A new design for MarkKB’s Web

It’s been about four years since the last minor redesign of this site came out, and five since the last major redesign. And sure, since then I’ve released small changes, like changing table styles to look nicer,  adding icons and sections to the sidebar, placing rather large download buttons on my software pages, and adding ‘feature boxes’ to explain key features, but for the most part the overall design has stayed the same.

Behind the scenes, though, I’ve been working on a complete redesign of the website. And after lots of experimentation (and quite a bit of procrastination on the account of updating all pages to fit the new design ^^; ) I’m finally ready to reveal the fourth major redesign of this website!

Below you can see a picture of the Software Updater page showing off the new design:

Key changes

• Slimlined header. The website logo has been shrunk down, and the section links are now on the same line as the logo.
  
  Mostly this was so the site could have a smaller header, so more room could be devoted to content. But it also was partially as a result of moving the section headers to the content section of the page, which I detail below.
  
  The ‘tabs’ in the header also have bigger text, somewhat more padding, and now use Trebuchet MS instead of Tahoma.
  
• New sidebar design that also replaces the “breadcrumb” navigation bar. There were a few reasons behind this redesign:
  
• First, to make both the sidebar and the hierarchy of the site more visually distinctive. It was easy to miss the old text breadcrumb bar (which was solely one colour and contained no icons) and the sidebar (which was mainly a plain list of links for subpages and maybe news for the current section.) The new sidebar more readily demonstrates where you are in the website, as well as bringing attention to the sidebar (and thus the subpages of the section you are in.)
  
• Secondly. to reduce redundancy. The sidebar often also included “Home” links, which were basically the same as clicking on the section’s name in the breadcrumb bar, and sometimes included links for the section above the current one (for example, Programs). (This also means when I copy-paste a section I don’t have to replace as much HTML with the relevant things. ^^;)
  
• Third, as with the header, the new sidebar design takes up less space, meaning things like the News section or links to RSS/Facebook/Google+ pages are more prominent. As the breadcrumb bar is also gone, content gets more space as well
  
• Lastly, one of the things I liked in the old version 2 design was the abundance of colours and icons, and the version 3 design removed most of those of the icons and the variety of colour in, for example, the breadcrumb bar. I’m very happy to bring that back with version 4.
  
• Section headings (like “Project Nelson” or “Backspace”) have been moved down to the content section of the page. While I experimented with small versions of having the section heading side-by-side with the site logo like in version 3, I decided against it for the following reasons:
  
• Having them side-by-side with the main logo could be confusing as it places it above the header’s “tab/link bar” that lists the main sections of the website, implying that all those sections are “under” the page heading, hierarchically speaking. People who followed a link to the Backspace webcomic or to Project Nelson or to my fanfics might think the “About” link lead to a page about Backspace or Project Nelson or my fanfics, or that the “Downloads” lead to wallpapers or to PN’s download page. People might not even check the sidebar because the visual hierarchy implied the main section bar “belonged” to Backspace or Project Nelson, rather than to the main site.
  
  Even if people didn’t get confused, the old design meant it might have taken a few extra seconds to process the layout hierarchy of the site (that the header links were for the main sections of the overall site, and the sidebar was for subsections). The new design makes it unambiguous.
  
• People might miss the name of the section if they ignore the header and jump directly to the content (which a not insignificant amount of people do.)
  
• Program pages have a sleeker design. I’ve divided program pages in half, with the main area providing a description of the program, and the grey bar on the right displaying the download button, screenshot, system requirements, and links to additional info. This means that information on the page is a lot more organised than before, and looks a lot better and less ‘overbearing’ than the previous design.
  
  The list of key features are now displayed in rows rather than columns, which makes them look less busy and squished together, and are now light grey with dark grey borders, which help further separate them from each other and the rest of the content.
  
• Program pages now link to RSS feeds and and social media pages in the sidebar. Links to the program’s RSS feed, appcast, Facebook page and Google+ page are now in the new “Keep up-to-date” section of the sidebar for each program. (I initially did this for the Backspace webcomic back in 2011.)
  
• Project Nelson 1.0 Build 020’s version page has been redesigned. Previously, it contained a plain changelog, which can be rather difficult to sort wheat from chaft with. The new page contains, first, a list of major new features, each one with a screenshot, then a full list of both major and minor new features and major changes. The changelog is still available by clicking the Changelog link in the sidebar.
  
• The Links section has been reorganised and divided into different pages for each section. There is now three sections for links to stuff I like: Technology, which links to tech news sites and pundit blogs, Webcomics, which links to webcomic sites I visit and webcomics I read, and a new section called Software, which lists useful software that I like to use.
  
  All sections also have new links added, and quite a few links have new images.
  
• Links pages redesigned. The Links pages now layout links in rows instead of columns.

• Ctrl-Alt-Bkspc is now “Backspace”, and is being rebooted. For a number of reasons, the current version of my webcomic, Ctrl-Alt-Bkspc, wasn’t working out for me. Back in 2012, I made the decision that I would reboot the comic, but because of delays in designing this version and updating pages to match, I haven’t updated the page until now.
  
  The Backspace page at http://www.markkb.com/stuff/backspace/ goes over the main reasons I’m rebooting Backspace, although I’ll also post a blog post here for posterity.
  
• Backspace now has a progress bar to show progress for the next story arc. Because I know I suck at scheduling and I want to keep people up-to-date, I now have a bar showing progress for Backspace.
  
• Backspace also has a new logo. But of course!
  
• Some sections and pages have new URLs. All changed URLs have redirects in place to preserve existing URLs.
  
• Backspace (obviously) is now at http://www.markkb.com/stuff/backspace/ (originally it was http://www.markkb.com/stuff/cab/.)
  
• Comic Strip is now at http://www.markkb.com/stuff/comicstrip/ (previously it was http://www.markkb.com/stuff/cs/, which was not very descriptive,)
  
• All “1.0” builds of my programs have had their version pages changed from /1bx/ or /1b0x/ to /1.0/0x/. (For example, Project Nelson 1.0 Build 020 is now at http://www.markkb.com/stuff/pn/1.0/020/ – previously it was at http://www.markkb.com/stuff/pn/1b020/.) This is to be more consistent with the URLs for 1.1 version pages.
  
• The page for submitting bug reports is now at http://www.markkb.com/stuff/bugs/submit/. Previously it was at http://www.markkb.com/stuff/bugs/submit.html.
  

One last thing:

It’s somewhat appropriate (although entirely accidental) that I should release this updated design in this website’s tenth year online. Way back in 2004, when I uploaded the first simple version via my intermediate school’s FTP program, I never imagined it would be anything more than somewhere to stuff things about me and what I was interested in to. Now it harbours my software, art and writings.

And that’s not all I have planned for it! (But that’s something to discuss in another update. ^^ )

Until next time!
Mark Kéy-Balchin

Splitting Up The Blog

For a while now, this blog has served a few different “masters” in terms of focus – I’ve basically used it to talk about whatever I want to talk about. But for the last few months, I’ve been thinking about splitting it up into different blogs, each with a different focus.

And now, it’s done. The blogs are:

• Mark Is Not A Geek: This blog, which will remain my ‘personal’ blog, for amusing anecdotes and non-tech-related articles.
  
• Opinionated Mark: For articles/rants discussing my opinion on various tech-related stuff.
  
• Another Line of Code: Programming-related articles and advice.
  
• MarkKB’s Software Blog: Articles and announcements related to the software I develop.

This split will allow people to follow the stuff that they want, without having to sift through the stuff they don’t want. It’ll also be a lot easier for me to organise. (It will also pressure me to blog more often, since I hate seeing five-month-old blogs at the top of the page. ^^; )

I’ve already moved the old posts across, but there’s still a bit of work to do – I still have to redirect the old posts to the new ones, and import the comments. I’ll also have to redesign the blogs so they all fit nicely together (and fit with my website), and also update the link the website header (although those two I’m going to do with the next design update of my website, which will be ready next year.)

Finally, if you just want to follow the whole lot, I’ll be posting links in my Tumblr blog, MarkKB’s Thoughts and Stuff.

I’d be interested if you think splitting my blog is a good or bad idea, so if you have an opinion, sound off in the comments below.

Until next time!

--MarkKB

Web analytics on MarkKB’s Web – what that means for you

I’m now using Google Analytics on some parts of my website to gather data on who visits my website. This data is completely anonymous – in other words, there is no way for me to know who is visiting my website, just what you visit, as well as a few characteristics.

This data includes:

• What pages you visit
• How you got to this site (e.g. via a link, a web search, ect)
• Your browser, its version number, and what versions of Flash and Java are installed.
• Your screen resolution
• The country, state, city and ISP you are browsing this site from

So, what can I do with this information? Well:

• I can tell what programs and parts of the site are popular, thus allowing me to focus my attention on stuff that matters to you
• I can get a good idea of what browsers the people who read this site use, so I know which browsers to test for, and thus make your browsing experience better
• I know which operating systems are interested in my stuff, so I can have a good idea of which ones to support in my programs
• I know where my audience comes from, and so can target them appropriately.
• Let’s face it, these kinds of statistics are facinating, and it’s kinda cool to know these kinds of details. (I got a hit from Moscow the other day, and a few weeks ago someone using Windows 2000 visited the site. I mean, wow.)

So, this is mostly good for you guys, as well as good for me (and my ego! :D)

Another thing: right now, there are only a few places where I’m monitoring this stuff, but over the next few months I hope to roll it out across the website.

And finally: If you do not wish to be tracked in this manner, you can use Google’s opt-out addon to stop Google Analytics scripts from running.

Website: Ctrl-Alt-Bkspc’s new sidebar, more bug reports, and minor layout changes

Another day, another update to the website. Here’s what’s new:

<Ctrl><Alt><Bkspc>’s new sidebar

Website: http://www.markkb.com/stuff/cab/

When I updated the sidebar for my website last spring, one section that didn’t get the treatment was my webcomic, <Ctrl><Alt><Bkspc>. Part of that was because I was having trouble configuring it so it looked reasonably OK, and I didn’t want to hold up the update for all the other pages.

A few months later, and it’s here! Every page contains handy links to the RSS feed, my Twitter account, and the comic’s Facebook page, and the front page contains links to various voting portals (because TopWebComics isn’t the only one out there.)

(Oh, and <Ctrl><Alt><Bkspc> now has a Facebook page!)

There’s a few more things in the pipe for <Ctrl><Alt><Bkspc> (including actual comics :p ), so hang tight!

Bug Reports layout update

Website: http://www.markkb.com/stuff/bugs/

Let’s face it, the various pages in the Bug Reports section were looking pretty terrible and bland. So with some generous tabling (what, it’s tabular data!) and a sprinkle of CSS (see below), the pages are certainly looking a lot better than before.

24 new bug reports submitted

I’ve just submitted twenty-four new bug reports into the system, and updated information for two more. Why would I voluntarily do this, you may ask?

• Transparency: I want to keep people who use my products in the loop, and to let them know that yes, I know about these problems, and yes, I’m fixing them.
• Encouragement: I hope that by submitting bug reports myself, I can encourage others to do the same. I want to know about your problems with the product, so I can fix them – but I can’t do that if you don’t tell me!

Tables style update

Tables now look a heck of a lot better, with borders, blue headers to match the headings on the rest of the site, and a whole lot more padding than before.

New RSS icon

The old one was in pretty dire need of a makeover, so there’s now a new icon to take its' place.

Over the next few weeks I plan to do more (and potentially bigger) updates. I’ll let you know when that happens.

Updated 14/07/2013 to fix broken links.

And now for something completely different

I’ve been thinking about doing some reviews for stuffs for a while. So this is me, announcing my intent to review stuffs.

Yes.

Well, I may not actually review much, if anything, depending on how lazy I am much I procrastinate much time I have, but I at least intend to do something.

Hmm.

Well anyway, this  is me signing off for now. Fair thee well!

Website: <Ctrl><Alt><Bkspc> About page, banner and other stuffs updated

I’ve just updated quite a few things on <Ctrl><Alt><Bkspc>’s little slice of my website. Here’s what’s new:

• Updated About page: the About page now has much better images and somewhat better descriptions.
• New banners: The comic now has header banners, not unlike a whole lot of other stuff on my website.
• Changed navigational links for the latest comic: Hopefully this will prevent any accidental clicks to sketch-land. ^^
• Fixed a bug with the sidebar for the “Truth” archive page.

You can visit the <Ctrl><Alt><Bkspc> website at http://markk-b.sitesled.com/stuff/cab/.

Website: Updated Links page

Did I hear that you desired MOAR LINKS? What, no? Oh well, I’ve now updated the Links page with four moar links.

(I’ve also fixed that annoying layout bug that left gaps all over the place, and I’ve even updated some of the images so they ish look moar betterer.)

Anyway, you can check out my links page at http://www.markk-b.sitesled.com/links/ http://www.markkb.com/links/. The new links are:

• Looking for Group by Ryan Sohmer and Lar DeSouza
  http://www.lfgcomic.com/
  
• Beyond the Canopy by Jonathan Griffiths
  http://www.beyondthecanopy.com/
  
• KiLA iLO by Cassandra T.
  http://kilailo.atspace.com/
  
• And finally, Ginger’s Bread by Carl Sjostrand
  http://www.gingersbread.com/

Check ‘em out, won’t you?

Updated 14/07/2013 to fix broken links.

Website: Updated sidebar style

Just a heads-up – I’ve updated the sidebar for a lot of the pages on my website. Here’s what’s new:

• Sections: the sidebar now provides sections of links relevant to the section, subsection or overall category.
• Icons: the Software sidebar now has icons for each of the programs listed.

I’ve also updated the Software Updater and Flash Card pages with more infos, and updated the Frequently Asked Questions page, since it was getting a bit stale.

There’s still a bit more stuff I’m planning to do with the site over the coming few weeks, so stay tuned.

--MarkKB

Updated 14/07/2013 to fix broken links.

Website: Ctrl-Alt-Bkspc now has comments, and other things

You can now directly comment on my comic, <Ctrl><Alt><Bkspc>! Right now, only the finished comics have comments – I’m still deciding whether or not to add them to sketches.

(Much thanks to Intense Debate for their awesome comment system! ^^)

I’ve been planning this for a while, but I’ve been holding out for a good comment system to use. So it’s nice to see it up and running at last.

Other things

Three months ago, I updated <Ctrl><Alt><Bkspc>’s homepage. I just never got ‘round to blogging about it! ^^;

The idea was so that readers can easily find where the latest comics are, and newcomers can easily jump to the beginning of either the comic or the current arc, depending on what takes their fancy. It also shows news about the comic, which you can also subscribe to via RSS.

I felt the previous homepage, which just showed the current comic, was a little too awkward for my tastes. Oh well!

You can check the homepage, and my comic, out at http://markk-b.sitesled.com/stuff/cab/ http://www.markkb.com/stuff/cab/.

--MarkKB

Updated 14/07/2013 to fix broken links.

Update on SiteSled Issues

You may have noticed some regular outages over the last half-year of my website at http://makk-b.sitesled.com/. There seems to be major problems up at SiteSled’s end, and I’ve been hoping that they’d get ironed out if I just weather the tide.

The most recent problem hasn’t limited your ability to look at it, but my ability to upload stuff – in fact, most stuff seems to be broken – FTP, HTTP upload, the forums, their wiki…

Apparently, hopefully, they’re fixing their ongoing problems:

It is true that we've experienced several extended outages, and communication has been spotty. The current software has been in use on SiteSled and our other free hosts since 1998, and is no longer supported with updates. This has caused several issues, which we are still working to solve.

[…]

We have been installing a new software suite that will allow us to offer a wide range of additional features on SiteSled.com and it's new sister site. We hope to be able to port over the old sites, but this has not been confirmed yet.

We will try to keep you informed, but again, our current software has very limited communication abilities.

We appreciate your support through the rough times, and hope to provide you with additional services in the future.

Thanks,
SS

[From the comments of this blog post – scroll to the end to see it.]

If this is true, it’s much appreciated (and a long time coming :D). Hopefully, this will all sort itself out, but if not, I’ve been researching both free and paid hosts. Although moving really is a last resort (since I’m lazy and don’t want to have to send everyone along to the new site. ^^)

--MarkKB

---

Update 14/07/2013: After going up (and staying up) for a bit, it seems that Sitesled is now dead for good. :(  My new website can be located at http://www.markkb.com/.

Slow Internet and Trackbacks

On a sad note, due to a screw-up with the guy who wanted to change us to Telstra Clear broadband, we’ve been on dial-up this last week. (And, due to another screw-up with technical support, it was all unnecessary – Vodafone hadn’t disconnected us yet!) Fun.

In other news, this blog now has trackbacks (thanks to JS-Kit), so if you want to show your readers what a blog with no readers looks like, I’ll know about your blog post. Yays!

--MarkKB

Website Updates

About two weeks ago, I preformed a major upgrade to my website - including a new look!

(I’ve been meaning to blog about it, but I keep forgetting… :D)

There are still a few things I need to fix up, but apart from that, it should be fine!

In case you’ve forgotten, or stumbled upon this via Google, it’s located at http://markk-b.sitesled.com http://www.markkb.com/ – you can also visit it via the sidebar on the right.

Highlights

Comic

I’ve uploaded <Ctrl><Alt><Bkspc>, a comic I do in my spare time. Whereas only a few of my classmates have previously seen it, now it’s been made available to everyone with an internet connection.

New software

Comic Strip, a webcomic viewer.
Corkboard, a noticeboard for home networks.
Gibraltar, an easy-to-configure installer.

I’ll probably expand on these later, but for now, cherrio!

--MarkKB

Updated 14/07/2013 to fix broken links.

Welcome to teh blog!

Well, here it is. Meh new bloggeh! Feel free to make yourselves at home, but don't touch the walls - the paint's still a little wet. :D

Well, there's some anecdotes that happened over the summer that I've forgotten to blog about. Rest assured, they're coming... So too are some geeky stuff, but I'm sure you're all used to that by now. :)

--MarkKB

Moving...

This post was originally posted at my Windows Live Spaces blog. Yes, I'm well aware of the irony involved. [View original post]

I'm sorry, Windows Live Spaces. No, it's not you, it's me.

Okaaay, bad metaphor. Still, the fact remains that I'm moving this blog to http://markkeyb.blogspot.com/. For the four or five people who read this blog (yes, that's an overestimation), that means you'll get to see new posties an' stuff. For everyone else... well... I'll give you candy? OK, well I can't give you candy due to obvious technological hurdles, but the instant they invent a way of transferring candy over the Internet, I'll be right on it. ;)

What about all the old posties? Well, they're coming too, so you don't have to switch between blogs to see them. It also makes it easier for those types who read all the posts to the beginning and then moan about having to go back yet another blog. :D

See ya on the other side!
--MarkKB

Age Before Intellect

This post was originally posted at my Windows Live Spaces blog. [View original post]

MarkKB's Blog - Sun 12 Sep 2007

I've updated my website. 'Tis at http://markk-b.sitesled.com http://www.markkb.com/. Yays.

OK, here's the other anecdote I promised earlier:

Mrs. Donnell, our English teacher, was talking to us about our upcoming external exam (1.6 - Unfamiliar Texts), and during this talk she revealed that she had started high school in 1975. It was at this moment that one of my fellow learner-peoples felt the uncontrollable urge to utter the following:

“Wait, that means you're older than me!”

'Cause everyone knows 12 is a popular age to start teaching...

NB
I have not posted the above mentioned student's name for a reason. Please, no guessing, no telling, and no mean words.

Updated 14/07/2013 to fix broken links.

Eh.

This post was originally posted at my Windows Live Spaces blog. [View original post]
MarkKB's Blog - Thu 10 May 2007
I really gotta write stuff in this more often. But then again, no-one ever comments.
News

• I've survived a term, the holidays, parent-teacher interviews, assesments and ringworm.
• Achieved with merit (M) on my static image. Yays.
• Still working on my website. I hope to get it out some time over the next three months.
• I really need to get organised - especially with Japanese. I'll be working on that over the next few weeks.

New year. Eh.

This post was originally posted at my Windows Live Spaces blog. [View original post]
MarkKB's Blog - Sat 27 Jan 2007
OK, I know I need to make a point to update this blog more. I'll try to do that, K?
what's new?

• For those who've been wondering where I got to for the last week, I've been in limbo. Actually, I've been trying to reinstall Windows XP. Fresh install didn't work. Tried installing Windows 2000 first - it wouldn't at first, but then it did. Hello 16 colours and 800x600. Bleh. So I've been booting into BartPE for the past week (works perfectly, 'cept there's no sound). And yesterday we tried swapping the DVD-RW with a CD-RW we had lying around - it worked. Eh.
• School on the 7th of Feb. NCEA. Oh, goody.
• I'm thinking of doing a little thing on YouTube - actually I've been thinking of it since 'round late November. Tell ya more later.
• Work on my website has taken a back seat, as have Project Nelson. I've been working a bit on meh fics, but other than that, I've been browsing on Slashdot or clicking every link I don't know about on Wikipedia. Eh.
• Got ringworm. Got anti-fungal cream. Delightful.

Thanks for tuning in! I look forward to seeing some of you back at Massey on the 7th.

Go Go Gadget Laptop!

This post was originally posted at my Windows Live Spaces blog. [View original post]
MarkKB's Blog Tue Aug 15 2006
You may have noticed that I haven't been on the internet much these past few weeks (here, few means two), and there's a simple reason for that.
I've got a new laptop!
New in this case being I've just got it recently and it's actually several years old.
'Twas the day after my birthday (which was on the 28th of July, for all who missed it... bad people!) when my grandad came around to pick up some scrap metal to take to The Concource (that's that road that juts off Lincoln after you go over the motorway, the trash disposal center's up there...). Anywho, he gave me this bag, and inside is a laptop! What a birthday present...
No, I don't care it's so old it's got a Windows 2000 product key on the bottom. It works fine for me.
So, for those wanting the specs:

Processor: Pentium III 747MHz
RAM: 192 MB
Video: S3 SavageMX 8MB
HDD: Fujitsu MHS2020AT 20GB 4,200RPM
Optical: Toshiba DVD-ROM SD-C2302
OS: Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2 (I'm not sure if I updated it to SP2 after I recieved it, or it already came like that...)

There's only an inbuilt dialup modem (which means I have to plug in our USB ADSL modem), one USB port, a network port in the form of an PCMIA card, a serial port, a parallel port, a monitor out, and a video out (for stuff like TVs.) There's also these tinny tiny speakers. Oh, and a speaker out and audio in. And an external floppy disk drive.
I can almost hear the laughing.
Well, in the first week, on... Tuesday morning, I think, the monitor started playing up. I started up in safe mode and found that there was something wrong with the video card's driver, so I disabled it. Unfortunately that meant that 3D programs were slooooow, and full screen video was more than a little choppy. Interestingly enough, at the end of the day, I reenabled it and everything worked. Strange.
Well, in the two weeks following, I've installed the basic things (Internet Explorer 7 Beta 3, Windows Media Playeer 11 Beta, Windows Live Messenger 8, trueSpace 3.2, Paint Shop Pro 5.01, Visual Basic, Age of Empires II and the Conquerors, Powertoys for 95 and XP, ect) and copied meh fanfics and alot of meh projects. Yay CD-RW!

In other news, I updated my site about two months ago and never got round to blogging about it. Oh well. To visit the site, click "MarkKB's Web" above or go to http://markk-b.tripod.com/.
deviantART has just recently celebrated their 6th birthday, and with it the release of dA v5, which features a revramped new look. It's kinda broken under IE7B3... oh well. deviantART can be found at http://www.deviantart.com/.
And, thanks to Tim O'Brien, 10TCA has it's own webpage! To visit it, point ye browsers at http://www.tca.zoomshare.com/. (Note to Tim if he reads this: I don't have SMS. I don't even have a mobile phone. Sad, ain't it?)

Random fact: Today signifies the 61st anniversay of the announcement of the unconditional surrender of Japan, thus ending World War II. (for more info see the Wikipedia articles for the Surrender of Japan and the Gyokuon-hoso (address to the people by the Emperor.))
Quote: I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. --Albert Einstein

C'ya!
--MarkKB

School and Geekiness

This post was originally posted at my Windows Live Spaces blog. [View original post]

MarkKB's Journal - 10 Feb 06

Meh... first blog post of the new year!
By the way, did you know that last year was:

• Bill Gates' 50th birthday (Bill Gates was born on Oct 28th, 1955)
• Microsoft's 30th birthday (Microsoft is co-founded and headed by Bill Gates, and was founded in 1975)
• Microsoft Windows' 20th birthday (Windows 1.0 was first released on Nov 20th, 1985)
• Microsoft Windows 95's 10th birthday (Windows 95 was the first version of Windows to feature the now famous "Start" button, "My Computer", "Network Neighbourhood" (now "My Network Places"), the "Recycle Bin", long file names, icons of the desktop, and a heap of other stuff, and was released on Aug 24th, 1995)

So... that's my geeky 'useless fact' tidbit for today...

So, yesterday was Year 10 'orientation day' i.e. we all got to find out what class we're in, what we're taking, ect, ect, and so forth. (Today is the Y9's OD...) I'm in the same class as last year, same teacher, same classmates... same school! (MHS has a 'school within a school' concept... why not just call them 'houses' and save the trouble? Classes are sorted into schools... so if you change classes, and your new class just happens to be in another school, you become part of that school. Schools are named after local beaches...We're Te Henga! Go green!)

The only problem with being in the same class is that the majority of the class are still girls (not that there's anything wrong with girls...) But last year there were at least 10 boys in a 30-pupil class... and somehow we've been whittled down to five! And to top it all off, we've had the extra addition of 3/4 girls! Ah well, I'll just have to live with it...

In other news, for the past week I've been using Windows Live Messenger 8. After months of anxious waiting, I've finally got an invite! I've been playing around with it and it is simply... wow-worthy. (For all those who have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about, WLM is the next version of MSN Messenger...) for more info, check out the WLM blog at http://spaces.msn.com/MessengerSays.

I've also been using Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 Preview, and I must say it's a heap of a lot better than IE 6, though whether it's better than Firefox is hard for me to tell. It introduces a lot of features IE has been sorely needing for sooo long (and other browsers have had for ages), but also goes a step further... and not just with features. There are also notable security measures added, so stuff don't get through. To get the geeky gloss, take a peek at http://blogs.msdn.com/ie, or to download the thing, go to http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/ie7. Note that this is pre-release software, and as such neither me nor Microsoft can be held accountable for any terrors you may behold.

So... I guess that's it for this blog post... not to mention I've been working on programming and my website... and yes, I will upload it soon...

Quote of the post...

"Faith is taking the first step, even when you don't see the whole staircase." --Martin Luther King, Jr.

Signing off,
--MarkKB

End of another year... (almost...)

This post was originally posted at my Windows Live Spaces blog. [View original post]

MarkKB's Journal - 15th Dec. 05

Ah... the holidays have arrived! (OK, yes, I know, obvious!) Time to kick back, relax and enjoy the sun... or some of us, at least.

I'm quite sure you've all heard this countless times (whether ye be at deviantART or elsewhere) but I'm pretty close to uploading the next version of my website (which is, for all who don't know, at http://markk-b.tripod.com/)... So, if you see a giant cloud over West Auckland at any point in time, don't be alarmed, it's probably just my computer working in overdrive. :D

A big shout to all those in 9TCA of Massey High School... and congrats for "surviving" meh. And to those from deviantART - Hi! :D And those from Room 7 of HIS '04 who have stayed in contact, or even if you've just stumbled upon this blog - nice to see you again. To ye all, wishing you a Merry Christmas and all the best for the new year - the (admitidly few) chats I've had with you guys have been enjoyable.

Ka kite, bonne chance, sayonara and aloha!
--MarkKB