First, what’s RIGHT with Wordpress: It’s free, powerful, actively updated and supported by a smart and responsible community of users. It’s a model of open source development and makes PHP seem like a real language! It left its peers (Remember Nuke? Moveble Type? Why would you?) in the dust long ago.
What’s wrong with it: Three main things:
1) They update TOO OFTEN. Good for their development schedule, bad for us users, who have to stop everything and backup, delete, upload to every single site where we’ve installed Wordpress. Not to mention the havoc wreaked on plugins. I tell my friends “Oh, there’s a new version of that blogging software I put on your site.” They say “What’s changed?” And I say [...]
Three things I’ve learned the hard way. Tagged by Latham.
1. Don’t ever upload a major change to a financial company’s web site at the end of a working day, especially Friday. Your client is a dick, and will phone you all night. Do the change in the morning, or really late like midnight — so the calls don’t come in until you’ve gotten a good night’s sleep.
2. Always do something nice for Valentine’s Day. It doesn’t matter if the relationship is just starting, or if you know it’s all gonna crash and burn a week later. I once got a girl that I had been seeing a long time just a candy bar — knowing that I was doing [...]
AMENDED (5/17/2008): Uncheck ‘Prepare for Internet Streaming’ when making files to upload to flash video sties.
If you want to upload your video to YouTube or FunnyOrDie, or any flash video site, you want to upload the most uncompressed version that is still under the file size maximum. That way when those web sites compress it into flash video, you still have a good looking video. So use:
- MPEG-4 codec (the more popular H.264 compresses too much), default data rate (6400 kbs).
- Set the size to 640×480 and check “deinterlace source video.”
- For the audio, compress with either AAC (alternate: MPEG-4). Keep it mono and 22mhz.
- NEW: UNCHECK ‘Prepare for Internet Streaming’ - it screws up conversion on some sites.
- If the file is [...]
We had a great crowd for Seven Fights! Thank you to everyone who came.
My Fellow Jerks continues. But people with Tumblr blogs seem to post all the time. So I group entries by author, so you can easily visually skip a block of them if you want. And you can also click “collapse” up top to combine all entries for each author by day. Just go look at it if you use it.
Got my new iMac. It’s hilariously big — might be bigger than my television. Look at it dwarf my old iMac G5 (pre-Intel). At this moment, the new computer is sucking the files and applications from the old one — it’s like a Cylon downloading into a new body! Yeah, you heard me! CYLON!
Seriously, though it’s so beautiful I feel like I have to start taking better pictures so I have something worth displaying on it.
You can see Hopey peeking from behind it — she’s stunned to be almost completely enclosed, I think.
Fastidious. That’s a fun one. I am not fastidious but I do enjoy the way that collection of syllables sounds.
I’m mentioning Kevin only because he’s upset that his name in my tag cloud is slightly smaller than our other brother, whom I can’t name because then I would have to tag him. This is straight-up tag cloud affirmative action. Quotas, people. Start your virtual protests now at this artificial market correction: Kevin Hines. There.
My digital camera seems to be working. Let’s get right to it, folks!
This top-entry litter box has changed my life. I had resigned myself that my kitchen would forever be a shallow sandbox of scattered cat litter flicks — but this contraption has returned it to looking like an Actual-Grown Up’s kitchen. Big thumbs-up to these things.
I’m pleased to report that my Windows 2000 machine at work did not need any software installed in order to extract photos from my camera. My iMac at home had no problem either, but I had expected that.
I’m going to see Morrissey tonight with Porter Mason. It should be ridiculous and fun. I told my [...]
A tech blog I read called Coding Horror posted today on how important it is to find a job that you think is fun. It all rings true, though articles like that gave me hives when I was in my late 20s. At that time, I invariably hated my jobs: admin assistant at the Sheraton Boston, technical manual writer at an engineering firm, bottom-rung editor of financial reports at PaineWebber, and an occasional high-stress web programming job for human-hating financial services companies. I’d be running out of the office at the end of the day. Then I’d find some “follow the love” article and feel guilty that I was making horrible decisions with my life and putting off [...]
Other things: I joined GoodReads and LinkedIn to accompany my MySpace account. Not to mention the social networking available to me (which I do not use) on YouTube. I think I still have a Friendster and Orkut account out there somewhere too. In the late 90s, every web site had to have news and weather incorporated — everything was a “portal.” Now everything is “social networking.” Isn’t email a simple enough way to stay in touch? I like goodreads, though.
Separately, I need a digital camera.
Forget Square Pegs, playing Burger Time, re-watching V or even making references to old Gary Gygax manuals. If you want to be a TRUE retro 80s nerd, you should bust out your Radio Shack TRS-80 or your Commodore 64 or your Apple II+ and play Zork. It’s National Zork month (thanks to Rob Webber for alerting me to this). Wired has a good intro to Zork.
“Your sword is glowing with a faint blue glow.” Let’s get this GOING!
Edited to add: Eeep! You can play RIGHT NOW! Play Zork online.
P.S. “Zork” is a text-adventure. It’s a pre-cursor to games like “King’s Quest” and “Lesiure Suit Larry” in which you give commands to an avatar [...]
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