jontukontar

My week, thus far, in review:

• DTD vs. XML Schema
• DTD's easy to read, write, and understand.  XML Schema's are none of the above (which explains Relax NG).
• XML Schema's have more flexibility in validating data and they are well-formed XML.
• DTD's have either CDATA or specified data.
• CDATA, could be anything.
• Or you have to make a specific list to validate against (which can get quite long).
• You can create patterns within XML Schemas. (# = number)
  
• ISBN = #-####-####-#
• PH# = #-###-###-####

I have realized that I need a better book, if I continue to do XML Schema's.  My current book XML Step by Step, 2nd Edition sucks, in regards to most XML things.  Which stands to reason when you notice that it is by Microsoft Press.  Half the book is about XML "data binding", a MS specific version of XSL, 25% of the book is CSS, and the remainder is a mix of XML, DTD, XSD and XSL.  Consider space requirements, none of the important topics are covered in any great depth.  Which makes online resources a must but I haven't found a good source yet.

I fixed the WIFI connectivity between my MacBook and my Belkin router.  Apple issued a patch to fix WEP last month which broke WPA encryption to my access point.  On a lark, I changed my router from WPA-TKIP to "WPA/WPA2" and it now works.  I think I'm going to send a letter asking Belkin what is different between the two modes.

Yesterday, I received a 320Gb "My Book" by Western Digital.  I planned to use this to archive some large ISO's that were talking up 99Gb of space on my HD.  I ran into a problem copying the files off, though, which almost caused me to return the device.  This morning I had an epiphany that FAT had a 2Gb file size limit and wondered if FAT32 had a similiar limit.  It did (4Gb), which perfectly explains my problems moving over some of my ISO files.  A reformat to NTFS and 2 hours later, it is a done deal.

Activision just released some new content for Marvel Ultimate Alliance on Xbox 360, which has incited me to play that again.  Hopefully, I will be able to finish the game this time.  Previously, there was a "progression break" which prevented me from getting to the end.

I have, yet again, been hit with the reality that customer service jobs are terribly annoying.  Especially, when you get a person who insists on cover the same subject 3 dozen times (over 3+ hours).  Fortunately, I wasn't at work today when he came back!

Hopefully, the weather will clear in my part of the world so that I can go roller blading.  I just replaced my wheels and bearings and really want to get my money's worth out of them.

My wonderful week started with my X-box 306 flashing three red lights. In consideration that this was a launch console, I had hoped that it would be repaired this time at no cost. Go figure, I was wrong and it's going to cost me $140 + S&H.  When I look at the expenses that I have for the rest of this month, I'm not sure that I can swing paying for it.  However, if I don't then I have $400 in games that are completely worthless.

Much to my annoyance, Wal-Mart has let me down on shipping "The Compass of Celestial Directions, Vol. 2:  the Wyld".  It is still listed as out of stock and they continue to have no idea when (read: if) it will ship.  Supposedly, they are going to call me today to discuss the situation but considering last time, I don't expect to be contacted.  Then again it may be karma biting me in the rear about the last book.

I'm also having a three-way and two part problem with my MacBook, Camino, and Microsoft which has no current solution.  The gist of the bug is that Camino grabs a language list from OS X (e.g. en, de, es...) when it starts.  This list is passed to websites in order to automate language selection.  The problem is that my language is technically coded as "en-us" (not "en") and so Microsoft's website doesn't recognize it.  It travels along the list of languages and selects the first one that it does recognize, in this case "de".  This part can be fixed by specifying "en-us" in the "about:config" page but it has to be done each time you load Camino.

The second part of that problem is that, even though Camino is Gecko based, it won't display the elements correctly.  What I end up with is a single column that contains all the elements on the page.  This causes significant problems when browsing the Xbox homepage.  Although, Firefox still displays it correctly.

PS.  This is my first LJ post and as such is not as interesting as I would like it to be.

Edit:  Apparently, you can add "United States English" as a language in the International System Preference.  Oddly enough, this is not the default action even though you are required to select your language and locality during installation / initial setup.