- Getting back into the daily grind after a weekend of working a backhoe, pouring cement, and learning about running electricity #
- Just finished updating my portfolio…now to try to finish a few more projects #
- Not looking forward to an all nighter… #
- @MisstressB When will this be available in the US? I look forward to it! in reply to MisstressB #
- The widgets admin in WordPress 2.8 is so much nicer to use…thanks! #
- The "hurry/wait" cycle and the "this is going to be the best new thing" syndrome is getting really REALLY old #
- @crystalchappell thanks for keeping everyone in the loop! It is nice to hear about everything/everyone! #
- Hmm, is 2.5 too young to have a goldfish? #
- Crossing my fingers… #
- @dennisruyer looking forward to it! No more excuses for not having great music all the time! in reply to dennisruyer #
Archive for May, 2009
All posts written in May, 2009.
May
30
2009
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-05-30
May
29
2009
Random Fridays: May 29, 2009
This past week has been absolutely crazy. Hectic work days, a baby shower at my house, a car accident (with Amy’s $51k loaner) – not her fault, crazy deadlines, etc. I will be happy when I can just sit back and relax this evening (before the weekend chaos).
Through all of this craziness – I have to say I have been enjoying playing some online Scrabble using <a href="http://www.eamobile.com/Web/iphone-game/scrabble" target="_blank" EA's Scrabble for the iPhone with Doug using Facebook to link us together. The game can take an hour or a few days, depending on when we have time, but it is nice to just stop everything now and again and take a turn playing Scrabble. Now all I need is to find a chess game like this and Ken and I will be set!
Hurray for the weekend!
May
28
2009
Linkfest Thursdays: May 28th 2009
Here are a few links from the past week that I found interesting:
- Fancast Another great web site where you can watch a surprising number of TV shows/movies online. Remind me again why my cable bill is more than my parent’s 15 year mortgage?
- Rocket Mania This flash version is great for a quick break. I used to be completely addicted to this game when I had my Palm Treo and Blackberry.
- Apple’s Recycling Information Got an old cell phone (or a pile of them) that you want to recycle? Apple will take any model/brand and recycle it for you. They will also recycle your old displays/computers when you buy a new one.
May
27
2009
WordPress Wednesdays: Take Control of Missed Spam
Even with Akismet, and http:BL installed to stop spam – I still get the occasional spam comment. Until a few days ago, I simply got frustrated, went into the WordPress admin and then marked them as spam.
Spam Keywords
May
26
2009
CSS Tuesdays: Cool Breadcrumbs
There are plenty of times when you need to have a clear navigation path back to home or to a main section on a particular page, and most web developers use “breadcrumbs” to do this. Over the years, I have implemented breadcrumbs a number of ways, but I really like what I saw on Verlee’s blog.
If you are looking to add some style to your breadcrumbs and want to take it to the next step – check out how she used some CSS and clean XHTML to accomplish something like this:
May
22
2009
Random Fridays: The Raccoon Fight
Last night, about 1-2am I woke up to alien like sounds. First there was some hissing, then some clicking, and then some noises that sounded like cicadas almost. I was very disoriented and had no idea what was going on. After waking A up to see what she thought it was, she told me it was a raccoon fight.
The noises they make are so bizarre – I cannot even really duplicate them in any way. I do not know how many were out there but it sounded like there were some fighters and a posse. If this happens again tonight- I am going to have to record the audio…it was so wild!
May
21
2009
Linkfest Thursdays: May 21st 2009
For this installment of linkfest Thursday – check out the sites I have found in the last few days:
- Colors Palette Generator If you are looking to create a color palette and you want to use certain colors from an image – this is the place to go. You can upload any image and it will create a color palette based on those colors. Slick!
- Repair mission to the Hubble Space Telescope Check out these mind blowing (because they are so crisp and clear) photos of the repair work of the Hubble Telescope
- The Best Article Every Day This is not a new site – but I wanted to highlight it because it is still one of my favorites. If you are using RSS – add it to your list. If you are not using RSS – you must still be back in 2003.
- Free Social Network Icons and Bullets Need icons? Find them here.
May
20
2009
WordPress Wednesdays: The Power of Self Publishing
Having a blog or CMS that uses something like WordPress is a great way to easily publish content and is very easy for people who have no understanding of HTML, images or design but this power comes with a double edged sword.
On one hand, anyone can quickly upload images, video, and write text…even add some floating elements (picture on the left, picture on the right) without seeing any code. While this is great for most people, when something goes wrong (unclosed HTML tag) this can wreak all kinds of havoc on a site. I often get questions like “why is my entire blog in bold” or “what happened to my sidebar – it is now under the content. I even get people who look at my portfolio and email me about “you might want to fix this site because x is all messed up”.
While self publishing is great because it gives the writer all the power – it is also problematic because…it gives all the power to the writer. With this power – comes responsibility. If you want your business or personal image to be based on what people see on your web site – please take the time to learn some basics. Images look best at x size in this spot…this is how I bold something…etc.
As a web developer – I give my clients guidelines and do a lot of defensive programming to try and eliminate anything that I can foresee as being an issue – but please remember – while systems like WordPress easily allow you to publish your content – it also easily allows you to publish sloppy content.
There is a reason why most large companies have entire departments that control what goes out to the public with complicated review systems in place. So if you want to take advantage of something like WordPress, remember that you have all the control – both good and bad. If you see a site in my portfolio that looks skewed – know that the client would not allow me to hand that over to them like that. It is like that because they have complete control over the content. 
May
19
2009
CSS Tuesdays: Minify
Looking to really increase the load time of your site and minimizing the HTTP requests? Check out Minify. This handy app will easily and quickly compress your CSS (and Javascipt) files.
May
18
2009
Media Mondays: RipIt
My son is a super fan of the movie Wall-E and when I tried to rip it for my iPhone and his iTeddy – using Handbrake the entire movie was out of sequence which even though did not seem to phase E, it bothered me to no end that my son was watching a completely scrambled movie. I did some research and found that other people had this same issue with Disney movies in particular and by using a little app called RipIt – the movie would be available in the correct order. As advertised, the application is really simple and it worked great. This is now my tool of choice for ripping DVDs. If you have any issues with out of order movies (especially Disney) – look no further.
