David Ancell / Monday, July 05, 2004 / Comments(0)
Several bloggers have posted about security holes in Internet Explorer and whether it should be ditched in favor of Mozilla, Firefox, or Opera. Even one service owned by Microsoft is recommending FireFox. I have tried FireFox, and it is a pretty good browser.
However, I have mixed feelings about dumping IE. I use NetCaptor for most of my daily stuff. It uses MSIE’s browser engine and puts it in a tabbed interface. I like it because when I close it, I can resume surfing where I left off. It blocks popups, but sometimes it blocks popups that I want to see. In this case, I have to either disable popup blocking or switch to standard IE. I also find that my pages look best in Internet Explorer. Then again, Microsoft never seemed to quite get the browser to be completely standards-compliant.
While I like FireFox, and can’t get it to save my current location for next time. Opera can, but it seems to be a bit on the buggy side. It’s the last thing I’d use to view a PDF. NetCaptor includes its own security features to stop some of the problems with IE; however, it crashes after viewing multiple PDF files. Given that I create a lot of those for Frassati Society, it’s far from ideal.
So, I’m not sure which I will use long-term as my primary browser. If Microsoft would just give up on Active X, then it would solve most of the security issues. Some of the security holes appear to be preventable by avoiding things that one shouldn’t do anyway. As one who designs web pages, I pretty much need all the major browsers in order to test my pages. Does anyone else have an information?
Category: Posts imported from Danger! Falling Brainwaves, Uncategorized
David Ancell / Monday, July 05, 2004 / Comments(0)
Mark Shea invited comments on the tone of this blog. If he is alone in his concern about his tone, then he shouldn’t be. I know that I have looked over a lot of my posts to find a disproportionate number of slams.
I got the idea to create my own blog from reading his. I know full well that I am not the writer that he is, but I wasn’t about to let that stop me. Sometimes I really enjoy his blog. At other times, I think an extra ounce or two of charity wouldn’t hurt. However, I can’t help but notice a change in tone whenever he addresses an apparently sincere question. He really tries to give them a charitable answer. This alone makes it hard to suggest that he has become arrogant.
With this being said, I am in little position to criticize. Even if my blog doesn’t reflect it, I am becoming far more cynical about things in the Church. Some of it may be due to recent happenings in my own Diocese of Memphis. I have so far refrained from blogging most of them for various reasons. I have written a letter recently to my bishop, and I’m not about to scribble something on my blog without giving him a chance to respond. I am so tired of watching our bishops sidestep their clear duty. It seems that everything that I can find to blog is bad news.
Maybe it’s time that I and others look at how well we do our duties in our own jobs. I could stand to live the Gospel better in my own job. Then again, it’s not like I desire their damnation. I don’t. Also, harsh comments have been a part of Christianity since the beginning. Heretics were called “children of the Devil” for a reason, and the title is quite appropriate. Public criticism of falsehood is fair game as far as I’m concerned. I want our bishops repent and start preaching the Gospel. Little by little, we are starting to see it.
One commentor on another blog said that we cannot possibly be having a springtime because we must have a winter first. He asserted that it is not even September yet. I strongly disagree. I think it’s at least February. The springtime will come, not because of those people who insist that it’s here. Rather, it will come by those people who are just now coming out of the woodwork to bring it here.
Category: Posts imported from Danger! Falling Brainwaves, Uncategorized
David Ancell / Sunday, July 04, 2004 / Comments(0)
I want to wish all of my readers a Happy Fourth of July. Our picnic will be very small today, but that’s okay. It gives me one more chance to visit my family. A few others will be around for a while, but I will only see them for a few hours.
There was a missionary priest celebrating Mass this morning from the Consolata missionaries, and he was excellent. You could tell that the faith of the African people has touched him. It won’t be long before Africa is sending missionaries here. In fact, it is already happening in Memphis. We have one coming to my parish in August.
Today is also the feast day of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati.
Well, I’m probably the only one in St. Blog’s who is still blogging, so I guess I need to stop for now. I will be back shortly. Remember that Tuesday is my blogiversary. I will have been around for two years.
Category: Posts imported from Danger! Falling Brainwaves, Uncategorized
David Ancell / Sunday, July 04, 2004 / Comments(0)
I should have added Confessions of a Recovering Choir Director eons ago, but I’ve just now gotten to it.
Category: Posts imported from Danger! Falling Brainwaves, Uncategorized
David Ancell / Saturday, July 03, 2004 / Comments(0)
Now that I have this nice new blog with a Dreamweaver Template, it is a bit easier to add links to other blogs. So, I’m doing so. I think they’ve all been there a while. I’m slow to add blogs. For one thing, I want to see if their content is reasonably charitable and completely orthodox. Here are the new additions:
Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam
Bettnet
Confessions of a Hot Carmel Sundae
There are a few others that I added and didn’t mention. You can find them on the right-hand side of any page. I’m just now trying to take stock of what I read, so it’s quite possible that, if you received a few comments from me, you will be linked here.
Category: Posts imported from Danger! Falling Brainwaves, Uncategorized
David Ancell / Saturday, July 03, 2004 / Comments(0)
Jimmy Akin has just blogged the letter from Cardinal Ratzinger. Given how careful he is, it’s very likely that the copy I saw is indeed authentic. I can’t wait to hear the bishops respond to this one. Then again, they probably won’t respond at all.
I am worried about the last paragraph stating that one could vote for a pro-abort for reasons that are “proportionate” as long as the reason for voting for the candidate is not that he is a pro-abort. I hope that Cardinal Ratzinger will clarify this because I guarantee you that some idiot is going to use that as a loophole.
Category: Posts imported from Danger! Falling Brainwaves, Uncategorized
David Ancell / Saturday, July 03, 2004 / Comments(0)
I have just arrived at my parents’ house for the 4th of July. It’s good to be home again. My parents just had a new refrigerator delivered about 30 minutes prior to my arrival. The trip wasn’t too bad, but I saw that the Arkansas State Highway Patrol was conducting a fundraiser right along Interstate-55 near West Memphis. It gave me good reason to slow down before I was tapped to contribute.
Category: Posts imported from Danger! Falling Brainwaves, Uncategorized
David Ancell / Saturday, July 03, 2004 / Comments(0)
After hearing rumors, someone posted what is presumably the full text of Cardinal Ratzinger’s memo to the USCCB. It appears that the good Cardinal has said what I had hoped he would say. He stated that the bishop should privately warn the politicians of the gravity of their action first and explain that they should not receive the Eucharist. After the private warning, the minister must refuse the Sacrament to such a politician. If this letter is indeed authentic, it doesn’t speak well for the bishops of our country.
On another note, I found this handy quote from the letter. It seems that Cardinal Ratzinger said what we thought all along:
Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion.
I have yet to understand why so many of our bishops cannot see the gravity of the situation. One bishop has gone so far to use that old “conscience” excuse. So many souls are at stake here. Pray for our bishops. They will be held accountable before Almighty God, and we want them to be able to render a good account. For this to happen, something has to change.
Category: Posts imported from Danger! Falling Brainwaves, Uncategorized
David Ancell / Thursday, July 01, 2004 / Comments(0)
Nick Bradbury writes about people who steal his software and then contact him for technical support. I can hardly believe the nerve of some people. One would think that, if one were stealing software, one would not want the author to know about it. It’s kind of like the people in my home town who stole some band instruments from the high school and then took them to the pawn shop downtown to sell them (in a small town). Do you think they got away with that?
Stealing is stealing, whether it be a physical item or an electronic item like software. If you don’t want to pay the asking price, don’t buy it. I can tell you that Nick Bradbury’s software is worth the price. I use FeedDemon to look at fellow Catholic blog feeds, and all of the style sheets on my sites (both my personal site and Frassati Society were created using TopStyle.
Category: Posts imported from Danger! Falling Brainwaves, Uncategorized
David Ancell / Thursday, July 01, 2004 / Comments(0)
I just received word today from the Tennessee Pharmacists Association that a new law went into effect in Tennessee requiring prescribers to print or type their prescriptions. The law states further that prescribers must spell out the quantity in words on each prescription. The purpose of this is to prevent medication errors due to illegible prescriptions.
I do not question the intent of the law. As a pharmacist, I can tell you that illegible prescriptions are a major, major headache. The problem arises in that I have yet to hear how the state intends to enforce this law. I just can’t imagine a pharmacist calling a doctor saying “Sorry, I can’t fill this because you didn’t print.” Indeed, without the backing of the Board of Medicine or civil or criminal penalties involved, this law will be utterly unenforceable.
Even if they did have a means to enforce it, they would still have a lot of trouble doing so. I can just imagine now if pharmacists were to fax their illegibles to a regulatory agency to assess a fine. In many cases, they would never be able to figure out who wrote it. Many prescription pads are printed with the name of multiple doctors, and the most illegible part of a prescription is the doctor’s signature.
Category: Posts imported from Danger! Falling Brainwaves, Uncategorized