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Heh. I'm a BAAAAAD boy!
Oct. 30th, 2005 10:49 amI have many web sites. One of them is sort of a portal that links to my personal site, my game company site, and my dad's wood bowls site. I had a java applet on it that had a countdown timer to my wedding, after the wedding happened it started counting up. I found it amusing and thought 'no big whoop.'
I got an email this AM from Ivan Erickson, he organizes game conventions in Phoenix. Apparently if you point a change alert site (sends you an email whenever a specified page changes) to a page that has such a timer, it thinks the page has changed every time it looks at it. :P
Now, the curious thing, and I'm sure I'll have an answer before too long, is that there is an SHTML script on the same page. It reads a file of quotes that I've collected over literally the last twenty years and displays a different quote every time you load the page. I wonder if it will trip a change detector? I don't know enough about how server side includes work, I really need to learn more about the server side of web sites.
If you want to see the random phrase script in action, click here.
Back twenty years ago, long before Windows and almost before the graphic interface when we typed in commands to launch programs and do everything from command prompts, I wrote a program in QuickBasic and TurboBasic. My computer had a program loaded from Borland called SuperKeys IIRC, it let you assign macro sequences to certain key combinations. For example, Control-PageDown might launch your word processor. What it would actually do is launch a batch file that would change to your working directory, then fire up the program. When it was done, it ran a batch file that returned you to C:\ and displayed a menu of keyboard codes to launch various things: dBase III+, Lotus 1-2-3, etc. It kept things perty.
Well, the program that I wrote displayed a random phrase at the top of the screen, THEN showed the menu. It was a bit cumbersome, whenever you needed to add a phrase, you added it to a text file, then you ran the phrase program with the /REBUILD option for it to rebuilt a random access file that it read when it produced random phrases. Still, it worked and was fun.
There was one option that was particularly silly and I was quite proud of it. You’d type PHRASE /LAUNCH THERMONUCLEAR MISSILES. The program would ask for a couple of confirmations, then display a prompt about opening silo doors accompanied by a grinding noise from the speakers. Then a countdown came up, a launch confirmation, tracking information, then a notification that the missiles had been destructed over McMurdo Bay.
Total fluff.
Only one other person had the program because he liked what I was able to do with SuperKeys and the batch file. He loved the /LAUNCH program, thought it was hugely funny. Keep in mind this was back around ’86 when those who didn’t have a computer nor used one at work didn’t have a clue what computers were good for. He showed the launch sequence to a friend and the guy freaked! He thought it was for real!
I still find that amusing.
John, the other guy who had my phrase program, is a great friend. We suffered through three semesters of highschool together and stayed in pretty close contact after that until he moved to Orygun (local pronunciation) and contact dropped off (we’d get together a couple times a year to go to George & Dragon, a restaurant/pub run by a Brit where you could get genuine UK ales, but now he’s living in Mexico and I’m in Nuevo Mexico). When I was working on IBM XT and AT PCs, he was suffering on an Apple IIc (I might have the model number wrong, it was the super small one they came out with that couldn’t take expansion cards). He ran his family business on it using AppleWorks, and literally fried two or three of them. After the last one fried, he came to me and said “Wayne, I’ve got my checkbook and need a PC, tell me what to buy.” I set him up with a pretty decent system, hideously expensive by today’s standards, but he was running a business or two and needed good equipment. It served him well for quite a number of years.
I got an email this AM from Ivan Erickson, he organizes game conventions in Phoenix. Apparently if you point a change alert site (sends you an email whenever a specified page changes) to a page that has such a timer, it thinks the page has changed every time it looks at it. :P
Now, the curious thing, and I'm sure I'll have an answer before too long, is that there is an SHTML script on the same page. It reads a file of quotes that I've collected over literally the last twenty years and displays a different quote every time you load the page. I wonder if it will trip a change detector? I don't know enough about how server side includes work, I really need to learn more about the server side of web sites.
If you want to see the random phrase script in action, click here.
Back twenty years ago, long before Windows and almost before the graphic interface when we typed in commands to launch programs and do everything from command prompts, I wrote a program in QuickBasic and TurboBasic. My computer had a program loaded from Borland called SuperKeys IIRC, it let you assign macro sequences to certain key combinations. For example, Control-PageDown might launch your word processor. What it would actually do is launch a batch file that would change to your working directory, then fire up the program. When it was done, it ran a batch file that returned you to C:\ and displayed a menu of keyboard codes to launch various things: dBase III+, Lotus 1-2-3, etc. It kept things perty.
Well, the program that I wrote displayed a random phrase at the top of the screen, THEN showed the menu. It was a bit cumbersome, whenever you needed to add a phrase, you added it to a text file, then you ran the phrase program with the /REBUILD option for it to rebuilt a random access file that it read when it produced random phrases. Still, it worked and was fun.
There was one option that was particularly silly and I was quite proud of it. You’d type PHRASE /LAUNCH THERMONUCLEAR MISSILES. The program would ask for a couple of confirmations, then display a prompt about opening silo doors accompanied by a grinding noise from the speakers. Then a countdown came up, a launch confirmation, tracking information, then a notification that the missiles had been destructed over McMurdo Bay.
Total fluff.
Only one other person had the program because he liked what I was able to do with SuperKeys and the batch file. He loved the /LAUNCH program, thought it was hugely funny. Keep in mind this was back around ’86 when those who didn’t have a computer nor used one at work didn’t have a clue what computers were good for. He showed the launch sequence to a friend and the guy freaked! He thought it was for real!
I still find that amusing.
John, the other guy who had my phrase program, is a great friend. We suffered through three semesters of highschool together and stayed in pretty close contact after that until he moved to Orygun (local pronunciation) and contact dropped off (we’d get together a couple times a year to go to George & Dragon, a restaurant/pub run by a Brit where you could get genuine UK ales, but now he’s living in Mexico and I’m in Nuevo Mexico). When I was working on IBM XT and AT PCs, he was suffering on an Apple IIc (I might have the model number wrong, it was the super small one they came out with that couldn’t take expansion cards). He ran his family business on it using AppleWorks, and literally fried two or three of them. After the last one fried, he came to me and said “Wayne, I’ve got my checkbook and need a PC, tell me what to buy.” I set him up with a pretty decent system, hideously expensive by today’s standards, but he was running a business or two and needed good equipment. It served him well for quite a number of years.
