted by events is the only way to reach an understanding of the importance of the event. Nothing that happens in history does not somehow great or small impact everything else. Appreciation of how apparently small events at the time formed a cascade to cause something great shows why we must learn to pay attention to these small events.

My fear is that resistance to Black History Month has more to do with feelings that Blacks are unfairly being given preference. In some respects this is very true. Why have a Black History Month and not a Hispanic History Month (or an Asian-, Arab-, or Native History Month)? All of these cultures deserve this acknowledgement.

Should there be a White History Month? Yes. People of European descent are very much so a part of society in the United States. It would be wonderful for there to be a focus on the trials they had when they got here beyond just the people on the Mayflower.

Most TV, radio, or theatre programs I have seen associated Black History Month look at specific individuals and how those individuals shaped society in the United States. Most general history classes focus on broad events. Very rarely do they go into depth about people. General history books are good about getting us a general understanding of the way things work. However, I would hope that such books would inspire people to seek out information on specific individuals that seem interesting and learn more about them.

Is Black History Month a bad thing? I think not. People in support of it encourage others to learn about the accomplishments of an underappreciated segment of our society.