June 2004 Archives

Trombone Willie forwarded around an email to the crew of the top ten Vegas moments. This got me thinking about the memorable moments that happened to me. This isn't going to be a top ten, but just a random, unordered collection...

• The Big Shot @ Stratosphere -- holy cow, that was both scary and awesome at the same time. I chickened out on the X-Scream (the one that drops you off the side of the tower), and I think I am glad I did based on the responses.
• Cab ride back from Stratosphere -- This cabbie was nuts. Right after explaining that the coaster inside of Sahara accelerated from 0-70 in like 4 feet, he proceded to demonstrate it by gunning it from the light, and passing people on the ramp onto the expressway. The whole trip on the expressway was "exciting" and culminated when we got back on the strip in front of the hotel. At the light to turn into Paris, he got the left turn arrow, and without regard to the people in the crosswalk, gunned it and layed on the horn. Although very unsafe, and very scary, it was funny (in a sick way) watching the big lady running to get out of the way.
• The first night there, wandering around the strip trying to find a $5 BJ table on a Saturday night. Right.
• Finally finding a $5 table, playing blackjack, getting down to one $5 chip, and making $40 before I called it quits.
• "Marc's ponderous reply early one morning when asked on the phone where he was. 'We're at ... ... ... ... ... monte carlo.'" -- TW's top 10 list.
• Excellent buffet's and food in general.
• Golf. Other than the heat, what is there to complain about golfing in Vegas, looking at mountains as you tee off, with a group of friends? Didn't think so.
• Tony getting sick of Stuck2's "murica" and shoving his nipple (which are rather large, by the way) into Stuck2's face.
• "Free" likka -- it only costs what you lose gambling...

I'll put more in as I think of them...

I think everyone that reads this is going, but it's Vegas time, baby!

I am trying to create a progress bar, using a combination of server side php and client side javascript, to display the software installation status on our appliances. Unfortunately the web server pacakge needs to be taken down, upgraded, brought back up.

If I use a straight refresh, and it refreshes while apache is down, I get a blank page/server error page, and the refresh goes away. To combat this I decide to use a page with two frames--one at 100% size, and another that is "hidden" from view. The parent frame has a simple JavaScript that reloads the hidden frame and sets a timer to do it again. The hidden frame calculates the installed packages, the remaining packages, and an estimated time. This is all spewed back to the browser encased in JS that writes it into the main page.

This all works fine in both Mozilla and IE.

That is until the server goes down. Mozilla happily keeps on trying the page every time the timer goes off. IE on the other hand gets the server not found error and pukes. The problem lies in the "security patch" for cross frame scripting (found here) that basically disallows frames to control other frames if they are in different domains.

Apparently the server not found error is "served" from localhost, thus changing the domain of the hidden frame. Once I hit the downed apache and get the error, I IE throws an "Access is Denied" JavaScript error every time the timer goes off and the page reloads.

I've heard rumors that there is a way to trick IE and allow this to happen, without having to change browser security settings, but haven't been able to find anything in about 4 hours of digging.

ARGH!