The Blog of Scott

Last night, we returned to the cinema to finish what we had started the night before, only this time it happened to be the same night as the Malaysian VIP premiere of War of the Worlds . My guess is that it would be most unwise for the same thing to happen again! The H2G2 movie was an absolute blast. I can't wait for the DVD release!

Wow, I've been looking for a site that just dished the goods - gallery of fine sites which employ the latest technology, plus a single page of links to great resources for the newbie, such as myself. Now I've found it - CSS Import™ | The no frills inspirational site . Just marvellous.

You may remember my earlier pledge to get my site upgraded to XHTML and CSS? Well, I'm making great progress. The site won't appear much different to how it is now, it's in the code where the changes are apparent. What I'm going to do, is rather than polish the design and then release, I'm instead going to release it as I go along, so you (and I) can see how the site develops as I uncover more browser deficiencies. Looking at other sites, hacks are really commonplace. One piece of advice I've taken to strongly, is to do the CSS so it works in Firefox, as it has much better support of standards, followed by Internet Explorer. This saves a lot of reinventing the wheel apparently. I can't promise when the initial fruits of my labour will be online, but I'm hoping for this July. The overall look and feel has been unchanged since mid-2002, so in web chronology, that's a lifetime!

Sunday night, we got to see Mr and Mrs Smith , which we found a whole lot more enjoyable than Batman Begins . Two very different movies however, this one was very light and silly. Pitt and Jolie really do work well onscreen. Yesterday evening, we tried to see Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy [UK site], which has finally arrived in Malaysia (US and UK release date was late April). We saw the first 30 minutes, then left... ... not because the movie was bad. It wasn't, it was great. But the cinema fire alarm went off , so we left, along with half the audience. The alarm turned out to be false, which was a pain, but it was the best thing to do, as there have been a lot of fires in KL recently (including a shanty town - Pasir Village, which got razed to the ground not far from where we live). We did get refunded though, so we're gonna see it again tonight... at a different cinema. We dare not risk fate again. I hadn't told my wife what the movie was about, but if s

The routing problems that were preventing site access from within TM Net appear to be resolved now. Apparently, access was sorted from last Saturday, according to my site provider. If anybody has problems however, please contact me.

Yes, we managed to get into the cinema to see Batman Begins, and I thought it was great. My wife thought the first half was boring, but got interesting once the 'Batmobile' came onto the scene. Our friend was expecting something like the previous Batman movies, and was therefore disappointed. I couldn't even watch the last two editions, they looked terrible, so I guess my taste is completely off his scale. Why the 99%. Because the very last bit with Katie Holmes' character coming onto Bruce just looked trashy. So-called District Attorney eh? How many DAs' go around in a silk blouse and no bra on a clearly freezing day? Trashy with a capital T. Poor Holmes - she was clearly outacted by everybody on the set. Let's hope she learns from the experience arguably gained with her older peers. In contrast, her fiance Tom Cruise displayed remarkable acting restraint after falling victim to a stupid prank at the London premiere of his latest movie War Of The Worlds

Just a quickie - going thru my last minutes at work, if all goes well, me, the loved one and some friends are off to see Batman Begins tonight. If it works out, it's a minor miracle, so few cinemas here, so many people, so the odds are always stacked against you for a few weeks. Whats annoying is that usually after a few weeks, the cinemas have shoved the film to a smaller screen. If reviews are to be believed, it's a an excellent movie. Wish me luck!

I'm having to use a different proxy server to see the site. Having done this, I've already been at work bug baiting, as a result of the changeover. More baiting still to come. Dunno why, but I feel great that Michael Jackson was found not guilty on all the charges. This point forth however, will be the most challenging period of his life.

I've decided to start adding some of the invaluable web design books I've been buying in the past two years. I consider these books excellent materials, alongside the many, many online resources which have popped up over the years. I invite you all to try out this piece of software, called Stylemaster , it's a CSS utility, very easy to use. Makes a mockery of any of the CSS stuff in Dreamweaver. If you are using Firefox , there's another item I recommend (myself and my staff are starting to use it). It's called the Web Developer Extension , you can install it instantly within Firefox via the developer's website . You'll need to restart Firefox after it installs. There's a ton of features in there to help you out (show image dimensions, turn off images, hide images, validate code, outline table cells or other elements, and much more) These two bits of software are most useful. There really has never been a better time to be a web developer.

The Half-Life 2 Gallery is now ready. There's about 20 or more shots in there. I have made more, but I still want to finish the game on Hard setting first before I put them up.

No, this is not why my site has languished for so long! Okay, maybe just a little! My brother got this for me back in late January, when I went back for the family holiday. Until that point, I had been replaying the demo of Valve's 6 years in the making sequel. The demo was a masterstroke, it really convinced me that I should have my own pristine copy of the game. However, it was that old chestnut of US dollar to Malaysian Ringgit that got me stumped - RM180 for a PC game is way high for local salaries, especially when in the UK it was already tumbling in price (something called retail competition - doesnt exist here in KL, everyone seems to make secret pacts to not undercut anybody, for fear of 'dismemberment'). So my bro stepped in unexpectedly. And my, what a fantastic game, I've already posted twice to Valve's specially prepared forum thread and I'm presently replaying it on the Hard setting, having completed it about 2 months ago. It's not all that dif

Just realised this week marks 4 years since I started my blog. That's 2 birthdays to celebrate. The other was me turning 30 last month. I'm certain extra hairs grew on my chest overnight to signify the fact I'm not a twentysomething anymore. Blast!

It's about time I did a post, earlier today I updated the front of www.sassquad.com to mention what's been happening the past few months. I'll spare you the long story - in short, I've set up www.sscott.info , hosted on a Malaysian provider, my local salary doesnt cut the mustard for my old provider in Blighty. However, the country's incumbent ISP has cut access to my site to anyone using their connection. Which for Malaysia, is practically everybody. Even my provider cant get into the site. I'm using my home connection to do this, which is luckily another provider. But it's real annoying, especially when they turn around and say its not their fault. I'll plug my provider, Hive Hosting , and say that they do offer good features for their price tag, I wish to give my site a long overdue spring clean. I've purchased some good books on the subject, and my current favorite site is Hicks Design , whose owner, Jon Hicks, designed the Firefox logo. I'v