The Daily Grind

This week at work, we have just moved over to a new web-based helpdesk system and my brain has started to hurt again. Each page of information displayed appears to be around 250kb in size. The pages are bloated with non-required CSS code and it seems to load all the information and then hide the bits it does not need depending on what you are looking at.  Over the wet-piece-of-string network we have between our existing LAN and the new parent companies servers it runs like a obese kid on a hot summers day - ploddingly slow.  Getting into and navigating the system is such a chore at the moment and our stats are suffering already.

I am sure it is just a “transitional period”.  Opportunities, not problems. Constructive input, not complaints.  Coffee, lots of it, not Tea.

On the other side of the coin, I am now out walking each lunchtime and have now ventured further afield than the industrial estate within which our hive of activity resides.  One day I might make it all the way to the pub in time to have a drink!  Cool.  I find walking is a good time to mull over ideas in my head.  It’s got to be better than trying to eat a sandwich whilst trying not to drop crumbs into the tiny crevices of my MacBook keyboard.

I have also found time to (partially) update this blog template with code for supporting Gravatar images in comments and added some articles to a friends website.

This latter work involved taking word documents and converting them to basic HTML and copy/pasting them into a web based CMS system.  I know Microsoft Word has a “save as HTML page” option, but if you have ever looked at the code it produces… you will know what I mean when I say “pages and pages of freaking shoddy non-standard crap”.

Anyone have any suggestions for a freeware HTML editor that I can use to convert these beasts to HTML?  I don’t need anything fancy.  Think 1995 HTML standards, not CSS, floating DIVs and RSS feeds.  Basic.  An online one would be even nicer!