Yesterday night’s Succubus Club IRC chat transcript has now been posted.
Comments Off on Posted June 9, 2004 Chat TranscriptI recently upgraded to Opera 7.5 from 7.23 (the free version in both cases). I then had the usual minor trials and tribulation of getting my old bookmarks and other settings transferred over properly. After about a half-hour of work, I had everything pretty much just the way I want it, except for one thing – the icon in the system tray.
The thing is, I don’t want an icon in the system tray. I want to reserve the system tray for stuff I have running in the background or minor applets. Prior to version 7.5, Opera didn’t put an icon in the system tray, so it wasn’t a problem. Now it does, whenever Opera is running. I know it is supposed to allow easy access to mail and news, but I use other programs for that. It is totally useless to me. The annoying thing is I can’t find out how to turn the stupid thing off!
I have checked Google and I have checked Usenet. I tried Opera’s help files, but generally they are worthless. As far as I can tell, I am stuck with the red Opera icon glaring at me from the system tray whenever I use the program.
Adding the icon to the system tray may be a feature, but I consider not being able to turn it off a bug.
Comments Off on A Feature, Not A BugThere is a thread on usenet in alt.tv.buffy-v-slayer.creative regarding the state of Buffy, The Vampire Slayer and Angel fanfiction. JLB, the originator of the thread, thinks that fanfiction regarding the later seasons of Buffy and Angel is “pretty barren.”
I have to agree with him. I think the situation is actually worse – I think Buffy fanfiction as a whole is dieing. Other than Regertz’s stuff, which I don’t read, I don’t see much new stuff being posted on alt.tv.buffy-v-slayer.creative, which has always been my go-to source for good fanfiction. Ryan Kinkor has given up on Black and White. Doyle Investigations hasn’t had a new episode in a year and a half. The last episode of the Trick Chronicles was updated over a year ago.
I am, admittedly, cherry-picking my favorite series and that there are some exceptions (M. Scott Eiland comes to mind). Still, I have been following Buffy fanfiction for about 4 years and it seems to me that there is less fanfic and more importantly, less quality fanfic being written than a couple of years ago.
Comments Off on The Death of Buffy and Angel FanfictionI don’t have much of a problem with Spam right now. I don’t mean I don’t get it…I actually get a fair amount. It just isn’t a problem. For that, I have to thank Steve den Beste, the Captain of the USS Clueless.
In mid-March, the good Captain made a couple of posts regarding his own battles with the evil Spam monster, wherein he discussed his experiences POPfile and K9. Both of these are programs designed to identify spam so you can filter it out of your inbox.
After reading his posts, I installed K9 on my machine on March 20th. It has worked wonderfully. I seldom see more than 1 or 2 spam messages my inbox now where before installing K9 I would often see upwards of 20.
Installation Notes
K9 was easy enought to install. The directions on configuration were pretty easy too, although the “Auto-Configure Microsoft Outlook” feature did not work for me. K9 caught approximately 90%of the spam out of the box. After “teaching” it what I consider spam, that number shout up to 97% and has slowly crept up to 98%.
Spam Statistics
K9 keeps detailed statistics regarding e-mails that it processes. All numbers are the current daily average:
# e-mails per day: 162
# Good e-mails: 117 (72%)
# Spam e-mails: 45 (28%)
# Spam e-mails caught by K9: 159 (98%)
# Spam e-mails making it to my inbox: 3(2%)
So instead of 45 spam messages clogging my inbox everyday, I have do deal with 3. I can live with that.
Comments Off on K9 & SpamThe June 2, 2004 Succubus Club IRC Chat has been posted.
Comments Off on Site Update – Latest Succubus Club ChatFic Title: Realizations
Author: Wishweaver
Links: Realizations on fanfiction.net, Wishweaver’s Yahoo Group
Content: PG for the most part.
Status: Work in progress
Rating: E-Excellent
Realizations is an AU Harry Potter fic that begins the summer after Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I mentioned in an earlier post that it is tied with Harry Potter and the Acceptance of Fate for being my favorite Harry Potter fanfic. Every time I read one, that one becomes my favorite. Then I reread the other, and my opinion changes. Both are top-notch fics, either way.
Realizations is a nice, long fic (although not as long as Acceptance of Fate). Currently it is about 160,000+ words spread out over 27 chapters.
I don’t want to give any real details about the plot, other than to say it is very interesting and flows seemlessly. I do feel that I should mention that Realizations is not a ‘shipper fic. Also, there seems to be a little more interaction between the Muggle and Wizarding worlds than in the novels, which I think Wishweaver has actually handled better than in the real books.
Characterizations are also nicely done – all of the main characters seem to be canon. I especially like the way Wishweaver has portrayed Dumbledore. Dumbledore is powerful and wise, but also human and fallible. I also think Wishweaver did an excellent job with Hermione.
In addition to the major characters from the books, Wishweaver has fleshed out the Grangers making them seem quite real and three dimensional. Wishweaver has also created some original characters (the Wrights) so interesting I wish they would show up in J.K. Rowling’s books.
Realizations is a work in progress, with Wishweaver posting a new chapter about every month or so.
One commentAdded scriptygoddess’ wpPaginate plugin, so categories with more than 10 entries will have their posts split over more than one page. For some reason, it was seperating variables in the pagination links with “?”. I modified the the code to change that to “&” and it seems to work now.
Also added links to all categories in the archive list.
2 commentsFic Title: Harry Potter and the Acceptance of Fate
Author: Arya
Links: Acceptance of Fate Yahoo Group, Acceptance of Fate on Fanfiction.net, Arya’s Livejournal
Content: Varies. A few R & NC-17 sections, but mostly non-smutty.
Status: Work in progress
Rating: E-Excellent
Harry Potter and the Acceptance of Fate by Arya is tied with Realizations for being my favorite Harry Potter fanfic. It begins the summer following Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and continues into Harry’s sixth year at Hogwarts.
Acceptance of Fate is a long, plot-heavy fic with excellent characterizations. At the time of this review, it has 52 chapters and well over 400,000 words. The plot is somewhat darker than J.K. Rowling’s stories, but other than that, I think it has much of the same feel.
While Acceptance of Fate is a Harry/Hermione shipper fic, I find that Arya has managed to integrate said relationship into the story in logically and seamlessly. In addition, Arya has shown Harry becoming a highly-skilled wizard, without turning him into über-Harry. The rest of the characters are either portrayed as they are in canon or as logical extrapolations of canon.
The fic is updated regularly – Arya generally posts a new chapter on her Yahoo group every other week or so. She has also said there will be a sequel set in Harry’s seventh year, although not as long.
Favorite quote:
“Harry occasionally found Dudley staring at him in a peculiar way. Harry thought he may have been thinking again but really could not believe Dudley would do such a thing.”
WordPress 1.2 came out the day after I installed 1.02. Oh, well – such is life.
I have just upgraded to WordPress 1.2. Everthing seems to be working properly (knock on wood), but I have barely had a chance to test anything.
The upgrade was really easy. The people at WordPress did an excellent job. 🙂
Comments Off on Upgraded to WordPress 1.2