The Althing

Apparently I am not only erring by using Frontpage 2003, but my coding (such as it is) is woefully crappy due to my reliance on tables at the expense of cascading style sheets. I have reviewed many sites extolling the virtues of using CSS, and the logic makes sense. I do a lot of extra leg work making changes to my site to every page that I could just make globally through a quick CSS edit, but I have quite a lot of work done, and I don’t relish the thought of going back and doing it all over. One alternative is to begin a revamp offline, and maybe using Kompozer in the process, which seems to be more up to date from all I’ve read about it. I’m still not sold on Drupal or Joomla, or that ilk. I really don’t care if the White House uses one of them or not. In any event, I need to keep up the work, updating and adding to The Althing, regardless of how I go about it.

This has been a learning experience. My site is hosted by 1and1. When I determined to start a blog, I initially just chose my althing domain, in the mistaken belief that the blog would be added. Instead, it overwrote my site completely, so I had to quickly delete the blog and upload all my site files. Then I set up the blog again, using the default 1and1 domain, which was some nondescript alphanumeric gobbledygook. I was not particularly happy, as my blog seemed to exist in URL limbo. Today I had a brain storm. You have free subdomains, you dolt! Create one and migrate your blog to it. The subdomain was easily created, but how to migrate? 1and1 uses WordPress for their blogs, and it appears from the documentation that WordPress offers much more control than 1and1 allows. Had I downloaded WordPress, and then created and published my blog onto 1and1 that way, I would, it seems, have retained a great deal more control. In the end, 1and1 did allow enough control to do the job fairly quickly. I just exported all my prior posts, etc. Then I deleted the blog entirely, and recreated it in the subdomain. Finally, I imported the file I had exported. Viola! Maybe not the most elegant way of going about tings, but it got the job done, so now my website is intact at www.the-althing.com, while this blog can be found (as you apparently did) at www.blog.the-althing.com.

To date, www.the-althing.com has been built using Frontpage 2003. I know, I know…a pox on my house. What can I say, it works. It does the things I want it to do, the pages look the way I want them to (more or less), and I can change things easily. I’m sure any real web pro viewing my source would have a heart attack. I have always plotted my own course, sometimes to my own disadvantage. Many years ago, I taught myself BASIC on my first computer, a Timex Sinclair with the optional 16K RAM module. It ganged multiple functions on each key, and used a single key to enter commands (GOTO, GOSUB, etc). Saved time, once you got used to it. Unfortunately, the only way to save your work was with a cheap cable to a user-provided cassette recorder, which I could never make work. Consequently, I had to enter my programs in every single time I wanted to use them. Not too bad, except I had some complex programs, such as a statistical NBA basketball simulation. To save time, and because I was self taught, I devised the most streamlined spaghetti code you ever saw. It worked, but not the way a real programmer would do it. I taught myself to type, and type nearly 100 wpm…with three fingers.

I have always also been penny wise and pound foolish, and I won’t bore you with those stories, but I’m wondering if something like Drupal or Joomla might be the more elegant method of keeping The Althing running.

Drupal. Isn’t he that cross-dressing Cajun chef? I get confused.

One of the things I have tried to feature in the development of www.the-althing.com is Scandinavian food, and restaurants serving Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, and Icelandic food. So far, the latter has proven to be an elusive item. I personally have only seen a couple of them in my lifetime, and I have eaten at them both. The first was the restaurant at the Norwegian pavailion at EPCOT, where I have eaten twice, and the other was a small Danish place down in Delray Beach. My search has been limited to the ubiquitous Google search, which always turns up Noma in Copenhagen in the top hits. Limiting for Noma, and other places that end up at the top, it is still very difficult. Fleming, featured in the crappy TV cooking show, points up another problem…the place that used to be Scandinavian, but now has nothing Nordic about it, at all.

I would welcome any leads for good places to feature on The Althing. Drop me a line, folks.

I am a bottom feeder of the computer world. I buy second hand computers, build them from scratch, or do a combination of both. I carry over peripherals from one to the next. I type this on a Focus 2001 keyboard that has been on over a half dozen units, beginning with an XT I built many years ago. It requires a huge adaptor, which in turn requires about a foot of clearance behind the CPU. I am cautious, late to adopt technology. I was late moving to music on CD, and late to abandon the same. I am a creature of the past.

Thus, I am late to the blogosphere. I am moved now by my simultaneous creation of www.the-althing.com, my new site for all things Scandinavian, but my posts here will not be limited just to things related to the althing. I also anticipate postings on anything that strikes my fancy. Who knows where this will lead. In any event, I better get to bed. Got to get up and get to work in a couple of hours.