As a web designer, I often get requests to have certain text on a website in some specific obscure font. Although I consider myself a minimalist, I have a massive collection of fonts on my system. For some odd reason though, I never seem to have that requested font.

Instead of asking and waiting for the client to send me the font file, or buying them, I've discovered a new method of finding fonts online. Most fonts are of course copyrighted, so in order to find a font posted somewhere, you either have to think like a hacker, or think like a stupid user.

I like thinking like a stupid user myself, because there are so many more of them out there, and they make it much easier. All you have to do is Google the words "in order to view this site", or "if you see can't see this", or "this site uses", and the font name you're looking for and Viola! Todays example is Vivaldi. This font sells for $32 at font.com, or for free using the Jason method of Stupid User font providers: http://home.deds.nl/~pyter/home-index.htm

"The Box" is the name I gave to our media center computer at home. It is a little 400MHz computer with a ginormous hard drive that we have hooked up to our entertainment center to share files, and play music, movies, and NES Roms. A few weeks ago, I got the bright idea that I should format its operating system drive and install fresh copy of XP Server 2003.

After several driver issues, over tightened security annoyances, and impromptu shut-downs, I have realized that my poor lil box isn't destined to be an XP Server. It is much more happy, now that it has it's old XP Pro OS back again. Hopefully the ntpadxp drivers will work now and my NESDrive will soon be operational.

Every once in a while I stumble upon something so outrageous, unique, intriguing that I just have to share it with somebody. Today, that discovery was Maze Maker. Somebody actually took the time to write a program that creates mazes in gif format to your exact specifications.

So today, mister master of maze making programming, today is your day.

As a webdesigner, I am constantly working around the inconsistencies of browser compatibility. Among the icons of browsers on my quicklaunch bar is a familiar ship's wheel above a blue right triangle. It is the bain of my existence. There are many workarounds for browsers which do not yet fully support css, but trying to make a site look good in Netscape 4.x is a waste of time and an insult to browsers which promote much less archaic methods of rendering pages.

According to w3schools, Netscape 3 and 4 usage accounts for less than 1% of all web browsers. Although it is still available for download, Netscape 4 and all of it's predecessors are dead to me.

I may be a little behind the times on this one, but it was killing me until this morning. I couldn't figure out why my browser seemed to be switching the backgound of a specific set of form fileds to ffffa0 when I had explicitly set the field background correctly with CSS. If you can see those mysterious yellow backgrounds, then the problem is the Google Toolbar. I didn't even think about it until I stumbled upon this article.

It's still in testing phase, but check out my blog archive! Much thanks to Russ and Ryan at work for helping me figure out how to make this page go. I had to do one sql query to get the years for which there were posts. Then I had to do a query within that loop and create another loop that would display a list of the months that had content. Tricky, Tricky, but it works.

I've been making progress on the NESDrive project as well - Or at least the server. I got my RAM in from Computer Surplus and plugged it all in. Then I formatted it and installed XP Server 2003 on Monday night, but found out that it will not support my sound card (A Turtle Beach Montego - TB400-3355-01). I tried a few different drivers but Windows just wouldn't recognize it. Then I found a review of Server 2003 from someone who had the same exact sound card which he could not get to work either. SO I gave up. Fortunately, my friend Justin had a spare SoundBlaster card lying around he could give me (THANKS JUSTIN!) so I'll be getting that all installed as soon as I can.

I will be getting a pictures post of the progress of the NESDrive hardware work soon as well. I spent Wednesday morning routing out the second controller port hole in the CD drive cover. All I need to do now is cut the holes for the Power, Reset, and LED, and it will at least LOOK like a working NESDrive.

I've been kinda short on time this week - see amesnjas. As far as the project goes, I got the video card installed and I'm waiting on ram which is now driving from Nevada (when it was supposed to be air mailed). Amy and I broke out the Sears "lil' crafty" rotary tool last night that I borrowed from my parents and started routing the holes in the CD drive cover for the controller ports. It was going pretty good, but the crafty is LOUD so we figured we should probably stop at 10:30 so our neighbors didn't think we'd opened a night-time cabinet shop. So things are going very slow, but VERY LOUDLY! - and yes Brian, I will have pictures up...eventually.

This would have been a great weekend to work on my NESdrive project, but I'm going camping at Juniper Springs for the weekend with Amy, my brother Jered, and his girlfriend Aimee. I would say that I'm disappointed...but I'm not really. I need fire, and smores, and canoeing, and stuff. So I'll be getting back to the project when I return.

Ok, so I'm lazy, but I think I said everything in my conversation with Brian this morning that I wanted to post here. So here's the chat log:

When I bought the RAM, it seems I forgot how old my old computer was. The motherboard is an Asus P5A, which I just found out last night, has a bus speed of 100 MHz - not 133. So I'll be taking my ram back to Circuit City for a refund and probably ordering it online. I said before that I had picked up my video card, but what I really meant was that I had merely picked out my video card. I think I'll buy it tonight if Amy and I get to Circuit City. I'm getting a PNY Verto 64MB AGP Video Card. Right now it's only $89.99 with a $40 rebate…so it's cheap AND it has TV-out at 1024x768 resolution.

Back on to the NESdrive project - I found something very useful this morning at Radio Shack. It's a DB25 connector with a phone jack in the back! According to junkmachine, I only need 4 wires coming from the NES controller to the parallel port. Basically that means I'll have a phone cord running from the NES ports that I can just plug in to the parallel port adapter. Fun Fun.

Well it looks like I'm going to be doing some updates to the box before I get started on my NESdrive. I got some RAM for my birthday, which I exchanged for some cheaper RAM and a video card that has S-Video out. I knew I needed the RAM (at least 128MB in order to swap XP Home for XP server) but I decided it had to be attached to the TV if it was really going to feel like a Nintendo.

While I was at home I ripped an appropriate power cord out of the old case I had sitting at home, and borrowed some project essentials from the rents: a soldering iron, some acid-core solder, and a Dremel tool. I also went to Wal-Mart late at night (a popular thing to do in Vero Beach) and picked up some primer-gray spray paint and model glue. So… it looks like the only thing I need to buy will be the DB25 adapter and plastic shield.