14 Oct 2003 | Chris said...

Very cool. I've found that if you chat it up with the owner especially you'll find that he'll remember you on consecutive visits. It's like magic.

The other day I was surprised that the owner of an establishment knew who I was and what I liked. I had spoken to him on several occasions when I had been there before.

14 Oct 2003 | Scott said...

Obligatory link to Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain. Lots of great tips like these and a rip-roaring read to boot.

14 Oct 2003 | chris rhee said...

That was an interesting read. How do you go about talking to the owner of a restaurant? The last time I told my waitress, "I want to speak to the owner!", it didn't get off to such a nice start...

14 Oct 2003 | Chris from Scottsdale said...

Usually it's the guy/lady that cares the most and isn't rushing around. You just keep your eye out for him/her.

14 Oct 2003 | Dave said...

Great article, I'll be sure to use some of those tips next time I go out (which, being a starving student, is rare).

Onto other unrelated things.. why does your site always do this? (www.daveyoung.org/svn.jpg)

I haven't figured out for sure what the problem is but it seems like it does that whenever I mouse over a link. I have to play a complicated game of highlighting text in order to read the comments. =/

14 Oct 2003 | Dave said...

Oh.. I'm using IE6 btw.

14 Oct 2003 | dayvin said...

I also use IE6, and I have the same problem from time to time (not lately, though). Also, what's up with the default MT screen when previewing comments?

14 Oct 2003 | Brad Hurley said...

I have to play a complicated game of highlighting text in order to read the comments.

Another workaround is to just scroll down to the bottom of the screen--I use the scroll wheel on my mouse--and then scroll back up again. Presto, the missing comments reappear (most of the time)!

14 Oct 2003 | Chris from Scottsdale said...

I have the same problem. Frequently, too.

14 Oct 2003 | SU said...

Regarding the disappearing comments, I really have no idea... There's no onMouseOver event going on and there's no CSS rule for hovering the comment area. It is truly strange. Any help would be welcomed!

14 Oct 2003 | Benjy said...

I've been getting the same thing here. Since it seems to be a fairly common problem, I did a little hunting and seem to have found some info about the problem.

15 Oct 2003 | andrew said...

IE 5 on OS X will randomly not show content as well. I've found that a quick Command-A will highlight all the content, and anything not visible will magically appear. One of the many reasons I don't use IE 5 anymore, other than to test code.

Osama bin-tini... Heh heh.

15 Oct 2003 | chris rhee said...

I have IE6 and have never come across that problem before. Is it for all IE6 users?

15 Oct 2003 | Michael Spina said...

Benjy, thanks for that link. I ran into the same problem in IE6/Win, and specifying the width fixed it. But I'm glad to see a more detailed write-up.

16 Oct 2003 | Paperhead said...

Chris Rhee,

For some reason it does not seem to affect all of the versions of IE6 as I know other people who have never seen this bug before. Would be good if someone could start collecting some more specific information about it really...

17 Oct 2003 | Dan August said...

I have experienced the bug too -- not allways, though, and it's hard to say, when and what triggers it.

The quick solution is to reload the page or press F11 twice in quick succession. This solution lacks grace.

During my summer holiday I caught up on some reading; including Zeldman's Designing With Web Standards.

He has the following diagnosis that might apply to SVN's bug, and I quote:

"Apparently, IE6 has trouble calculating the heights of block-level elements. Eddie Traversa of http://dhtmlnirvana.com/ found that IE6/Windows caches the values it calculates on one page of a site and then incorrectly applies those values to other pages. For instance, if the 'maintext' div happened to be 300px tall on the first page of your site and 1400px tall on the following page, IE6 might display only the first 300 px. Manually reloading each page 'fixes' this bug by clearing the cache of the stuck initial value -- until the reader clicks through to a new page and begins a new cycle of stuck values and unreadable text."

He then goes on to specify a short, script-based solution to the problem, but I believe I've already stretched my quoting rights enough, and I will limit myself to recommending buying this book, as it contains many more practical insights like this.