Sunday, October 4, 2000

 

3:45 a.m. Oh boy. I'm really proud of myself now. I've cracked some serious code, at least -- in the way that I think -- I've done some heavy lifting and hauling tonight. Some might scoff and some might laugh, but I, for one, am impressed.

You see, I've been working on the innards of a web site, and it's not the simple, straightforward little html of a site like this one. No, indeedy. This is the big time and I'm playing with the Big Boys now. I'm working in files that are called -- are you ready? SHTML.

Which stands for? Sturdy html? Secure html? Super-secret html? I haven't a clue. But I've been picking apart the site and I've been slowly and surely making my way through a set of files that call each other by such arcane names as ../. If you get my drift.

Anyway, it's exactly like working on a giant jigsaw puzzle. The pieces all fit, somewhere, somehow -- you just have to patiently turn everything over, one by one, file by file, until you find your way around.

Obsessive? Sure. I'll probably not bother with sleep tonight -- there's always one more thing to try, one more tweak to twy, maybe I am getting a little loopy after all. But my head has grown to twice its size as the evening progressed and now I think I am smart.

Earlier, I wasn't so smart.

I've discovered this evening that there's a lot of work you can save yourself if you learn how to do SSI, which stands for server-side includes, I think. Of course, it costs extra to ask your server to do the extra work, but I was able to change just one file and blammo: all the pages on the site were updated. That's very modern.

The mind boggles. The spirit soars. The tea grows cold from waiting.

And I really can't dilly dally here on this primitive old-fashioned web site too much longer because I've still got lots of high-tech legerdemain to perform before morning crimps my shoulders.

And today/tomorrow (Thursday) is the Lieberman-Cheney debate, which is not to be missed, so I want to have enough work done so I can watch TV with less guilt and more popcorn. If I can create a few more SSIs and maybe some Java beans to go along with the nice Chianti, I just might get this thing finished and up for display.

The red truck? I don't know -- it's a pretty picture? Really, if you saw my sorry little selection, you'd be glad for the truck. I've also got sneakers on the telephone wires and a clown-headed ballerina, so get ready.

See you today/tomorrow! I'm going back to work now ...