I received a report that the Phonebook page wasn’t long enough to display all the entries when viewed using Internet Explorer. I was trying to use the “widget” feature in the new version of iWeb but it would seem that using it allowed the browser to select it’s own font to render the list and this combined with the javascript specifying the length of the widget resulted in the bottom part of the list going AWOL. Extending the length didn’t help overly, even after I was pointed at http://browsershots.org. Eventually I ditched the “widget” and added the contents to the web page but I’m not sure that has even fixed the problem with Explorer.

Some of the systems in browsershots also seem to cache pages which makes things difficult. I have been changing the image at the top of the page (now lavender) every time I change the page so I don’t get sucked into thinking the latest change didn’t do anything.

The new iLife arrived today so I thought I would give the new iWeb a spin. While the web widgets seem like a good idea and allow embedding of HTML easily enough the placement and formatting around it needs work.

I am also not so sure that the Photo Albums template is an improvement. It seems like a good idea except I can’t find a way to select the photograph it uses as an index (aside from reordering the photos so the one I want as an index is first) and then the resulting page takes an eternity to load (I only tried from local storage, it may work better from a web server but I find that hard to believe). The slideshow should cope better with photos in portrait format rather than scale them so they are the same height as the landscape ones. Also if you change the background colour then don’t make it white since that will make the captions “disappear”.

There are certainly more knobs to play with but having a preference panel with default values would be a fine idea if you want a consistent site.

As is usual I broke my journey home in Singapore. My visit nearly coincided with Singapore’s National Day holiday. Saturday turned out to be a rehearsal for the celebrations and naturally they were centered near where I was staying, around the Marina area. I got to see a few flyovers, especially a Chinook that continually passed over the city. People wanting a Duck Tour would have been disappointed since the water seemed to be out of bounds with the Navy playing with their boats.

Singapore’s answer to the London Eye, Singapore Flyer, is taking shape with one capsule attached. While it is still officially scheduled to be completed in March 2008 there is hope it will be ready for Valentine’s day.

I hadn’t been to Ireland before, no idea why, so now was a time to correct that situation. Dublin was the easiest place to get to so I based myself there but took a day trip to Belfast on the train. I had no agenda for the visit although I had been told to go to the Guinness Storehouse so I was compelled to do that and sample some of the black stuff where it’s really made.

Only having a half day in Belfast, after I finally got there, made taking a tour seem sensible. Taking the tour reminded me why I don’t do tours. I like wandering around and looking at stuff that is “interesting” without taking much account for time. Going to uninteresting places, what is it with the Titanic?, and zooming though the interesting ones is just frustrating. Walking around is probably faster too, it certainly was in Dublin, as the traffic is nuts (I should have expected that based on Boston 🙂

Took the Swiss Business Jet from Newark to Zurich after experiencing the USA’s “high speed train “Acela” between Boston and Newark. Acela is a nice enough service, although it’s no Shinkansen, but having to run more frequently would be good as would finding a way to allow it to run faster. I guess the latter is difficult if it needs to share the lines with freight and commuter trains.

The business jet is a 737-800 fitted with 56 sleeper seats (all business class) operated by Privat Air (who also do a similar service for Lufthansa). Not a bad way to fly but a 737 can seem to be a little cramped on a long journey.