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Goodbye Comcast, Hello Google

Recently, Comcast decided to “upgrade” it’s Webmail to something called SmartZone Communications. This program sucks. Seriously, it’s really bad. It’s slow, has some serious usability issues, and it lacks features that were included in the previous webmail system. For example, I have several Comcast email accounts that could all be accessed in the old webmail system, but in SmartZone Communications I have to add them as external POP accounts and even then I can’t reply to messages from the account they were sent to, I can only send mail as the account I am logged in to as the Primary account. Comcast was unwilling to offer any form of resolution or compensation for the inconvenience this caused, nor does there seem to be any timeline for when this feature might be added to SmartZone.

Enter Google’s GMail.

I’ve had a GMail account for years that I haven’t used. It was just one more account that I’d have to maintain, so I never used it for anything. However, when complaining to a friend about Comcast he suggested that GMail had the ability to add POP accounts. Sure enough, I was able to add all of my Comcast accounts, and I can send mail as those accounts. Not only the that, the UI is fantastic! It’s very simplistic, nothing flashy, but very easy to use. I love the conversation views of emails, and the auto complete of addresses in the address book is great. My only complaints would be that you can’t specify how often it checks those external POP accounts (though you can force it to “Check mail now” through the Settings), so it’s not as real-time as I’d like, but it works well enough for my needs. My only other complaint is that I’d like the “Compose Mail” link to be more prominent.

In addition, I’ve also started using other Google online services regularly now. Google Calendar is now keeping track of my schedule (and I like the ability to add other calendars to my calendar, like US Holidays). And Google Docs is a great place to keep those documents I’d like to access from anywhere, and/or give access to other people. My Christmas list is currently stored in a Google Doc. And last, but not least, I’ve been using Google’s new Chrome web browser. I have my Gmail account open in one tab, my Google Docs in another, and my Google Calendar in another. I love it. I still use Firefox for most of my web browsing, but I have been using Chrome more and more.

Kudo’s to you Google.

So goodbye to Comcast’s crappy SmartZone Communications. I really wish Verizon FiOS was available in my area so I could drop Comcast altogether, but unfortunately, Verizon has sold much of it’s New England customer base to Fairpoint Communications, which doesn’t offer FiOS in my area (and even if it did, I’m not sure I’d switch to them).

Posted in General.

By Peter Foti
November 10, 2008

4 comments

First Laugh

My son Alex had his first real giggly laugh on September 9th. He’s laughed before but it was always just a single “Aaah”, whereas this more of a “Aaahaha.” So cute. :-)

Posted in General.

By Peter Foti
September 12, 2008

No comments

Replace Arbitrary z-index Values with Ordered Values

In a forum that I frequent, someone asked how they could replace their arbitrary z-index values to only the range needed to get the job done. For example, if they had only 3 z-index values being used (”0″, “30″, “500″) they wanted this to replace them to the smallest values possible (”0″, “1″, “2″). Is this useful? Probably not. But here is my 20 minute solution:

<div style="z-index:563">A</div>
<div>A.1</div>
<div style="z-index:2">B</div>
<div style="z-index:30">C</div>
<div style="z-index:563">D</div>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://yui.yahooapis.com/2.5.2/build/yahoo-dom-event/yahoo-dom-event.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
YAHOO.util.Event.onDOMReady(function () {
    var i, z, a = [];
    var zIndexMap = {};
    // Get all of the elements that you want to check for z indexes. Use
    // whatever makes sense. For this demo, I'm just getting all div elements
    var els = document.getElementsByTagName('div');
    // Loop through the elements to get the z-indexes
    for (i = 0; i < els.length; i++) {
        z = YAHOO.util.Dom.getStyle(els[i], 'z-index');
        // Check the hash map to see if this is a unique z-index, ie - one that
        // we haven't recorded yet.
        if (zIndexMap['z' + z] === undefined) {
            // We found a unique zindex so add it to our array and mark it found
            a[a.length] = parseInt(z, 10);
            zIndexMap['z' + z] = 1;
        }
    }
    // Sort our array numerically
    // Before sort:
    alert('Our unique z-indexes, unsorted:\n' + a);
    function numberorder(a, b) { return a - b; }
    a.sort(numberorder);
    // after sort:
    alert('Our unique z-indexes, sorted:\n' + a);
    // Loop through the array and record the index value (i) as the new value
    // that the hash map points to for this old z-index.  For example, if the
    // first item in the array contains "563", then our zIndexMap["z563"] = 0.
    for (i = 0; i < a.length; i++) {
        zIndexMap['z' + a[i]] = i;
    }
    // Loop through the element collection again and change the z-index value
    // by using the old value to lookup the new value in the hash map
    for (i = 0; i < els.length; i++) {
        z = YAHOO.util.Dom.getStyle(els[i], 'z-index');
        YAHOO.util.Dom.setStyle(els[i], 'z-index', zIndexMap['z' + z]);
    }
    // Verify the new z-index values
    for (i = 0; i < els.length; i++) {
        alert(YAHOO.util.Dom.getStyle(els[i], 'z-index'));
    }
});
</script>

Posted in General, Web Development.

By Peter Foti
June 6, 2008

No comments

Thanks HostMySite

This site is hosted at HostMySite.com. Yesterday, someone suggested I could change the Permalink structure of WordPress to give the URL’s a friendlier look. Sounded like a good idea… but when I made the change, the site broke and I had no way to fix it. Some Googling revealed that the problem was that mod_rewrite must not be enabled for my site. There should have been some kind of warning on the Permalinks page that your site might break, but there wasn’t. :-( Shame on you WordPress.

Anyway, I contacted my HostMySite and Paul H. was able to quickly make the necessary changes to get me back up and running. A big thanks to HostMySite. My permalinks look great now, and as always the HostMySite support folks were a great help. Kudos.

Posted in General.

By Peter Foti
February 3, 2008

No comments