Jordan Riane

When I decided to go back to school to get my Associates for Web Design and Administration, I though that it would be a lovely piece of cake. I’m not being cocky in regards to knowing the material, but I figured that it would be easy to do the assignments, tests, and projects in class with no need to ask questions, or really have to rely on someone to get me through it.

The problem I am dealing with for my webdesign class is that the material is outdated, partially deprecated, and is compromising to the values and accessibility rules I stick with. I’ve tried to stay focused on the [online] class but I keep drifting away from the assignments. One of my first assignments was creating bookmark links (<a href="#about">About</a>, <a name="about" id="about">About</a>), fixing up some unordered lists, and deleting text (I shit you not, this “teacher” had created a comment in the HTML saying “Delete this section.”)

My biggest wafoo came when I had to make an image map. Uhm, I had to question why I was even in class. I don’t want an easy ‘A.’ I want to earn it, and work hard for it. I want to learn something, because I don’t want to pay $300 for a class where I’m regressing my talent and knowledge just to get some piddly Associates.

I’ve dealt with the bullshit from the class, and I’ve done the tests. My problem right now is this god awful midterm project he created for us. Not only does he hinder my creative side by setting the topic to health, but his list of requirements make me want to punch him in the face. Then again I wanted to punch him in the face when I saw his JJC staff website page. You’ll want to punch him in the face when you see it too. Then you’ll ask yourself how the FUCK did this asshole get the role of being a webdesign teacher with that atrocious garbage.

Moving on, here are the requirements for my webdesign midterm:

Required Elements

• A minimum of 1 picture on each web page
• Proper navigation to all 4 pages, available at the TOP or LEFT side of each page. This should be consistent.
• All of the navigation links should be placed within a table, whether it is horizontal or vertical.
• Use the following tags: cite or q, dfn, em, strong
• Alt tags must be used on EVERY image tag
• Go into the paint program (or any drawing program that you are familiar with) and draw a body, face, ventricles of the heart, bones in a hand & arm, etc… whatever is most appropriate for your site. Create an image map out of it and have a minimum of 2 links, each linking to a web page within your site. [This is where you may need to create 6 pages in your web site, rather than 4, in order for these links to link to content appropriate web pages.]
• Every page must have a title in the browser window title bar.
• The ONLY file you are submitting to blackboard is a ZIP file, with all HTM and image files needed for your web site.
• Vary the use of your content tags, H1-H6, p, br, hr…
• You must properly indent all lines of code
• Make sure that you test each web page for XHTML validation

Optional Elements

• Frames
• I recommend that you put all content in a table first. Even if it is a 1×1 table.
• Design your web pages for a screen size of 800×60.

Criteria

• XHTML pages can be transitional
• All writing on the web pages must be ORIGINAL writing by YOU, unless otherwise cited.
• All cited material must be appropriately cited and quoted.
• All pictures on the web site should be created by YOU. Don’t worry, I am not looking for Picasso level images…

The asshole in me really wants to create an iframe based site that breaks in all browsers, but is still fully XHTML validated coding. I want to use neon non-safe webcolors, and glittery animated images. But I’m not. I’m going to actually just code up the new design I was making for atourworst.org and also apply it to my midterm. Why go out of my way to design something I won’t use again, when I can just kill two birds with one stone?

It’s shit like this class that is really making me rethink registering for next semester. I really want to get my Associates, and then my Bachelors, but the mere thought of paying some fucking asshole like my professor, for bullshit that I already know (and don’t use) is what really gets under my skin.

On Tuesday I went on over to Tiger Direct and picked up the D-Link DMC-202 cable modem. It was $49.99 with a $20 MIR so I really couldn’t go wrong with that. I got home after work and decided to go right ahead in replacing the Netgear CG814WG with the D-Link. I had no problems getting it hooked up along with the router. After releasing and renewing the DHCP tables on the Linksys WRT54G, I was able to pick up my new IP address and the DNS information.

Unfortunately when I accessed the internet, every website would be forwarded to a Comcast page for new/current customers to download software to begin the installation process. Alright fine, so I downloaded some bloatware, went through the steps only to be notified that my account needed to be updated first in order to continue. So I called in to reference the bill. The current balance due was $4.12 (most likely from a movie I had ordered on demand.) Ridiculous. So I called in tech support instead, and found out that Comcast AT FIRST will tell you that you cannot use your own equipment. Once I mentioned what THEIR product was doing, she continued to the next step.

The major downfall with Comcast is that when you want to use your own equipment, you have to register the MAC ID with support, and then they will add that. You also have to make sure that they remove the internet block that’s in place from changing out the cable modem. Needless to say, I spent two hours on the phone with tech support only to find out from the second rep, that there was “some error” occurring which means that my internet would be done for “about 24 hours.” Ridiculous!

I was getting quite pissed off at that point, and you could tell how annoyed I was, so she put me on hold for the supervisor. At that point I decided to call my friend JP because I had already been on hold for about 15 minutes. We were talking for about five minutes when the supervisor came on the line, asked me my name, to which I gave it to her… Next thing I know the line is disconnected. It was already really late, so I decided to wait until the next day to resolve the issue.

Ended up getting a really sweet girl on the phone Wednesday, who ended up getting the MAC ID registered, turned off the internet block, and got me going in about 45 minutes or so.

I have had about 29 hours of uptime thus far with the new equipment. Versus a paltry 1-2 hours from the Netgear. I’ve been back on Halo 3 with no problems whatsoever and have finally ranked back up to a Sergeant, Grade 3. If I hadn’t lost 11EXP from my connection, I’d be a Gunnery Sergeant. 🙁 Oh well!

I’ve been meeting some awesome people on xbox live. Been sticking with the same few guys when I go on there to play. Last night I ended up playing with two different teams for at least 10 games a piece. Probably more since I ranked up a lot last night. Regardless, Halo 3 is on my mind too much. It’s kind of ridiculous.

Saturday my friend JP is coming over and we’re going to have some Halo 3 drinking games. At least that’s what I think is going to be going down, but I haven’t finalized anything. All I know is that my room is a fucking mess, and it needs to be picked up, stat.

EDIT (1/25/07) – I’ve received a lot of comments and emails with questions about what I did to get my Comcast internet to work properly. I actually wrote a follow-up entry, Follow-up On Comcast’s Netgear CG814WG. If you read that entry, I list two products I currently use in lieu of the Netgear piece of crap. My internet has been flawless since I posted that entry (the end of October) and I haven’t had any issues at all (other than someone unplugging the router on me or something.) If you still are having problems or need advice, leave a comment on either entry and I’ll be more than happy to try to help you out.

In August we finally made the switch to Comcast for our internet, tv , and phone. And unfortunately we’ve been having horrible problems with Comcast’s internet service then I care to think about. The problem was originally both tv cable and internet cable. The cable on the TV would skip, scramble, lose audio, and just time out when trying to open up on-demand. The internet would lag, die off, then connect again. Turns out we had a bad line coming to the house. No problem, Comcast came out to fix the issue with a brand new line, and things were back to working properly.

For the past two months, the new problem has been this piece of crap cable modem gateway (cable modem + router). According to their support page, Netgear doesn’t even support the model, CG814WG, because the vendors have flashed their own firmware onto the hardware. I knew that before hand though, because I went to log into the router and was greeted with a GUI for dummies. Essentially the only options I could change was the WPA/WEP key, port forwarding, parental controls, and DMZ. I couldn’t even change the IP of the unit itself, which was conflicting with another computer on my network. Ridiculous!

Anyway, the problem I’m having is that the router will continually drop a signal, and then pick it back up again. Talk about annoying! I know when it’s going to happen because I’m not able to open any websites–they all just time out on me. It gets worse when there are more people are on the internet, and we usually have about 3 people connected, which is a paltry number, but nonetheless.

Googling around for the CG814WG model shows that it’s a piece of crap in general. When you google for “Comcast CG814WG” the results are all about how the piece of crap isn’t working for them. They all have the same problem. It reboots itself constantly leaving problems if you’re connected to a game, say Halo 3 (which has been my problem. I’ve lost 9EXP and ranking from dropping out of ranked games because of the connection.)

Today I have finally had it with the piece of shit. I wanted to hop on the 360 before work to play a quick game of Halo 3, and things were fine at first. I got matched with a team, and just as we got the map to play on, the other players dropped out which means that my connection lagged and I got kicked from the ranked game. Bye bye EXP.

Later on I’m going out to buy the D-Link DCM202 and I’ll just hook up my old Linksys WRT54G to get going. Instead of going wirelessly for the Xbox 360, I think I’ll just go ahead and return the wifi adapter. I’ve ordered two Netgear XE102 Powerline Adapters so that I can go wired with the unit. Even though I know the wireless issue will be resolved when I replace the unit, I’d rather go wired for the Xbox 360. I can’t handle losing any more EXP points when I’m not even leaving the team.

Here’s a big Fuck you to Comcast’s shitty firmware that ruined the hardware and rendered it absofuckinglutely useless.

What would you do if your ex-boyfriend from almost two years ago “remails” you a letter that his current girlfriend wrote to you? Do you just toss it into the trashcan? Or do you do something with it?

Transcibe of the letter
Jordan,
I hope that when
you grow up
you can forgive
yourself for being
absolutely
awful
as a kid… xo

I opted for the option to do something with it. Now mind you, I haven’t been with this ex-boyfriend in almost one and a half years, so it’s not something that bothered me. Although I do find it hilarious that his girlfriend is so bothered with my [non]existence that she took the time to do this. The most effort I put towards her was disliking her very existence about two years ago. She was sending Chris these pathetic letters, and some weird fucked up puppet. I knew she was bad news for any relationship.

Though I suppose I should explain why the letter was no surprise to me. About a year or so ago, I befriended Amanda. She happened to date Chris shortly after I moved out of the apartment in June of 2006. They were having problems, so I was there to console her and give her needed advice. Chris has this tendency to channel his inability to remain faithful, to the internet. So it was only a matter of time until that happened to her as it did with me. This affair was with Kat the Krude. I felt protective of Amanda for some reason, so I went to her rescue when Kat was trying to smear Amanda’s name.

I believe this is what struck Kat the Krude’s nerve with me, and left her with pent up hatred towards me. In February of this year, Amanda was telling me about how Kat was writing some letters to us, and was going to include some Chicago Bears stickers. Amanda and I joked about what we would do if we got the letters, but fortunately for me, at that time I never received it.

Now it’s October 23rd and my mom hands me a letter. My address was comparable to the penmanship of a first grader, but I ignored the return address and the post office routing information. I opened the envelope and staring back at me was a ransom’esque letter that could have only been created by that of a fucking loony bat. I glanced at the return address,Ashford, CT, and then noticed the routing information, Louisville, KY. It was easy to deduce that either Chris finally mailed this puppy off, or Kat the Krap noticed her pathetic excuse of a boyfriend never sent it to me and decided to do it for him, EIGHT MONTHS LATER.

So, when I receive a letter from an ex-boyfriend’s current girlfriend, I laugh. Then I get a ligher, ashtray, and sandwich baggy. Then I set the letter on fire, bag up the ashes, and then mail it back to the ex, to hand off to whomever he pleases. Okay, the real answer was that I did it because I knew it would make a great blog post, but I figured they’ll get a kick out of it when I mail it back.

Want to see the pictures? Continue reading “Return to Sender” →